Entries by Bethany Maines

Hell What Now?

by Bethany Maines The Navy SEALs must pass through something called Hell Week in order to become an actual SEAL.  If they can’t take Hell Week they can always ring the bell that signals that they are opting out and then they get coffee and donuts.  For five and a half days the SEAL candidates […]

The Quantum Relativity Theory of Book Time

by Bethany Maines Yesterday, Marilyn Meredith discussed why she keeps writing and how her characters keep moving forward which keeps her writing.  As a Great-Grandma and writer she as a unique perspective on the longevity of characters. But I’m only a first time mom and I’m only on my third sequel.  I’m at the start […]

How do you write a mystery?

by Bethany Maines As I approach the end of my third Carrie Mae Mystery manuscript (60,000 words and climbing!), I find myself more impressed now by a basic Nancy Drew, than I was when I was ten.  My characters are better than when I started writing.  My plotting is infinitely stronger. My grasp of grammar, […]

Puppy Training

by Bethany Maines Recently my daughter learned to crawl. She’s six months old, so basically any time she learns something it’s “recently”. But as she learns new tricks she forces my husband and I to adapt (and hopefully overcome).  Sadly, in our sleep deprived state we find ourselves relying on the training we did with […]

Brainiac

by Bethany Maines I was staring at an app advertisement on my phone the other day when a brilliant idea for a novel came to me.  I’m not going to tell you what it is, because it’s awesome and I don’t want the net gremlins to steal it.  But as I pondered the awesomeness that […]

Dreaming

by Bethany Maines The other night I dreamed that fellow Stiletto Gang author Linda Rodriguez rewrote the back-story on the main character of my Carrie MaeMystery series – Nikk Lanier.  Nikki is a twenty-something red-headed linguistics major turned superspy with an overbearing mother and a steady boyfriend who works for the CIA.  Notice how none […]

The Case for It’s

By Bethany Maines Recently, I was ranting on Facebook about my hatred for the periods in a.m. and p.m as well as the comma between city and state in addresses (see what you miss by not being my Facebook friend?) and one of my friends posted a link to Weird Al Yankovic’s new song “Word […]

New Year = New PR

Or How to Teach an Old Brain New Tricks by Bethany Maines I’ve been thinking about short stories lately. Wait… I recant that. I’ve been intending to think about short stories lately. What I’ve actually been thinking about is PR, Social Media and writers. You’d think Social Media would be right up a writer’s alley. […]