Category: Paty Jager

Missing deadlines makes me nauseous.

~ patyjag ~ 5 Comments

I have a write on wipe-off board that I use to keep track of my “deadlines.” These are self-imposed deadlines, because I am a self-published or Indie author. But I take keeping to my deadlines a big thing. I HATE when I miss deadlines. I, being boss and employee, beat myself up over missing them and I have a hard time when a deadline passes and see it will be at least another month before a project will be finished.

That is what has been happening with Damning Firefly. Each month, I add another month to get it written and move the rest of the projects I set as goals for the year forward.

I’ve discovered that while I believe I have lots of time to write, I find I spend a lot of time researching and promoting. The book also had to go through a tweak which added more time to the finished project. But I am on the downhill side, which means I am wrapping up the clues, tightening the handcuffs on the suspect, and hoping the twist at the end leaves the reader going, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming” or “That was a good twist.”

I want to put this book up for pre-order but with as many times as I’ve extended the writing of the book, I’m afraid I’ll miss the date. But then, I am also anxious to see what readers think of the cover and the premise. It is darker and more controversial than my usual Gabriel Hawke book. But it was an idea that came from things my parents, who have now passed, said to me at different times. And I think it is something that people in small communities will sometimes hide.

Sales and reviews will tell me if the book was a hit or a miss. There are just times when I feel like there is a story that needs to be told. It’s something that burns in my gut and comes out through my fingertips. LOL that makes me think I should write paranormal. The visual is kind of funny!

I have tried to pair humor with a darker tale in Damning Firefly and tried to show the side of the victim’s and the woman who tried to help them.

Hopefully, by my next post I’ll have a pre-order and the book will have come back from my editor and soon to be released.

Dealing with a Tough Topic

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

My latest WIP- Work In Progress-came about from two separate things my parents told me at different times. My mom was a nurse at a clinic. She commented that there were too many teenage pregnancies in the county. And years later my dad made the comment about a deacon of a church who cheated people and slept with other men’s wives.

Fast forward to now and my overactive imagination putting those two things together to come up with a murder mystery set in a small community where the pastor of a church “teaches” young women how to be good wives.

I have a secondary character whose point of view is shared in the book. She is a midwife who has brought the pastor’s offspring into the world after he sexually assaulted the teenagers and young women. The midwife tried to get the police to do something, but the charismatic pastor shined a bad light on her, and they wouldn’t listen. She is trying to keep the women’s names out of it knowing how many families and lives will be torn apart should it come out. At the same time, she wishes something would happen to the man.

And it does.

I am halfway through this book and my newest critique partner quit on me after saying the story was too dark and she didn’t like the way my main character Gabriel Hawke was acting.

Whoa!

The new CP thought I wrote cozy mystery like her. I never said I wrote cozy and had thought she would have looked up my books. I tried to look up hers, but she is a new writer. She has been giving me good thoughts and information coming into the series at book 11. But her last comments made me sit back and think about how the story is being portrayed. She said I was doing a good job with the midwife. She liked her attitude and how she was going about helping a suspect and keeping the victims from being brought public. But Hawke was too insensitive.

I have readers who say they love Hawke. I don’t want them to not like him after reading this book. Thinking long and hard about what she’d said, I realized, I was portraying the midwife how I would want someone hiding my secrets to be and I am portraying Hawke as a person out for revenge.

Stepping back, I roll things around in my head.

I know that the revenge comes from things that have happened in my past. Things I would love to have Rosa, the midwife, keep secret if she knew. But I’m instilling my revenge for being a victim into my Hawke character. While he does champion the underdog and will find justice even for a nasty piece of work as the victim, he needs to be more sensitive to the dead pastor’s victims.

And so, I spent all of last week with printed pages of my manuscript, going through and moving scenes, adding more scenes with Hawke learning from Rosa and his partner about how the victims of this man’s assaults have justice now that he is dead but need help to heal and not be put in the headlines of the local paper.  Or brought in for questioning about something that can no longer be punished.

I have to override Hawke’s need to put the last piece of the puzzle in the right place. And my need for revenge.

And though I wish my CP was willing to keep working with me, she did me a major favor by telling me how she felt about the story and my characters.

Thoughts on a Book Tour

~ patyjag ~ 10 Comments

I am back home after spending last week driving around western Oregon and stopping at 5 bookstores.

Backstory: Last summer I attended a talk by author Dwight Holing at my local library. He was there talking about his series that is set in Harney County- where I live. When he was asked about how he advertised his books, and he mentioned Bookbub didn’t work well for him, I said, “Yeah, it doesn’t work well for me either.” He looked at me and said, “What genre are you?” My reply, “Same as yours.”

He asked my name and then said, “Your books stalk mine on Amazon!”

My rebuttal was “No, yours stalk mine.” We had a chuckle and he said to come talk to him after his presentation.

I did and we decided since we both write crime fiction set in Oregon with game wardens, his a federal agent and mine a state police officer, that we should team up and do something.

Dwight Holing and myself at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland, OR

Fast forward a few months and we came up with a book tour when we both had a new book out. We spent months setting up bookstores and planning to do it all in one week.

We just finished that week of visiting bookstores. After a phone conversation we’d decided to do a back and forth, “This is why I… What do you do?” format. And we had lots of encouraging comments about how well we played off one another. Then we would read from our books and take questions. It was interesting that most of the questions were from new or emerging writers. Though we did each have some fans or family at each of the stops we had.

Me talking at Grass Roots Bookstore in Corvallis, OR.

I was lucky enough to meet Sharon Dean who has been a guest of this blog. She came to our Ashland event. It was fun to meet someone in person who I have only exchanged emails with.

And in Bend I was able to meet up with some writer friends that before I moved to Princeton, we met once a month and had lunch and talked about writing.

The one thing that both Dwight and I concluded from this trip is that in-person events are no longer something that brings readers in. We had small groups at everyone of the events even though we both talked it up in our newsletters and social media and put out news releases in each town we visited. He said he’s going to start doing Zoom Book Clubs and will invite me to participate when he gets it all figured out.

While I enjoyed my week of driving around Oregon and meeting new people, I do agree that I won’t be doing another event like this any time soon. I think being set up where people are already gathered like flea markets, oktoberfest, and such is the way to go instead of bookstores.

Beating Fear with Knowledge

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

I think most writers are worriers. Will the readers like the story? Did I have typos/mistakes? Does the plot make sense? Am I not offending the culture of the people I write about? Am I doing justice to the cause? Am I entertaining as well as educating?

Yes, all of these things go through my head as I write a book. I feel bad I can’t get to every book by every author in my genre- mystery/suspense/crime fiction. But I spend most of my time reading books to help me better understand my characters. Because I write Native American characters and I am not Indigenous myself, I feel I must read and learn all I can about the culture and dynamics of the tribe and people I write about.

I have some tribal members who respond to my questions, but I’ve yet to find someone to openly allow me into their world. Which makes me worry, I’m not portraying them as well as I should be. Every time I think about that, I get a knot in my stomach. I want to show them for the inventive, resilient, good-natured people that they are. I also want to show the dynamics that have made them who they are.

An author friend, Carmen Peone, who helped me with my Shandra Higheagle mystery series, that is partially set on the Colville Reservation where she lives, told me about a Choctaw woman author who has a workshop to help Native and non-Native writers better understand their characters. I spent all last week watching, listening, and taking notes. Then I picked up a book I purchased a month ago about a woman who grew up in the area near where my series, takes place and am learning more about the culture and family bonds within the culture I write about.

I have the two closest powwows written into my calendar to attend. I have attended both of them once before, years apart. This summer I will attend both and try to do what Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer suggested for attending a powwow. She had a lot of good insights even though her tribe is in Oklahoma, and I write about Oregon tribes.

One of the series that I work so hard to perfect the cultural dynamics is my Spotted Pony Casino mysteries set on the Umatilla Reservation outside of Pendleton, Oregon. Book 4 in the series released this month.

Lies, deceit, blackmail.

Murder ends it all.

Or does it?

When an employee at the Spotted Pony Casino is caught leaving early, Dela Alvaro, head of security confronts the woman. The lies the woman tells only piques Dela’s curiosity. After witnessing the employee threatening a man, she is found murdered in her car parked in the driveway of her home.

Upon learning the woman used her job at the casino to blackmail men, Dela feels compelled to solve the woman’s murder and teams up with Tribal Officer Heath Seaver. Not only does the duo have a death to solve, but there is also a mystery behind Dela’s dead father. Not to mention, her mom just announced she’s marrying a man Dela has never met.

https://books2read.com/u/4X0WY9

I’ll leave you with something one of my readers sent me in an email. It made my day!

“Your characters are so full of life and personality, I find myself thinking they’re real folk! The sign of a great writer! I just finished the Squeeze. Loved it, love Dela! And when I get up your way, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee. You are an inspiration for other NW authors and a marvelous advocate for our indigenous peoples. Please keep bringing up the issue of missing people…it needs to be kept alive or nothing will change. Thank you for all you and your posse do to make Oregon a better place. You have my support, 100%. And I’ll await your next book, whoever you choose to write about. I already know I’ll love it.”

Why I Love Writing Mysteries

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

I’m feeling pretty good right now. I had set goals to publish four books this year. Granted the one that was published in February was mostly written last year, but I have another one coming out April 5th. 

It feels good after several years of always feeling behind to be ahead of schedule this year. The Squeeze, book 4 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series was easy to write because I had been thinking about it for a while. I think that is what made it easier for me to finish the book so quickly. 

When I have time to think about a story or premise for a while before I actually write the story, my mind has already figured out the intricate details of the story. All I have to do is add in the red herrings and misdirections. 

That and this series has an ongoing subplot that started in the first book with my main character and her best friend/boyfriend having something in their past in common. His past, finding out who and where his father lived, has been dealt with. Now my main character is dealing with: is her father really dead as her mother said and was he really Cisco Alvaro? 

This subplot has added more emotion, backstory, and interesting curves to this series. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this mystery going but I like that it gives me a little more filler in the books between their searching for the murder victim.

I also like that it gives more depth and shows why my character, Dela, is unwilling to take the next step in her relationship with her boyfriend. He is ready to marry and settle down. She can’t until she knows who her father really was and why he was a secret. Add to that she just found out her mom has been seeing a man since Dela went into the Army and now they are planning to get married. She always thought her father ruined her mom for any other man. And why had she never met her mom’s fiancé before if they had been seeing one another for that long?

Soooo many mysteries besides the murder. Oh, I love writing this genre! I wish I had found the courage to continue with it back when I wrote my first mystery, instead of being sidelined from it for twenty years. But I’m writing it now and loving every gruesome, gut-wrenching, and inspiring word I write.

Ready to pre-order, releasing on April 5th. My hubby’s birthday!

The Squeeze

Book 4 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series

Lies, deceit, blackmail.

Murder ends it all.

Or does it?

When an employee at the Spotted Pony Casino is caught leaving early, Dela Alvaro, head of security confronts the woman. The lies the woman tells only piques Dela’s curiosity. After witnessing the employee threatening a man, she is found murdered in her car parked in the driveway of her home.

Upon learning the woman used her job at the casino to blackmail men, Dela feels compelled to solve the woman’s murder and teams up with Tribal Officer Heath Seaver. Not only does the duo have a death to solve, but there is also a mystery behind Dela’s dead father. Not to mention, her mom just announced she’s marrying a man Dela has never met.

UBL: https://books2read.com/u/4X0WY9