Jennifer Crusie | Argh Ink | Blog

There’s been some question about how people who write by the seat of their pants (aka pantsers) can structure a mystery. I talked about this briefly, but I figure it could use a little more in depth explanation, keeping in mind that there are many roads to Oz and this is just one. A suggestion, not a prescription. A guideline, not a rule. Don’t freak if this wouldn’t work for you. It just doesn’t matter. (The last one was for Meatballs fans.)

All my outlines are based on turning points theory which is this: read more >>

I finally got back to the Liz books after I turned in Maybe This Time, and once I did, I realized that my wonky Oooh-this-would-be-interesting side has gotten my yes-but-now-I-have-to-write-them side into a nightmare of a plotting tangle. Oh, you don’t remember the Liz books?

Previously on Argh Ink . . .

I want to do a limited series of short books that will act as TV episodes; that is, each book will be a stand-alone novel/episode complete in itself, each a classic mystery that Our Girl Liz Danger has to solve, but the four books taken together will be a complete women’s fiction novel of about 200K to 300K (so those of you who have been asking for longer Crusies, your ship just came in). Doesn’t that sound great? Now, try to plot it. read more >>

Remember when I gave you those release dates for the SMP books? They changed. There may be updates later but for right now:

Tell Me Lies and Crazy For You will both be released on April 30. So forget about one in May and one in July. End of April the orange phone and the pink house hit the stands.

And Maybe This Time, which i thought was out in October, debuts August 31.

I don’t know why things changed, I’m a pawn in this game, but I’m happy about all of it. SMP rocks.

There are eleven exclamation marks up there because that where you put The Cinderella Deal on the New York Times Bestseller list:

I absolutely did not see this coming–I don’t think anybody in New York saw this coming–so you all have gone above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you so, so much!

Addendum: Actually, we’re at number 10! Because I did not see the asterisk which means we’re tied with the book above, I thought we were #11 (well, there’s a big old #11 right there) but you did even better! I’m not taking away an exclamation point, though. That would just be wrong.

Mona loves the outdoors, much more than the other dogs who give up after fifteen minutes and come inside, so lately I’ve been letting her play out there as long as she likes. Today, she came in looking like this: read more >>