Thinkingdog Publishing

Has this happened to you? You're sitting there working, on a fun cozy mystery. Magic, a mystery, there's a ghost floating by, Pixie says something sassy.... And then it happens. Something went wrong. That's it. That's the whole message my computer gave me. Three words, delivered with all the urgency and helpfulness of a shrug emoji. Something went wrong. I stared at it. It stared back. Neither of us blinked for what felt like a considerable amount of time. Now, I think i am a reasonable person, right? And - I write magical cozy mysteries, which means I spend a significant portion of my working day inventing elaborate, detailed explanations for impossible events. Pixie, my enchanted Papillon, has explained the mechanics of ghost communication to me in more coherent terms than my own computer managed just now. My fictional dog — who does not exist — is better at communication than enterprise-grade software. I need a moment with that. But back to the scene of t...

There’s a little thing that never shows up on an author bio page, or gets mentioned in the beautiful author interviews, though someone absolutely should. I don’t care how many books they’ve written – every writer will hit a wall. Not a little doubt, not just "hmm, I wonder if this scene is working" kind of thought. Oh no – a real wall, face first, seeing stars, hearing the sound effect kind of moment, and you are absolutely convicted that everything you’ve written is absolute, unmitigated rubbish. How do I know this? Because I have now written fifteen books. Fifteen. So you would think that I have done this often enough and I should, by all reasonable logic, have developed some kind of immunity. A vague memory perhaps, yeah, this usually happens, I’ve been here before, I know how this ends. Alas, there is no immunity. Here is exactly how it goes, in case you are a writer who needs to hear this, or a reader who wants to understand why authors occasionally look haunted ...

So - here's a story that will make you shake your head, and possibly grin into your coffee..... There was once a young(ish) writer—me—who had a dream. A dream of becoming a full-time author. And back in those days, when I was working a “normal” job with real pants and scheduled lunch breaks, I wrote like my life depended on it. I was a writing ninja. A stealth scribe. A literary outlaw with a contraband notebook shoved between HR memos and leftover Post-Its. I mean, I was ON FIRE. Every time I had five minutes to spare—waiting in the breakroom for the microwave, parked outside the vet’s office, pretending to be in a “conference call”—out came the notebook. Words were flying. Characters were developing. Mysteries were unraveling. People thought I was quietly journaling. Nope. I was busy plotting a suspicious death behind the bakery while eating a stale granola bar. Fast forward to today, where writing is my full-time job. And… well. Now I start my day with social media,...

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...

So, here’s the thing—I know we have coyotes in our area. It’s not exactly a secret. They’re basically our unofficial neighbors at this point. Lately, they’ve been as regular as the subway—every ten minutes, one trots by our window like it’s the 7:30 express to Downtown Trouble. Now, I’m a vigilant dog mom. I’ve got fences, gates, lights, and the kind of situational awareness usually reserved for Secret Service agents. My little Papillon, Blueberry, never sets a paw outside without me. We go as a team, like a very small and furry version of the Secret Service detail I mentioned—minus the suits, though Blueberry would totally rock a tiny one. But a few days ago, we were walking our old boy, Kobe—fifteen years old, gentle as a cloud, moving at a dignified senior pace. He stopped to sniff a bush. Harmless, right? A completely innocent dog moment. Except—apparently—not. Because that harmless bush… growled. Before I could even process what was happening, a coyote shot out of it like it ...

Well, folks, let’s talk about something we all love to pretend we’re not – imperfection .  If there’s one thing I’ve learned on this wild ride of being an author, it’s that I am definitely not perfect . And you know what? That’s perfectly fine! (And if anyone tells you they’re perfect, just remind them that we’re all human—unless they’re a robot, in which case, we need to talk about your AI skills.) You see, every time I look back at my earlier works, I cringe just a little. Okay, maybe a lot . Plotholes that I patched over with the kind of flimsy excuses I’d never accept from my kids on homework. There are commas that should be in the witness protection program, hiding far away from the sentence they’re supposed to be part of. And some of the phrases? Oh boy. If I could go back in time, I’d sit myself down and say, “Honey, that line? It’s not even funny, it’s just… confusing.” But here’s the thing – I wrote this . It’s my work, my journey, my creation. And that’s something t...