Tag: books

Age or Too Much Juggling?

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

It’s only the first month of the new year and this is the second group blog I’m on that my Google calendar told me I had a blog today. Yeesh! I have never in twelve years not had a blog already scheduled to go.

In fact, yesterday, Sunday, the day I plan out my week, I wrote down to write my Ladies of Mystery blog post on Tuesday, because, when I looked at January in my date book, which is my bible to keep things straight, I had written down my post was the third Monday of the month instead of the second.

How I managed to do that FOR THE WHOLE year when I received my new datebook in July, I don’t know. All I had to do was look to my left and on a corkboard there is a list of when each Ladies of Mystery author blogs during the month. Now, I have to go back through my datebook and cross out the LOM on the third Monday and put it on the second. And yes, cross out. I use different colored ink pens for different things that are happening.

Orange for the days I post on my Writing into the Sunset blog, Purple for the days I post on here and the other group blog. Bright pink for book specials and events, Blue for when my6 newsletter goes out. And black for personal appointments and events.

I use pencil for guest bloggers on Ladies of Mystery and to keep track of how many words I’ve written.

I also have a whiteboard with three columns where I write the months in one column in purple, the next column is in green and it is the title or number of the book in which series I’m writing, and a column in pink with the title of the book releasing that month.

Then below that, I have a new keeping track project that a very successful Indie author uses to keep track of her specials and events. I decided to use it this year and see if it can help me do a better job of staying on top of promoting my books. It is a 2′ by 3′ write on calendar of the whole year. It is to help me keep track of what book, where, and when I promote it and to keep the promotion flowing all the time. That has been my biggest problem. I start out promoting and then I get caught up in the other sides of being an Indie author and forget to keep promoting. This calendar with everything scheduled is a visual of what I need to do and what is happening. I hope it works.

And again, it is color coordinated. Blue for audiobook promo, green for ebook promo, and pink for special events.

And yet, with all of these reminders, I forgot my group blog post last Monday and today’s for this blog. I’m wondering if I need yet another calendar or whiteboard to keep me in line. What do you think? I’m off to change the purple LOM in my datebook to the second Monday. Have a great day!

A Few Of My Favorite Things

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

I’m one of those people who loves Christmas music. All of it! From the good old songs by Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Brenda Lee to the new ones by Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkston, and Cher’s new one. If there are bells jingling, joyful lyrics, or reverent lyrics, I like it all.

Listening to Christmas music while I cook, clean house, and put things away from my recent book selling events, makes the task lighter and more fun. My hubby rolls his eyes as I dance around the kitchen putting dishes away, totally absorbed in the song that is playing. (If I’m absorbed how do I know he rolls his eyes?) Because he makes a noise or says something that draws my attention to him. He isn’t a Grinch, but he isn’t into the holiday as much as I am.

Where I’m going with this is I have learned I may be more auditory than I thought. I started listening to one audiobook so I could see what I would need to produce if I ventured into making my books into audiobooks. I enjoyed listening to a book because my hands were free. Now when I sew, cook, clean house, or drive long distances, I prefer to listen to audiobooks. Except this time of year because I’m listening to Christmas music. Audiobooks have kind of become my addiction because I can listen to them while doing other tasks. My mind can wander into the story while my hands and eyes are doing something else.

Lately, I’ve felt like I don’t have enough hours in a day to read for pleasure. But I can listen and continue doing certain tasks. Even my walks, I can listen to a book and get my exercise and fresh air. Our last trip to see our daughter, while my hubby drove, I listened to a book with my earbuds because his pickup doesn’t have the capability to put it through the radio, but our trip before that with my car, he even listened to the book.

I’m finding at the book selling events I attend that more people are saying they listen to audiobooks. Which is good for me since my three mystery series are all on audio. As a means to get more of the books purchased, I joined a Facebook website group for authors with audiobooks wide, meaning not just published through Audible. This group has proven to be more helpful in teaching me how to promote my audiobooks than any other workshop or event I’ve attended.

Right now, the authors at Indie Audiobook Deals are having a MASSIVE year-end giveaway. If you like audiobooks as much as I do, you might want to enter the giveaway. You can sign up to follow the authors with audiobooks in the genre you like to listen to as more ways to get your name in the drawing.

Five entrants will win a $50 Kobo gift card! Kobo is the premier site to listen to fantastic audiobooks.🎧

We’re picking FIVE winners so make sure to complete all of the extra entries to enhance your chances of winning. Good luck and wishing you a happy holiday season!

Enter here: https://kingsumo.com/g/pt4ez1/win-1-of-5-kobo-50-gift-cards

And if you are a mystery fan who likes books with diverse characters, right now I’m listening to book 2 Peril at the Exposition by Nev March and enjoying it. I discovered Ms. March earlier in the year with her first book that I purchased through Chirp, an audiobook distributor that has sales constantly. After listening to that book, Ms. March had asked a question on a crime scene email group I’m on. I emailed her to let her know how much I enjoyed her book and she agreed to be a guest blogger here in February.

Anyway, I got away from reading about diverse characters. Her first book is set in India in the 1800s. The one I’m listening to now is set in Chicago. The two main East Indian characters left India so they could be married. For some reason I enjoy reading books set there. I also like Sujata Massey’s Mysteries set in 1920 India. When I finish reading the book Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie, I will dive into The Mistress of Bhatia House by Ms. Massey.

I believe my interest in other cultures is why I write mysteries with Native American characters. I like to learn about their culture and reveal it to others. Though I reveal it slower than an Indigenous writer would because I didn’t grow up in the culture and have to learn about it and understand it before I’ll put it on a page.

Also this month, I have my audiobook, Murder of Ravens, book 1 in the Gabriel Hawke series for $0.99 at Chirp. Double Duplicity book one of the Shandra Higheagle Mysteries, Double Duplicity is $0.99 at Spotify. Or you can get the first three audiobooks of the Shandra Higheagle Mysteries at Barnes and Noble Nook for $2.99.

If you haven’t already finished your holiday shopping, a book or audiobook is a great gift. The recipient will step into another world and be the better for it.

Happy Holidays!

Paty

Books and More

~ susanoleksiw ~ 3 Comments

Like many others in my circle, I am in constant conflict with the standards of my culture. Collecting. But then disposing. 

This morning, after having coffee with a good friend, I stopped at the library to collect two nonfiction books I’d put on reserve and pick out one or two mysteries to read. This is a pretty normal visit for me—I usually leave with two fiction and two nonfiction, and keep them for the full three weeks, if not one or two more. I like to try different writers, so I’m usually in the New Fiction section, and the same is true for nonfiction. This doesn’t mean I have no books at home to read. Quite the opposite. Every room has books in it. But I’m one of those people who find going to the library a necessary activity, and borrowing books is about more than finding something to read. It’s partly the activity of discovery and partly the pleasure of just being around so many publications.

But I have a lot of books at home. And over the years thousands more have passed through my hands, rested on my shelves, been read and shared and reread, until one day I decided it was time for them to move on. It occurred to me today that I have no idea why a book suddenly comes to the end of its visit. Do I need the space? Of course not. There’s always room for more. Have I changed? Possibly.

One small shelf is dedicated to the books I had as a child and which have survived numerous cleanings-out. Another equally small shelf is dedicated to a few I kept from my teen years, including Conrad Richter’s trilogy and The Gloucester Branch by John Leggett. Another dozen or so are integrated into general fiction and nonfiction, but those that seemed to be seminal in my development as a writer are held discretely apart, and every few years I ponder the prospect of donating them to the library or a thrift shop with a book section. But it never seems to be the right time.

My mother, another reader, kept her Girl Scout’s uniform and another few dresses from her early years. I found them in the back of a closet after she died. My father never kept anything that could be recycled for those of greater need. A businessman since the age of 15 (this was before World War I when such was possible), his wardrobe was spare to say the least. My closet is more like his than my mother’s, and I avoid associating with anyone who might invite me to an event for which I would be expected to wear a fancy dress. You can’t take a book to something like that and read, so why would I go?

What else do I keep? Art. My walls are a record of the eclectic tastes of me, my husband, his family, and mine, not to mention our grandparents and other relatives. Furniture doesn’t interest me, though I concede its usefulness. I’ve disposed of plenty over the years.

I am convinced that any American dropped into any town or city on earth will in a matter of weeks have too many possessions to tolerate and have to set out weeding and recycling. And yet every day, on TV, the radio, in junk mail, we’re urged to buy more. As a good member of the larger community and culture, I comply and buy more books.

That’s 588 words on a topic I haven’t figured out yet. Sometimes as I sit at my desk, fingers poised over the keys, I wonder what I’ll write about. I look across the room, or to my left, at all the books piled up, sometimes neatly arranged, and I wonder about all those words. So many. Surely I have something to say about them. Then, again, maybe not. Except that they’re old friends and I can’t imagine living without them.

Dabble, Scribbler, & A Dash of Ampersand

~ Missye K. Clarke ~ 3 Comments

Hi, Ladies of Mystery bloggers, LoM readers, and the general public! Has it been another month already? Good grief! Two more to go before we hit Level 12 of Jumanji how this dumpster fire of a year’s turned out to be. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t wait to put 2020 in my rear windshield.

So . . . as the title indicaes, I’ve found some Easter egg writing-related goodies to keep my untreated ADHD mind happy as my imagination marinates on WIPs. These are fairly inexpensive and lots of fun if you’re bored of your typical writing routine, or are in the market of shaking up your writing arsenal. In either case, I hope you’ll have as much fun as I’m having.

DABBLE


Dabble is a monthly subscription writing platform and a fantastic alternative to Scrivner or Microsoft Word if these software programs aren’t optional. This platform’s more user-friendly for the visually impaired or needing low vision assistance than Scrivner is, and has its own cloud service to store only your WIPs. Unlike Reedsy Editor, Dabble is laid out as Word is. But unlike Reedsy Editor, more font selections are available on Dabble, users can switch the screen to dark mode when writing during the day, and Dabble’s left side menu offers sections to organize scenes, world-building artifacts, a place to blueprint your plot, a built-in dictionary and spell-check, a trash bin to cut what isn’t working, and a progress and goal tracker for daily word counts and days spent on your project. It reminds me of digital 4×6 tacked, corkboarded note cards to keep your story on task. Depending on which best fits your pocketbook for a monthly or annual package, you’ll have access to live-time support assistance if you aren’t tech savvy to ough some of this service’s features. I happened to find Dabble during 2019’s NaNoWriMo when the company offered a discount for completing the month-long marathon. I’m especially impressed with the tech team making this platform possible, and especially love the CS’s team’s patience with my seemingly endless questions of the platform’s bells and whistles, levelheadedness, and courteousness. On a deeper personal note, with what’s been recently disocvered about the Chinese virus, I’m thrilled to use a service or two with zero political skin in the game on the world’s stage. I’m especially happy both Reedsy Editor and Dabble make it possible to end my monthly dimes going into that nasty MS Word creator’s unethical, worldly pockets.

SCRIBBLER

Thrown over my social feed’s news and ads transom, Scribber is a monthly box subscription created by two authors with seventeen published books between them. Created by writers for writers, the Scribbler service has a private social group for support and advice, offers critiques from scenes to full MSs (pricing reflecting), and sells other writer merch. Each box comes with goodies like a Writer Passport deep-diving a specific craft area (pacing, setting, tension, humor, and so on.); a book by the author the passport’s based on; and a pamphlet called Publishing Process Inside Look! also authored by month’s featured novelist. My September box had Opium & Absinthe by Lydia Kang in the goodies–which opened one drawback in this service: The purchaser doesn’t get to select the box’s title book. Past boxes, unless you’re part of the social group’s sister book club to find previous titles, aren’t accessible unless you contact support for this information. Although I found the writer tchotchkes a trememdous help–one’s a yellow “Eureka!” lightbulb stress ball squeezie-thingy with “Bust Writers Block!” printed on its side, and super-adorable—the book itself after reading a few pages in, not so much. It’s in 3rd POV set in 1899 about a possible homicide under the cover of a vampire attack and a possible connection with Jack the Ripper. This subgenre is out of my preferential and craft wheelhouse; I don’t do vampires, zombies, werewolves, Satanic worship, demons, Godzillas, anything involving dark magic and worse. If that makes me a shitty writer for not reading this stuff someone else slaved over, so be it–but I do congratulate them in getting it done (#IAintSorry #GetOverIt). Sidenote: if any LoM ladies are interested in my September tale, inbox me this week only for details. Otherwise it’ll just be donated to a new forever home like my August title was.



Overall, both products look to be the hands-on tools needed for my craft. Both services are set up to cancel at any time (before your next charge hits, that is). The box exposes you to an author happy you’re reading his story and sweet swag getting you jazzed for the next box or inspired to write on. They even hold a monthly contest on a Scribbler postcard based on the theme to win a prize. Dabble is the Little Engine That Could as a writing software program. Both companies are open for future changes, product implements, and offer stellar CS. That’s rare in this otherwise brutally lonely and huckster-happy industry, so research these gems and kick the tires whenever you have a moment before taking the plunge.

&

No, you read right. This heading’s an ampersand. It’s intentional. Got your attention, though, like a good headline should do.

She’s real gone, you’re telling yourself. Old news, says I, but that dun bother me none–we both know darn well you secretly love it. **smirk**

Okay . . . back to our story.

This particular symbol of the English languange charaters has an interesting history. If you’re old enough to remember when you learned the alphabet, you recited “and per se and”–& this said as such–after Z. In time, and per se and merged into the word ampersand you know today. While on the topic of mashing words together from a string of them said either too fast, said or accented incorrectly, misheard, or misused, ampersand became part of the mondergreen crowd. Explains why you thought the mondergreen, “You are caught up in me” from the chorus of Elton John’s “Daniel” is really “You were older than me.”

Ampersand, the & symbol, originally combined the capital letters of E and T. When everyone way back when wrote in gorgeous penmanship, E and T, especially next to one another in cursive, sure looked an awful lot like the &. Over time, and with differeing fonts, the two merged to become the punctuation we know.

And of course, what would our peek into the writing life be without this symbol helping others used to replace foul language? Cartoonists and comic strip artists from the 1920s to as late as the 1970s, while syndicated with national and global newspaper chains, had to find a workaround to express salty language without overtly using it. Hello, &%*$#@! Ingenuity! Excelsior! Rather than be cited for cultural impropriety, or tired of just plain getting the business over such use, comic strip and editorial cartoonists used these to skirt, and maybe flaut a little, censorship rules. So for you cozy mystery creators where sewer talk isn’t allowed, this #%*&$@! is perfect to show over tell–zing!–the preferred stronger word(s). Think of it as a visual version of cartoon starbursts, comets, squiggles and whorls when one of the Looney Tunes cast actually sees–as does JERSEY DOGS narrator Casper McGuinness–after getting his noodle clonked for doing something stupid. This could be a delightful change for your readers no other cozy writers are doing, much to your surprise.

Another lovely reading ride comes to a close. I’d wish you an early Happy Halloween, but with the spooktacular clusterf*ck this year’s been, you hardly need my OK to get your Jolly Rancher, candy corn, & dark chocolate Snickers bites freak on like it’s Donkey Knng. Now let me git before I share what next month’s punctuation cornucopia’ll be–the almighty asterick that turned a Roger Maris record into Babe Ruth’s baseball side chick.

Nope–I’ve a fantastic post in store you may enjoy more, but it ain’t that. Gotcha again. **smirk**

& with that, God’s will, and your faithful readership . . . until next month, my friends.

~ Missye

Keeping Track of Details by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 3 Comments

Well, I’m almost there. I’ve been slogging away at writing book two of the Edmund DeCleryk mystery series, Murder in the Cemetery, for upwards of a year and now I’m in the editing, polishing and cut-and-paste phase of the book. There are more details in this one than Murder in the Museum, so way more things to keep track of:

For example, in an earlier chapter, Annie DeCleryk, wife of sleuth Edmund DeCleryk, invites a friend of hers to speak at an evening event sponsored by the Historical Society where Annie works. Low and behold, a later chapter indicated that it was a luncheon event. Boy, was I glad I discovered that one!

At another point I write about an unidentified set of tire tracks at the murder scene, that’s early on in the story, but as I reached the end of the first draft I realized I’d never come back to it and explained why they were there.

There are a set of historical letters written into the plot, they take place in the 1800s. I have them interspersed throughout the book in chronological order. At least now I do. When I scrolled through the manuscript, I discovered that in a couple places they were in the wrong order.

white painted papers

Then there are chapters. As I write and revise, I sometimes remove chapters or move them to another location. Sometimes I divide one chapter into two. I spent one afternoon making sure the chapters were in order and correctly numbered. In a few cases they weren’t.

I also try and eliminate redundancy. Ed and Annie take a trip to England, you’ll learn why when you read the book, and they discover there’s a connection with something that happens on that trip and the murder in Lighthouse Cove. I explain it fully in that chapter and yep, I had Ed explaining the same scenario, multiple times, to other characters who were helping solve the crime. You, the reader, probably don’t want to revisit the entire story more than once, so in subsequent explanations I went back and had Ed summarize.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I was a journalist once and as a result, my fiction writing, at least those early drafts, is typically very succinct. So, then I go back and expand the plot. Once done, I usually realize I’ve written more than I need, so then I cut.  What that means is that sometimes I get rid of a chapter I’m emotionally attached to, because as much as I like it, it really doesn’t enhance the plot.

Writing a novel takes a lot of work, not just making sure the plot makes sense, but also keeping track of all the details that make a book flow the way it’s supposed to. I do that on handwritten notes, charts, notes in my computer and, also, in my head. Phew! But I’m gratified when the finished product finally goes to print.