Showing Up is Not Enough

Sharon Wildwind

Writing is great right now. I’m close to finishing the first draft of the next book. I’m in a great critique group. Words and ideas flow freely every morning.

The world being what it is, a time will come when both words and ideas temporarily stop flowing. I’m a great believer in the showing up is half the battle school of thought.  Twenty minutes of seat in the chair, fingers on the keyboard, either write or do nothing frequently kicks loose the word flow.

Sometimes showing up isn’t enough. We stop writing not because we’ve run out of words or ideas, but because we become toxic when we have too many words, ideas, and images. What we need is a proper detoxification. Here are some ways to rest and detoxify the word parts of our brain.

Stop reading. If you can, stop reading everything, except traffic signs, for one week. Julia Cameron recommends this in a couple of her books. I thought she was crazy, until I tried it, and then I realized she was smart.

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to take a complete reading break. If you’re in the position that you must read for work, do the minimum amount you can, and stop reading after you leave work.

Stop marketing. Yes, marketing is a part of life for writers, but not doing it for seven days is not going to bring the world crashing down around your ears. If a seven-day stop is out of your reach, try it for at least three days.

Turn off the television. I used to get very strange looks when I told people I didn’t have a television. The trend seems to be spreading. In the past month, I’ve met three people who also don’t have televisions. All seem to be doing well. Okay, so most of us, me including, are substituting viewing on computer, so let’s make this one a little more general: turn off whatever device you use to get what once was a television fix.

Sleep in an extra hour once a week. The world is organized into 24-hour cycles; our bodies are organized into 25-hour cycles. Eventually the difference builds up and we get cranky. Sleeping in an extra hour once a week appears to do something to close the gap between the cycles.

Do I need to mention start exercising or change your exercise routine, reduce the amount of caffeinated drinks, and drink more water. I thought not. We’ve all got those messages, right?

Here’s another water-related suggestion. Put your body in water more. In every group of writers where I’ve asked the question “What works when you’re having trouble writing?” the answers have always included taking a long bath, taking a shower, and washing dishes.

Play with colors and sounds. If you favor an art or craft, do it—paint a picture, make a quilt, string beads, and on. Do it without following a pattern. Dip your hand into your paint box, fabric scrap bag, or bead bin, pull out a handful of supplies, and start playing.

If you’re craft challenged, a coloring book and crayons or colored pencils works fine. I prefer the ones with geometric patterns rather than definite shapes. The same is true with sounds. Instrumental music works better (for me, and maybe for you) than vocals, unless the singing is in a language that I don’t understand.

Pay attention to dreams, both the sleeping and waking kind. See if you can find any recurring patterns or symbols in your night dreams.

Spend time thinking way back to when your desire to be a writer began. What was your writing dream? I’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect it didn’t including marketing, social media, deadlines, editing, or running the publishing marathon. As the late Waylon Jennings sang, maybe it’s time we got back to the basics of love.

Quote for the week

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so. 

~ Marcia Wieder, Founder and CEO of Dream University

Ten Things I Learned At High School Graduation

by Julia Buckley

More than 800 students processed onto the field.

When my son graduated yesterday, he did so with more than 800 classmates.  The event took place in the football stadium, where somewhere close to 1000 chairs had been set up for all those assembled.  The families sat in the bleachers.  Here are some things I learned after this nice (though rather impersonal and humid) event.

1. That hatred of bleachers I had, back when I was eighteen and forced to sit in them for pep rallies?  It's still around.  I think I must have terrible balance, because bleachers always make me feel as though I am about to be catapulted down onto the field, especially when everyone comes running down at the end of an event.

2. The National Anthem is a lovely song, especially when sung with heart by a senior drama major.

3. Even though they make that announcement at the beginning of graduation saying "Please don't yell out when your child's name is called, as it could prevent other parents from hearing their child's name," there are still PLENTY of people who are willing to scream loudly, ruining the moment for the people whose special name (or names) come during their caterwauling.

4. A graduation is an august event, but when the audience is sitting in football bleachers, they'll act like the crowd at a football game.

5. It is actually possible to read the names of 800 plus students in less than an hour.  It took about fifty minutes.

6. Speeches made at graduations (I've been to three this year) no longer celebrate academia. They are all about pop culture. Today one of the valedictorians quoted Albus Dumbledore, another quoted The Simpsons, and a third went with that graduation favorite, Dr. Seuss.  And one of them spent a surprising amount of time talking about cafeteria food.

7. Sometimes teenagers are more mature than are their parents.  I base this on the young people who sat politely through several graduation speeches, while the adults around me groused about the time it was taking.

8. I now know what it would look like if tiny people in a shoe box diorama graduated.  That was about the size of the graduates from our eagle's nest view (see photo above).

9. They might be phasing out the reading of middle names.  I went to graduations for both of my sons, and neither of the name readers included middle names.  It was sort of a disappointment.

My son (left) and a friend celebrate post graduation.  His school did not opt for caps and gowns.
The boys wore black suits with red ties; the girls wore white dresses.  This is school tradition.

10. Ernest Hemingway graduated from this same school in 1917.  He would not have approved of some of the long-winded writing in the administrator's speeches.  :)

Okay--graduations over!!  Now I am bound for my niece's wedding, and so begin the summer events.  Hopefully I'll get to read some good books as I travel hither and yon, and maybe do some good writing, as well.

What are you all up to this summer?

Maggie Sefton's Washington DC

Today Maggie Sefton talks about her hometown as a setting.

Whenever I watch movies that use my hometown, Washington, DC, as part of the setting, I get a kick out of seeing all the “set shots” the moviemakers use.  You know what I mean---a shot of the U.S. Capitol, shot of the Pentagon, shot of the White House, a panoramic view of tourists roaming around the Washington monument, black limos cruising nameless streets, black limos pulling into White House gates, talking heads inside limos, and so on.

For a lot of Americans, those are the only images they have of Washington, DC.  That’s why I always encourage people I meet in other states to visit their Nation’s Capital.  Explore it and enjoy.  The city is literally made to order for tourists.  Most of the important monuments and museums are located around The Mall so it’s easy to get around---and they’re free.  J  There’s even a Metro stop there (Smithsonian) , so people can leave their cars parked in the suburbs at a Metro parking garage and not bother with the awful---and it truly is awful---traffic. 

Like Paris, Washington, DC is a walk-able city.  Not surprising, since the City’s designer was Frenchman and supporter of our Revolution, Pierre L’Enfant.  People can safely wander a few blocks away from The Mall and explore Washington’s many cafes and shops. 

You can tell I’m a big booster of “my town,” and I love showing it off.  Since I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, a stone’s throw across the Potomac River, I have spent a lifetime wandering around Washington’s many streets and avenues, hidden corners and treasures.  Naturally, when I started writing the first in the Molly Malone Suspense trilogy, DEADLY POLITICS, which takes place in Washington, I included several of my favorite locales---picturesque Georgetown streets with their brick-paved sidewalks and Historic Registry homes; the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and towpath, which mules once trod 300 years ago; cafes along the Potomac and feasts of fresh seafood.  The characters roam all over these areas.

Molly Malone, the heroine-sleuth, has Washington, DC in her blood, having grown up the daughter of a U.S. Senator.  Mid-50s, Molly has seen it all in Washington politics--the cynics, the sincere, and the schemers.  But the brutal murder of her Congressional staffer niece brings Molly up close with Washington’s darker side.  “The beautiful monuments and parks are deceiving.  Washington can be ugly.”

Politics is a blood sport in Washington, DC, and only the strongest survive.  Like the politicians she’s rubbed shoulders with for a lifetime, Molly is smart and tough and savvy enough to stay out of trouble---most of the time.  However, trouble has a way of finding Molly.   You can read more about DEADLY POLITICS and see the great reviews at my website:  www.maggiesefton.com

Maggie Sefton is the author of the New York Times and Barnes & Noble Bestselling Kelly Flynn Knitting Mysteries.  The second in her Washington, DC-based suspense trilogy, POISONED POLITICS, will be out this August 2013.

Maggie Sefton on Dialogue and Character

Please welcome our weekend guest Maggie Sefton!

The 11^th in Maggie Sefton’s New York Times Bestselling Kelly Flynn Mystery series, CLOSE KNIT KILLER, was released  June 4^th.

CHARACTERIZING  WITH DIALOGUE  by  Maggie Sefton

Writing dialogue has always come easily for me.  I think it’s because I talk a lot.  J  Anyone who knows me would probably snicker, then agree.  I do enjoying talking with people.  Hey. . .I’m part Irish, so I come by that Gift of the Gab naturally. Gift or curse, I do enjoy conversation.  However, one of the things fiction writers quickly learn is that conversation is NOT dialogue.  Not in fiction.  Dialogue has to move the story along.

But Dialogue can also be used to help describe a character, so that person comes alive for the reader. Everyone has a way of speaking, a speech pattern of sorts, a rhythm.  Some speak in short staccato sentences.  Even one-word sentences.  Others use longer sentences, clauses, and phrases. . .and on and on.  Once characters  “walk onstage” in my head, then I can picture them.  But I don’t really know them until they open their mouths and start talking. 

After you’ve been with the character for a while, you can hear their voice in your head just like you see them in your mind. And that’s when you can transfer the character’s voice onto the page when you write.  Do they make jokes when they talk with others?  Are they excitable?  Are they bossy? Do they get mad easily?  Are they worriers by nature?  Are they calm and thoughtful?  Or, have a take charge personality?

There are characters with all those traits in my Kelly Flynn Mystery series set in the Rocky Mountains of Northern Colorado and involving the lively regulars at the  trendy knitting shop, Lambspun and other friends.  Last year’s hardcover release,  CAST ON, KILL OFF,  is now out in paperback, and I’ve used all of the above character traits to help the characters come alive for the readers:

“How could she do that so close to the wedding?” Megan shook the bag again, clearly indignant.  “Now she can’t fit into the dress!”  --Kelly’s friend, bride-to-be Megan, talking about her bridesmaid sister who just learned she’s pregnant. 

“Whooooooeeeeee, that sounds pretty bad.”  --Colorado cowgirl Jayleen Swinson, alpaca rancher, young 60, and fifteen years sober.

“Sounds like one bad hombre.” --Curt Stackhouse, silver-haired, barrel-chested Colorado cattle rancher.  (Both are talking about one of the murder suspects).

“Back off, Blondie!”  --Kelly Flynn, in the Sunset Saloon, a cowboy bar, where the groomsmen were partying, upon finding a tipsy girl hitting on her boyfriend Steve

Greg sneered.  “Feisty, huh?  Kelly eats feisty for breakfast.”  He dug out his wallet and dropped money into the hat.  “Twenty on the brunette.”  --Greg Carruthers, one of Kelly’s friends and a groomsman, betting on the action at the bar 

“Darlin’. . .you had me at ‘Back off!’” –Tall Cowboy in the saloon, on one knee, Stetson over his heart, trying to tempt Kelly away from Steve. 

As you can see, my motto with dialogue is “Go with the flow.”  By that, I mean the characters’ flow.  When they’re talking, my job is to write it down and keep MY mouth shut.  I do my best.  And. . .I know no shame.    You can read more about CAST ON, KILL OFF and the new release CLOSE KNIT KILLER at my website  www.maggiesefton.com 

Maggie Sefton is the author of the New York Times and Barnes & Noble Bestselling Kelly Flynn Knitting Mysteries.  The first in her new Washington, DC-based suspense trilogy, DEADLY POLITICS, was released in August 2012.  POISONED POLITICS will be out this August.

Please welcome our guest Edith Maxwell!

In keeping with the theme of this blog, I thought I'd write about my connection to Edgar  Allan Poe. When I mentioned this to Sheila, she said, “You have connections to POE?” Many thanks to her for inviting me over, and hope I don't disappoint!

Well, I'm not related to Poe. I don't own a first-edition of anything. I haven't even visited  his grave.

As a child, like my parents and my two older sisters, I was a voracious reader. We kids pretty much had free range of the extensive bookcases in the house. My mother loved reading mysteries, so after I finished off Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys,among other, I set to work on her Agatha Christies.

In about fourth grade I discovered a couple of other books that drew me in. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. And, you guessed it, a volume of Poe. I don't remember if it was Tales of Mystery and Imagination or some other edition.

I still shiver when I remember how these stories scared me. I was a child with a way-too-vivid imagination. I had nightmares. My mother didn't let me watch Twilight Zone on television. She became furious with a babysitter who let us watch a scary movie one night. But for some reason, she didn't monitor my reading content. Or maybe she was just too busy with my high-energy younger brother and managing a houseful of four children all less than two years apart to pay attention. So I happily read and read and reread these horrific frightening stories, flipping the pages with heart racing.

For years afterward, when I was alone in a quiet room, I could HEAR that heart beating under the floorboards. Even today when I enter an antique basement that includes bricked walls, I wonder if the Count is behind them. And, while I knew the ceiling over my bed was solid and intact during the day, I would lie in bed wide awake in the dark, knowing the speckled band was about to descend through the grate in the corner of the ceiling. I still can't watch horror movies.

But it's that kind of imagination that makes a mystery writer, right? When you see a black shape by the side of the road at dawn or twilight, don't you wonder if it's a body? (Even when you get closer and see that it's really a black trash bag?) When you hear about a poison, you wonder how you can work it into a story. When I'm walking the fields of a farm nearby, I can imagine the murder in the next Local Foods mystery, whether it's mayhem that contrasts with the lush green of a late spring morning, a killing in nature's autumnal senescence, or murder under cover of ice and snow as the fields rest during winter.

Here's a wonderful passage about imagination from “The Raven,” which I found captured on a glass at Kim Grey's gift shop in Baltimore after Malice Domestic last month:

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

What's your favorite scary story? Did you read Poe and  Holmes as a child? How does your imagination get carried away?

Locavore Edith Maxwell's Local Foods mysteries let her relive her days as an organic farmer in Massachusetts, although murder in the greenhouse is new. A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die releases May 28 from Kensington Publishing. A fourth-generation Californian, she has also published short stories of murderous revenge.

Edith Maxwell's pseudonym Tace Baker authored Speaking of Murder featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau and campus intrigue after her sexy star student is killed. Edith is a long-time Quaker and holds a long-unused doctorate in linguistics.

Edith lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and three cats. She can be found at www.edithmaxwell.com.

The Next Big Thing: 3D Printing

Elizabeth Zelvin

Synchronicity is the phenomenon in which after seeing or hearing about something you’ve never heard of before, you then see and hear about it everywhere. It’s been happening to me with 3D printing—or producing or constructing or “making.”

My husband, who uses high-end copiers in his job, went to an exhibition of the latest 3D technology a couple of weeks ago and spent part of his weekend home alone while I attended Malice Domestic visiting a store in New York where you can actually buy a 3D copier or “replicator”—a term long familiar to Star Trek fans—for the home.

Then yesterday I got an email from an old friend kvelling over the YouTube video of her son introducing the speaker at a design event about “the maker movement.” Practically the first words out of his mouth were: “With simple and affordable 3D design software... access to digital fabrication services, [and] desktop 3D printers, ‘makers’ are turning their home offices into home factories.”

On the face of it, this new technology is a good thing. The speaker my friend’s son introduced was the CEO of TechShop, which bills itself as “America’s first nationwide open access public workshop.” From the website: “TechShop is a playground for creativity. Part fabrication and prototyping studio, part hackerspace and part learning center, TechShop provides access to over $1 million worth of professional equipment and software...at TechShop you can explore the world of making in a collaborative and creative environment.”

Among the applications of 3D technology already in use is the making of relatively inexpensive prototypes of any kind of design. My husband brought home a cute little nut and bolt from the convention center exhibit (as at most conventions nowadays, there weren’t a whole lot of freebies) and a brightly colored expansion bracelet from the 3D store. Printed items listed on the site 3Ders.org include a robot that scoots along power lines checking for damage, individualized shoes in custom sizes, toys, high-performance bike parts, and fashion sunglasses.

Medical applications are also in use. An article on 3Ders.org describes how doctors are creating 3D-printed models of patients’ bone structure and organs to prepare for complex surgery. “Since the model is a facsimile of the patient's actual physiology, surgeons can use it to precisely shape metal inserts that fit along a patient's residual bone.” Even better, the patient spends less time in actual surgery, substantially reducing the risk of things going wrong.

As a mystery writer, the second I heard about 3D technology, I wondered whether—or when—it could be used to print a working gun that could be made at home and would defy metal detectors. Unfortunately, others have already thought of it. A May 5 article on 3Ders.org states:

“Defense Distributed showed off the world's first entirely 3D printed gun last Friday and announced its plan to publish the blueprints for ‘The Liberator’ on its blueprints archive Defcad.org this week.

“U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said this morning at a news conference in his Manhattan office that ‘this gun can fire regular bullets, and can accept silencers and other attachments,’ as he called for legislation to make building a gun using a 3D printer to be illegal.”

Like every innovation in history, this new technology can be used for good or ill, depending on what people choose to make of it both literally and figuratively.

In Praise of Standalones

by Sandra Parshall

Mystery writers hear it all the time: the surest route to success is with a series – characters that readers will grow to love and want to see again and again. Even the majority of thriller writers have taken this course (ex: Lee Child and his Jack Reacher novels).

That leaves readers like me, who love standalone suspense, with little to choose from. Yet a look at bestseller lists should tell us a vast audience for this kind of novel exists. Which author is about to celebrate a solid year in the top ten? Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, her third standalone. Its success has brought new sales of her first and second books, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. No one, to my knowledge, is clamoring to see 20 more books about any of Flynn’s characters. Instead, we’re dying see what unique creation she comes up with next.

Harlan Coben had a moderately successful series about sports agent Myron Bolitar. Then he wrote a standalone called Tell No One and became a #1 worldwide bestselling author. He’s written a string of standalones, all huge hits with readers. I tried his Bolitar books and couldn’t get interested. I never miss one of his standalones. Laura Lippman also broke out to greater fame when she began writing standalones.

As a reader, I’m not happy when a favorite author goes the other way, turning from single titles to a series, although as a writer I wouldn’t challenge someone else’s decision to take any direction that feels right. I loved the standalones by Nicci French, a pseudonymous husband/wife team, and I was disappointed when they started the Frieda Klein series about a quirky  psychotherapist who works with the police. In the first book, Blue Monday, the insomniac psychotherapist seems a cold and off-putting, not the sort of passionate protagonist I expected from a French novel. In the second, Tuesday’s Gone, Frieda seems warmer and we learn more about her, but the story is less a suspense novel than a police procedural.

Many series, of course, are popular and regularly make bestselling lists. Even those that aren’t bestsellers (such as mine) have their devoted fans who want them to go on forever. However, when a series continues indefinitely – book 15 or 20 or beyond – fans may tire of the characters and the plots may seem increasingly unrealistic. Readers begin to skip books, then stop reading the series altogether. 

Among the authors who have kept their long-running series fresh, Margaret Maron stands out as a shining example. Her characters have grown older, their lives have evolved, and they are never boring. The Buzzard Table, #18 in the Deborah Knott series, is one of the best. Karin Slaughter has held onto most of her fans, myself among them, by making drastic changes in her characters’ lives and merging two series. A few fans may be unhappy, but her sales have never been better. I never miss one of her books and have usually read each one without a week or two of publication. I also read several other series that have held up well.

Standalones, though, have an attraction all their own. The author captures the protagonist at a crisis point, undergoing the most dramatic experience of his or her life. We know the character's life will never be the same after the events of the book.

I've found several new favorite authors of single title suspense in the past couple of years. I was hooked by Still Missing, the first novel by Chevy Stevens, and also loved the second, Never Knowing. Her third, Always Watching, comes out in the U.S. on June 18, and I will grab it as soon as I can. The first standalone by Elizabeth Haynes, Into the Darkest Corner, was unforgettable. Her second, Dark Tide, was radically different and equally absorbing. Her third, Human Remains, will be out in August. S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep is phenomenal (and it's being made into a film starring Nicole Kidman).

These authors produce what I love most: unique stories of psychological suspense. That intimate emotional intensity is nearly impossible to sustain in a long-running series without making the protagonist look like a basket case with the world’s worst luck. In a series, the writer has to move outside the protagonist, building a story out of external elements. A series can be tremendously satisfying for both author and reader, but it’s not the same type of storytelling that’s needed in a standalone.

I intended my first published novel, The Heat of the Moon, to be standalone suspense. It’s intense, personal, and told in first person by Rachel Goddard. To build a series around Rachel, I moved her to a new environment, switched to third person, added the viewpoint of Tom Bridger, a Sheriff’s Department investigator, and began writing murder mysteries with strong suspense/thriller elements.

But I’ve never lost the desire to write what I love most to read: standalone psychological suspense. And one of these days, probably after I finish the Rachel mystery I’m working on now, I will do just that.

Content Management Systems are In

Sharon Wildwind

Last week I mentioned I’d been to computer camp and gotten the T-shirt. I was a little nervous going to camp. Would I be able to understand what was being said? Would people think I was dumb if I didn’t understand?

In fact, I understood most of it, and I heard some very interesting discussion around the perennial question:

Do I really need …? (a blog, a website, social media, photo site, etc.)

That’s like asking what’s more important in my car: tires, gas, oil, fuel pump, etc. Everything is essential for running the car, but things become more or less important at certain times. If my gas gauge is on Empty and that annoying low-fuel light is on, I worry more about where is the nearest service station than whether I have windshield washer fluid. If it’s ten-below and snowing, snow tires and antifreeze are more on my mind than they are in July.

There are a lot of unfunny jokes that link women, cars, and stupidity. People learn to ask intelligent car questions because being able to have a meaningful conversation with their mechanic is as important to them as having meaningful conversations with their banker, doctor, or their child’s teacher. We need to learn to ask intelligent Internet questions as well.

Content Management System is the new umbrella term for focusing on getting our messages out. The question is no longer, “Do I have to have X?” but rather “What is X good at and how does that fit the message I want to get out?”

What do we need to know about the basics of an on-line presence? This is a starter kit. We all need at least a nodding acquaintance with (listed alphabetically):

• Creative Commons
• Facebook
• Goodreads
• Google +, Google Analytics, and Google Authorship (3 separate sites, all related to Google services)
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• RSS Readers
• Twitter, Bit.ly, Nestivity, and CommunIt (4 separate sites, all related to using Twitter)
• WordPress or Blogger (2 examples of blogging/web site software. There are others.)

 Don’t trust family or friends for word-of-mouth information about these services. Type in the names listed above. Find their main page. Many of them have videos or other tutorials that will explain what this service does. Also take a look at their terms of agreement, privacy, and security pages. There should be easy-to-find links to those pages. What we’re doing is building a data base of what social media possibilities in order to get the best match to get out message out.

If I had to pick one paragraph to describe our relationship, as authors, to social media, the next one is it.

As authors with an on-line presence, we can't afford to dismiss something because we don't "get it." At the very least, we need to do some data collection. We need to become very good at moving the fear line. We must do things that make us uncomfortable. Whatever we do, we develop relationships. We fail early and often, aiming for progress rather than perfection. The more we can know, like, and trust other people, the better our chances of survival. 

What about metrics?

Getting our message out is half the circle. Getting feedback is the other half, and that’s where metrics comes in.

Knowing how many visitors came to our Content Management Site is useless because it’s not how many come, it’s what they do once they get there.

A bounce is a two-second visit. A bounce may means that what contacted our CSM was a robot. Or someone realized very quickly they were in the wrong site. I do blackwork embroidery, and the term blackwork is also a tattoo term. If I reach a tattoo site, I bounce. If I reach an embroidery site, I stick around. Not that there is a thing wrong with tattoo sites; they just aren’t what I’m looking for. A third reason visitors bounce is that the initial impression is the site is boring or too complicated.

If we’re getting a lot of bounces either something is directing people to the wrong site or our site looks uninteresting. Programs like Google Analytics, JetPack, and Visitor Flow can tell you huge amount of useful information about what happens when someone visits your site.

And above all, here’s another quote from Chris Garrett, this one about on-line safety, which is something we can all use.

Quote for the week

I quickly learned to draw strong boundaries about how much personal information I put on line. Once you put something on the Internet it’s there forever. You might not be able to find it, but someone can. There is this strange phenomenon where the crazier the person, the more he can find.

~Chris Garrett, author and computer smart guy, 2013 May 25

Which Literary Character Are You?

I am busy this weekend and today (graduation day!), so I thought I'd share a fun quiz for book lovers rather than write a long blog post.

Abe books has come up with a terrific quiz to help you determine which literary character has a sensibility most closely aligned with yours.

I took the quiz, and I was told that I am Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter books.  Not bad!  I certainly admired Hermione and her passionate defense of the downtrodden throughout that seven-book series.

Give it a try! The quiz only takes a minute.  I'd love to hear which character you are.

Here's the quiz: http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Community/Featured/LiteraryCharacterQuiz/character-quiz.shtml

Share your results!

(Image link here).

Cover Story

Many readers believe authors choose their own book covers, but that happens only when the books are self-published. The freedom to make such design decisions is one reason so many writers are drawn to self-publishing. When we go the traditional route, selling our work to print publishers, we might be asked for our opinion or we might be kept out of the cover process entirely. Either way, the publisher makes the final choice. Sometimes we're happy with that choice. Sometimes we're not. Here are the Deadly Daughters' book jackets, with our cover stories.If you're intrigued by what you see, we hope you'll add some of our books to your summer reading list.

Elizabeth Zelvin

 

Here are the covers of the three hardcovers in my mystery series featuring recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler. David Rotstein, the brilliant art director at St. Martin's, designed the first two, and yes, they really took a gun and shot the glass. I took the picture on the third myself, bringing a bloody hand I'd bought online to a beach in the Hamptons. Following them: The first two covers in an e-book edition of the series, to include all three novels and a newly published novella. The e-book covers all carry out a single theme and were designed to look good as images the size of a postage stamp.

Julia Buckley

 

I love all of my covers!  The first one, THE DARK BACKWARD, was designed by the artists at Midnight Ink and remains one of my most stylish book covers. The next three are my Madeline Mann mystery trio, and they were all designed by Kelly Banos, a talented graphic artist.

THE GHOSTS OF LOVELY WOMEN was designed by Ivan Diaz, a Chicago artist and director.  COUNTERPLAY, a romantic suspense novel, was also designed by Kelly Banos.  And GINEVRA BOND, my YA novel, was designed by me!  And my niece Katie agreed to pose for the cover.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that ALL of the above books are available on Kindle.  : )

Sheila Connolly

I've been extraordinarily lucky with the covers I've been given, and the designers (most of whom I can't identify--my apologies to those talented people) have even occasionally listened to my comments! Here's the last year's worth:

I'm sure you can tell immediately which ones are not a cozy! (Rising of the Moon is a short story, An Open Book is a longish short story, and Once She Knew and Relatively Dead are a standalone ebooks.)

Jeri Westerson

I adore my covers. St. Martin's started out with a generic historical novel sort of cover that no one at the publisher seemed to like. They "ran out of time" was the excuse. So the hardcover looked like this:

But after a kurfuffle with the paperback people at Griffin (the folks who do the St. Martin's paperbacks), and who hated the cover and wouldn't do a paperback unless the art was changed, the ball got rolling and I was actually consulted (since that often doesn't happen for midlist authors. You are presented with a cover, and good luck to you on this most important of ventures). I said that since the stories are so character-centered on my ex-knight turned detective, that the cover should at least show him, perhaps shadowy, in a medieval London setting. So they hired photographer Steve Gardner, found a suitable model, put him in the right costume (colors and all!), shot him in various poses, and Photoshopped him into various medieval backgrounds. They've been using them ever since and they are killer!

I can only hope when Crispin finds a home with a new publisher that they will be just as creative. To me and as a graphic artist myself, covers count a lot. They tell the reader ahead of time the kind of quality they can expect between the covers and should convey something of the tone and plot. We can only wait and see.

Sandra Parshall

Being asked for ideas for a cover can lead to writerly frustration. You start creating a cover in your head, you fall in love with it, and when the artist's work shows up in your inbox it will almost certainly be nothing like the mental image you have come to cherish. I would have been delighted with any kind of cover for my first book, The Heat of the Moon, as long as it had my name on it. But I have to confess I find the Japanese cover more evocative. (See if you can figure out which one that is.) I loved the cover of Disturbing the Dead, which begins with the discovery of a skeleton on a snow-covered mountaintop. The cover art is perfect. The Broken Places cover is a powerful image -- if you have the book in your hands. On a computer screen, at thumbnail size, it's meaningless. I was not, and am not, in love with the cover of Under the Dog Star. But with Bleeding Through, a miracle occurred: I described the sort of cover I imagined, and lo and behold, the artist gave it to me -- and on the first try too. Thank you, Patrick. I love it.

Sharon Wildwind 

 

Artist: Dierdre Wait of High Pines Creative

I am delighted to thank Diedre, who did all of these covers. She is a talented woman who was a joy to work with. I sent a photo mock-up for each cover. Four of the five were really close to what I'd envisioned. Each time it was so exciting to see what had started as a bit of table-top photography in my living room become a finished cover. There was a photo copyright question for Soldier on the Porch and Diedre came up with a clever work around it.