Oops! A day late and a dollar short! That’s me! I’m late with my posting. I was so busy packing up my kitchen in preparation for renovation–new floor, new lights, new paint, new stove–that I totally forgot to post yesterday when I was scheduled. So, I hope you don’t mind that I’m popping in a day late. Continue reading “MY NEW BOOK IS OUT!”
Author: casojka123
I grew up in New York and moved to California when I was in my twenties. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa and when I returned I got a master's degree from the University of Southern California. I worked as the administrator in a public law office, and now I write mystery novels of the "whodunit", multiple suspect, police procedural variety. I live in a small town in Southern California with my husband and two dogs.
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT?
I used to think I’d never run out of things to say, but faced with the need to write a blog, I find that I go blank. What shall I write about? How can I write about writing? Everybody writes about writing. How do people who write daily columns in the newspaper do it? How do they come up with an idea every day? It’s impossible.
I only have to do this monthly, I think. Just do one blog a month. Just one. How hard can that be? But I don’t have anything to say. What have I been doing lately? Not much. I made a mistake on the size of my new book, so the interior has to be redone. Unfortunately, that means a delay in the finished product. I’m going to be on a book panel in San Diego in June, and I’m afraid my book won’t be ready. Worry wakes me at 3 a.m.
I took a break from my third Florida mystery novel to write a short story for a bi-annual anthology from Sisters in Crime/LA. I worked hard on this one. I didn’t enter last time, but two previous stories didn’t make it. Sigh! I hope this one does better.
It’s a good thing I don’t try to make a living from writing. I never had time to write when I was working. Long days, long commute, make dinner, and clean up. The only thing to do then was go to bed.
I know that lots of people write and work, but I never had the time or the energy. I remember author Robert Olin Butler telling a group that he wrote his first novel every morning and evening on his daily commute on the Long Island Railroad. That’s dedication, as is getting up at five a.m. every morning to write before work. I tried that, but my mind doesn’t function well at that hour.
Now that I’m retired, I do have the time, but not always the inclination. Nor the energy. I read with awe Paty Jager’s post saying she planned to cut down from her 2015 output of four mystery novels, two western romance novels and one novella to ONLY two novels and a novella in the mystery series and two historical western romance novels in 2016. That boggles my mind. Paty’s a real pro.
I’m an amateur. It takes me two years to write one novel. It’s a good thing I don’t have to make a living at writing. I’d starve to death. Now I’m back to my third Florida novels after the break to write the short story. But I don’t know where it’s going. Why did I want to be a writer?
I reread the posts that my fellow ladies of mystery wrote and thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?” and “Why didn’t I write that?” Too late now. So I’m stuck with nothing to write. It’s a good thing don’t have to write a daily column. I’d be fired.
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was held on April 9th and 10th on the campus of the University of Southern California. It’s a yearly event, the largest book festival in the country. Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles, the local chapter of Sisters in Crime, has a booth at the festival, and I’m a member.
The Sisters in Crime/LA booth is in the mystery section, next to the booths of Mystery Ink bookstore, Mystery Writers of America and Mysterious Galaxy bookstore. It’s in a great location close to the main walkway, and we get a lot of visitors stopping by.
This year I was part of a team scheduling slots for our members to sign their books. Requesting a signing time was a complicated process involving a form provided on the website of Sisters in Crime National. We allocated signing times based on when applications were received, and there were lots of applications. Invariable, people signed up and then changed their minds, and people forgot to sign up and then asked for the most desirable slots. But there was less confusion than I had imagined.
Signing slots were two hours each, except for the slots between noon and two p.m. which we broke into one-hour segments because these seemed to be the most desirable signing times. All the slots were taken except for Sunday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., the end of the festival.
Friday, when we were scheduled to set up the booth, rain was predicted. Not a usual occurrence in April in Southern California, but this is the year of el nino and climate change, so who knows what’s going to happen? Anyway, there was a firm prediction of rain for Friday night, so we were reluctant to put books out in case a wind and rain storm blew all the coverings off. So we arrived at 7 a.m. on Saturday to unpack books, sort them out and place them in the various book racks and stands. Our six feet by eight feet space was pretty full with two tables and five chairs for signers, three tables for books, a table for merchandise and one for those selling the books.
Saturday morning was quiet with some drizzle. I was surprised at the number of people who had come out for the Festival despite the weather. At about noon, the rain began to come down in torrents. We moved the tables further into the booth, making the already 
small space incredibly cramped with no possibility that two people could pass one another inside the small area. However, we managed, and the heavy rain finally ceased. In the afternoon we had lots of visitors.
Sunday was beautiful, the rain gone, and a great many people visiting the Festival of Books. All in all, it was estimated that 160,000 people came to the Festival over the weekend, and we sold nearly two hundred books, quite a remarkable number. Not surprisingly, people came in bunches to buy books with nothing happening for twenty minutes or half an hour, then four or five people arriving and wanting to purchase books at at once. Why is that? It seems to me it happens whenever I sign people up or sell anything. Do you find that that’s true for you?
Anyway, it was a fun and exhausting weekend, we sold a lot of books and made a lot of mystery writers and readers happy. It was a confirmation for me that people still read and still read books, not just electronic devices like Kindle. And that makes me very happy. And, I got to have my favorite sandwich, which I only allow myself once a year: a bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado sandwich with aioli, a BLTA. Delicious!
A NEW IDEA
Left Coast Crime, the conference in Phoenix, was a lot of fun. From what other attendees have told me, it always is. LCC in Portland last year was my first, and I had a great time. This time, as I told you in my last blog, I wasn’t on a panel, which was disappointing. Instead, I had half-an-hour to myself to talk about whatever I wanted, but I was the one who had to attract an audience, and that was scary. I had visions of sitting for half-an-hour alone, looking lost and unloved.
I devised a plan. First, I decided on a topic. I thought I might attract visitors if they knew what I was going to talk about. My topic, announced in the conference program, was “You’re Never Too Old.” A good friend did a poster for me, although there was nowhere to post it except inside the room.
At the conference, I talked to everyone I knew and lots of people I didn’t know and invited them to come and see my presentation. To my dismay, I found that the rooms allocated to the single presenters were located at the very end of the meeting rooms, so it would be unlikely that I would attract a casual visitor. Someone would have to come looking for my presentation room.
I felt like a huckster, saying to everyone I met, “Remember. Come hear me 9:30 Saturday morning in Russell B.” But it worked! I got twelve or fourteen people to attend, many of whom I knew but at least four attracted by my topic. Yay!
I talked about my childhood desire to write, and the way my ego was squashed when I wasn’t accepted for the high school magazine. Although I majored in English Literature and minored in Philosophy (not good choices for a future career), I didn’t do any creative writing until many years later, when I took an interesting course which asked the participants to write an early memory in the voice of the child to whom it had occurred.
It was an interesting experiment and proved to be life-changing for me and for others in the class. Many broke down in tears when they wrote a painful memory–and most were painful–in the voice and as the child to whom it happened. class.
Soon after that I joined a group of friends in reading THE ARTIST’S WAY by Julia Cameron. We read a chapter a month and did the exercises. I bogged down when I was supposed to spend a week without listening to television, radio, or music or reading a book or newspapers. I couldn’t do it. A week of living in my own head was impossible.
One exercise stayed with me for a long time though. First thing every morning I wrote three pages without thinking and without stopping. The pages were garbage, and I eventually threw them out, but they were very freeing. When I was still working, at a job with long hours and a long, traffic-filled commute, I got up at 4:30 in the morning to do my “morning pages.” These experiences were part of my journey to the dream of being a writer.
A woman who came to see my presentation suggested that I carry the theme, “You’re Never Too Old,” further, inspiring other older people–and there are lots of us–to realize their dreams of writing and publishing their stories, their memories, and in my case, my mystery novels. She suggested I write a self-help book for guidance, and I think I’ll do it.
OFF TO LEFT COAST CRIME
Next week I’m going to Left Coast Crime, a convention sponsored by fans of mystery literature for fans of mystery literature. Officially it is the “Western North American Regional Mystery Conference”. “Western” is defined by the Mountain Time Zone and zones westward to Hawaii. The conference is held yearly in the first quarter of the calendar year and rotates north to south on an annual basis.
Last year was my first time at Left Coast Crime. It was held in Portland, and I went by myself, not knowing what to expect. It rained a lot, I guess because it was in Portland, and I never left the hotel, but I had a terrific time and met a lot of other mystery writers and mystery readers.
So I decided I’d go again this year. It’s being held in Phoenix, and it’s called The Great Cactus Caper. The American Guest of Honor is Gregg Hurwitz, and the International Guest of Honor is Ann Cleeves.
Last year I was on a panel with four other mystery writers, and we had a topic: “She Said, She Said: Writing the Female Protagonist”. It was a lot of fun, the moderator (Meg Gardiner) and the other panelists were great, and the pressure wasn’t all on me.
This year I have been assigned twenty minutes in a room by myself where I can do
anything I want (within reason, of course). I’ve chosen as my topic “It’s Never Too Late.” As a writer who only began publishing really late in life, I plan to talk about becoming a writer and writing seriously after retirement. I just hope that I’m not talking only to myself!
Now I need to spend some time planning what I’m going to say. If, indeed, there’s anyone there to say it to. I hope that some of the participants, both fans and writers, will want to hear what I have to say.
Wish me luck!
Ladies of Mystery 
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