A Typo Honesty
Recently, I was going over the edits from a beta reader on my forthcoming mystery novel – Against the Undertow (sequel to An Unseen Current). I was excited to read over the notes because the reader had been pretty enthusiastic verbally about the book and I was looking forward to easy edits (for once).Ā Beta readers usually give critiques on story elements, spot plot holes, and generally let an author know if something is working or not. They can do line edits and spot typos, but frequently thatās a separate gig because the mental focus for each job is quite different. Because of that, I usually tell my beta readers to treat typos like terrorists on the train in New York ā if you see something, say something ā but donāt go looking for them. Which is why I laughed when I got to this note:
I didnāt take note of typos except for one I thought Iād mention: on p. 76 you meant perennial and instead wrote perineal.
That is indeed a typo worth mentioning and I promptly laughed and shared it with about eight people. But it got me to thinking about some of my other slips of the fingers. Hereās a couple that I thought worth noting.
He knew he would get some carp for it.Ā Yes, because fish are often given as a sign of disapproval.
Stalking feet. Because he has those feet that just will not stop violating restraining orders.
Iām going as troll. Many problems here. Including missing the word āforā and a misplaced space around the S. But if you want to go for a stroll as a troll, apparently I will let you. Gotta look out for those trolls.
Desserted is not, repeat not, the same as deserted. I wish it was. I wish I could be desserted ALL the time. But cake is not a healthy breakfast choice.
As I continue to write, Iām sure I will make many more typos. I hope that at least a few are as good these ones.
New for 2018!
2018 is set to be a very big year for me.Ā I have been working feverishly through 2016 and 2017 to bring out multiple projects and 2018 is the year that many of those projects are bearing fruit. Take a peek at my upcoming releases!
February 13 – Galactic Dreams (Just in time for Valentine’s Day!)
I will be part of a new series from my publishing company called Galactic Dreams featuring stories that are part science-fiction, part fairy tale, part romance and all adventure. Galactic Dreams Volume 1 will feature 3 novellas of fairy tales “reimagined for a new ageāthe future,” including Soldier, Princess, Rebel Spy (Mulan) from Karen Harris Tully, Aurora One (Sleeping Beauty) from the Stiletto Gang’s own J.M. Phillippe and When Stars Take Flight (Thumbelina) by me.Ā Pre-orders will be available next week, but if you want a chance two win 2 of the three stories for free, check out the rafflecopter below!
When Stars Take Flight – Kidnapped by the ToāAndans, tortured by the Moliter, and rescued by Sparrow Pandionāa spy who hides a secret paināAlliance Ambassador Lina Tum-Bel is up against a galaxy full of trouble as she attempts to rebuild the Interstellar Alliance. Her training says that she canāt trust her handsome rescuer, but maybe together, she and Sparrow can learn to fly.
April – Shark’s Bite
Book 2 of the Shark Santoyo Crime Series returns to the suburban underworld of teenage drug dealers and gang enforcer Shark Santoyo as he tries to figure out what to do with a bowling alley and an ATF Agent who is out to get him.
June – Against the Undertow
The sequel to An Unseen Current will finally be available in June.Ā This quirky cozy mystery series features 87 year-old, ex-CIA agent Tobias Yearly and his granddaughter Tish bickering, tackling home improvement projects, and solving mysteries in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. In Against the Undertow, handsome Sheriffās Deputy Emmett Nash, was just accused of murdering his ex-wifeās boyfriend, and Tish and Tobias must face down hippies, cops, and psychotic event planners to solve the mystery and save their friend.
October – Shark’s Hunt
One Shark just isn’t enough.Ā This time, Shark is back in the city and facing some serious problems as a gang war erupts.
December – A Christmas Short?
Maybe.Ā We’ll see if I make it December.
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Clues
Recently, Iāve been working on the sequel to my murder mystery An Unseen Current. While thematically not that different from my other books (a young person struggles with unusual circumstances while navigating the choppy waters of family, love, and friends), mysteries bring a special level of challenge to the mix. For one thing, people expect clues. Oh, thereās a dead body? Well, writer, where are the clues? Chop, chop! Produce the clues!
However, itās not just about clues; itās about when to reveal those clues. Too early and readers are bored because they already solved it. Too late and it seems like the author is cheating and wedging information to justify who the killer is at the last second. Then, even if the writer does pop a clue in the right place, she canāt be too precious about it. The author canāt present it on a silver platter with a neon arrow stating: Clue Here!! To accomplish the correct where and when of clue placement requires a stronger outline than other genres. And that means that I must do what every writer hates doingānot writing.
Outlining and the synopsis are vital to a successful book. But they arenāt the FUN part of writing. The fun part is churning out scenes and spending time with the made up people who populate my brain. Outlining requires problem solving and all the leg work of deciding back stories and motivations and the literal who, what, when, where and why of who was murdered. (It was Professor Plumb in the Library with the Candlestick, in case you were wondering.) But mostly it leaves me thinking: Are we there yet? What about now? Can I start writing now?
So wish me luck as I work out the kinks of how the dead body ended up behind a bar in Anacortes.
You never know whatās beneath the surface.
When Seattle native Tish Yearly finds herself fired and evicted all in one afternoon, she knows sheās in deep water. Unemployed and desperate, the 26 year old ex-actress heads for the one place she knows sheāll be welcome ā the house of her cantankerous ex-CIA agent grandfather, Tobias Yearly, in the San Juan Islands. And when she discovers the strangled corpse of Tobiasās best friend, she knows sheās in over her head. Tish is thrown head-long into a mystery that pits her against a handsome but straight-laced Sheriffās Deputy, a group of eccentric and clannish local residents, and a killer who knows the island far better than she does. Now Tish must swim against the current, depending on her nearly forgotten acting skills and her grandfatherās spy craft, to con a killer and keep them both alive.
Welcome to Hell
Promotion, for a writer, is the seventh ring of hell. By nature we are quiet types who like to sit at home in our PJās, eating things like cereal and wine out of boxes and inventing people to talk to. (Yes, Iām aware thatās also the description of crazy people, but I donāt think we need to point that out at this juncture ā thank you very much.) So promoting the book, being out in the public, is a terrible fate. Only slightly less awful is talking about promotions in front of other authors. (Oh God, oh God, oh God, what if Iāve been doing it wrong? Theyāre all going to know Iām a fraud!) But since my other job is a graphic designer, Iām privy to a great marketing secret: you canāt do it wrong because none of it works. Or all of it works depending on your point of view.
Legend has it that when Google presented all their brand new ways of tracking online digital ads to Viacom President and one-time ad man Mel Karmazin, he blurted out, āYouāre fucking with the magic!ā But the paradigm of ads and marketing being more art than science is still more true than anyone would like to admit, even in this age where digital data practically streams from our ears. Digital tracking will accurately tell you when and where a sale was made, but it never fully encompasses why a sale was made. But at the end of the day, one thing is still true, the only sure fire way to make a sale is to tell someone that you have a product for sale. Marketing is just selecting how youāre going to tell someone about your product.
Iām not a marketing expert, but I know enough to get myself in trouble. So Iāve tried a variety of promotional vehicles that break down into three basic categories: on-line, print, and person to person. By far and away the most successful vehicles are person to person. People telling other people, or the author telling someone to go buy their book works better than just about anything else. (I once sold a book to my state representative when she came doorbelling for votes.) But in the end, you canāt reach everyone you might want to reach in person.
My print experience has been minimal and I think we can all agree that newspapers are dying, so Iāll just skip straight to on-line. Iāve tried Facebook ads & boosts, newsletter ads, and google ads, just to name a few. And in my experience, very few of these things work optimally alone. I get the best results when I do multiple things at once ā run a sale and an ad, and then boost the sale on Facebook. This shotgun approach makes it hard to track the mythical beautiful data of click-throughs, but it is very clear when I take one channel away that sales dip. The hard part comes at the end, when I must assess the ROI (Return on Investment) and whether or the sales justify the expense of a particular marketing channel.
Each author must find what works for them. My only real words of advice are to keep trying. Keep talking. And keep writing. And by the way, have I mentioned that I have a book on sale? An Unseen Current ā a great late summer read for only $4.99.
Dear Brain…
Originally published on The Stiletto Gang 07.22.15
Dear Brain,
While I appreciate your many efforts and strong creative solutions, I would very much appreciate it if you could focus on the problems at hand. Thanks so much.
Sincerely,
Self
I have a writing calendar that tells me what Iām supposed to be working on. Outlining, editing, actually writing, itās all scheduled out. Since the release of High-Caliber Concealer, third book in the Carrie Mae Mystery series is right around the corner (November 17!), that means I should be busy working on draft one of book 4 ā Glossed Cause. That also means that last month I should have finished an outline of said fourth book. Do you know what I have not completed? Yes, thatās right ā the outline. I had completedĀ about 75% it and stopped becauseā¦ Well, I donāt hate it, but I donāt love it either. And then last week I realized what was wrong with it. Not that I know how to fix it, but at least I know why Iām not excited about it. So Iāve been twiddling my thumbs, enjoying the summer, pretending that I have all the time in the world, and hoping that inspiration would hit.
Then last night it did hit. I woke up with a fantastic idea.
For a different book.
I came up with a great idea for the sequel to my recent release ā An Unseen Current. I even have a great name for it, which practically never happens. Itās really, really exciting and not at all what I need. But if Iāve learned anything about creativity itās that if you fight it sometimes it stops all together. What do you think? Should I work on this new idea for a bit and see if inspiration strikes for Glossed Cause or should I set the new idea aside and focus, focus, focus
This Mystery Needs More Unicorns
When I was younger, I wrote strictly to entertain myself and I preferred action-oriented fantasies with an amazing heroine. I loved to read those books, so thatās what I set out to write. And if I pictured myself writing a novel it was going to be the next Lord of the Rings, but with a way higher estrogen factor. Which, although I love LoTR, would not be hard to do considering that it has a total chick quantity of four (Samās Girlfriend, Eowyn, Galadriel and Arwen aka Striderās Girlfriend). Anyway, thatās what I thought Iād write: fantasyās where chick’s in chain mail prod buttock and take nomenclature.
You know what I write now? Mysteries.
I never thought Iād write mysteries. Sure, I read lots of them growing up, but at the end of the day, all that business with clues and alibis and clever methods of death, well, it seemed like a lot of work for the writer. And it turns out, that it is in fact a lot of work. Admittedly, my heroines still apply foot to backsides on a regular basis. And my most popular series the Carrie Mae Mysteries have an element of fantasy (What if door-to-door make-up sales ladies were also top notch spies?), but usually my plots run along to the lines of āSomeoneās been murdered! We need to find out who killed them and stop them from doing it again!ā Which isā¦ a mystery.
A few years ago, I decided to return to my fantasy roots and self-published a collection ofĀ short stories under the heading of Tales from the City of Destiny. These paranormal tales featured vampires, a dragon, werewolves, the devil a Native American shaman, and a half-faerie heroine. Canāt get much more fantasy than that, right? Except my shaman was also a police detective and my half-faerie heroine was your pretty typical private citizen investigatorĀ and the rest of the stories are populated by lawyers, strippers, college students, and a 15-year old runaway.Ā Apparently, I canāt leave mysteries behind even when I try.
So at long last, I have decided to embrace my inner mystery writer. My most recent release, An Unseen Current, is a straight mystery with a cantankerous ex-CIA agent and his granddaughter solving crime in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. (Digital edition on sale for $1.99 through 7/8!) This book was a joy to write, mostly because I simply HAD to research the location, which meant driving around Orcas Island and eating really good food. The lesson here? Maybe writing a mystery isnāt so bad after all.
Whodunnit, American Style
Orcas Island, the setting for my latest novel, An Unseen Current, is the largest of the San Juan Islands.Ā Now, with names like those I know youāre picturing some other south of the equator island, where the palm fronds sway and whales frolic off-shore.Ā Youād be right about the whales, but thanks to a 1790ās Spanish explorer who was anxious to impress his boss, the Viceroy of Mexico (Juan Vicente de GĆ¼emes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo) the San Juan Islands are bit further North ā in Washington State. So while, Orcas whales do indeed frolic, if you visit Orcas youāre more likely to be doused with rain and smacked by an evergreen bow than conked on the head by a coconut.Ā However, the San Juans do share some of the same cultural characteristics as the tropical islands we all picture.Ā Life there runs on island time, people do all know each other, and islanders learn to make do with the resources they have on hand.Ā Accessible only by ferry or seaplane, Orcas is full of artists, foodies, retirees, tourists, and those who just donāt really care for the hustle and bustle of the mainland. And if youāre a mystery writer, itās the perfect place for a murder.
Iāve been visitingĀ Orcas for most of my life.Ā My dadās best friend lives there and summer visits were pretty normal (if you didn’t mind the glass outhouse), and it wasnāt until college that I recognized the murderous potential of Orcas. I was teaching a water safety class for girls at Camp Moran and I realized that it was the perfect setting for an American version of the classic āEnglish Country Houseā mystery.Ā The English Country House mysteryās cropped up with invention detective fiction and featured an amateur sleuth dropped into a murder mystery when one of the guests at their house party is killed.Ā The amateur sleuth is practically forced to interfere since village police are clearly unsuited to handle the case, London police are practically unreachable, and by George, no one gets away with killing one of my guests!Ā On Orcas, although there are police, the nearest major crimes detective is a ferry ride away in Anacortes, the suspect pool is limited to the population of the island, and while my ex-CIA agent character, seventy-something Tobias Yearly, doesnāt think he owns the island, he does think heās the most qualified to find who murdered his best friend. Ā Tobias, and his granddaughter Tish, must make their way through suspects from all over the island as they contend with a suspicious police detective, an angry baker, and killer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
As I wrote An Unseen Current I tried to capture all the quirkiness and beauty of Orcas, but also to show that even small towns and islands can hide a killer.Ā Now, hopefully, next time I visit, none of the locals take exception to that or I may find myself stuck in the glass outhouse with someone throwing stones.