The Ability to Single-Task

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

The past few days haven’t been terrific and the fault for this lies squarely with me.

So…I dropped my phone in water.  Apparently, this is not a good thing to do to smart phones.  Not only did I drop it in water, I didn’t even realize I’d dropped it into water.  There was no quick rescue, so the phone was submerged for quite a while.  Once I discovered it, I tried sticking it into a bag of quick-rice, but boy, that thing was dead.

I have also broken a plastic container that was full of leftovers (yes, this is hard to do! But somehow…), chipped a bowl, ran into a doorjamb, and burned two things I was cooking.  Even for me, this is a long list of issues.

The interesting thing is that after my phone was destroyed (it was actually the last in the series of unfortunate events), I immediately stopped having these calamities.  I’m not going to blame my phone 100%, but it apparently was a significant contributing factor.

Writing Setting and Other Description—Getting Past the “Who Cares?” Aspect

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I dislike writing setting and description, but I used to absolutely despise it.  I’ve got plenty of now-published manuscripts in my Word archives with helpful editorial direction on them: “Elizabeth, could you share with us what this car looks like?  I can’t really picture it.”

Each time, of course, I added the description in for my editor.  There are readers who really enjoy description, I know.  I’ve just never been one of them. 

Helpful Links for Writers

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I wanted to share some sites that I’ve found really helpful lately.  I’m always looking for ways to save time using apps and, so frequently, I seem to end up with exactly the opposite—sites that take too long to set up, are unwieldy, or that are total time sucks.

But these sites get special recognition from me today because they’ve helped me out. I’m in favor of anything that saves me even a few minutes of time. These sites are all free.

Cause-Related Marketing

by Kay Kendall, @Kaylee_Kendall

Everyone knows the publishing world is in upheaval and it’s a dog-eat-dog world as far as promoting books is concerned. At first the various ways to connect through social media seemed to be heaven-sent, yet now, after only a year or two, folks on authors’ chat groups across the Web lament that book sales are flagging. They say that the kinds of promotions that used to work are not as effective anymore.

What’s an author to do?

 My own debut mystery DESOLATION ROW was published by Stairway Press of Seattle just this spring, and of course I have been going full-tilt with online marketing. Lately I’m turning the bulk of my attention back to mystery number two, but when I write for days on end and let the promotion slide, my sales figures fall. So, like a yoyo, I pop right back to do more online marketing.

You know the drill. Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, blogging and/or guest blogging. And now, as if all us authors didn’t have our hands full already, Everyone says that an author has to add Google+

What is a poor besieged author to do?

In an earlier incarnation in life I was a vice president of public affairs with American Express. This was in the late eighties when the company was pioneering the concept called cause-related marketing. Now I have begun my own version of that, and I suggest that you at least consider it. It isn’t something you will have to do daily. The concept is no longer brand new in the world of marketing, but it is not yet old hat in the book world.

Simply put, you as an author know what charitable causes have resonance with you. Find one that also relates to something in your book. Then promote the fact that you will donate a part of your royalties to that worthy cause. Both sides of the equation win. Even if this does not sell more of your books today, you show your true colors as a caring person about something that is not frivolous, something that is near and dear to your heart. The homeless, arts in your community, a hospital funding drive. The list is truly endless.

For example, DESOLATION ROW is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. In 1968 a young bride from Texas uses her CIA-honed skills to catch the real killer when her husband lands in a Canadian jail for murdering the draft-resisting son of a United States senator. Read the whole book and you will find that the overall thrust is pro-soldier and anti-war.

Because of that ethos, and because I have supported the organization for more than 30 years, I am choosing to donate a portion of my royalties to the Paralyzed Veterans of America.  When I talk about that, I not only share with readers where my heart lies but also profile a worthy organization that does essential work.  Remember: the connection between your writing and your cause is key.

I urge you to look at your writing and your own causes. See what will work to make both sides of that equation gain prominence and profile. A position that is win-win for all concerned is always best. And as we used to say back in the day—slightly amended to what I am doing now…WRITE ON!

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Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations executive who lives in Texas with her husband, five house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she set her debut mystery during the Vietnam War, a key conflict of last century not already overrun with novels. Kay says her mysteries feature women caught in their own battles during that unusual war era. "In Desolation Row I explore what life was like for a typical young woman--not a headline maker, not a Hanoi Jane or Angela Davis, but a moderate who nonetheless got swept up by history's tides during the turbulent sixties. All that turmoil lends itself to drama, intrigue, and murder." Kendall's now working on her second Austin Starr mystery, Rainy Day Women.

Preparing for a Writing Career

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I was interviewed recently and one of the questions I was asked was what type of preparation or training I’d received to become a novelist. I think the person asking the question thought that I had an MFA (Master of Fine Arts.)

Which, actually, I don’t. I have a BA and was an English major. Although I wrote a lot in school and read and discussed some amazing literature, I didn’t take a single creative writing class.

Writing isn’t a normal kind of job. Well, it is from the aspect that you have to practice it to improve your skill, but it’s not like becoming a doctor where you have to go to graduate school and then intern at a hospital before moving on to private practice. You can go that route, if you’re interested in grad school. But you don’t have to go that route to become a writer.

These things could help:

Reading. Most of the writers I know are avid readers…and would like to spend more time reading than they’re able to. Writers usually love words and playing around with arranging them to achieve different effects.

Looking at the world through a lens. Being an observer. Sometimes I feel like everything is a story—that I frame life like a story. So when the kids tell me about their day at school….I’m hearing a story (hopefully a non-fiction one.) :)

Practicing. It’s really the only way to improve.

Determination. I think we all have to be determined or even stubborn to protect our writing time or to have the guts to submit our writing for publication.

Time management skills. In this age of distraction, time management skills are key.

Discipline. This goes hand in hand with time management.

And I’ll just end this by saying that you don’t need a published book to call yourself a writer. If you write, you’re a writer, plain and simple. And even if you’d rather not tell people you’re a writer (a lot of pressure can come with that announcement), just acknowledging it to yourself can make a big difference in your attitude and approach to the craft.

What skills or preparation do you think are helpful for writers? Can you add to my list?

Image: Flickr user Lawrence OP

What Happens After Writing 3 or 4 Books a Year

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

There was an article in the New York Times recently, entitled Writer’s Cramp: In the e-Reader era, a Book a Year is Slacking.

Obviously, this is a provocative title. I don’t think a book a year is slacking. I just don’t think we can make a living off a book a year if we’re midlist authors. (Actually…I know we can’t. Unless your book deals are a whole lot better than mine are.)

Not everyone can write several books a year. If you write 175,000 word historical sagas, no, you probably can’t write three or four books a year. If you write nonfiction (the type that requires a lot of research and fact-checking), probably not.

For the rest of us time-challenged writers (which means everyone, probably) I wanted to let you know that writing several books a year doesn’t take that long. As I mentioned in this post, if you can write 3 1/2 pages a day, you can write three or four books a year. Even if it takes you a long time, thoughtfully considering each word and making each word resonate with meaning, you can probably manage a least two if you stay focused during your writing time.

So what’s it like to write that many books a year? I can let you know what it’s like for me. This is the first time I’ve really analyzed it, so it’s interesting to break it all down (for the record, since the start of 2012, I’ve written one full book and I’m now passing the halfway mark of the second. I do edit quickly and I do have either my publisher’s editors or freelance editors go over my work after I edit it.)

Good things

*You write every day and you don’t lose any story continuity.

*You don’t forget or stumble with your character’s individual voices.

*You think about your story more during the day. Plot ideas, small scenes, even just words occur to you during the day in reference to the story.

*You don’t ever get bored with what you’re writing.

*You just jump right into the story every single day. No wondering where you left off. No feeling like you’ve lost the story thread.

*Frequently you’ll get story ideas for the next book in the series while writing the book.

*Readers don’t have to wait very long between books.

*Obviously, your income is higher.

Not so good things

*The way the publishing cycle goes, you can end up with two books with nearly the same deadline (this would be me, now.)

*If your deadlines are spaced fairly far apart, it still doesn’t mean that you don’t end up with two books running into each other. I nearly always am working on edits for one while drafting another.

*If you’re writing different series each time (this is exactly my situation this year), then you have to get your head quickly back into the game with each book/different series.

*If you’re writing the first book in a series, it takes a little more time….you’re establishing characters and settings.

Downright lousy things

*There’s a sense of burnout sometimes. It means you have to work harder (and if that seems counterintuitive…yeah, it is. But it works. I don’t know why, either…)

*Once in a while there’s a feeling of extreme panic. I’ve committed to what this year?! And the accompanying feeling of complete inadequacy, of course.

But.

All that being said, I wouldn’t give it up because of the easy rhythm of it. I might prefer three instead of the four I’ve completed in the last 12 months. But ultimately it works really well. You never get that stale feeling from not having written for a while.

This being said, it’s also important to make sure we’re not mindlessly churning out junk. We’ve got to think of our reader first. I’d hate for a regular reader of mine to be disappointed by one of my stories. I’d also hate to discourage a new reader from reading more of my books. I’m hoping for a trusting relationship with my readers that lasts for decades.

There can be so much of a rush to publish that the story is full of holes, is too derivative, or is full of typos and other errors. There are editors that can help us with those things, but it’s a lot better in the long-run if we revise before the manuscripts get into our editors’ hands.

What’s your writing pace like? Do you set yourself a word-count goal or a timed goal? Do you write more than one series? Would you?

Writing in Interruptions

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I was working away on the fourth Memphis book yesterday, writing an important scene for the book.

It’s a scene where a suspect gives important information to my sleuth—information that leads her investigation in a new direction.

The scene was pacing well. I was happy with the scene's characters, dialogue, and location.

There were two things I noticed, though. One, the scene was absolutely massive. Although it was pacing well, it seemed really dense. Lots of information there for a reader to digest.

The second thing I noticed was that the scene was really too important to have all at once place in the story.

I don’t like to edit as I go, so I put a note to myself in the margin of the story with Word’s Track Changes feature: Split this scene up.

What I’m going to do when I’m editing, is to take that scene and interrupt it. I’ll have the character either hint at the information or try to relate the information—and get interrupted by another event….something that needs immediate attention in the story.

Of course, in my stories, that character might end up dead before he has a chance to say what was on his mind. But that also gives an opportunity to delay the character's revelation—maybe he told another character his problem or conclusion or insight. Maybe he wrote it down. Maybe he emailed someone. Who did he communicate with in the days leading up to his death?

If this interrupting is done too frequently or in an obvious way, I think it can get frustrating for a reader. But if it’s handled by just introducing another important scene or event, it automatically creates tension and interest: what was that character trying to say? And life, after all, is frequently one interruption after another (at least, mine is. That’s part of being a parent, I guess.)

This approach is one that I’ve been using more of….especially when I see a huge scene that’s composed of dialogue between a couple of characters. It’s almost like a big info-dump. It’s not backstory, but it’s a lot of information to process. Why not break it up? Fracturing the scene creates tension, adds reasonable length to my story, and makes the pace faster.

Do you ever break up important scenes in your book to trickle the information out slowly?

Photo: Leo Reynolds—Flickr

Another Reason Experience is Important for Writers

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I spent the other morning at the DMV. The DMV, for my non-US readers, is the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s one of those dreaded places here in the States—full of high counters and long lines.

My son was with me to get his driving permit. We’d arrived 45 minutes before the office opened and were already 5th in line. By the time it opened, the line wrapped around the corner of the squatty government building. It was freezing outside—a shock after such a balmy winte--and my son and I were moving around, swinging our arms, as we waited. His bouncing was probably nerves and mine was a futile attempt to keep warm.

We finally navigated through the different stations after a bad moment where we’d sat in “the wrong set of chairs” for what we were in line for. The DMV has always reminded me a little of Dickens’ Circumlocution Office. We quickly sat in the right set of chairs and my son took his test.

And, thankfully, passed it. But he wasn’t completely satisfied because he’d missed several questions and he’s a typical Type-A firstborn.

“Mom, I missed the stupidest questions!”

“I’m sure they weren’t stupid.”

“They were. One of them asked when roads are the slickest. I chose ‘after three hours of raining’ because of all the cars that hydroplane—the roads have got to be really slick then. But they said the right answer was ‘within the first 15 minutes of raining’,” he said.

“Ohh. Well, yes. They’re right. That’s because the oil rises up to the road surface and you skid on all the old oil puddles on the road,” I explained.

This didn’t cheer him up. “See! Even you knew it and you haven’t even studied the book.”

“But I’ve been driving for 26 years. I know it completely through experience.”

I think that’s one thing that sometimes gets missed when writers recommend frequent writing as a way to improve. What tends to get mentioned is the skill you acquire.

What I think practice and experience gets you are personal strategies for advancing a story and the confidence to complete one.

If you hit a roadblock, you’ll know the best way for you to handle it. For me, that means marking the scene with asterisks and coming back to it later.

You’ll know what to do when you’re stuck on a scene and you aren’t in the right mind-frame to write it. For me, this means skipping the scene and writing another one that’s better suited to my mood.

You’ll find the easiest method for you, yourself, to write a book…you’ll learn if you should outline, wing it, write in the mornings, write in the evenings, write during your commute. You’ll learn shortcuts, your strengths and your weaknesses. You’ll learn how to keep yourself motivated.

You’ll gain confidence that you can finish a book, submit it, and stomach the reviews, good or bad.

Experience is the only way to figure out what works best for us. It’s the only way to know how to make it through the obstacle course that each book presents. It’s the only way to deal with the end result of being published and having that book in the hands of the readers.

You can read manuals on driving and manuals on writing. But experience counts more. (And, I’d add, experience reading the genre that you write.)

It’s true that our writing improves each time we sit down to write and with each book that we finish. I know my books have stronger verbs, better dialogue, rounder characters, and more literary elements than they did when I started out.

That improvement is more intangible and murky, though, unless it’s directly compared side by side with other examples of my writing. What motivates me, usually, are tangible results. Motivation is a stack of finished books and my level of confidence— things I can easily see, easily feel.

It’s the knowledge of what to do at an intersection full of oil slicks when it starts to rain.

What does your regular writing habit help you gain?

Constructing and Weaving in Subplots

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

My last post was about my layering approach to writing books, and I got a question from a blog reader about how to create subplots and then how to weave the subplot layer into a finished draft.

Subplots are sometimes my favorite part of a book. In fact, occasionally the main plot of a novel will leave me cold as a reader and I’ll flip ahead in the book just to find out how the subplot ends up.

My subplots are almost always humor-based and end up tying into the book’s ending. Your subplot could involve a budding romance, or the protagonist’s teenager’s gradual descent into drug use…really, any plot smaller than the main one that can enhance the main plot (through conflict or character development or by adding complications) in some way.

*****Since I don’t like to write spoilers for anyone else’s books, I’ll do a couple for mine (in books that are older releases) as examples… they’re minor spoilers. But heads up if you’re one of my readers!*****

What I do is come up with complete, small episodes…almost short stories. Then I create scenes with each installment of the subplot story, to create what will end up being a running serial throughout the main plot. For me, it could even be on the level of a running joke that suddenly has more significance at the end of the book.

Most of my books have more than one subplot. The subplots vary in length and complexity. I’ll use two for examples…a very short one and a longer one.

One of my subplots involved two men who were friends with each other and also friends with my sleuth. One of the men was bragging about a prized bottle of expensive and rare wine that he’d acquired. The other man kept dropping hints or outright begging to come over and share a glass of this wine. He found opportunities to celebrate and eagerly asked his friend if he’d open the bottle. But the friend always refused.

I started this subplot fairly early in the book—and dropped in the dialogue mentioning it following a regular scene in the book. So I had a first mention of the subplot with the man bragging about the wine. Then I continued with it at intervals throughout the story….again, each mention was like a mini-episode or the next installment of the mini-serial. So I wrote in a couple of other mentions, escalating the friend’s frustration and his requests to participate in a wine tasting.

Then, at the end of the book, I had the friend completely give up on the chance that he’d ever sample the wine. He decides to go to the wine store and purchase a bottle himself. On the way back with the wine, he comes across the sleuth in a perilous situation near the wine store, and drops the bottle to come to her aid.

This is really, the briefest of subplots. It adds a little humor to the story when things get serious with the murders. It gives the opportunity for bits of character development as my protagonist reacts to the friends’ battle over the wine. It gives a change of pace. And then the subplot makes a surprise appearance again at the end of the story and lends a feeling of continuity and completion at the finish.

Another subplot I wrote into a different series was a little longer and a bit more involved. My protagonist for that series, Myrtle, is a crotchety elderly woman who has a reputation for being prickly. A feral cat takes up with her and she genuinely becomes charmed with it…although the cat attacks visitors to her home. She admires its toughness.

Again, I wrote the subplot straight through on a separate document—the whole story of the subplot in episodes. Then I wove those little episodic scenes into the main plot and tied it into the ending.

Throughout the story the subplot developed: Myrtle becomes acquainted with the cat, the cat acts out with various visitors to the home. The cat develops a true fondness for Myrtle and decides to bring her gifts—sometimes gifts that aren’t dead. Myrtle receives bunnies and other creatures from her determined cat friend. I interspersed these episodes throughout the book. This particular subplot helped develop Myrtle as a character—and showed another, softer, side to her.

At the end, when Myrtle is confronted by the killer, a separate subplot comes back into play (Myrtle’s horrible cooking that plagues the series) which leads into the cat’s intrusion during Myrtle’s confrontation with the murderer….which creates enough of a distraction for Myrtle to take control of the situation.

So….that’s it in a nutshell. I do want my subplots to end up impacting the main plot, develop my characters a bit, and relieve tension in my books. I write them as complete stories, then chop them up into scenes and intersperse them through the main story. Then I tie the subplot into the ending of my book (which also helps me with writing endings…never my favorite thing to write.)

Hope this helps instead of being completely confusing. Now it’s your turn—how do you write in subplot layers to your book? I’d love to hear some other ideas (especially since, when I find something that works for me, I stop thinking of other approaches!)

Lists and Layers

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Recently I was at an event where I spoke with aspiring authors after my talk.

They asked about the number of books I’d written, then they looked both amazed and discouraged at the same time. “How do you get through a book? There’s just so much to think about when you’re writing.”

I told them that I try not to think about the big picture (plowing through 275 pages, editing it, submitting it to my editor, and worried waiting for reviews) as much as possible. It just makes me feel overwhelmed. If I approach the book as simply advancing the story a day at a time (with an idea of where I’m heading and keeping in mind what readers might enjoy most), then it seems like a much smaller project.

Another trick is that I’m not trying to keep everything in mind as I’m writing a book (except reader enjoyment.) I love reading books about writing, magazine articles on writing, and blog posts on writing, but I can’t focus on character arc, story structure, engaging descriptions, and all the other elements that these resources recommend for a good story.

I use layering and lists as tools to make sure I round out my story later. I write my books straight through (without pausing for chapter breaks) and end up with about 55,000 words. This is the bare-bones story. Then I start layering in other elements. This is what I'm doing right now to put the finishing touches on a book I'm turning in at the end of this month.

Layers

Parts of the book that I add in layers for 2nd and 3rd drafts:

• Setting descriptions
• Character descriptions
• Character last names and place names (I’ll mark as *** on the draft so I can find my spots later.)
• Any scenes I was stuck on. I just make a couple of notes about what I wanted to accomplish with the scene and move on to the next scene.
• Subplots can be included perfectly as a separate layer. In fact, it’s almost easier that way because you can just gradually weave them in to the story that’s already on the page.

I do the same thing with revising. If you think to yourself that you’re editing a whole book, the thought of it can be just as overwhelming as writing the book was.

These are issues that I address in layers for the revision (and for a longer list of things I look for during revision, click this post)

• Typos/grammar
• Crutch words that I use too frequently
• Conflict—I make a pass through to make sure each scene either forwards the plot or adds to the conflict
• Continuity (is the character wearing the same outfit on page 20 that she’s wearing on page 21?)
• Subplots—did they resolve? Did they tie into the main plot?
• Loose ends—is everything resolved at the end of the book?

Lists

Somehow, it’s easier for me to come up with lots of different ideas if I make them into bullet points and put them in list form. These lists could include: My protagonist’s catch-phrases. My protagonist’s features. Different physical traits of my protagonist. My protagonist’s facial expressions. *5 possible endings for this book. *5 twists. *5 possible subplots. *5 ways the subplots could tie into the main plot. Or you could do it for character growth: *5 ways the character could grow. *5 surprising things that we could learn about a character. *Top 10 list of things that bother the protagonist (then 10 things that would drive the character crazy that I could write into the book.) *10 things this character loves more than anything. You could find other uses for lists, too: *5 ways to add some unexpected elements to the book (humor, suspense, sadness, fear.) *5 ways to describe the setting.

The best results are woven into the story or used to inspire dialogue that develops my characters more.

These are the tools I use for every book to make sure that I keep things fresh and keep from feeling overwhelmed. How do you keep focused and keep moving ahead with your story?

Focusing on a Setting Detail

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

On Sunday, my daughter and I took advantage of the nice weather and went for a walk at the park.

It was like a hundred other walks at the park that we’ve taken over the years. Sunny and warm. There were lots of people and dogs walking. The birds were chirping loudly, since it’s a protected habitat there. And my daughter wanted to play Poohsticks on the bridge for the eleventy-bazillionth time.

It was all very peaceful…and unremarkable. My daughter and I stood on the small bridge and waited to see which of the two sticks she threw into the fast-moving creek would come out quicker on the other side.

Then I saw him. A Mr. No-Shoulders, as my mother would call him. A snake, sunning himself on a rock.

Now, snakes in the Southern US are not remarkable. They’re everywhere. And this winter they really didn’t hibernate since it never really got cold. There are probably a ton of sleep-deprived, grumpy snakes around North Carolina right now.

But snakes usually wisely avoid Southerners. They don’t want to see us and we don’t particularly want to see them.

And this snake was watching my daughter and me closely, suspiciously. It was pretty in the sun, actually. Until it quickly leaped into the water to get away from us.

We continued on our walk…until we saw another snake sunning itself. I took a picture of one of the snakes (above) and didn’t have a chance to ask my Scout son or outdoorsy husband what type it was. Water moccasin? Cottonmouth? Copperhead? Who knows?

I’m never a fan of writing setting. It’s the kind of stuff that I skip over as a reader---unless there’s a remarkable detail that makes me interested. If a snake intrudes on a normal, everyday walk at the park, I’m more interested. If the setting is atmospheric, if I feel the setting is setting a mood, if the setting is viewed through the eyes of a character and gives me more character insight….then I don’t skip it.

How about you? How do you set apart your settings to make them pop and tie them into the story or indicate something interesting about your characters? Do you enjoy reading and writing setting?

The Exciting Future for Writers

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Tonight I’m speaking with the creative writing students at my alma mater, Presbyterian College in SC. It’s a great liberal arts school with a strong English department.

I’ll be giving a reading (a short one, since I have little faith in my ability to be entertaining) and then talking a little about the writing business before taking questions.

And I’m planning on spreading the exciting news about being a 21st century writer—that it’s the best time ever to be a writer.

I’m never sure if that message is getting out to writers, unless they’re plugged into the online writing community. The talk of bankrupt book chains, struggling independent bookstores, and decreasing advances from traditional publishers might be eclipsing that message.

Ultimately, writers have got a new gateway—directly from us to our reader.

Why this is exciting:

We have choices. We can choose to follow the traditional publishing route of finding an agent and then a publisher. Or we can hone our work, get our manuscript professionally edited, formatted, and designed and self-publish our books. Or we can do both (I’m taking the hybrid approach, myself.)

We can develop a niche readership. Let’s say that you are completely engulfed in working on projects that feature your favorite things—horror and marine biology. Before, if your idea wasn’t commercial enough to get the strong sales needed for a slot on the bookstore shelves, then there was no hope for you. You could either publish the book yourself (with a great deal of expense and poor distribution) or else you could just share the story among your friends and family.

Now you can self-publish it…but for very little expense, compared to the old days. And your distribution is online—it has the potential of reaching millions, worldwide. In that group of millions is your niche reader…the ones who are also obsessed with horror and marine biology. The challenge for you is to get the word out to these readers, in an un-obnoxious way, that your book exists.

We can explore different genres. In the pre-ebook days, if you’d made a good name for yourself in one genre, it was pretty difficult to make the leap to another one. Some agents only represent one type of book. So, if you were a fantasy writer who wanted to write thrillers, your agent might not represent thrillers. You’d have to find another agent….by again going through the query process. And then you’d have to basically start from scratch to find a publisher.

Now, if you can write it, you can publish it. (It still might be wise to use a pen name if your name is particularly associated with a particular genre…that way you’re not confusing your readers. You can still always give them the chance to read your other books by telling them you’re writing another genre under a pseudonym.)

We can explore formats. Do we feel like experimenting with short stories or poetry? Previously, if we wanted to reach readers with those formats…well, it was going to be a long-shot. We’d be trying to get inclusion in anthologies, or literary magazines or publishers who put out chapbooks. There was a strong possibility that the stories or poetry would never find an audience, never get reviewed, never inspire, never receive feedback.

Now we can sell short stories or serials or poetry, ourselves. We can price them as a collection or price them as singles. We can even sell them at a low price as a loss leader to gain visibility for our other, full-priced work. We can experiment.

We can have complete creative control. Now, admittedly, this is a scary area sometimes. And I’m one who previously just wanted to write the stories and promote them and not have to think about formatting or covers or design.

Now, though, we can expand our thinking into other channels. We can envision what we’d like our cover to look like and the kinds of readers that we’d like to appeal to with them. We can set a tone. And, importantly, we can outsource these tasks to experts and have them complete our vision of our book. If that vision proves not to connect with the readers…well, we can change it. That’s amazing, in itself.

We can put our books in readers’ hands faster—keeping series continuity and making our connection with readers stronger. Traditional publishing takes a while. When I hand in a manuscript, it’s a full 12 months before that book gets to the reader. Now, after I write a book and edit it, I send it to professional editors and cover designers and then to my reader. It takes about 1-2 months after I turn over my manuscript.

What do you look forward to most as a writer these days? How are you enjoying our new freedom? Does it still seem scary, or is it becoming exhilarating?

Making time to Write—by Glenn Gamble

You wrote your first book, and it’s on Kindle, Smashwords, Nook and wherever else ebooks are sold. You’re proud of it, your family members pretend that they’re proud of you, and your wife wishes that you would stop chasing unattainable dreams. Whatever the case, you have joined the ranks of becoming a novelist by agonizing over your work for however long it took you to write your book. Good job—now write the next one!

Easier said than done when you have children, work, and other obligations that eat away at your writing time. Some of you log on twitter and commiserate with all your writer friends about not having time to write your next work of art because of the aforementioned obligations in your life. Others say “I can’t wait to be able to make enough income to be a full-time writer, then I could quit my job because I would love nothing more than to have all day to type stories on my computer and submit those best-sellers. James Patterson has nothing on me. Hocking? Locke? JK Rowling, eat your heart out!”

Guess what? You’ll never have enough time to write. Watch yourself there, don’t choke on your jelly bean!

Go back and reread the bold print.

Make peace with the face that you will never have enough time to write, then you won’t have this excuse to use as a crutch anymore. There will never be enough of a time balance for you to write your masterpieces, due to the fast paced society that we live in. Kids, homework, job, wife, soccer practice and mistress are all demanding an unfair chunk of your time, that’s life. With that said, you have to make time to write if being a novelist is something that you want to do. No one cares about an author who only has one book published. Think about your favorite authors –they have several books published—because they made time to write while encumbered with the same obstacles you face, if not more. Now its your turn to make time to write.

The key to making time to write is to squeeze it into the small pockets of idle time that you have available. Do you have a 30 minute lunch break? Eat a snack for the first 15 minutes and work on your story for the next 15 minutes. Do you have downtime at your job? Some of us work in occupations where we face long periods of boredom, sandwiched in between intense work projects. If you have down periods, or slow periods then work on your story for that period. Just be mindful that your employer pays your mortgage and that you do need to show your managers respect. When you’re at your job, your first priority is fulfilling the expectations of your management team first and foremost.

Do you have a favorite television show? Skip it. Granted, some of you like Survivor and believe that it provides great entertainment value. Who cares? Besides, when was the last time your favorite television show provided you with a tangible benefit that was instrumental in improving your life? What about in improving your writing? Television is for people who are trying to balance writing with working.

Another thing that tickles me is the notion that you must block out writing time and create this perfect environment where you get to sit in a quiet room and write without distractions and interruptions in order for you to create your best work. While this might be ideal, it’s unrealistic. You have children, you live in an apartment, you live with your mama, and you share the same room with your wife.

There are a number of uncontrollable distractions that occur throughout the day. You must learn how to tune them out in order to pursue your dream. In reality, you won’t be able to control what goes on in your environment. Your son will not stop being acting like a child just because you’re writing. So you raise your child and write your book. If something happens that requires your attention, stop writing and resolve the issue at hand. If your mistress calls you every day, return her calls every three days. Writing should be your main priority that comes second only to your family and your job.

Pursue small pockets of time throughout the day and make the best of them whether they’re your lunch breaks, your downtime, your weekends or that half hour before you go to bed.

Glenn Gamble is the author of A Thousand Chances, Bon Appetit, Escape, On the Run, and James. All of his books are available on Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Smashwords.

He also encourages you to go to his website http://www.GlennGamble.com.

Differentiating Characters

My 10 year old daughter met a tough challenge successfully yesterday and I told her she could choose a reward to celebrate.

She chose a Happy Meal from McDonalds. :) I got off very cheaply, and—since she’s the only member of our family who likes McDonalds —she got something she wanted, too (since who knows when she’ll get that fast food fix again?)

Her Happy Meal box was covered with gobs of marketing stuff, of course. The theme of this meal was a tie-in to a show that she watches on the Nickelodeon channel. One of the games on the box featured a list of sentences for children to connect to different characters on the show. Not catch-phrases, not quotations, but just likely things for the characters to have said.

I’m driving the car and she’s immediately assigning each character to a sentence. Right off the bat. Then she looked at the bottom of the box. “I got them all right!”

And I have to say I was very impressed…well, after wondering whether she was watching too much TV. :) The show has obviously done a bang-up job differentiating their characters.

Could I do the same thing for my own characters? It probably depends on the character. It would be easy for major or recurring characters. Secondary/supporting characters? I’d like to think so. But maybe it would take longer than the 10 seconds my daughter spent on her answers.

Apparently, on this show, one character is very vain, one has an overbearing mother, one has had a long-time crush on another character, etc. Not too far off from the kinds of things we’re doing with our books. We’re just doing our showing with words…we get a strong impression of a character who opens his car door and an avalanche of papers and food wrappers occurs, for instance.

We’re giving our characters personalities by showing how they interact with other characters (they’re supercilious, stubborn, cheerful, touchy) how they react to difficult situations (they get frustrated, they become leaders, they run off and hide), and—like the Happy Meal—showing character clues through dialogue (their choice of words, speech patterns, vocabulary, etc.).

How do you help readers differentiate between your characters?

Integrating Research into a Novel

My daughter has just started taking horseback riding lessons.

The lady who’s instructing her wants to loop me in on what’s going on. I appreciate this, but I have no idea what she’s talking about.

She said, “Your daughter will come in and will put the harness on the horse….blah blah, brush…blah blah, saddle blanket and bumper and saddle, blah blah, girth…blah blah, bridle and bit…”

I listened politely during the first lesson, but at the second lesson I said, “I’m sorry—I’m not an equestrian.” Plus, I didn’t think I really needed to know about all the equipment. We’re not buying a horse (thankfully) and I’m not planning on buying the tack.

I was reminded of this on Thursday when I had an talk with one of my editors about my first quilting mystery, Quilt or Innocence which is coming out next summer. Y’all might be shocked to hear this, but I’m not a quilter. :)

This means I’ve done a lot of quilting research. That’s because we have to know a lot to be able to convey a subject seamlessly.

But if I write about all the details of quilting, that’s going to make the readers feel like I did with the riding instructor. Besides, I don’t want to bring my readers out of the story and mystery plot. And I’m not writing a quilting how-to book.

What my editor wanted more of was the texture and colors and patterns—things that many readers would appreciate—the art of the quilts. What she wanted less of was quilting terms (or more quilting terms in context.) Because once or twice I dropped in a quilting verb and didn’t really put it into context (not wanting to over-explain...but under explained, instead.) Her ideas seemed like excellent suggestions to me…that I was able to convey the feel of the quilting world and not do a research dump on the unsuspecting reader.

Other ways I added quilting to the book:

I’ve got a novice quilter in the book who occasionally needs pithy explanations of quilting techniques.

There are a couple of scenes where quilting terminology and fabrics are naturally integrated—in a quilt shop.

There were some quick mentions in dialogue. I tried to indicate a little bit about each character when they discussed quilting. (Confident, reticent, boastful, etc.)

I think the balance between the craft and the mystery worked out pretty well in the book…although it was a real challenge for me. Do you have to research for your books? How do you integrate your research in a natural way?

The Black Heart of White-Collar Crime by Colleen Collins & Shaun Kaufman

In 1939 sociologist Edwin Sutherland coined the term “white collar crime.” He wrote, "White collar crime is crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation." It was a radical redefinition in criminal law as Sutherland was making distinctions not on the basis of an act or intent, but according to the status of the accused. Unlike Edwin Sutherland's definition, the U.S. Department of Justice’s formal definition of white-collar crime disregards class or economic status. However, government prosecutors are far more likely to indict the "upper-class" businessman who works for a major corporation than the middle-class grandmother who buys counterfeit medications from Canada. The general components of white-collar crime: • It is a non-violent, illegal act that principally involves deception, deceit, concealment, manipulation, breach of trust, subterfuge or illegal circumvention. • It is typically committed by a business person or public official • Its evidence usually involves a “paper trail” that investigators use to prosecute the case. There are numerous types of white-collar crime, including antitrust violations, bankruptcy fraud, cell phone fraud, credit card fraud, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, environment schemes, healthcare fraud and insider trading. PIs Who Specialize in White-Collar Crime As with any crime, there are investigative procedures, then there’s the creativity, experience, tenacity and intellect of the investigator. That last one – intellect – is key for an investigator who specializes in white-collar crimes. A homicide detective we know claims that all homicides are easy. He claims that unless they’re strategized by organized crime (for example), they’re typically cases whose clues are easily followed. Alternatively, criminals who practice white-collar crime are smart. They are usually highly educated, savvy and familiar with how to manipulate the inner workings of business. A PI who investigates a white-collar crime case has to match wits with these criminals to uncover the crime. Plus, the practice of private investigations is just as much an art as it is a science, so a successful investigator always thinks outside of the box while also applying concepts and procedures. Next, let’s analyze one of our white-collar crime cases by looking at our investigation goals, tasks, unforeseen glitches and end result. Case Example: The Case of the Disappearing Money Investigation Goal An attorney who specializes in probate, elder law, and estate planning/administration asked our investigations agency to investigate what had happened to the money that disappeared from a family's trust fund. The family already suspected a specific member. Investigation Tasks Our investigations on the suspected family member included the following tasks: • Researching public records for significant purchases for land, cars and other high-price-tag items. • Researching purchases made by the suspect’s daughter and son-in-law. Our investigation revealed that the son-in-law had come unexpectedly into large amounts of money that he had used to fund large purchases, one being a new home. • Checking records in the assessor’s and clerk of recorder’s offices. We learned the suspected family member had acquired an interest in a pricey downtown condo. • Surveilling the suspected family member. Although she claimed to be unemployed, we discovered she suddenly had sufficient amounts of money to attend a university full time. • Investigating suspected family’s member’s claim that she occasionally babysat for another family member to earn some money. Our investigations, including surveillance, showed she never conducted any babysitting, and that the children in question were enrolled in a daycare that the suspected family member had no ties to. Unforeseen Glitches The object of our investigations learned from another family member that private investigators were watching. Therefore, the suspect became cautious, and spent a lot of time looking around the corner whenever they left the house. Too bad that they left so much evidence in public records regarding their acquisitions using family money. End Result The lawyer applied for a court order forfeiting the ill-gotten property back to the deceased person’s estate. In other words, the pricey downtown condo was taken over by the family members who had been ripped off. Writing a Sleuth Who Specializes in White-Collar Crime? If so, think about these character attributes: • Does she have a background in business or accounting? Is he a former nurse or health care professional? In other words, does your sleuth have training or expertise ancillary to the white-collar crime? • How identity theft often dovetails with other white-collar crimes. For example, criminals conducting health care fraud often also need to know how to obtain, or buy, personal information such as people’s SSNs. Therefore, it’s beneficial for a sleuth to have contacts/informants in the identify-theft community. • Does your fictional sleuth have inside contacts in hospitals, insurance companies, doctors’ offices who can provide intelligence? Thank you to Elizabeth Craig for hosting us today as guests at “Writing Is Murder”! We’re giving away a gift Kindle version of How to Write a Dick to one of today’s readers who posts a comment/question (name will be randomly picked before midnight today – please be sure to leave your email address for notification). If you don’t have a Kindle, there are free downloadable Kindle apps for PCs and Macs (we use the downloadable app at home, and it’s great). Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman are co-owners of Highlands Investigations in Denver, Colorado. Their ebook How to Write a Dick: A Guide to Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths, is available on Kindle and Nook. Colleen Collins is a co-owner of Highlands Investigations in Denver, Colorado. Her articles on private investigations have appeared on various Internet sites as well as in PI Magazine, Romance Writers Report, Pursuit Magazine, PInow.com and other publications. She is an active member of the Private Eye Writers of America and the Mystery Writers of America. She has written 20 novels for both Harlequin and Dorchester, several of which have placed in the finals for national competitions, including the prestigious Holt Medallion and RITA awards.

Shaun Kaufman, co-owner of Highlands Investigations, has worked in and around the criminal justice field for more than 30 years, as a former trial attorney and a current legal investigator. He has published articles in PI magazine, the Denver Law Review, as well as authored numerous briefs for the Colorado Court of Appeals, Colorado Supreme Court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. As a trial attorney, Shaun hired and managed private investigators, training them on such issues as ethics, death penalty litigation, homicide and gang evidence, and search and seizure techniques.

Quotes

“Forget Google and Bing. When you need to research PI work, go to the experts, Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman: they live it, they teach it, they write it. How to Write a Dick is the best work of its kind I’ve ever come across because it covers the whole spectrum in an entertaining style that will appeal to layman and lawmen alike. This will be the industry standard for years to come.” - Reed Farrel Coleman, three-time Shamus Award winner for Best PI Novel of the Year and author of Hurt Machine

"If you want authenticity in creating a fictional private investigator for your stories, then this is a must-have reference book. Its authors, Colleen and Shaun, are living, breathing PIs with years of actual experience in the PI game."

- R.T. Lawton, 25 years on the street as a federal special agent and author of 4 series in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

Why we Write

“Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.”

Jules Renard  (1864 - 1910)

”We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

If you haven’t yet read bestselling author Lynn Viehl’s blog post on the breakdown of her royalty statement, it makes for interesting reading.  For a variety of reasons, actually. 

I guess in most industries, people try to see how their compensation measures up to others’. I’m certainly not above that. It’s nice in some ways to know that our wages are on target with the profession as a whole.

But to me, the most interesting facet of the royalty statement was that it illuminated the fact that even best-selling authors aren’t making gobs of money in this business.  Don’t get me wrong—netting $26,000 for one book is good gravy for a writer.  But, if you’ve got a family, you’re not exactly quitting your day job over it. 

So why do we do it? 

I think most of us write because we absolutely have to.

Toni McGee Causey posted a very interesting blog post on Murderati entitled “How Do You Know When to Quit?” Actually, however, the post focuses on not quitting.  It references Christie Craig’s inspiring story of her long road to a published book. 

I love mysteries. When I read mysteries, I want to write my own.  The ideas fly through my head and I grab paper and pencil to put them down.

Writers who stick with the process, who put in the hours, who edit their manuscripts umpteen million times, who do all this despite the money---they’re the ones who’re dedicated enough to stay in for the long haul. 

So here is my own, personal Top Five list.  Top Five Reasons Why I Write:

1. It’s cheaper than therapy.

2. It’s cheap, period. Think about it---no other hobby or profession can match it.  If you can afford the dollar store, you can afford to write.

3. I need to express myself creatively. I’m a creative person who can’t act, paint, draw, sculpt, or dance. Writing is my outlet.

4. The voices tell me to do it.  Okay, I’m being funny here….sort of.  Am I the only writer who has 2 characters’ dialogue running through their heads?

5. I feel driven to do it. I write, not necessarily by choice, but from a real need to write. Even as a kid, I filled journal after journal. I wrote for school magazines and newspapers.  Then I graduated to getting signed up for internships, and sending packet after packet to publishers. 

How about you? Why do you write?

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