They'll tell you an author can't succeed without them, but at a certain point, this one sure wishes she could!
My blog tour for DEAD FOR THE MONEY starts this week, and the schedule is printed below. There are of course prizes if you're willing to visit blogs and make comments between now and June 7th (even comments on this blog will work). LL Publications provided invaluable help with the tour in the form of a publicist who contacted all the bloggers and made dates for me to visit. But somebody has to write all those posts, and wouldn't you know it, they expect the author to do it!
Different bloggers want different things, so if you visit one of the sites below, you might find interviews with Seamus about what it's like to be a cross-back or you might get my view of some aspect of writing. The killer part of it is getting all the posts to line up so that Post 1 links to Post 2, which links to Post 3 and back to Post 1. You can see how this would confuse a tiny mind like mine.
Anyway, here's the schedule. Please stop in from time to time and comment. You could win a book or a T-shirt, or get you name in Dead Detective Book #3. Besides, I love hearing from people!
May 2 Keeping It Straight-Murder Must Advertise http://murdermustadvertise.blogspot.com
May 3 Seamus Interview Part 1-The Stiletto Gang- http://thestilettogang.blogspot.com
May 4 Seamus Interview Part 2- Travels with Kaye- http://travelswithkaye.blogspot.com
May 7 Seamus Interview Part 3- Melissa's Imaginarium- http://melissasimaginarium.blogspot.com
May 8 Writing a Mystery Series- Nancy's Notes from Florida- http://nancyjcohen.wordpress.com
May 9 How Did I Know I'd Made It?- Suspense Your Disbelief- http://www.jennymilchman.com/blog/
May 10 Choosing a Great Title- LL-Publications- http://www.ll-publications.com/blog.html
May 11 Seamus Interview Part 4- Candid Canine- http://candidcanine.blogspot.com
May 15 Writers in Corners- Terry Odell- http://terryodell.blogspot.com
May 16 Seamus Interview Part 5- It's Not All Gravy- http://its-not-all-gravy.blogspot.com
May 21 Taking Stock- Criminal Minds at Work-http://criminalmindsatwork.blogspot.com/
May 25 Paranormal-Not That There's Anything Wrong with That
Jolie DuPre- http://www.preciousmonsters.com/
June 5 What Do I Call Success?-Buried Under Books- http://www.cncbooks.com/blog/
Monday, April 30, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
What Do YOU Do When the Net Is Down?
Those who know me are probably pacing the floor right now, worried
that I've fallen and I can't get up. I always post on Mondays early in
the morning, usually by 7:00. So where was this post at 8:00, or 9:00?
It was waiting for the Internet to decide I'm worthy.
When the Net goes down (and we have no idea why it's been naughty these last few days), my life goes off the track. I meant to blog ("Cannot connect to the Internet"), then I planned to send cards for the loot bags at Bloody Words next month (the address is in my email, see above). I have several post to write for my upcoming blog tour. (The list of what each host wants is--you guessed it--in my email.)
So what did I do from 7:00 a.m. until now?
I cleaned my bedroom, not just the usual light dusting and tidying up, but a thorough cleaning that went right down to washing the curtains, windows, baseboards, and knick-knacks.
Now the Net is back (hooray!). My room is clean. My sinuses are tickling from all that dust I stirred up, but I guess it's worth it to have one room in the house absolutely spotless.
Maybe I should start scheduling Internet outages at regular intervals.
It was waiting for the Internet to decide I'm worthy.
When the Net goes down (and we have no idea why it's been naughty these last few days), my life goes off the track. I meant to blog ("Cannot connect to the Internet"), then I planned to send cards for the loot bags at Bloody Words next month (the address is in my email, see above). I have several post to write for my upcoming blog tour. (The list of what each host wants is--you guessed it--in my email.)
So what did I do from 7:00 a.m. until now?
I cleaned my bedroom, not just the usual light dusting and tidying up, but a thorough cleaning that went right down to washing the curtains, windows, baseboards, and knick-knacks.
Now the Net is back (hooray!). My room is clean. My sinuses are tickling from all that dust I stirred up, but I guess it's worth it to have one room in the house absolutely spotless.
Maybe I should start scheduling Internet outages at regular intervals.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Now That's Freaky
I had lunch with an author friend recently, and she mentioned that her editor has twice now commented on the mood of her books, which gets darker in bad times and lighter in better times. The editor has never met my friend but accurately identified times when she was dealing with personal tragedy. The books were different than those which came when life was happily humming along.
Wow. Do we know we're revealing so much of ourselves as we write?
I know from studying literature that great authors' works often grow darker as life buffets them around a bit. Twain got much more satirical after the deaths of his wife and daughter. Shakespeare wrote more tragedies as he aged.
What happens to a mystery writer when life takes a downturn? We already write about murder and mayhem, so what can get worse? Apparently, it's the mood of the writing, the sense that maybe life isn't fair after all. The mental condition of the protagonist can change, too. He or she might not expect justice, or at least not full justice.
In case you're thinking of analyzing me, you should know that I wrote for almost ten years before anyone noticed. Some things just now coming to publication were written years ago; others are being written in the present day, with all its attendant troubles. I can't see much difference, though I've had plenty of ups and downs over that time.
It must be considered that an author's mood might have an opposite effect on her writing. If life tramples us into the dirt and we long for happiness, fairness, and justice, we might simply create it where we can, in our books.
Wow. Do we know we're revealing so much of ourselves as we write?
I know from studying literature that great authors' works often grow darker as life buffets them around a bit. Twain got much more satirical after the deaths of his wife and daughter. Shakespeare wrote more tragedies as he aged.
What happens to a mystery writer when life takes a downturn? We already write about murder and mayhem, so what can get worse? Apparently, it's the mood of the writing, the sense that maybe life isn't fair after all. The mental condition of the protagonist can change, too. He or she might not expect justice, or at least not full justice.
In case you're thinking of analyzing me, you should know that I wrote for almost ten years before anyone noticed. Some things just now coming to publication were written years ago; others are being written in the present day, with all its attendant troubles. I can't see much difference, though I've had plenty of ups and downs over that time.
It must be considered that an author's mood might have an opposite effect on her writing. If life tramples us into the dirt and we long for happiness, fairness, and justice, we might simply create it where we can, in our books.
Monday, April 9, 2012
I Love a Schedule--and I Don't
I'm just a tad compulsive when it comes to getting things done. I admit to lists everywhere and, yes, I'll admit to putting things on my lists that I've already done, just for the satisfaction of crossing them off.
I write on a schedule, Monday-Saturday, usually from 6:30 a.m. until something else demands my time, up to lunch. What I write on those mornings changes. On Mondays I do business-related stuff, but the rest of the week I work on the current novel. At odd times I catch up on non-fiction writing stuff, like a newsletter I do for a local group and blog posts for guesting on other bloggers' sites.
Afternoons are spent on the rest of life, although I've been known to continue through the day when a book is coming together. Evenings are my time to edit. While I can seldom compose at that time of day, I can reread and correct structural and grammatical mistakes.
I also have a schedule for the rest of life, which my kids make gentle fun of from time to time. I like to do all the household chores on Monday: laundry, cleaning, and other maintenance work. The rest of the week I choose my chores according to my mood and the weather. Gardening, lawn work, and maintaining outbuildings are summer work, and closet-cleaning and clerical upkeep are for days when outside isn't inviting. I have (yet another) list from which I choose what sounds doable to me on a given day.
Do I sound like an overly organized person? Maybe, but I doubt that I am. If someone says, "Let's do lunch" or "Let's drive to ______ today," I'm more than willing to toss the schedule aside. Yes, there are all those lists, but that's the purpose of writing it down: I can forget it today and pick it up again sometime in the future.
I write on a schedule, Monday-Saturday, usually from 6:30 a.m. until something else demands my time, up to lunch. What I write on those mornings changes. On Mondays I do business-related stuff, but the rest of the week I work on the current novel. At odd times I catch up on non-fiction writing stuff, like a newsletter I do for a local group and blog posts for guesting on other bloggers' sites.
Afternoons are spent on the rest of life, although I've been known to continue through the day when a book is coming together. Evenings are my time to edit. While I can seldom compose at that time of day, I can reread and correct structural and grammatical mistakes.
I also have a schedule for the rest of life, which my kids make gentle fun of from time to time. I like to do all the household chores on Monday: laundry, cleaning, and other maintenance work. The rest of the week I choose my chores according to my mood and the weather. Gardening, lawn work, and maintaining outbuildings are summer work, and closet-cleaning and clerical upkeep are for days when outside isn't inviting. I have (yet another) list from which I choose what sounds doable to me on a given day.
Do I sound like an overly organized person? Maybe, but I doubt that I am. If someone says, "Let's do lunch" or "Let's drive to ______ today," I'm more than willing to toss the schedule aside. Yes, there are all those lists, but that's the purpose of writing it down: I can forget it today and pick it up again sometime in the future.
Monday, April 2, 2012
What It's Like to Be Dead
So what is it like to be dead? There are so many possible answers that the mind boggles. Some say death is the end of everything, which is so un-fun that I refuse to contemplate it. And where would I get three more novels if I accepted that idea?
I recently read a book called SPOOK, in which author Mary Roach examined the question of life after death. She spent some time on reincarnation, explaining the specifics of that belief system, but I've never been fond of reincarnation as a concept. It seems a lot like the game of Pacheesi, which used to frustrate me as a kid. You move forward and forward and forward, and then you have to start all over at the beginning?
Of course the Judeo/Muslin/Christian belief system, which stems from one root religion, teaches reward and/or punishment after death. I chose to stick with that for this series, putting my own strange twist on things and hoping that my readers know that "fiction" starts and ends with the same letters as "fun." In other words, don't try to analyze me from what I write. It's all Seamus' fault anyway. He's the one who crawled inside my head and left all these outrageous ideas.
So what's the second Dead Detective Mystery about? Seamus is asked to investigate the death of wealthy William Dunbar, who fears his beloved grandson might have pushed him off a cliff. It's a typical case for Seamus, except he's asked to take along a cross-back-in-training, Mildred. The case is more complicated than expected, and Dunbar's young granddaughter Brodie, a problem child with a penchant for practical jokes, finds danger stalking her. As things move toward a frightening conclusion on the Mackinac Bridge, Seamus works to control the over-eager Mildred, help the vulnerable Brodie, and prove that someone did kill William Dunbar, all the while hoping no one else in the family will end up DEAD FOR THE MONEY.
http://www.ll-publications.com/deadmoney.html
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