If Only I Had More Time

What I'm reading: Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, by Temple Grandin (book club)

A common enough lament: If only I had more time. What if someone gave you an entire extra day?

On Wednesday, we're all getting that gift. Is it going to be just another day for you, or are you going to embrace the extra time?

I know my editor promised to have my manuscript back to me today. I'm obligated to have it published no later than March 14th. In effect, I've been given an extra day to work on editing, formatting, and making sure it's perfect before I hit that "upload" button at Barnes & Noble.

Welcome to the Art Department

What I'm reading: Man Law, by Adrienne Giordano (Nook); Explosive Eighteen, by Janet Evanovich (Library) Contest book #6 of 8

First – check the sidebar and/or the Deals and Steals tab. Amazon has cut the price of WHERE DANGER HIDES in half. Don't know why, don't know for how long. But it's definitely a bargain price for a hard cover.

The manuscript for my third Pine Hills Police book is done. At least my part for round one. It's now in the hands of my editor. Because the book is the third in a previously published series, I knew there would be no chance that a traditional publisher would want to pick it up, so it's an Indie job from start to finish.

Now, if I did have a traditional publisher, at this point, they'd be working on a cover. They'd be deciding whether my working title actually worked. There might be some give and take, but ultimately, those decisions are theirs.

But I have to be my own marketing department, and my own art department. With a publisher, I'd have filled out a cover request form summarizing the plot, describing the characters, suggesting "looks" I liked or didn't like. Then, some time down the road, they'd send me the image and say, "This is your cover." And, for the record, it's unusual for them to make changes unless they've spelled your name wrong, or you can convince them that your book is set in Oregon, and cactus on the cover won't work.

Life is a First Draft

Hop on over to "Life is a First Draft" blog where I'm part of Rebecca J Clark's "Friday Firsts"

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It's a Marathon, not a Sprint

Tomorrow, daughter #1, Hubster and I are heading out for Tempe, Arizona, where daughter #2 (by 3 minutes) will be competing in her first official Iron Man triathlon.

She's been training for triathlons for a couple of years now. She started by joining Team in Training to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She thought she'd give it that year, but went on for another year, this time as a coach. That grew into her setting up her own business, NEO Endurance Sports as a coach for endurance athletes. (And yes, there's a writing tie-in, so please keep reading)

During that time, she ran her first full marathon. That's over 26 miles, for those who might not be familiar with the distance. And, the first marathon runner died at the end. Not something a mom likes hearing when her child says she's going to run that distance.

Nicole finished the race, and said she'd probably never do it again—she just wanted to prove she could. You can imagine my surprise last year when she said she'd signed up for the Arizona Iron Man. She's going to run a full marathon AFTER she swims over 2 miles and bikes 112 miles.

How did she prepare for this? Slowly. Gradually increasing distances, doing more workouts (even if it means getting up 2 hours early—she has a full time job and husband as well), and totally changing her eating habits. This was the child who existed on bread and potatoes, with the occasional ear of corn. Her idea of a green vegetable was canned green beans. Now she's making and eating things like kale, and adding veggies to every meal. According to her records, since January 1st, she's spent 200 hours on her bike logging 3115 miles, 108 hours have been spent running 568 miles, and 293,451 yards were swum over 125 hours.

As writers, especially those of us stepping into the world of indie publishing, it behooves us to remember that we're entering a marathon. We see authors like J.A. Konrath, Bob Mayer, or Barry Eisler who are bringing in huge sums of money. But these authors started in traditional publishing and came in with their established brands and followings.

Do You Need a Dead Body?

What I'm reading: Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues, by Michael Brandman

I've hit Milestone #1 in my giveaway. You can't win unless you enter, so check the Deals & Steals tab.

Last week, on The Graveyard Shift, Lee Lofland shared some important information about property crimes, and how patrol officers work to solve them. He presented a lot of good information, including how useful fingerprints are (usually they aren't), and how people talk to cops. Take a minute to read it here.

But my takeaway from his post, and one that was followed up in the comments of the post, was that there's a lot of police work that has nothing to do with solving homicides. If you tell someone you write mysteries, odds are pretty good they automatically hear "murder mystery."

Can't you have a mystery that doesn't include a dead body? There are certainly enough other crimes out there, and they'll impact the lives of your characters even if nobody dies. And for me, it's always about the characters.

When I wrote FINDING SARAH, I thought it was going to be a mystery. But it began with a robbery (Anyone know the difference between a burglary and a robbery? The terms aren't interchangeable.) which brought a detective onto the scene. Now, maybe I got away without having the detective solve a murder because I discovered, thanks to my beta-reading daughters, that I was really writing a romance.

Last Day to Save!

Today is the LAST day to save 50% on FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE at Smashwords.

Click the Deals & Steals tab above for links and codes.

Also, only 5 more Google Connect followers until I'll give away some books. New or gently read. I need to make room for more.

Mystery or Suspense..or Romance?

What I'm reading: The Sentry, by Robert Crais

I've noticed a fair number of recent blog posts offering tips about writing compelling suspense. They were all good, except I don't really like suspense. I'm a mystery fan, first and foremost.

Often we see the two genres combined—it's not unusual to see "mystery/suspense" as a category. But they're not the same. According to the dictionary, suspense is a state of uncertainty, enjoyable tension, or anxiety. A mystery is something you cannot explain, or don't know anything about. It's easy to see how they overlap. But there are distinct differences.

Let's take a look at both:

In a mystery, the reader follows a step behind the detective/protagonist as he or she solves the crime. The reader doesn't know anything until the protagonist does. Normally, the crime has already happened, and the detective has to figure out who did it. Mysteries are puzzles.

Rooted in Danger

Don't forget to leave a comment on Lynn Rush's Tuesday post to be entered in her drawing.

Normally, I eschew promotion on this blog, but one of the perks of being the blog owner is that I can break the rules. And since I'm in marketing mode, I'm still working on garnering 500 followers and 250 likes--and check the Deals & Steals tab for how to get FINDING SARAH & HIDDEN FIRE at half off.

Today, I'm unveiling the cover for my next Blackthorne, Inc. novel, ROOTED IN DANGER. Although the release date isn't until April of 2012, seeing the artwork makes things seem real.

When I wrote WHERE DANGER HIDES, Fozzie (Foster Mayhew) had a slightly larger role than his brief appearance at the end of WHEN DANGER CALLS. I didn't know much about him in that first book, and learned a bit more in the second. I knew he was Aussie, cocky, and circling in a helo, could spot the fleas on a squirrel's balls from five hundred feet. Just as I'd needed to know more about Dalton when I wrote WHERE DANGER HIDES, Fozzie demanded I tell his story. So, I did.

Here's the blurb for the book.

More to Publishing than Writing

What I'm reading: New York to Dallas, by JD Robb

Writing, especially if you're going the indie route, requires a lot of non-writing stuff.

When I got the rights back to my Pine Hills Police novels, FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE, and I decided to consolidate the 4 short stories featuring Randy and Sarah into a single volume, FINDING FIRE. (Title suggested by Facebook friend, author Lev Raphael, when I asked for suggestions. I think he blended the two titles very nicely, don't you ?)

If you recall an earlier post, when rights revert, the covers aren't included, so I had to get new covers for FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE. Thanks to Jessica's efforts, and my sister-in-law's photography, there's a new cover for FINDING FIRE that fits right in with the other two books.

Then it's a matter of formatting. Each sales venue requires slight modifications, so you have to make sure you're linking the Barnes & Noble books to your Barnes & Noble page, not your Amazon page. Formatting the actual text for Amazon, B&N and Smashwords is simple, but All Romance eBooks requires that you do your own conversions for the various formats. I used Calibre, which isn't too complicated, but it's still time consuming to create 4 or 5 formats for 3 different books.

Reversion of Rights - You Can Fix Things

What I'm reading: Part of the Bargain by Linda Lael Miller

After a long wait, I finally got a reversion of rights date for FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE. As of Wednesday, they will be mine. It should be noted that when you get the rights to a book back, all you "own" is what's between the covers, not the covers. So, I hired a cover artist and this is the new look. I'm trying to call attention to the fact that these two books are connected, so we went for a similar look in both. My sister-in-law provided the main cover image for FINDING SARAH and my son, whom many of you have met here, provided the image for HIDDEN FIRE.


Why did I ask for my rights back? Bottom line: the books weren't doing anything for me (or the publisher, I would assume). About 18 months ago, one of my publishers "remaindered" my first Blackthorne, Inc. book, WHEN DANGER CALLS. The rights reverted to me, and I thought I'd give indie publishing a try. E-books were nothing new to me; my other publishers had been e-book first publishers.

So, I tackled the learning curve for putting books on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and a few other sites. I discovered that although I wasn't raking in the bucks, I was making some sales.

When Ellora's Cave said they were closing down their Cerridwen Press line, and were moving those books into the EC umbrella under the "Blush" imprint, I decided to take the rights back to WHAT'S IN A NAME? but to leave FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE there, to see if sales would be better under Blush. Meanwhile, I re-published WHAT'S IN A NAME? myself, along with a few short stories.

Cerridwen Press Clearance Sale

As I mentioned earlier, Cerridwen Press is undergoing a major overhaul, and the imprint will disappear in January, being replaced by Ellora's Cave Blush. Here's your chance to take advantage of their clearance sale. HIDDEN FIRE in trade paperback, which was priced at $18.99 is now on clearance for $3.00. Take advantage of the limited supply -- these books could become collector's items.

NOTE: I've noticed issued with the link not showing the $3.00 price. I've put in a "what's going on?" email to the publisher, and as soon as I hear from them, I'll let you know.

Buy it here.

Getting the Setting

Last day to enter my contest! Click the tab for details.

Right now, we're experiencing the change seasons, something that was so subtle in Orlando, that I always said there were two seasons there: Summer and February 3rd. But as I type this, I'm looking out the window at the aspen trees.


They've been going from green to gold over the last week, standing out in stark contrast to the dark green pines. Not long ago, they were just getting their leaves.

Setting. I love being in the book with the characters. I may not have ever been to that location, but I want to think that if I ever did visit that locale, it would feel like I'm coming back to somewhere I've been.

When we left Los Angeles for Miami back in the dark ages, the television show CHiPs was popular. (Note-I didn't say it was good). We watched it primarily to get glimpses of the city we'd just left. We also laughed at the way Ponch and John would bike from San Pedro to the San Fernando Valley in a matter of minutes.

Launch Party - Refreshments!

What's a party with out food?

I've got some Nanaimo bars on the buffet. Graham baked 3 kinds of cookies: butterscotch chip, double chocolate chip, and lemon bars. If we ask nicely, he might bake some brownies too. Colleen doesn't cook much, but she's got all the fixings for some good coffee—whipped cream, cinnamon sticks, and chocolate sprinkles. Randy from Finding Sarah and Hidden Fire came all the way from Oregon with his cherry pie—just like his grandmother taught him to make.

And on the warming trays, Sarah has some of her pasta featuring her old-family recipe spaghetti sauce. Kelli, from What's in a Name? has her chicken with orange-mustard sauce. (Blake wants everyone to know he helped!)

Frankie from When Danger Calls has a tureen of tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwich wedges.

So – what are you contributing to the virtual food spread? Let us know—and be entered in the drawings!

Which Way Next?

What I’m reading: Smash Cut by Sandra Brown

How much should you plan ahead? One of the first thing you learn when you’re starting out is that nothing moves fast. You spend months—maybe longer—getting the manuscript ready to submit. Then it’s time for queries. Agents might have response times of weeks or more for a query. You’re lucky; you get a request for a partial. There’s another month or more waiting for a response. Lucky again; you get a request for a full. Tick, tick, tick.

What do you do while you’re in the midst of this waiting game? Write the next book. Ah, but there’s the rub. What do you write? There’s no guarantee book 1 will sell, much less a series, or a spin-off, based on it.

After I wrote When Danger Calls, one of the secondary characters wanted his turn front and center, so I started writing Dalton’s book. When I got an agent, she suggested we make it stand alone, so I had to go back and make sure there was nothing the depended on a reader having read the first book. Publishers often don’t want to buy book 2 in a series. So, while she was shopping the manuscript around, what was I doing? Writing another book. I took a hiatus from the Blackthorne, Inc. world and wrote Hidden Fire, the sequel to Finding Sarah.

Friday Field Trip - Northern California

When writing, setting is as much a part of the book as the characters. Often it becomes a character. A few years back, the hubster had a meeting at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California. This region gets a lot of rain. My intent was to sit in our hotel room, which was way out in the middle of nowhere, and write. But, the sun kept shining. I figured I'd take advantage of the good weather and write the next day, and the next. We had no rain, only sun. Although I didn't write much, I did see some great scenery, much of which turned up in Hidden Fire, when Randy's investigation brought him to, coincidentally, the exact same locations I'd visited.

Bodega Bay, (which looks a lot like the spot where Randy admired the view)




Old Town in Eureka, where Randy & Sarah questioned an art gallery worker.

Plotting a Workshop on Plotting- Phase 3

Welcome Home! I hope everyone enjoyed their sojourn to the Giant's Causeway. Thanks again, Jessica.

Carrying on from last Thursday.

As I mentioned, the group I'm addressing is a Romance Writers of America chapter, so using my plotting board for my mystery didn't seem as appropriate as using one of my romantic suspenses. And since I'm using Hidden Fire, which is a romantic suspense, not a mystery, the book is actually much more complex. Why?

Because a romance, by "convention" must include two protagonists, often almost equal in weight. Readers want to connect with both characters, so there are two character arcs to deal with. Then, there's (of course) the romance plot. And in romantic suspense, there's the suspense (or in my books, the mystery) plot.

What I discovered was that the plots were tightly interwoven, so most scenes covered more than one of the basic sub-plots, which is the way it should be. However, I really have no recollection of doing this consciously as I wrote the book.

For example, the book opens with a scene in a restaurant. Randy and Sarah are having dinner after 6 weeks apart. They finish eating, decide to continue the evening at Sarah's apartment. Before they get there, Randy gets a call, and he goes to work.

A simple relationship scene, right? Mainly, but it goes deeper than that.

A Non-Plotter Plots a Workshop

For the last few days, I've been working on putting together my workshop for the First Coast Romance Writer's February 13th meeting in Jacksonville. (Which is scary enough, because they're billing me as an "award winning author". That's not a lie, but my awards aren't exactly the equivalents of the Oscars or Golden Globes.) And speaking of awards, I seem to have garnered a couple more blog awards, which I'll address in a future post.

The group asked me to speak on the way I plot, which followers of this blog will know is very loosely. In addition, by now you should be aware of my dislike of spoilers. I don't want to know what's going to happen until it happens.


My preference for the workshop would be to have an informal chat, a little brainstorming, and chat about what other folks use for their plotting. I think back to my school teaching days, and of lesson plans, which sends a shiver down my spine. I tended to teach by discussing, questions – more the Socratic method, since I was teaching junior high Science, and trying to lecture to those human bags of hormones was a guarantee to elicit the eyes-glazing over syndrome.

Monday Fun

What I'm reading: Monkeewrench, by P.J. Tracy; Dare to Return, by Tracy Cooper-Posey

I've mailed my edits to my editor. We'll see what she thinks. I took a day off from working on my current manuscript to unwind as well as to regroup and pick up with the other plot and characters. I admire anyone who can work on two projects at once. I find I have to immerse myself in a single story, or else my plots and characters start getting intertwined. My crit partners have had to point out I've used the wrong hero's name--more than once! So, Graham and Colleen are packed away, and it's back to Gordon, Megan and Justin.

I found some fun stuff while I was goofing off (and it's a good think I didn't find these sites on a 'work' day, or I'd have goofed off then, too.)

First, some fun with words: Wordle creates a word collage (or is it a montage?) from anything you plug in. I plugged in the URL to this blog, and this is what I got. (If you click on the image, you can see it enlarged.) You can play with colors, fonts, orientation -- like I said: too much fun.



Keep Reading...

Then, I found another site, Jigsaw Planet, where I spent even more time playing and creating. Click on the book cover image and see what happens.

I made puzzles for a few of my covers, plus some easy ones for my grandson.

Next, a cartoon sent by my friend who sees no point to any Social Networking. Given I've got a book signing scheduled for November 7th, I thought it was worth sharing here.




And, last, I'd like to share this recipe. Anyone else remember George Burns and Gracie Allen? (Say Good night, Gracie."



This is her recipe for pot roast:

Gracie Allen's Classic Recipe for Roast Beef

1 large Roast of beef
1 small Roast of beef

Take the two roasts and put them in the oven.
When the little one burns, the big one is done

Tomorrow, my guest is someone near and dear: my son, the photographer. He recently led a group of photographer to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Trust me, you won't want to miss his pictures.

Day Brighteners

What I'm reading: Gone Tomorrow, by Lee Child

First – welcome to some new blog followers! Sassy, Cheeky, Mirjana & Heather: glad you're aboard.

Being caught up in all the changes we're facing lately, I'd forgotten my New Year's goal to look more to the positive. I realized I'd been dwelling too much on all the things that weren't happening.

No action on our house yet. But the Realtor sent his stats and said the web hits through the MLS service and realtor.com were above average. Think positive. Eventually, one will pan out.

Only one more month of paychecks. But we met with our financial advisor, and he said our retirement investment planning would cover the money we need to live, and it wouldn't depend on me getting a six-figure advance for a book.

Keep Reading...

Which leads to: No book deals, and since I no longer have an agent, I don't have the same access to getting another book sold. Moments of doubt creep in. Am I still allowed to call myself a writer? But then I got my first-round edits from my new editor, who'd said she had very few changed. I had a momentary panic attack when I saw all those comments and insertion/deletion notes in the right margin of the manuscript. What would the manuscript have looked like if she had more than a few? And this was for an 8K word short story.

However, after taking that deep breath and looking at her notes, most were changes because of publisher style preferences. Right or wrong—well, there is no 'wrong.' That's their style, and they call those shots. My dictionary insists Internet is a proper noun, and should be capitalized, but if they're going to change it to lower case, it's not worth arguing. This publisher says no spaces before or after ellipses. My other publisher wants them.

Side note: when you see "mistakes" in books, often times the author has no control over them.

And who knew thermos was trademarked? I know about Dumptsers and Kleenex and Jell-O, but thermos? It doesn't need to be capitalized, but house rules say it has to be acknowledged.

Almost all of the rest of those red boxes in the margin said things like, "LOL" or ROFLMAO" or "good line." I felt like a writer again.

I'm not going to make a penny, at least not directly, on this short story, as it will be a Free Read. What I can hope is that readers enjoy seeing a totally different side of me, and that because the story involves the characters from Finding Sarah and Hidden Fire, they might be enticed enough to buy those books.

Another validation that maybe I'm still a writer. I got an unsolicited e-mail last night requesting my participation in a "Meet the Author" event at a local library.

And, perhaps the best of all. This morning, one of the Y regulars waved to me from her elliptical machine and hollered, "I loved it!" She'd been reading Hidden Fire.

Oh, and hubby seems to be moving into this retirement thing. He's still on half days, but instead of doing work-related things and hanging around his computer all morning, this morning he said he was going fishing!

Come back tomorrow. Homicide-Hussey's next chapter is entitled "Afternoon Delight." I'm not saying anything more.

Uncertainty

What I'm reading: Heart of the Wolf, by Terry Spear

First, thanks to hubby for finding time to write yesterday's blog, and to provide all the videos. Anyone who knows him at all would find the reference to the strapless evening gown a no-brainer. He's even got the book (and yes, it made the 'save' pile during the clutter clearing).

Uncertainty. We followed all the 'rules' the Realtor set out. We met the Realtor's deadline for having the house ready to show. It's on the MLS site. There's a lockbox on the front door. But that doesn't mean we can relax and resume our normal lives. No, we have to remember to forward our phones when we go out. And when we go out for any length of time, we have to leave the house 'showable' just in case a Realtor brings a potential buyer without calling first. Or we can't get back in time to make sure everything is put away properly, because we're at the movies watching Star Trek.

Keep Reading...

Keeping a house neat and clean is one thing. But finding the compromises that allow you to live a normal life at the same time will take some getting used to. Things we leave on counters or tables because it's convenient to have them handy aren't 'acceptable' for best viewing. Lights need to be left on (hate what that's going to do to our electric bill), because we don't want Realtor's trying to figure out which switch turns on which light. Some of our paddle fan lights are switched at the wall; others have pull chains.

One of the things we did when we cleared away a POD load of clutter was create some empty cabinets where we can stash stuff to get it out of sight at a moment's notice. It's just remembering to do it all before running errands on the off chance someone might come by.

Today I found myself at the store buying things like cookie dough in case we have enough notice to bake a few cookies for enticing aromas. And Moroccan scented air-freshener (supposed to be like a spice bazaar, but I beg to differ) in case we don't.

Another challenge. If someone wants to show the house, we're not supposed to be here. Hubby's spending a lot of time at the office, and he has a very casual dress code. (There isn't one; he wears shorts, t-shirts and Tevas). I, on the other hand, will go to the Y, work out, come home, have breakfast, hit my blog stops, have another cup of coffee, and take care of basic household bookkeeping chores. I might edit yesterday's writing. Often, it's late morning before I hit the shower and get dressed.

But now I have to revamp the routine so I'm showered, dressed, and presentable enough to go out in public should I need to. Take care of making the bed, washing breakfast dishes, etc. My goal. Have everything ready before 10 in case there's a last-minute call.

None of this would be a problem IF there were rewards. Like people actually calling to see the house. Or knowing we have to do this for a finite length of time. But there's no schedule for this. It could be two weeks, two months, six months, a year. Or more. It's kind of like passing your due date in pregnancy. There's no end in sight (although it's unlikely to go on TOO much longer.)

Maybe a better comparison is sending the query to the agent, or the manuscript to the editor. Most have 'approximate response times' that may or may not have any basis in reality. The average number of days a house is on the market has little or no meaning. All you can do as a writer is write the best book you can. All we can do as house sellers is make our house the best it can be.

We'll see what this does to the stress level. Writing? I have a new editor at Cerridwen. Last week, I sent her a short story submission for their free reads program. The idea is to have stories that will tie into the author's published books, with hopes that readers will be enticed to buy them after reading the short. She said she'd get back to me within two weeks. This morning, I found this in my inbox:

Hi Terry, I read this over the weekend…
My only regret is the length. It’s too short. I wanted it to go on and on. :) I thought it was one of more original things I’d read in a long time; very funny and creative and readers won’t get confused if they haven’t read the two books.

That was a definite ego-boost. True, it'll be a free download. But it's not the cost of the product that matters. It's quality. And to have an editor give praise like, "I wanted it to go on and on" is about the best praise an author can hope for. And since it's unlikely she's read Finding Sarah and Hidden Fire, which are the books it's tied to, she made the perfect reader. Enough to entice, not confuse, and no serious spoilers.

So now maybe I've got the motivation I need to get back to my WIP.