As I am going over the outline for my next novel, I am thinking about creating a character who is a soon-to-be-retired FBI agent. I am, however, woefully ignorant out what life is like for someone in that agency approaching 57, the mandatory retirement age. How do they phase you out of a job like that? Do they taper down your work load so that when you turn retirement age, you’re not embroiled in a high-profile case? What if you’re a key point of authority and information i

With the start of the new year, and the end of the distraction of the holidays, it’s time to get back out and sell my novel. This brings up the dilemma most writers have, whether they are self-published or trying to sell to an agent: The traits it takes to write a novel—intuitiveness, a sense of story, sensitivity, an insight into why people do what they do, an ear for dialog, and a desire to spend hours alone with only a keyboard and a flickering screen—and the traits it tak