Category: Paty Jager

The Slogging Beginning

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

I am doing something I haven’t done in some time. I am trying to write a 70k+ book in a month. I want this book off to my critique partners and beta readers by the first of August so I can have it polished and uploaded for release before I leave on a month long vacation the middle of September. Have I put a lot of pressure on myself? Yes! But it will be worth it to be between books while I’m enjoying my vacation.

Most writers know about the saggy middle. It’s where in the middle of the book, sometimes it feels like the pacing has slowed or the story doesn’t feel as fresh and vigorous as it started out. Many have had this happen in a book more than once. But with editing and rewriting it can be given a nice crisp revision.

I’m finding the beginning of this book, not the story, the story is moving along fine. It’s the having to stop and research something that takes time and then takes me off on, ‘What if I did this?’ that turns the story in a different direction. I have had that happen on this particular book four times since beginning the book. I’m a third of the way into the book and I’m finally getting into the rhythm of the story and not having to stop so much and look things up.

So my slogging beginning is the fact, 1) I was at an event and met a person that was so ingrained on my brain after our interaction that I had to put her into this book. Which then changed the direction I had started out on. 2) I decided to make a business I know nothing about as a primary setting to the story. 3) Due to the character I added, I needed to look up mental illnesses. 4) Trying to add information from a short story I put in an anthology required me to reread the short story and figure out how to make it all play into the main plot.

Slogging in this instance is not the writing or the story line, it is the fact I have to keep stopping to research information I hadn’t known would come up with I started the story. Slogging is the hours I’ve spent reading and researching when I wanted to be writing.

However, no matter what you write there is always a need for some research. When I wrote historical western romance I had to research history and how they dressed and lived. In mysteries it’s all about type of wounds, types of crimes, occupations, and yes mental illnesses. Not to mention locations and oh so many things that you would think I wouldn’t need to look up since these are contemporary mysteries. But because of the internet and everyone having access to information, you have to make sure you do even more research so no one can say you don’t know what you’re talking about.

I rarely have a saggy middle and this is the first time I’ve had a slogging beginning. But I can tell you, from here on out this book won’t be sloggy or saggy! I love when I hit the middle of the book and it is like wild downhill ride as I pull all the clues and red herrings together and carry the main character to the revelation of the killer.

Endings are always like a runaway truck!

If you are looking for a good deal on an audiobook bundle, the first three books of my Shandra Higheagle mystery series is available for $0.99 at many audiobook vendors until the 10th as part of the Indie Audiobook Deals. https://indieaudiobookdeals.com/

Learning and Sharing

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

I have always been someone who likes to learn. In school even if I didn’t have homework, I would bring home a book from a subject I liked and read the parts in the book that I was most interested in. It was usually either my history book or my geography book. I loved learning about other cultures and areas of the world.

As an adult, I still am interested in those things and have used my interest in the local Native American tribes to share their customs and beliefs and to show they are still a strong people who continue to learn and keep their heritage alive.

Trips I’ve taken have ended up adding more locales and cultures into my books. I like that I can share what I learn with my readers.

In the Shandra Higheagle mysteries, my main character, Shandra Higheagle, is a potter. She uses clay from the mountain where she lives and purifies it to make a quality clay to make her vases out of. I spent an afternoon, learning about the process from an actual potter. I loved the idea of having a character who is part Native American using clay she digs up, cleans, and transforms into beautiful pieces of art. The process is talked about in a couple of the books.

Because I have Indigenous characters in my three mystery series, I try to put in bits about their culture that shows who they are and how their people came to be strong, but since I’m not Native American, I do my best to show and not tell, since it isn’t my culture. I have readers wanting more of the culture, but I only put in what I fell comfortable revealing.

I signed up to learn to make pine needle baskets from a Paiute Elder. Beverly Beers is a fun instructor. She gave us what we needed to know to start and then went around instructing each of us. I started out misinterpreting her instructions and ended up with a larger hole than it was supposed to be. She chuckled and said, “You have made your own pattern.” Which was a kind way of saying I didn’t follow the instructions. 😉

As I sat in the room with the other participants and we all were engrossed in what we were doing a peace came over me that felt good. Stitching each stitch to bind the needles together and adding each new bundle of needles was calming.

I don’t know if it was the tactile closeness to the needles and nature, or the rhythmic stitching, but it felt right and welcome.

Now I’m not saying my hands didn’t start aching from holding the needles tight to put the stitches in, but it was a good ache, if that makes sense. I knew that I was making something interesting and I thought of places I could go to get my own pine needles to try a basket on my own.

I also thought of my character in the Spotted Pony Casino mysteries. She’s a disable veteran who is head of the casino security. She has tragedy in her past and upheaval in her present. She could use a hobby that would perhaps put all her troubles to the back of her mind for short periods of time. As I sat there binding the rows of needles together, I realized this would be a good hobby for Dela. Her friend Rosie, a Umatilla tribal member, could show her how to make pine needle baskets. Dela would enjoy the process, and it would then give her an excuse to go into the Blue Mountains to look for pine needles. While there she could come across an abandoned cabin she’d visited once before and found a journal from the man she believes is her father.

It’s amazing how when your hands are busy and your mind is free your imagination can run amuck and add a secondary plot line to a story. 😉

I will not only share the art of making a pine needle basket, I’ll also move my story along and bring Dela closer to learning the truth about her father. Maybe.

You Just Feel It

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

I finished book 12 in my Gabriel Hawke series two weeks ago. This is the first book that when I finished, I didn’t have any doubts that I had forgotten something or that it dragged in places or that it wouldn’t sit with some of my readers. I finished this book with a smile on my face feeling as if it was a good book. Not all books feel that way when I finish.

Many writers understand this. There are very few books that when I have it ready to go to my CP and beta readers that I feel I captured everything I wanted and gave all the right clues and nailed the characters. Even the killer. I figure the places that I’m worried about they will see, and I can fix them.

As usual this was what I call my first draft. Over the decades of writing and having published 58 books, not counting the 7 that never made the cut to being published, this was the first time I finished without any doubts about the story. Having been writing this long, I have a system where I what I write the day before is where I start the following day. I begin where I started writing and read through, making changes to scenes, sentences, and words. So by the time I do type the last word in a book, it is the draft I send to my CP and Betas. After they read and send me their thoughts and suggestions, I do what I call the second draft. This one goes to my line editor. Who will also catch any wrong names, duplication of information, and my legal mistakes. From her, I go through it one more time, the 3rd draft, and send that to a proofreader. After I change what she finds, that is the final draft, and it is published.

Now I could be all wet and full of myself on this one, but so far, the beta readers have liked it and found little to comment on. Well, except for my retired police officer. And what he commented on wasn’t anything to do with police procedure. He didn’t like that Hawke kills a rattlesnake. He thought Hawke should have backed out of the cougar’s cave he was crawling into and waited for the snake to leave. I’ve thought about this since his text to me about enjoying the book other than that scene. I’ve bounced around different ways I could change the scene, but they don’t harken to the urgency that Hawke feels about finding more evidence.

My other beta reader liked the whole book. Didn’t see any problems with any of the story. She did catch some typos.

I’m waiting for my CP to get it back to me and see if she mentions the snake scene. I felt Hawke was doing what he needed to do to keep him and Dog safe while they finished their search of the cave. A small area that they couldn’t have avoided being bitten by the snake if they moved around inside upsetting it.

The scene will stay as is. And the book that when I finished felt right and made me smile, is available for pre-order.

This double cold case and current homicide have Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Trooper Gabriel Hawke calling in favors… and exploring a childhood he shoved into the deep recesses of his mind. 

While patrolling on the Snake River in Hells Canyon, Gabriel Hawke’s dog digs up a human bone. Hawke is confronted by an aunt he doesn’t remember, and he finds a canister of film when the rest of the remains are excavated. The film shows someone being killed and a rifle pointed at the photographer.

Going through missing person files, Hawke discovers the victims of the
decades-old double homicide. A person connected to the original crime is
murdered, giving Hawke more leads and multiple suspects.

Attending a local Powwow with his family, Hawke discovers more about his childhood and realizes his suspects have been misleading him.

Pre-order: https://books2read.com/u/bQGkXw

Feng Shui and Me

~ patyjag ~ 9 Comments

Did you know that today is International Feng Shui Day? According to The Spruce.com, Feng shui is the practice of arranging pieces in living spaces to create balance with the natural world. The goal is to harness energy forces and establish harmony between an individual and their environment.

Years, okay, two decades ago, I took an online class on how to Feng shui your workspace hoping to help give me harmony to become a published writer. And it work!

Well, I don’t know if it was the Feng shui or being at the right place at the right time or knowing the right person at the right time. Whichever of the three it was, I became a published author with a just starting small press who has grown immensely over the years. I put out 10 books with them before taking the Indie route in 2012.

I kept my desk top and writing space Feng shui just as I’d learned to place items from the class the whole time we lived in Central Oregon. Then we moved to SE Oregon, and I worked in a ten by twenty cabin for 8 months while we built the house we live in now. Nothing was Feng shui but I kept writing books and publishing them.

We built the new house with one room set up for my office and my husband’s desk. (we have matching desks- but he only uses his to hold stuff) At first I placed the desk under a window so I could look out when I needed thinking time while writing. But that put my back to the door. And the one thing I learned during the Feng shui class that stuck with me was to always be facing the door as that is where opportunity walks through. Keep books to your back for knowledge. Those are the only two things I remember from the workshop.

When I was feeling like my writing had stalled and wasn’t feeling as optimistic about my future, I changed my desk. It now sits with one end under the window but it faces the doorway. I don’t have book cases at my back but I have them on both sides of me some just an arm’s reach away.

My husband says my desk takes up too much room this way, but I say I’m open to the opportunities that are coming my way. What they are, I don’t know but I’m ready to embrace them when they do show up!

I have joined a Facebook group that is actively helping me promote my audiobooks. Since it is a whole different group of people than those who read print or ebooks. The owner of the group puts together Indie Author Deals once a month. I’m hoping that one of these days I can use links to my audiobooks on my website. For now I have links to multiple audiobook vendors. Right now there is a sale going on and you can get the first audio 3 book box set from my Shandra Higheagle Mystery series for $0.99 at: IndieAudiobookDeals.com

Being part of this group is one of those opportunities that I found while trying to find someone to help me promote by audiobooks. Feng shui or just luck? I think a little of both!

I’m also excited that through this blog, I’ve met some amazing mystery, suspense, thriller writers and I will get to meet 6 of them in person at the Left Coast Crime conference I’m attending this week in Bellevue, WA. Several of the Ladies of Mystery bloggers and I will be riding from the airport together and then having brunch together the following morning. I’m excited to meet them in person and make even more connections to them and with others throughout the conference.

One of my favorite sayings is: Life is never boring, embrace it!

Marketing and Promotion Blues

~ patyjag ~ 11 Comments

Like most writers, I don’t like the marketing and promotion side of writing. These days we don’t just sit down and write a book, send it off, and hope a publisher likes it. Especially not if you are an Indie author.

Back when I first started writing novels 30 plus years ago that was the process. Write, edit, send a synopsis and first three chapters to agents and editors and then write the next book while you waited sometimes over a year to hear back. If you did get the nod from an editor or agent then it was revisions and after 18 months to 2 years your book was published.

I was lucky to get picked up by a new small publisher who not only helped with editing but taught me a lot about publishing my book. When I had that down, and with a nudge from other author friends, I took the plunge into being an Indie author. And while being with the small press I had to do all my own marketing and promotion, I didn’t do near enough.

Now, fast forward, I have 55 books, half that are western romance and half that are murder mystery. My heart has always been in writing murder mystery and I feel as if the romance books were what I used as my stepping stones to getting to the genre I love to read and write.

With my murder mystery series, I have been promoting the heck out of them and learning new things as I add more print books and now audiobooks into the mix.

Just when I think I’ve figured out Amazon ads or Facebook ads, or using other promotional third parties, I find out that I messed up with this or with that. I had a promotion scheduled and I thought I’d changed the price of the audio box set. Well, I didn’t so there went the money I paid for the promotion down the drain and the graphics I made to promote the sale will have to be used later when the price finally is changed on all audiobook channels. With this headache, I can see why so many indie authors with audiobooks are selling them direct. It is something that keeps swirling around in my head and I’m thinking strongly about doing it so I can send people to my direct store to purchase audiobooks that I want to put on sale and to get audiobooks for a fairer price all the time.

I have my print books on a direct store and it would only take adding a link to the audiobooks to make it happen. Well, after I upload them to Bookfunnel. That would be another 2-3 hours a day for a week to get them all uploaded. That will cut into my writing time. I have scheduled to write three more books this year. If I don’t get to putting words in the document instead of uploading audiobooks to different vendors and now Bookfunnel, I’d have this book half way written instead of just starting. But once I get them all uploaded I will only have to upload each new book.

“Sigh” Just as I need more energy to do more promoting and marketing, I’m, finding my creative and productive energy doesn’t last as long as it used to.

I have also decided today, after realizing how many more audiobooks I need to upload to Kobo and Bookfunnel that I will from here forward, sit down at the computer with only my book document open and get my word count written before I do promotion or upload audiobooks. It will be the only way I’ll get my book goal accomplished this year.

But it is all worth it when I hear from readers how much they enjoy my books and I receive word that a book is a finalist in a contest. After contemplation I thought I’d put Damning Firefly in the wrong category, I guess not!