Tina's Fascination Files

Dead Ink Review of DARKER THAN ANY SHADOW

2012-02-13T13:52:00.000-05:00

I recently ran across this amazing review of Darker Than Any Shadow in the online journal Dead Ink. Written by Ian Caithness, the review is very positive (or else I wouldn't be sharing it -- no dummy, me) but even more importantly, the review itself is very well-done. It's smart, sharp, thoughtful, and engages in ideas about the work and suggested by the work, not just the reviewer's personal

Brains!

2012-02-10T06:45:00.002-05:00

I'm writing today about gray areas and gray matter on the Poisoned Pen blog. If you think your ideas of good and evil come solely from your strong moral upbringing, don't stand too close to a giant magnet -- you will be shocked. You can read more HERE.

For the Hard-to-Accessorize Protagonist

2012-01-27T09:13:00.000-05:00

So I have this neighbor. Her name is Danielle, and she's really cool. We trade stuff over the fence -- baked goods from her kitchen, half-baked novels from my word processor -- and our respective kids act like brother and sister. We also meet online, Facebooking and Pinteresting especially. And that's where our latest collaboration started. We both work from home; I'm a mystery novelist, and

Happy 2012!

2012-01-02T11:19:00.004-05:00

"In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous." -- Aristotle

At the 2011 Writer's Police Academy

2011-10-17T17:30:00.000-04:00

Off to the pokey -- well, not really Here’s the thing about being handcuffed — it produces an irresistible urge to get out of said handcuffs. For most handcuffed people, that’s not an option. Luckily for me, it was. All I had to do was ask, which I did. Quickly and nicely. I wrote a little about my adventures in all things Law Enforcement over at the Poisoned Pen Press blog (see Writing

Bang Bang!

2011-09-10T14:05:00.001-04:00

This is me getting in some research at the gun range -- I am SO ready the next time I am attacked by an unarmed two-dimensional villain. I'm blogging about the experience today at the Poisoned Pen Press blog -- find that here. And if any of you writerly types want to join me next time, the good people at Patrick's are excellent resources. They treated me mighty fine (and were very very patient

John Desjarlais on Writing Cross-Culture (and Cross-Gender Too)

2011-08-29T08:09:00.001-04:00

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0;

Hello, Goodbye, Hello!

2011-01-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

2010 was a banner year for me -- it was the year I received word from Poisoned Pen Press that they were interested in publishing my mystery novel (!!!). It had a really goofy title that my editor instantly rejected because it had the word "blood" in it. "You can't use that word anymore without people thinking it's a vampire novel," she said. She suggested the current title -- The Dangerous Edge

10! 9! 8! . . .

2010-12-18T00:23:00.004-05:00

Angelina Rain at Author in Training is hosting a blogfest over the New Year's Day weekend . . . and you're invited! Sign up your blog, and then get ready to share your best or most bizarre 2010 accomplishments along with your goals for 2011. Go to Angelina's site for more details, the shiny graphic, and to sign-up on the linky link. Click here! Join us as we pop the cork on some virtual

When Little Plastic Animals Attack

2010-12-15T08:57:00.000-05:00

You can tell I'm in THAT stage of novel-making by the state of my house. My housekeeping skills have never been of the white-glove variety, but I do like to have things in their place. Now, however, there are dirty tennis shoes and dog toys under the Christmas tree, stray bones and eyeballs and pumpkins from Halloween on the kitchen counters, random half-created gizmos and art projects

My Guy and His Gun

2010-12-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

No, not the Hubster. My other guy, the one I spend hours with, just the two of us, while I hang on his every word. He's frustrating, challenging, and somewhat stubborn, plus I think he's mad at me right now. But he's something else, that's for sure. His name is Trey Seaver -- we've been getting to know each other for seven years now. I wish I could put a photo of him up here, but since he's

First Gifts Blog Hop!

2010-11-19T00:28:00.000-05:00

Here's my story -- I look forward to reading yours too. Click on the Linky Link at the end of the post to join the hop, and I'll see you down the line! First., a confession — I had a hard time remembering the first gift my husband ever gave me. This would not surprise my husband, whose favorite nickname for me is Sheer-luck Holmes, as in, it’s sheer luck if I remember stuff from this morning,

Quantum Entanglement

2010-10-29T03:39:00.001-04:00

"Not knowing is much more interesting than believing an answer that might be wrong." -- Richard Feynman The only kind of physics I like is the kind that rational people want no truck with -- the quantum. I have very little patience with equations and theories and laws that explain the universe neatly and precisely. Gravity is as inexorable as it is predictable, which makes it boring to

Guest Blogger Amy Corwin on Rose Growing during the Regency

2010-10-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

When folks ask me why I adore the Regency period (early years of the 19th century) so much, I invariably think of roses. The Regency -- and the Empress Josephine -- are among the most critical influences on roses as we know them today. Before the Empress Josephine began her gardens at Malmaison in 1799, roses were grown mainly for medicinal, cosmetic, and aromatic reasons. The Apothecary's Rose,

Guest Blogging Today

2010-10-12T10:09:00.000-04:00

I'm very excited to be guest blogging over at Amy Corwin's Fiction Writing and Other Oddities.You can find my post at: http://amycorwin.blogspot.com/2010/10/tarot-with-tina-whittle.html Amy will be joining me here, at the Fascination Files, next week, so please be sure to look for her then. She promises a look at Regency rose-growing, and since she's quite the talented historical romance writer

Annette Laing on Invisible History

2010-10-07T09:28:00.000-04:00

From Annette Laing's Goodreads blog: So there I was, sitting comfortably in a comfy chair at Starbucks, amply supplied with caffeine, and working away happily on the third book. Everything was going swimmingly. I had a great set of plot twists, interesting new characters to work with, and a story set in the historical period I know best, the 18th century. Finally, I could use that PhD in

How to Create Drama -- Part I

2010-09-11T18:29:00.002-04:00

Here’s some writerly advice for ya — nothing ratchets up the tension in a scene like dropping a big ass snake right in the middle of it. Hoo boy! Characters babble. They scream. They go for guns you didn’t know they carried. Forget that old advice about bringing a man waving a gun into the room — let a fifteen-foot reticulated python plop onto somebody’s shoulders, and things get

Penguin Love

2010-03-10T03:36:00.001-05:00

Today at church, the visiting minister read the children's story. All the little ones gathered at his feet, and he passed out stuffed penguins for them to fondle and moon over. "This," he said, "is a story about penguins. And love. And families." It was a sweet story, much better than March of the Penguins, which a friend claims should have been called The Sad Life of Penguins

Storytelling and Telling Stories

2009-01-27T03:31:00.001-05:00
My grandmother always told me, “Now don’t you be telling no stories.” But I always did. I couldn’t resist a story, even if it meant making one up for no reason but the making. My grandmother said these were lies. My husband would agree. He’s an engineer, suspicious of the frayed edge that all stories have, the place where facts start unraveling. He says that fact and truth are the same

Why I Hate Happy Endings -- A Mild Existential Rant

2008-02-04T03:34:00.000-05:00
We’re making an attempt at church to laugh more. Hence, Friday Movie Night. For our debut, we screened Something’s Gotta Give. Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Keanu Reeves. Love triangle. Clever dialogue. Mild inoffensive symbolism and metaphorical subtext. Some partial nudity with energetic overacting. Funny, yes. Which surprised me. My sense of humor is usually skewed toward