Author. Reader. Chocolate Eater.
Deborah Anderson
Author's posts
Apr 24
T is for Trends and Target Market
A to Z Challenge letter T… Vampires. Cowboys. Shape shifters. Shape-shifting cowboys and vampires. Sweet. Sexy. Erotic. Down-home and jet-setting; traditional, e-pub, and Indie. The latest trend in Romance novels is…everything, and anything. Traditional publishing rules—whereby editors and Houses decide what readers want and then publish accordingly—no longer apply, not in a tech-savvy world where …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/t-is-for-trends-and-target-market/
Apr 23
S is for Sensory Experience
Wow. Beginning of week 4 of A to Z Challenge and already we’re at letter S. And I’m borrowing from an old post again, as this traveling thing has my schedule on the rails. From 2011… Toast. This is one of my favorite smells, not for its odor, but for the memory it provokes of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/s-is-for-sensory-experience/
Apr 20
R is for Rating Rejection
End of week three of the A to Z Challenge and we’re on letter R, for Rating Rejection. Because I’m traveling, and access to wi-fi spotty, I decided to reissue an old post, which adds to yesterday’s discussion on reentering the query gauntlet…There is such a thing as rejection excellence. Or an excellent rejection. What makes …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/r-is-for-rating-rejection/
Apr 19
Q is for Queries and Queens
Q-day in the A to Z Challenge and today, the theme is Queries and Queens. Yesterday I mentioned the complexities of human behavior and emotions, how motivation is different for different people, how different people cope with similar situations, how novelists strive to write engaging—saleable—books. Today I share how one woman helped me cope when …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/q-is-for-queries-and-queens/
Apr 18
P is for Pickle Jar
My first day in Crim 105, otherwise known as Psychological Explanations of Crime, the professor asked us to describe our “profile” of a criminal, in particular, a murderer. The descriptions varied from tattooed gangster, to child molester, assaultive stepfather, car-jackin’ junkie, and accident-causing drunk driver. Our professor smiled and nodded with each—predictable—presumption, and then she …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/p-is-for-pickle-jar/
Apr 18
O is for October (and Opportunity)
It’s Letter O day in the A to Z Challenge (and I bet, because I’m so late posting, you thought I forgot. I didn’t, just a busy, away from home kind of day.) Now, on to today’s O-word, October! Why October when it’s almost six months away? Because October means, Surrey International Writers’ Conference! The Surrey …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/o-is-for-october-and-opportunity/
Apr 16
N for New York
It’s week 3 of the A to Z Challenge, and for those following along, today’s letter is N, and the topic, another place on my must-see list: New York, New York. I am sure you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the developed world that has not heard of New York. It is one of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/n-for-new-york/
Apr 15
M is for Mondays
A to Z Challenge letter: M. Mondays… I recall grade eight, the year I entered high school, as the year Monday mornings emerged from an endless blur of days to something sharp, uncomfortable, the first cut in a series of five cuts patched on weekends, the delicate wounds reopened the following Monday. High school is never …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/m-is-for-mondays/
Apr 13
L is for London
End of week two of the A to Z Challenge and the letter is L. And L just happens to be the first letter of a place I long to visit: London. I have no idea if reincarnation is real, but if it is, then in a former life I hailed from London, because it is the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/l-is-for-london/
Apr 12
K is for Kismet
K is today’s A to Z Challenge letter, and today’s theme: Kismet. From Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary: Kismet (kis´met, -met, kis´-), n, fate; destiny. Also, kismat (kiz´mət, kis´-), [1840-50; Turk, Pers qismat, Ar qismahdivision, portion, lot, fate, akin to qasamato divide]. Kismet, as a word, has existed since the mid-19thcentury; I suspect kismet as a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.deborahsmall.com/k-is-for-kismet/
