Thinkingdog Publishing

There are two kinds of people awake at three in the morning. The first group is peacefully asleep, dreaming about beaches, vacations, and fluffy clouds. The second group is writers. Specifically… writers whose brains decide that 3:07 a.m. is the perfect time to launch a full creative production meeting . I wish I were exaggerating. Picture this: the house is quiet. The world is asleep. Even the moon seems to be minding its own business. I’m lying in bed trying very hard to drift off into dreamland. Instead, my brain leans over the metaphorical desk, slams a stack of imaginary papers down, and says: “Okay team, hear me out. What if… magical kingdoms… ancient prophecy… morally complicated hero… and it’s a trilogy.” Excuse me? A trilogy? It is three in the morning. I cannot remember where I put my glasses yesterday, but apparently I am now outlining an entire fantasy saga . And not just a vague idea either. Oh no. My brain goes all in. There’s world-building. Ther...

  There comes a moment in life — somewhere between your first grey hair and the first time you willingly choose elastic-waist trousers — when you realize something profound: You have spent an impressive amount of time trying not to offend anyone. Not too loud. Not too strange. Not too ambitious. Not too dreamy. Not too… you. For a considerable portion of my life, I tried very hard to be what I believed was “expected.” Sensible. Polite. Predictable. Professional. The kind of person who nods in meetings, files papers in neat folders, and pretends spreadsheets are thrilling. I did the “normal.” I did the “responsible.” I smiled through jobs that felt like wearing shoes two sizes too small. Perfectly acceptable. Mildly painful. Entirely unnecessary. And do you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. The world did not applaud my normality. No one handed me a medal for “Most Inoffensive Human.” There was no parade for “Successfully Blended In.” Instead, somewhere ...

There’s this idea floating around that writers have “perfect writing days.” You know the ones. The charming cottage. The soft morning light. The gentle breeze fluttering linen curtains. The coffee brewed to aromatic perfection. The laptop humming obediently. The muse hovering nearby like a polite Victorian ghost, waiting to dictate brilliance. Somewhere in the background, I imagine a string quartet. I keep waiting for that day. It has not arrived. Instead, what usually shows up is this: I sit down to write and my laptop decides it is the perfect time to update seventeen things simultaneously. None of which I asked for. None of which seem to help my life in any measurable way. I glare at it. It whirs louder. We both know who’s going to win. Sometimes, in a moment of dramatic defiance, I grab another laptop. This one, of course, has absolutely no research on it. None of my notes. None of the carefully collected details about motives, timelines, magical Papillons, suspicio...

🐾 Blueberry’s 7 Reasons Why Dogs Should Totally Run the World (Especially Magical Dogs. Especially Divas.) Hello, humans. Blueberry here. Papillon. Muse. Telepath. Occasional snack inspector. After careful observation from my velvet throne (also known as “the couch I was absolutely not allowed on”), I have concluded that it is time. Dogs should run the world. Here are my findings.       1. We Already Understand Loyalty Better Than Politicians In Sabine’s Magical Papillon Mysteries , Pixie — who is clearly based on someone fabulous — would never betray her human. Not for power. Not for money. Not even for steak. We choose our people and we stick with them. Imagine a world led by creatures who understand devotion, pack bonds, and the sacred oath of “I sit by you when you cry.” Exactly.   2. We Have Superior Conflict Resolution Skills When two dogs disagree, we sniff. We posture. We maybe bark dramatically. Then we move on because someone found a sti...

       There’s a quiet kind of magic in doing things that serve absolutely no useful purpose — other than making your heart ridiculously happy. As cozy mystery readers, we already understand this better than most. We willingly step into fictional towns where everyone knows your name, the tea is always hot, the cats are unusually intelligent, and the biggest problem of the day is usually solved by page 312. And honestly? That’s not frivolous. That’s survival. Reading one more chapter when you should be doing something else. Lighting a candle before you open a book. Rereading a favorite mystery because you already know it will make you feel safe, comforted, and quietly delighted. None of these things are “productive” in the traditional sense. But they are restorative. They remind us who we are when the world feels too loud. Joy doesn’t need to justify itself. It doesn’t need a moral lesson or a measurable outcome. Sometimes joy exists simply because it ...

There are two kinds of walks. There are the determined, fitness-tracker-beeping, “we are MAKING TIME” walks. And then there are the walks you take when you share your life with a small, fluffy creature who believes every pile of leaves may contain buried treasure, secrets, or possibly a criminal mastermind. When you live with a dog — or are owned by one, which feels more accurate — you walk. A lot. Blueberry, my Papillon with the investigative spirit of a seasoned detective, does not “exercise walk.” She does not march. She does not power-stride. She stops. She sniffs. She wanders. She conducts what I can only assume are highly classified forensic investigations on twigs. Every leaf pile is suspicious. Every rustle is worth examining. Every breeze carries breaking news. And so we amble. Very slowly. At first, years ago, I would try to hurry her along. Come on, Blueberry. Let’s go. We have things to do. Deadlines. Laundry. Emails. Imaginary murders to solve. But ...

There’s a theory I’ve been quietly nurturing between cups of coffee and dramatic plot twists. I think you have to be an introvert to be a writer. Hear me out. Who else voluntarily spends hours sitting alone in a room, staring at a laptop, blinking occasionally, while internally sprinting across rooftops in a town that doesn’t exist? Who else battles enemies they invented, panics because their hero is about to fall off a cliff, and then desperately scrambles to think of something—anything—before gravity wins? Writers. That’s who. And not just any writers. Cozy mystery writers. Paranormal cozy mystery writers. The sort of people who think, “You know what this murder investigation needs? An enchanted Papillon and a dash of Christmas spirit.” I sit there, looking perfectly calm from the outside. Maybe even serene. Meanwhile, inside my head, Rosewood Hollow is in chaos. Someone’s been poisoned. Someone else is lying. My heroine is in danger. And I am frantically trying to deci...

When you write cozy mysteries, you see things a little differently. No. Not in a “how would I dispose of a body?” kind of way. Please. I write about charming villages, magical dogs, and suspicious bake sale politics. We are not digging holes in forests. It’s not the process of murder that fascinates me. It’s the why. It’s the tiny, deliciously odd human behaviors that make my writer brain sit up straighter than a librarian who just heard someone dog-ear a page. Take the gentleman I see most mornings in the park while walking Blueberry. He walks the paths in a very specific order. Not random. Not “oh, I feel like turning left today.” No. It’s choreographed. Precise. Measured. He counts his steps. I know this because his lips move ever so slightly, and every time he reaches the same tree, he pivots. Exact angle. Exact spot. Every. Single. Morning. And there I am, supposedly walking my adorable Papillon, but internally I am spiraling into a full-blown character study. Wh...

Stop me if you've been here before.... You're finally getting away, going on vacation, and you're thinking - yes, think of all the reading I'm going to do! For me, it used to look like this—I’d gather a stack of books. Not one or two, but twenty. Maybe twenty-five. A full, ambitious pile that reflected not just who I was, but who I thought I should be: more well-read, more disciplined, more “on top” of my reading life. I told myself I’d finally have the time. That I’d sit for hours, uninterrupted, moving from one book to the next with focus and intention. And then reality would arrive. A chapter here. A few pages there. Maybe a longer stretch if it rained. But nowhere near the marathon I had imagined. For a long time, that gap felt like failure. The Hidden Pressure We Put on Ourselves As an author—especially an indie author—it’s easy to blur the line between passion and performance. Reading becomes more than enjoyment. It turns into: Research Market awarenes...

Solving Ghostly Mysteries with My Human Pixie’s Official and Fluffy Opinion on How the Real Detective Work Gets Done Hi. It’s me. Pixie. Yes, that Pixie. Star of the Magical Papillon Mysteries. Dog detective. Crumb catcher. Fluffy genius. Sidekick to one well-meaning but slightly clueless human named Sarah. Let me explain something important: Humans? They’re adorable, but they wouldn’t solve a mystery if it was gift-wrapped and left in their coffee cup. I mean, have you seen their ears? So small. So tragically unfloppy. I can hear a ghost sneeze from three haunted houses away. Sarah? She once thought a banshee was the dryer acting up. Don’t even get me started on noses. Sarah likes to say, “Oh, I wish I had your nose, Pixie!” AS IF. Trust me, she doesn’t. If she had my nose, she’d know Aunt Lily’s been sneaking beef jerky into the bookstore and that Mr. Jenkins wears the same socks four days in a row. And let me tell you, that’s a crime in itself. Every time a new...