Maggie Pill Mysteries

A woman once told me how painful it was for her to attend her son's Educational Placement Conferences. (The names are different over distance and time, but I mean those meetings where a group of teachers and educational experts sit down with a student's parents to decide how he's doing and what his future in education should look like.) "One by one," she said, "they tell you what's wrong with your child. Some try to be nice about it, but by the end of the meeting, you feel like you've been pummeled with his faults and failings. You know you have to face them for your son's benefit, but it's not easy and it never gets any easier." That's exactly how it is for an author to be edited. Your book--your baby--is submitted to someone whose job it is to point out what's wrong with it. That line you thought was cute? The editor suggests you take it out. The punctuation you struggled to get right? She doesn't agree. And the plot: ...

I see you, John! Sleuthfest crowns the Mandingo--Sexiest Man Florida in February--now, that's nice. Add to that a mystery conference where hundreds of writers of all skill levels and tiers of fame mingle, and it's heaven. I've spent the last few days talking writing with writers, and there's not much I like better. I listened to agents and editors explain their thinking on the changes in publishing. I heard writers list their struggles and realized we all have the same ones. And I spoke on writing dilemmas, trying to help others solve the nuts-and-bolts problems of writing: How do you get past a plot-knot? How do you get your word count down to a number agents will accept--or up to that number for that matter. The private conversations are fun, too. Catching up with one of my earliest friends in the business and meeting several new ones. It's funny, but I often know right away if a person "gets" being a writer. Many are living on a dream that...