JOANNA ELM, Author, Journalist, Attorney
The Pleasures and Perils Of A Writing Life
If your website is going to crash, the week of Thanksgiving is probably the best time for it to happen. No, I’m not kidding. It happened to me last week. And, I discovered there’s an upside when your website crashes during a major holiday week. Continue reading “Sorry, My Website Crashed Last Week”
I was going to write a lengthier blog this week. I was going to title it A Tale of Two Brits.
I intended to write about the superb Fiona Hill, the former Brit (now U.S. citizen) and former top White House Russia adviser who testified last week in the impeachment hearing against the occupant of the Oval office. Continue reading “Thumbs Up For Thanksgiving: Why I Love This Holiday”
Bestselling author Andrew Gross has had some lucky breaks with his writing. But, he also took a few risks at the height of his career as a “suburban” thriller writer.
Most notably, his biggest break came when James Patterson invited him to be his co-author. He wrote five thrillers with James Patterson before writing eight thrillers alone.
His biggest risk? Switching from writing those bestselling suburban (his description) thrillers, like 15 Seconds, where he was writing about “people like you and me” to writing historical thrillers like The One Man and his most recent release, The Fifth Column.” Continue reading “10 Lessons From A Bestselling Author: Three of Them Are Harsh”
Gearing up for the big pitch of my suspense novel to publishers, my new literary agent, Paula Munier, suggested I find a new author photo for this website.
She’s right — as usual. The old one was dark, dingy, small and black/white.
So, this week, I made a stab at finding a substitute. Then, I updated my Welcome Page, to boot.
For regular subscribers who faithfully read my weekly blogs, I provide a link here to my Welcome Page so you can take a look at the new photo and let me know what you think.
The link also works for those who have bookmarked my website and skim over the Welcome Page to click on Recent Posts.
I also replaced my photo on my About Me page.
For those who feel the blog this week falls short, and who have not been regular readers since the inception of this website, there are earlier posts you may access by clicking on any of the links on the Welcome Page. I am always happy to hear your opinions as to which blogs you enjoy — and those you don’t.
The Washington Nationals — and I — had a good week last week. We both won in sports events that were “mind-bending, odds-shattering, pundit-shaming and impossibly thrilling.”
So, okay, the quote above comes from The Washington Post and describes the Nationals’ triumph over the Houston Astros in the World Series final last Wednesday. But it could just as easily describe my own win in the third match of a new singles tennis season.
As faithful readers of this blog may have read a couple of weeks ago, I decided to prove I’m totally insane by signing up (again) for a singles tennis tournament. (Last season, I lost every match. This season, I lost my first two matches.)
This time, I signed up because I’m treading water while waiting for my literary agent to spring my revised, edited, re-revised, and re-titled novel on publishers all over North America. Continue reading “I Won! It Won’t Happen Again”