Resolution: One True Thing

by Julia Buckley
Well, the New Year is here, and I, like many humans, am ready to start afresh. I've been looking at a variety of websites to determine a list of the most popular resolutions. These seem to be the top ones that people make every year:


Lose Weight
Pay Off Debt
Save Money
Get a Better Job
Get Fit
Eat Right
Get a Better Education
Drink Less Alcohol
Quit Smoking Now
Reduce Stress Overall
Reduce Stress at Work
Take a Trip
Volunteer to Help Others

If you're like me, you have a few of those on your own list. But those of us who are writers also tend to make writing resolutions, and if we broke them down to one basic idea it would be this: write the best thing you've ever written.

Every year that must be the resolution, because every year we try to learn from what we've written before: the writing we feel we've outgrown or upon which we could now improve. We learn from the great books we read, and we learn--gasp--from the reviews of our own work.

All of those things lead us to a new place, a place where we will write something different from what we wrote last year or any year before that.

Hemingway spoke of writing "one true sentence" as a way of getting started. Here are his words, from A Moveable Feast:

"It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I'd had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was started on a new story and I could not get going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut the scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written."

So, inspired by Hemingway and the resolutions of others, I shall pursue the truth in my own writing.

What's your one true sentence?

Read All About It

by Darlene Ryan

When I was growing up we took the bus into the city every second Saturday to go to the library. The library was a beautiful old stone building with an imposing set of stairs up to the front doors, high ceilings and shelves of books that reached way over my head. It was funded, in part, by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. (Why he helped pay for a library in a small Canadian city I don't know.) Every visit I’d take home a stack of books that had to last for two weeks and somehow never did.

Now I’m taking the munchkin to the library--and still coming home with a stack of books for myself. She’s too old now for Robert Munsch, but I still sneak out with Love You Forever or The Paperbag Princess once in a while. A couple of weeks ago she came home from the school library with There’s An Alligator Under My Bed, not for herself—it’s another book she says she’s too old for now—she brought it for me, because it was always one of my favorites. At least that’s what she said.

I can’t imagine life without books. With books I’ve gone places I’ll never visit and done things I’ll never get to do. There’s almost no chance I’ll ever end up at the Arctic Circle. I don’t like cold. But I’ve been there in a book. And I’m certain none of my friends are going to let me try doing open heart surgery on them, but I’ve done that with a book too. A love of books usually begins in childhood. If there are children in your life, please read to them. Think of it as building your future audience.

In honour of Family Literacy Day, on January 27, here are some ideas to get everyone reading a little more.

Take the kids to the bookstore. Buy everyone a book, bring the books home and read them together. (Some not-so-enthusiastic readers can be enticed with a graphic novel.) If they aren’t your children, check with their parents to see if anything is off limits. Too scary, for instance.

When you’re out with kids read the street and store signs with them. If you’re looking for an address have a child watch for the street name and building number. Hey, let’s face it. Their eyes are sharper than ours.

Ask a child to read the recipe to you when you cook. This is actually very helpful if like me you need glasses to see the recipe, but find they tend to fall into the bowl when you’re mixing.

Stick a chalkboard or a white board in the kitchen and write notes to each other. When the munchkin was learning to read I’d spell out a couple of supper choices on the refrigerator with magnetic letters and she got to choose what we’d have—Rice or Potatoes, Corn or Beans, Fruit or Cookie. No surprise, cookie was the first word she figured out.

Read the newspaper together. Look for mentions of your child’s school on the sports pages. Follow their favorite baseball team or hockey player. Take turns reading the comic strips to each other.

Visit the library. And don’t limit yourself to the children’s department. Borrow a cookbook. Learn how to make authentic curry or sushi—at least on paper. Take home back issues of National Geographic—or Rolling Stone.

And check out up-coming activities. Thanks to the library we’ve made our own pretzels and ice cream, we’ve learned to weave and make paper maché, we’ve created some spectacular paper airplanes and exploded a volcano in the middle of the kitchen. And we’ve learned it’s better to explode a volcano outside.

Write to the children in your life. Exchange email or snail mail. The munchkin, for instance, loves “real” mail. Share funny stories from your own childhood or about their parents. Ask questions that can’t be answered with a yes or no.

Encourage kids to make up stories and poems and write them down. One night a week at dinner share them. Parents too. Give dollar store prizes for the funniest poem or the scariest story. Invite friends to join you with their stories.

Let your kids see you read. Adults who read are more likely to have kids who read. (At least in my experience.)

Fraidy-cat, fraidy-cat . . .

By Lonnie Cruse



My name is Lonnie and I'm a frady-cat. There, I've said it. Outloud.

What am I afraid of? Writing a mystery novel. Yes, I know, I have four books in print in the Metropolis Mystery series and one in the Kitty Bloodworth, '57 Chevy series. I've gotten good reviews. I have readers who e-mail me to demand I finish the next one right now so they can read it. Doesn't help.

Every time I start a book, I'm afraid I can't write another whole book. Afraid I can't get the story out of my head and into the computer. Afraid I'll overlook something important. Afraid I won't be able to come up with enough words to meet my publisher's minimum word requirement. Afraid my readers will show up on my doorstep and demand their money back. Sigh.

So what to do? Well, I know a lot of writers who say they don't read anything by other authors while writing a book for fear of absorbing that writer's style or theme into theirs. But I love to read, and since it takes me a year to write a rough draft, polish it several hundred times, run it through my friendly readers (non-writers who are terrific at catching errors) my critique group (writers who are terrific at catching errors) re-write again, and submit it to the publisher for edit, then start another book, if I didn't read while I wrote, I would, um, never get to read anything. So I read and learn from other mystery writers. What works for them, and what doesn't. But back to my problem.

After taking time off from writing over the holidays (okay, I was scared to start a new book, sigh) I finally decided to start typing in the idea that I'd been kicking around for months. And the fear came back. But as luck would have it, I was reading a mystery by Donna Andrews, CROUCHING BUZZARD, LEAPING LOON. And it is a hoot! Andrews knows how to turn a phrase. No information dumps or long descriptions that take the reader out of the story. Every page makes me want to keep going. And I love her humor. If only I could write that well.

So what did I learn from reading Donna Andrews? Well, one thing I generally shy away from is giving my favorite characters too tough a time in their private lives. Let the perp shoot at them? Run them off the road? Chase them with leathal weapons? No problem? But interfere with something my characters really want out of life? Frustrate them? Big problem. Maybe I'm afraid of my characters? Possibly.

But Andrews lets things happen to her characters that has me rolling in the floor, laughing myself sick. So, hey, maybe it's time my characters faced an obstacle or two not related to the murder? Yes, indeedy, it is. I'm now about ten chapters into the new book and a new character I've created is driving my regular characters nuts. My lead character is trying to think of a way to bump her off and not get caught. In the scene I'm writing this week the new character totally disrupted a very important family gathering. I can't wait to see what she gets into next.

I won't ever be able to write like Andrews because she has a unique voice, as do all writers. But I do enjoy writing a story with humor in it. I happened to read an interview with Andrews recently on a blog. So all this exposure to Donna Andrews and her writing got me thinking. She sits down every day (maybe weekends off, I can't remember what she said about that) and WRITES! And the job gets done. And I suddenly realized that the longer I stay away from a story, the harder it is for me to get back into it. To just write it. Because the fear builds by the day. But if I write each day, it's much easier. So that's what I'm doing. Writing each week day, no matter what else is going on. And I leave off in mid-chapter so I have somewhere to go, or somewhere to start the next day. And it seems to be working.

Is there a point to all of this? Possibly. If you are a first time writer, don't be a fraidy-cat. Just sit down and write it. If you are a twentyth time writer, don't be a fraidy-cat, just sit down and write it. You can do it, we can all do it. FDR is attributed with saying "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I think that pretty well sums it up.

Hmmm, I wonder if my new character has any experience with explosives. Excuse me, I have a scene to write.

Why I Don't Make New Year's Resolutions

Elizabeth Zelvin

The addictions field is probably the only area of mental health in which mainstream professionals as well as patients or clients routinely talk about the spiritual aspect of recovery. Spiritual, not religious, as treatment practitioners and members of 12-step programs will tell you. When I first entered the field 25 years ago, I didn’t get it. Now I get it, and I’ve discovered that certain spiritual principles provide a way to live my life with a lot less agita than I learned at my mother’s knee.

Either a book called Adult Children of Jewish Parents or one on marrying a nice Jewish boy whose title I can’t remember—I gave both to my daughter-in-law when she and my son got engaged—includes advice on “how to worry” (along with “how to interrupt”—I was happy to learn we do it because we’re interested). I was raised to worry, indeed to believe that if I failed to worry, I wasn’t doing my job. When I became a shrink, I learned that the clinical term is projection: looking down the tunnel of life ahead of you and seeing, not the light, but some disaster that makes you (if you’re Jewish) moan, “Oy vey!”

We can’t predict the future: not you, not me, not even my mother. Nor can we control it. So projection is futile. This may seem shocking, but in fact, it’s good news. The future can give you heartburn. Furthermore, the future is overwhelming. No wonder we stare at it and moan, “Oy vey.”

The solution? Forget the future. Sure, you’ve got to make plans sometimes. But there’s a big difference between planning and projecting. The 12-step programs have a slogan that simplifies life enormously: “One day at a time.” The King James version of the Bible expresses it a little differently: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Same thing, right?

Millions of Americans, to use an excellent example, start the New Year by resolving to go on a diet. They vow to lose the weight they gained over the holidays and keep it off this time. What happens to that resolution by the time New Year’s Eve rolls around again? For most, it has long since crumbled. Dieting means deprivation, and deprivation arouses craving. Some say the hell with it by the middle of January. Some hang on until bathing suit season, buy the bikini, and promptly reward themselves by turning back to ice cream and cookies and all things fried and beautiful. And at the year’s end, they make another resolution.

So I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. On January 1, 2008 I opened my eyes and asked myself, “What shall I do today?” On January 2, I did the same. And so it goes. Nobody does one day at a time perfectly, by the way. Coming anywhere near it takes a lifetime of spiritual practice. But as a way of biting off manageable chunks of life, it sure beats ending each once-promising year with a sense of failure. So what will I do tomorrow? I have no idea. It’s still today.

The Things We Keep

Sandra Parshall

On my desk sits a small brown pottery jar, crammed full of pens and pencils. It’s not much to look at, but it has been on every desk I’ve had for many years and unless it somehow gets broken into a million pieces, it will be on my desk for the rest of my life. On the bottom of the jar is the amateur potter’s name, scratched into the surface, the last three letters tiny and cramped because her name was long and she ran out of space. She was a dear friend of mine, and she died more than 30 years ago at the age of 28.

Most of us possess objects that mean far more than their physical properties would suggest. We hold them in our hands and remember someone who is no longer with us. We look at them and remember a moment that will never be equaled. They are talismans, symbols. The Agatha Award teapot assumed this magical aura the moment it was placed in my shaking hands. It represented the end of a long and painful struggle to get my work into print, to reach a point where I could truly call myself a writer. I will never part with it. But which means more to me, the teapot or the little brown jar made by my friend? I don’t think I could choose.


When a writer gives a character an object with special meaning, the reader understands and is drawn into the character’s emotional life. Think of all the soldiers in novels and war movies who carry mementos of loved ones into battle and bring tears to our eyes simply by taking these precious objects out of their pockets and looking at them. And who could ever forget Citizen Kane and his sled named Rosebud? In the novel I recently completed, the main character, a young woman named Erin, receives a necklace with a ladybug charm on it as a gift from her parents. The day she receives it, the day she stops wearing it, and the day she fastens it around her neck again are major turning points in her life.

What objects do you own that have special meaning? Can you recall a fictional character whose attachment to a memento helped you understand his or her emotional life?

Jump

Sharon Wildwind

I grew up in a hot climate, where skating rinks didn’t exist. Now I live in a cold climate and skating rinks, from my neighborhood association flooded pond to an Olympic-quality rink at the university, abound.

Several years ago, I decided to take skating lessons.

A group of us—all adults, all skating-rink-deprived as children—hobbled out onto that same university Olympic rink one Tuesday night. The instructor skated over to us, introductions went round the group, and the instructor said, “Jump.”

We all looked at him as though he were speaking some indigenous Canadian dialect to which we were not yet privy. “Jump,” he said again. “Like this.” He bent his knees and jumped flat-skated, clearing the ice by a good four inches. We politely stared at him. He jumped again. He glided around the circle while we turned our faces to follow him. “Every one of you is afraid of falling. The first lesson you need to learn is that you can not only get one skate off the ice, but both skates off the ice and nothing bad will happen to you. Now, jump.”

We jumped, but didn’t really jump, if you know what I mean. A sort of wiggly movement so that we appeared to be jumping, but I had NO intention of taking my skates off the ice. “Jump again.” “Again.” “Again.”

It began to dawn on me that the entire first lesson might be jumping, and that we weren’t going home until every one of us jumped. I tried my first real jump. My skates cleared the ice by a at least two millimeters. I landed, but I didn’t fall. Maybe I could try for three millimeters? At the end of half an hour we were all jumping, giggling, and having a wonderful time.

The instructor held out his arms in a beautiful, ballet-like pose, pushed off with one foot, and slid across the ice. “Now, glide.”

Heck, after jumping, gliding was a cinch. Stopping was another matter, but that might wait for another blog.

Those of us who are skating on the writers’ pond right now, face a situation where we are going to have to jump. I have been vaguely aware that questions—even lawsuits—about “digital rights” were out there somewhere, in a hazy future that I might get around to learning something about in, say, 2020. Then someone posted a blog link on one of the mystery lists that made me realize I had to jump now.

*****
What I’ve written between asterisks are strongly person-opinion. Take them with the usual grains of salt.

Personal Opinion #1:
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle (collective)

Whatever way you slice it—geographically, age groups, social strata, ethically, or a category of your choice—technology is global and the global players aren’t going to play by the old rules.

Writers had a foretaste of this in the last century in dealing with Russian publication. Russian publishers would publish books from other countries, and they would sometimes pay the writers royalties, but . . . they paid in Russian currency, through a Russian bank. The money had to be collected in person from that bank, and it had to be spent inside of Russian. One of the few writers to profit from this system was the science fiction writer, Robert Heinlien, who managed a rather extensive Russian tour in 1959-1960 while spending his accumulated Russian royalties.

As writers we can’t rely on the goodness of the other guy to protect our works.

Personal Opinion #2:
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle (individually)

I don’t want to malign any country, so I’m going to set my next example in the country of Ruritania. That’s the country featured in The Prisoner of Zenda, a work now in the public domain, so it can safely be used for hypothetical examples.

Suppose one of my books is floating around in an electronic format. A person in Ruritania downloads a copy and decides to improve it. He adds profanity, hot porn scenes featuring my characters, and a completely different ending.

Can I sue?

For downloading the book, no. For altering the book, yes, but . . . I have to bring the suit in Ruritania, and have it tried according to their laws. If Ruritania doesn't recognize international copyright, I have no case. The guy would be able to do what he wants with a digital copy and he would be able to rebroadcast that digital copy as often, and in as many formats, as he wants.

So the bottom line is, once any of our works go digital, the author has lost control of that work.

Personal Opinion #3:

One bottleneck in the spread of digital rights problems is that technology is slowing the system down. That won't be true for long. The technical future is coming at an exponential rate. In the beginning, there is 1 machine that can suck, zap, rip, or whatever active verb you want to choose to put our books into a digital format.

In the 2nd generation, there are 4 machines,
plus the original 1 = 5 machines
In the 3rd generation, there are 9 machines,
plus the previous 5 = 14 machines
In the 4th generation, there are 16 machines,
plus the previous 14 = 20 machines
In the 5th generation, there are 25 machines,
plus the previous 20 = 45 machines

An important factor is the length of time between generations. For humans, a generation is reckoned to be about 25 years. Not so for electronic gizmos.

Moore’s Law (Gordon E. Moore, Intel co-founder, 1965 paper) first described the trend that transistors double in capacity roughly every two years. That trend has continued for more than fifty years and if it changes, is likely to go faster, not slower. iPod technology doubles roughly every 9 months. Electronic readers are likely to do the same.

So, if the first generation of electronic readers is happening now–did you have a Kindle in your Christmas stocking?—the second generation of digital readers could be on the market as early as September of 2008, the third June 2009, the fourth March 2010, and the fifth December 2010. That’s ten years before I thought I’d even get around to worrying about the digital rights problem.

Yes, yes, I know the drill. Your old eyes will never read an entire book on a screen. You love the feel, the smell, the weight of a real book. They will pry the printed book from your cold, dead fingers. As readers we can treat ourselves to those luxuries. As writers, we can't. If we don't start right now positioning ourselves in the digital world, by December 2010 it might be too late to save any of our books, past, present, or future.

*****
That’s enough personal opinions. It’s not too early to do research, learn some terminology, so we can follow what’s going to happen in the digital rights universe, and so we can begin to ask our agents and publshers, "Where do you stand on digital rights?"

The two links below are lengthy. The second one, in particular, has other links to about 6-10 related articles, and they are all worth looking at. So you might want to set aside a whole day some time soon to bone up on digital rights.

Good old Wikipedia. This will give you some background terminology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

The blog listed below, and the linked articles contained in the blog, gives the most complete summary of the digital rights issues that I’ve seen in a long time.
http://anthonystevens.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/piracy-technology-and-the-publishing-business/
________________

Instead of a writers’ quote this week, let me wish you a wonderful 2008. All good things to you and yours.

See you on the flip side.

A New Year, A Great Life

by Julia Buckley

Since the New Year begins tomorrow, I thought I'd share a sentiment that one of my neighbors sent me for my birthday (which was yesterday).

How To Make A Beautiful Life:

Love yourself.
MAKE PEACE with who you are
and where you are
at this moment in time.

Listen to your heart.
If you can't hear what it's saying
in this noisy world,
MAKE TIME for yourself.
Enjoy your own company.
Let your mind wander among the stars.

Try.
Take chances.
MAKE MISTAKES.
Life can be messy and confusing at times,
but it's also full of surprises.
The next rock in your path
might be a stepping stone.

Be happy.
When you don't have what you want,
want what you have.
MAKE DO.
That's a well-kept secret of contentment....

...if you ever get lost, don't worry.
The people who love you will find you.
Count on it.

I don't have an attribution--my neighbor said someone once gave her this poem. But I hope the words inspire you for 2008.

Happy New Year, everyone!

There's No Secret Like an Old Secret

Mitch Silver

Why are “history mysteries” so popular? I’m talking about the ones that take place wholly in the past (think The Name of the Rose) as well as the contemporary thrillers in which people are obsessed with righting (or wronging) history—does Da Vinci ring a bell?
I think it has a lot to do with the evolution of secrets.

Think about it. Thanks to Access Hollywood and the internet and the ubiquitous cellphone with its increasingly ubiquitous camera, we know it the minute Lindsay Lohan either checks out of or back into rehab. Should a Congressman “innocently” send a couple of emails to his male pages or tap someone’s toes in a bathroom, we’ll see him crying crocodile tears of remorse in time for Sunday’s Meet the Press. The half-life of a secret today, about one news cycle, makes us yearn for that old-time secrecy. At least I do.

Could people keep more and better secrets way back when? Could they ever! Let’s take American Presidents for $200, Alex. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the most admired woman in the world, his wife Eleanor. How long did it take for the story to get out about FDR’s affair with Lucy Mercer, the one that led Eleanor to offer him a divorce in 1919? 35 years. Or People’s Exhibit 2: Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie. How long did it take for rumors about his Army driver, Kay Summersby, to emerge? A mere 28 years. And it’s not just us. Secrets involving the death of the Russian royal family are still coming out, 90 years later.

When I set out to write In Secret Service,
in which Ian Fleming reveals to posterity something nasty that happened in World War II and unintentionally jeopardizes the life of a contemporary Yale art history professor named Amy Greenberg, it was in the strongly-held belief that the older the secret, the juicier it is. (Hmm, I guess that explains The Clan of the Cave Bear.)

Possibly you’re thinking this is all so much hide-and-seek instead of literature, and possibly it is. In the 19th century, reading was thought to be part of one’s moral education. In most of the 20th, it at least took us out of ourselves and showed us how we were all part of the Human Condition. In the 21st century, while there are still literary novels that become bestsellers, the blockbusters are often thrill rides on paper. (Of course, Eco’s wonderful book was both.)

In a funny way, the thriller has to do more now than the classic 20th Century mystery: they just had to hook us to step into their world and keep us there, thinking our way step by step with Hercule Poirot or Perry Mason or Inspector Maigret. Today’s thriller has to recreate in the reader what the characters’ autonomic nervous systems are going through: confusion, hurt, love, anger, fear, joy…a literary lie detector apparatus with a direct hook-up from the character—in my case, Amy Greenberg—to us. Who said it has to do this? We did…the reading public.

Maybe this is the Me Generation coming home to roost, the triumph of feeling over thought. All I’m suggesting is that, in this mass market section of the fictional world, the direction has gone from moral uplift straight down—about 27” down, from the brain to the pit of the stomach, from the cerebral to the visceral…because the nature of secrets has changed. Today we’re not just plagued with the sexual peccadillos of our heroes; violence and its aftermath are on every tabloid cover and local news promo. Things that used to happen—and stay—in secret are now our lingua franca.

Those who choose the thriller over its cousin the straight detective mystery make “sensation” the word of the day. Remember, the thriller isn’t a thriller unless it puts the problem-solver…the uncoverer of secrets…into personal jeopardy, with the threats coming from all directions. I think when we pick up a story with an historical angle, we’re trying to have it both ways: give me the rush of a right-this-moment thriller and the authenticity of a decades- or centuries-old secret waiting to be revealed.

Next time, it might be fun to discover how tricky it is to write a book that mixes real historical characters with made-up ones. Oh, did I say tricky? I meant fascinating.


Mitch Silver has been an advertising writer for several of the big New York ad agencies. In Secret Service (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster)is his first thriller. You can visit him at www.MitchSilverBooks.com.

Promoting a new book, what works, what doesn't?

I've been sidelined with a code in my node the last few days. Since the day after Christmas, to be precise. But the show must go on. Or the promotion of my new book, again, to be more precise. And to give you a just a smidge of an idea how "out of it" I've been, I slid in here just now in a panic because I thought it was Friday and I was hours late posting this. Checked the handy little date/time thingy on my computer, heaved a sigh of relief. It's only Thursday as I write this. It will hopefully be Friday when I post it. Where was I? Promotion. Ack.



My new book, FIFTY-SEVEN HEAVEN just came out fifteen days ago. So between decorating, Christmas shopping, wrapping gifts, hosting or attending parties, chewing vitamin C (which obviously didn't work, sniffle, snort) finishing up my financial records for my accountant (who doubles as my daughter-in-law) I've been squeezing in promoting/selling my new book (which is playing havoc with the aforementioned financial records, sigh.)



Promoting a book in December is a double-edged sword. People buy books for Christmas gifts. Which is good. People are short of book money for themselves. Which is bad. And everyone is busy, including me, which makes it tough to shift their attention to a new book coming out. And there are those pesky financial figures to turn over to my accountant-slash-DIL. My biggest problem is figuring out WHERE to promote. Which promotion does the most good?



I already had a website set up with loads of information about my other books when this new book in a whole new series came out. (The link is on the left, in case you're curious.) I also have a personal blog and I blog here on Poe's Deadly Daughters, when I can remember what day of the week it is. And, yes, I have received a necessary nudge once or twice from my Poe sisters to remind me. Hubby and I already belonged to a national car club, AACA and a local chapter as well, a huge help since the book is about a couple who own an antique car. I've put up my own virtual "garage" on Edmunds Car Space and they featured me in their newsletter this month. I'm also on CrimeSpace, Squidoo, MyShelf and MySpace. Whew. Fifty-Seven Heaven received several good reviews, including Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly. I emailed my faithful readers when the book came out. I've got copies in two stores in Metropolis, IL, where I live, Hummas and the Metro Chamber of Commerce. I'm on Amazon and B&N.com among others. I belong to a ton of discussion lists about mysteries. Busy, me?



Next up, I'm about to try a virtual tour. Visiting and posting on various websites that are willing to host me, to see if I can get the word out. My book will be the book of the month in February on Mystery Most Cozy, an online group that discusses Cozy Mysteries. I'm also scheduled for two conferences in February, Love Is Murder in Chicago and Murder In The Magic City in Birmingham. And I'll be hosting a launch in January at the Metropolis Library and a signing at the West Frankfort, IL library. In other words I'll be hard at it throughout 2008, promoting Fifty-Seven Heaven.



But what works? Which of these might possibly rocket me to fame and fortune? Or at least sell enough books so Five Star will want to publish book number two in the proposed series, which I've already written, with fingers firmly crossed. Who knows?



But the thing is, authors HAVE to promote themselves to sell books, because publishers no longer do it for them, except the REALLY BIG publishing houses that sign authors so well known they don't even NEED promotion. But we have to be extremely careful how we promote our books because an awful lot of people have limits to what they will or won't tollerate from an author in the way of promotion. Let me give you an example. I've been following a discussion on Sisters In Crime about problems authors run into at book store signings. But let me digress a bit first . . . .



Many passersby, in response to an author asking: Do you like mysteries? will respond: I don't read. Ooookay, we wonder to ourselves, what are you doing in a bookstore? But we're too polite, not to mention too smart, to ask it outloud. We authors been given to understand that we should stand up at our signings, not sit down, maybe offer candy of some sort to draw attention, have an interesting table, make eye contact, ask politely if the passersby likes mysteries, but NOT accost the reader and pin them up against the nearest bookshelf, forcing a copy of the book into their hands and demanding they read chapter one before they will be allowed to proceed any further through the store. Okay, I can understand that. I don't like it, but I understand it. Sniff.



The discussion I mentioned above centers around what an author should do when the reader buttonholes her/him and begins asking questions, effectively blocking the author's signing table and making it difficult for other buyers to nab a signed copy of the author's book. Solution to that? A friend or store manager to help out. IF you can get one. I have learned that bringing someone along to my signings to handle: money, stranger-than-usual passersby, and the table itself when I need a potty break is KEY to having any kind of book signing. Key.



Back to promotion in general. What in the varity of options works for an author? Internet presence (websites, blogs, discussion lists, newsletters, emailings)? Book store signings? Library appearances? Mailing out postcards or first chapters? Newsletters? Handing out bookmarks and chapters? Word of mouth?



So far as I can tell, and I'm no expert, they all work . . . to a degree. Word of mouth, someone buttonholing their friends with the words: You simply MUST read this book, I loved it. THAT is the very best promition of all, and it's something we have absolutely no control over, except for writing the best book possible. As for the other options, as I said, they do work, to a degree. The trick is to use them to make others aware of your books BUT somehow not overdoing it. Getting our name in the reader's mind but not getting in their face. It's tricky and a VERY fine line to walk. The author needs balance.



Soooo, DO any of you folks like to read mysteries? Chocolate covered cherries, anyone? What's that? Oh, yes, the bathroom is located right there, on the back wall of the book store. Thanks for stopping by. Anybody got a tissue?

Amateur Night

Elizabeth Zelvin

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous have a special name for New Year’s Eve. They call it Amateur Night. It’s the night when everybody else goes out and tries to behave like genuine drunks. Being amateurs, of course they fall short. They drink ghastly punch with sweet juices and chemical sodas and who knows what ill-conceived combination of hard liquor, cheap champagne, and cloying liqueurs thrown in. They throw up and pass out. No self-respecting alcoholic who values his or her sobriety would be caught dead out on Amateur Night. Who needs New Year’s Eve? As my protagonist Bruce says in Death Will Get You Sober, it’s a holiday with no traditions whatsoever, apart from getting blitzed and counting backwards from twelve. Glad to let everybody else make fools of themselves, they may stay home or drop in on one of the AA meeting marathons that offer round-the-clock support on major holidays to those who have chosen living over drinking.

Most working people get the holidays off, including Christmas and New Year’s. A friend of ours counted it as the busiest time of his working year. Was he a caterer? A salesman in a toy store? Nope. He was a blood tech in the emergency room of a hospital on Long Island. Around midnight, when his shift began, on Christmas Eve and again on New Year’s Eve, they would start wheeling in the bodies. An article that appeared on Automotive.com a few days before last New Year’s Eve says alcohol-related traffic deaths jump on New Year’s Eve and supports it with statistics.

Cars are not a big issue in Manhattan, where I live. But the noise on the streets long past midnight and the increased number of passengers being sick on the subway make New Year’s Eve a good time to stay home. Since the kids, now long grown up and moved out, started making their own plans for the evening, we’ve usually made ourselves an elegant dinner to eat by candlelight. Manhattan! you may say. Don’t you ever go to Times Square to watch the ball drop? Nope. Never. My son went once, I think it was his first year in college. Wisely, he neither asked my permission nor told me he’d gone till New Year’s Day. With typical city-kid aplomb, he reported: “It was one-third tourists, one-third college kids, and one-third muggers—and even the muggers were friendly.”

One reason to go out on New Year’s Eve in the past was that it was a rare opportunity to dress up, whether for a party or dinner in a fancy restaurant, in our increasingly dress-down culture. Since I became a mystery writer, I no longer need that excuse. The invitations to Mystery Writers of America’s annual holiday party and to the Edgars awards banquet in the spring, MWA’s answer to the Oscars, usually stipulate that we should “dress to kill.” And nobody even gets hurt.

So I’ve already attended my dress-up event for the season, and a few nights from now my husband and I will finish our delicious home-cooked meal, get into our jammies, and may or may not turn on the TV. And at midnight when the ball drops and all the frostbitten tourists (and college kids and muggers) sing Auld Lang Syne, we will probably be fast asleep.