L.C. Rooney's Blog, page 2

Secrets & Lies Cover Reveal!

I know, I know…it’s been ages since my last blog post. And I promise I’ll post all about what I’ve been doing during my absence from this blog SOON…but right now I’m just so excited to finally unveil the cover for Secrets & Lies, the first book in the Riley Russell Mystery Series! The book debuts on May 19, 2021, but is already available for pre-orders on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

It’s all just a little unreal, to say the least. I started the book…well, so long ago I don’t even like to t...

A Writer Reacts to Her First Rejection Letter

How should a writer react to her first rejection letter? My response may surprise you.

At various times over the past five years, I have alternated between eagerly anticipating my first agent queries and curling up in the corner with handfuls of chocolate at the mere thought of approaching The Gatekeepers of the Publishing Realm. My calculator says that’s 1,825 days …. 43,800 hours … over two-and-a-half million minutes. Yeah, it’s a long time, no matter how you slice or dice it. A long time to ...

How Did You Become Interested in Writing?

Q: So, how did you become interested in writing?

A: A nun. With a yard stick. And a mean streak.

Just kidding. No one wants to believe me, but I had the most wonderful nuns when I attended Catholic school. This is my first grade class. One nun, one room, 63 kids. No teacher’s assistant, no room mother. Perfect order at (almost) all times. Sister Georgine instilled in me a love of all things reading and writing. And, perhaps just as important, she never chastised me for reading ahead in our Dick ...

Forgetting What Is Truly Important

My husband and I went to a local barbecue joint this evening. As we talked and laughed about the day we’d just spent with our nine-month-old granddaughter, my phone beeped. The PM was from a neighbor. The news was incomprehensible: A young woman, who, with her husband, had just relocated to our beautiful Maine island from the Boston suburbs to raise their five-year-old daughter, had died on Sunday.

We had closed on our homes on the same day, one hour apart, just a week-and-a-half ago. Their home...

A Week to Recover

I can think of only a couple of things it would take the average 50-something a week to recover from. The flu? Base jumping? A particularly wild weekend? (I no longer actually recall what that last one is, but I’m told …)

But I stand before you a survivor. A survivor of 26 hours of labor and a C-section.

Oh, not me, silly. But you can call me Coach.

My only child has given me the greatest gift I could ever receive: a grandchild. After 40 weeks and 3 days, this little angel has come ...

Post-Election Reflection

Here we are, in this moment of post-election reflection, and I have to say, I barely recognize my country. I mean, I’m used to being the “odd woman out,” so to speak, when it comes to the artistic community. What I mean is that I tend not to march in lockstep with my fellow creatives. The result is that I, a native-born Jersey Girl of the expected gregarious and forthright nature, often remain silent on matters politic when in the company of others in my field. To put it bluntly, I am not a reli...

9/11: When Time Stood Still

9/11.

I lived in New Jersey then, had lived there my entire life up to that point. New York City was the big brother my part of New Jersey looked up to, idolized. We cheered their baseball, football, and hockey teams and viewed them as our own. An hour on the train put the bright lights of Broadway and world-class restaurants, museums, and attractions at our feet. Secure in the protective shadow it cast, we enjoyed the bragging rights Manhattan’s proximity provided.

The news came over the ...

Discovering a Story’s Theme

I’ve given a lot of thought to theme during the process of revising my manuscript these last several months. Every well-written story has at least one, and often more than one theme. The interesting thing about story theme is that it usually doesn’t reveal itself until you’ve finished the first draft. Only in the full read-through and revision process does the author begin to see what the story is really all about. And so it was with me.

Oh sure, I had a story concept in mind when I began: Fo...

All the Cool Kids Are Doing It

I’ve got a new addiction. One Line Wednesday on Twitter. All the cool kids are doing it.

One Line Wednesday, or #1LineWed as it’s hashtagged, trends every single week for hours and hours on end. Writers and readers alike have fallen in love with this very simple premise:

Each Wednesday, the Mystery/Romantic Suspense chapter of Romance Writers of America, also known as the Kiss of Death (KOD) chapter (Twitter handle @RWAKissOfDeath), declares a theme for the day. Writers and authors (of...

Life is Funny

Life is funny. While watching a documentary, I found out I have a couple of interesting things in common with B.B. King, The King of the Blues himself.

First of all, you need to know that I’m a plug-and-play kind of gal living in a satellite TV vs. Netflix world — and changing between the two is a complex process (at least in our house) requiring multiple remotes and knowing which acronym is which (HDMI1? HDMI3?) before you can even begin to look for what you’d like to watch. So, needless to ...