Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category


Posted on May 11, 2013 - by

Story songs – Miranda Lambert’s “Famous in a Small Town”

Some country songs are short stories with plot twists and character arcs.

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Posted on March 26, 2013 - by

How to get on the radio

Radio interview at Aiken Trials

Mystery author Sasscer Hill and Tony Baughman of WKSX-FM set up for a radio interview at the Aiken Trials. Photo by Rhonda Lane

You’re an author at an event. You see someone wearing a headset, perhaps with a microphone, sitting off to the side with some boxy electronic equipment with dials or slides.

That person may be a radio announcer, especially if he or she has media credentials. He or she may “doing a remote broadcast” and wondering how to fill the hour or so. He or she might be looking for someone to talk to.

That someone could be you.

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Posted on December 30, 2012 - by

My not-so-secret blogging weapon

Groundhog at the Computer

This is not Joel.

If you’re having technical trouble with your blog, have you thought about hiring a hiring a blog technical support person?

True confessions time: I don’t do every bit of the work on my blogs.

Sure, I write posts, re-size photos, hunt up stories and videos, update plug-ins, back up the blog – all the day2day stuff that WordPress makes easy once you get used to using it.

As for the behind-the scenes, under-the-hood tech stuff, the “alphabet soup,” like FTP, HTML, CSS?

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Posted on November 7, 2012 - by

Some thoughts on voting

An unexpected encounter in a waiting room opened my mind to some thoughts on how we view the voting process.

I spent part of Election Day 2012 in a hospital waiting room. I’m okay, but doctors monitor my blood once a month to make sure I remain that way. My blood tests aren’t the usual “tap, slap, off ya go” affairs. I have to wait a while for an IV nurse, so I always take a book.

On election day, I sat on the aisle when a little family rolled up. A teenage girl in a wheelchair with her leg in a cast, a boy about 10 years old and a middle-aged woman wearing a Muslim headscarf scanned the area for a spot to sit together.

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Posted on September 7, 2012 - by

Learning from Reality TV?

The NBC singing competition show THE VOICE is good teaching tool for writers – or for anyone who has to present any sort of programming in front of a group.

Self-confidence, projection, belief in the material, presentation and even storytelling. It’s all there.

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Posted on May 30, 2012 - by

Twelve Survival Tips for Public Speaking

Photo courtesy Barbara Liskow. From the SinCNE "Reads Across New England" event

That first author reading outside of a workshop atmosphere is daunting. According to the Self Help Collective, the fear of public speaking is second only to the fear of flying.

My first such reading was in March 2012 at a New England Sisters in Crime event for the state of Connecticut. I read the first few pages of my work-in-progress, along with about a dozen published and yet-to-be-published authors.

I got by with a little help from my friends, and I don’t mean Mr. Makers Mark or Ms. Xanax. Here are some tips from fellow members of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America and Romance Writers of America. Maybe these tips will help you, too.

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Posted on March 6, 2012 - by

Nine Non-Techy Tips for Better Blogging

Are you new to blogging? Does reading Problogger give you hives because it’s so comprehensive?

Here are a few easy blogging tips that don’t take a lot of tech work. They’re easy-peasy. Maybe one of these can help you?

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Posted on October 25, 2011 - by

What’s the Difference Between Tags and Categories?

When I first started blogging, I used to be confused by the difference between a blog’s “tags” and “categories.”

What did those words even mean? How would I use them? Couldn’t I just leave them blank?

So, let’s talk about what they are and ways we  can use them.

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