ANOTHER NEW BOOK

Hot on the heels of my cozy mystery, DEAD IN THE WATER, released on October 6, comes a woman-in-jeopardy mystery, EYEWITNESS, released on October 15. These aren’t self-published. DITW is from Gemma Halliday Publishing, and EYEWITNESS from Camel Press, a division of Coffeetown Press in Seattle. Another difference is that, although my name is on both books, EYEWITNESS was written with my long-time friend Carole, who writes under the pen-name Carolann Camillo.

A big similarity in the two books, however, is that both were originally written many years ago, but only now found the right publisher. So I get to repeat what I said last week: “Persistence Pays.” This book went out 52 times since 2003 when I moved to Palm Desert and kept track on 3 x 5 cards. No, not 52 different publishers: some lucky companies got to see (and reject) it more than once. Eight of the publishers are no longer in business.

However, it wasn’t all sadness and gloom. We actually received three separate contracts before the one we accepted. The first loved our story but wanted us to add “four or five steamy sex scenes.” We actually wrote one as a sample, but their idea of “steamy” was apparently vastly different from ours. The second contract was withdrawn by the publisher due to a misunderstanding between an editor and me. (I take the blame for that, but I’m withholding publisher names to avoid anyone’s embarrassment.) Number three publisher “loved” our book, but her editor apparently did not. Said editor requested changes on 300 of the book’s 350 typewritten pages. We politely declined to rewrite that much.

In case you noticed, this is the second book Carole and I wrote together to be published. SOUTHERN STAR started as an Avalon Book, and when they sold the company to Amazon, it ended up a Montlake Romance.  Stay tuned for news about the third one we wrote back when I still lived in San Francisco. That one has been rejected 46 times, and only 6 publishers are no longer in business, so we haven’t given up yet.

After 20 years of writing romance, both Carole and I are thrilled to be writing mystery because we both prefer to read mystery and have each had success with romantic-suspense. I also like self-publishing, and may do more, but there were good reasons to look for a traditional house for these two latest novels, and, so far, I’m really glad I did. Plus I like the covers they chose.

"POT-POURRI"

Is my title French for “Trivia?” Whether it is or not, this week I’ve assembled a group of items of interest. At least they interested me.

First, as promised last week, the winners of the Macavity Awards which were presented at the Bouchercom 2015 ceremonies:
BEST MYSTERY NOVEL was THE KILLER NEXT DOOR by Alex Marwood
BEST FIRST MYSTERY was INVISIBLE CITY by Julia Dahl
BEST NON-FICTION was ADVENTURES ON THE WRITER’S JOURNEY, by Hank Phillippi Ryan.
BEST MYSTERY SHORT STORY was HONEYMOON SWEET, by Craig Faustus Buck, which appeared in Bouchercom Anthology 2014.

The Barry Awards, from “Deadly Pleasures Magazine” at Bouchercom:
BEST NOVEL was NATCHEZ BURNING, by Greg Iles
BEST FIRST NOVEL was INVISIBLE CITY by Julia Dahl
BEST THRILLER was THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD, by Michael Koryta.

* * *
On a somewhat lighter note:

1. An Italian man who was running late for his flight, decided to hold the plane up by calling in a bomb threat. The plane was delayed and searched, but when the man arrived at the airport and tried to board he was arrested. Lesson learned.

2. Employees at a Chinese company, who failed to make sales targets, were forced to crawl in public by taking a lap around a lake while supervisors watched to make sure they crawled. Most crawlers ripped their pants, but the photos went viral.

3. For the person who has everything: If you’re proud of your tattoo and don’t want it to die with you, a “Skin Art” company will come to your funeral home, slice off the tattoo and have it framed for your relatives. OMG

4. For those who have everything #2. If the Hydro Hammock is filled with 50 gallons of hot, bubbling water, it becomes a hot tub. Cost: $1495 and you provide the two strong trees to hang it from.

5. “No one will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.” Henry Kissinger.

6. Good news you were waiting for. For the first time since 2009, in September the NFL went an entire calendar month (month, as in 30 days) without any of its players being arrested.

7. For at least 25 minutes of running time, THE WALK is a “breathless, exhilarating movie experience.” But you have to watch the first two hours before that to see Frenchman Philippe Petit walk a cable across the World Trade Center towers in 1974.

8. Baabuk, a Swiss company, has made a sneaker out of natural wool that can be warn without socks. It’s cozy in the winter and breathes in the summer. Only $135 a pair.

9. In real estate to live in, not wear, you can buy a one-bedroom carriage house in Columbus, Ohio, for $219,900, or a five-bedroom in Newport, Rhode island, for $3,595,000. Glad you know?

10. And did you know Dominos is planning to sell its pizza in Italy? Or you can buy health insurance for your dog?

11. When assessing a possible match on dating sites, people put their grammar skills below their personal hygiene. However, just to be safe, use “advice,” not “advise” in the sentence, “His advise was worthless,” and “who’s”, not “whose” in “The man whose cooking dinner is a vegetarian.”

Anthony Awards

Bouchercon - Raleigh, North Carolina
October 8-11, 2015

BEST NOVEL

LAMENTATION, Joe Clifford. Oceanview
THE SECRET PLACE, Tana French. Hodder & Stoughton (Viking)
AFTER I’M GONE, Laura Lippman. William Morrow
THE LONG WAY HOME, Louise Penny. Minotaur
TRUTH BE TOLD, Hank Phillippi Ryan. Forge

Winner: AFTER I’M GONE, Laura Lippman

BEST FIRST NOVEL

BLESSED ARE THE DEAD, Kristi Belcamino. Witness Impulse
ICE SHEAR, M. P. Cooley. William Morrow
INVISIBLE CITY, Julia Dahl. Minotaur
THE LIFE WE BURY, Allen Eskens. Seventh Street
THE BLACK HOUR, Lori Rayder-Day. Seventh Street

Winner: THE BLACK HOUR, Lori Rayder-Day

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

STAY WITH ME, Alison Gaylin. Harper
THE KILLER NEXT DOOR, Alex Marwood. Penguin
THE DAY SHE DIED, Catriona McPherson. Midnight Ink
WORLD OF TROUBLE, Ben H. Winters. Quirk Books
NO STONE UNTURNED, James W. Ziskim. Seventh Street

Winner: THE DAY SHE DIED, Catriona McPherson

BEST CRITICAL OR NON-FICTION

THE FIGURE OF THE DETECTIVE, Charles Brownson. McFarland
DEATH DEALER, Kate Clark Flora. New Horizon
DRU’S BOOK MUSINGS, Dru Ann Love (drusbookmusing.com)
POE LAND, J. W. Ocker. Countryman
WRITES OF PASSAGE, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Ed. Henery

Winner: WRITES OF PASSAGE, Hank Phillippi Ryan.
BEST SHORT STORY

HONEYMOON SWEET, Craig Faustus Buck. Bouchercon Anthology 2014
THE SHADOW KNOWS, Barb Goffman. Chesapeake Crimes
HOWLING AT THE MOON, Paul D. Marks. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
OF DOGS & DECEIT, John Shepphind. Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
THE ODDS ARE AGAINST US, Art Taylor. Ellery Queen Mystery Mag.

Winner: THE ODDS ARE AGAINST US, Art Taylor

BEST ANTHOLOGY OR COLLECTION

FACE-OFF, David Baldacci, Ed. Simon & Schuster
MURDER AT THE BEACH, Dana Cameron, Ed. Down and Out
TROUBLE IN THE HEARTLAND, Joe Clifford, Ed. Gutter/Zelmer Pulp
IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, Laurie King & Leslie Klinger, Eds. Pegasus Crime.
CAROLINA CRIMES, Karen Pullem, Ed. Wildside

Winner: IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, King & Klinger.

Comments: Except for a few independent publishers, and one self-publishing website (Welcome, Dru) all novels were published by well-known traditional houses. As for women versus men authors, some guessing is required due to use of initials, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that 16 women were authors or editors of the 30 Finalists, and only 13 men (even though I assumed the initials were men’s). In addition, five of the 16 women were the winners in their category, whereas only one man was. That’s good news for female mystery authors, of which I am now a member.

ELEVEN YEARS AND 25 REJECTIONS

And that’s just since 2002. We moved here in 2003 and I haven’t gone back through my old records, but I do remember writing my two cozy mysteries, DEAD MEN’S TALES and DEAD IN THE WATER, in the early 1980s. That year, author Sue Grafton published A IS FOR ALIBI, the first in her “alphabet” mystery series. She’s now on “X”, and when I get my hands on a copy of that, I’ll have read all she’s written so far.

I actually wrote DEAD MEN’S TALES first, but since I started that book with my female sleuth in her office, and a dead body didn’t show up until much later, I decided to write a “Prequel” so I could have the first “dead man” on page nine. That was DEAD IN THE WATER, whose cover you see here. I didn’t write more at that time because I was having success with romance novels, but now I plan to finish the series with Gemma Halliday Publishing.

Yes, it’s been a long time, and in the ‘80s there was no Amazon or much self-publishing. You had to get an agent and then - if you were lucky - the agent found a publisher. Then I discovered romance novels, where publishers didn’t require an agent. Sometimes I had an agent, but he/she never found a publisher who wanted my books. Romance editors, however, would read everything, and my work clicked.

By contrast, I received a contract from GHP after the owner read a mere three chapters of the first book and none at all of the second. After years of submissions and rejections, I was so surprised I e-mailed her asking “Why?” She said, “I read the first three chapters and wanted to read more.” She also took into account that I’d had fourteen romances published, won the San Diego Book Award in 2002, and was a finalist in the St. Martin’s Press Malice Domestic Mystery Contest in 2012. This is a woman whose first cozy mystery was a new York Times best seller and who is now writing her tenth book in that series, plus many other books in between.

Between the 1980s and 2014, I’d revised my cozy books several times. I changed my character’s name and age, introduced cell phones and 21st century must-haves, and, always, as I became a better author, improved the writing. The stories, however, never changed, so the name of the game was “Persistence.” When I sold SOUTHERN STAR after 19 rejections, I knew it could be done and applied it to DITW.

This post is to encourage writers to persist, to keep learning and adapting because it’s possible. DEAD IN THE WATER was released yesterday, Tuesday the 6th, and by day’s end, it ranked 874 and was number ten in the Kindle bookstore. Plus, there were ten reviews, all of them Five Stars. Here’s my favorite:

“Loved this mystery. Great suspense and kept you guessing who the murderer was. I highly recommend the book.”

I’m also giving you a chance at a bargain. For a week, the digital version of DEAD IN THE WATER is only $0.99.  Happy reading.

DUMB AND DUMBER?

Recently, a writer/teacher friend of mine from another state sent me a letter in which she complained that writing is getting worse every  day. She called it “the dumbing down of America” and she fears that critics of self-publishing might be right to blame this problem on writers who hit “Send” before their work is really ready and error-free. I was reminded of Anne R. Allen’s article a few years ago, titled, “Kindle no book before its time.”

Some writers are better than others when it comes to punctuation, grammar and other writing rules. In that case, however, as has been pointed out many times, those who are not proficient in the language need to hire an editor or proofreader. Whether I mostly read well-edited writing or somehow “missed” seeing the things the teacher finds appalling, I don’t know. So, I decided to pay attention for a couple of weeks and see if I find evidence of what she complains about.

And I did.

To be accurate, I didn’t find the exact problems she mentioned in her letter, but there were enough “boo-boos” that I began to think she has a point. Notice, I’m not naming any specific authors or the material I found the mistakes in. If any of my readers are guilty of similar errors, I hope they’ll use this opportunity to try to avoid them in the future. However, in a little over two weeks, my casual reading (not the two novels I was reading at the same time) turned up the following.

Like other languages in the world, English has rules we learned in school which helped us (helped me anyway) remember which word to use for present tense, past tense or past-perfect tense. One such list is “drink, drank, drunk.” In other words, the correct use is, “I drink, he drank, and they had drunk.” So the line, “...she’s already drank too much...” leaped out at me. The word “she’s” is a contraction of “she has,” which makes it past-perfect and therefore “drank” should be “drunk” instead.

A similar mistake occurs in the line, “...his cell phone chimed, and it hadn’t rang in a few days.”  Again, a past tense verb was used instead of past-perfect. The word “rang” should be “rung.”

A word I often see mis-used is “loose” when the writer means “lose.” “Loose” is an adjective meaning the opposite of “tight.” “Lose” is a verb indicating someone is no longer in possession of something. Minor, perhaps, but, if an author makes that mistake often, he might be turning off agents or editors from accepting his work.

Another common error is not knowing the difference between “its” and “it’s”. One is a preposition and the other is a contraction of “it is.” In the sentence, ”Blame technology for it’s lack of popularity,” “it’s” is wrong and “its” is correct.

In the phrase “...she should have staid home...“ staid” is a perfectly good word, but not when the author meant to write “stayed.”

An even worse mistake is in “...companies that have went out of business...” Please, dear writer, replace “went” with “gone.”

To finish, I found two instances of writers apparently not knowing the difference between “affect” (a verb) and “effect” (usually a noun, although there are times it becomes a verb, which may explain some mistakes in its use). In “...so long as it didn’t effect the outcome...” Change “effect” to “affect.” The same is true in “... the knowledge of how scenes effect your book’s impact...” where “effect” should be “affect.”

As I mentioned earlier, the material in which I found these errors was not necessarily fiction or other prose the author hoped to publish, but authors do need to respect English and use it correctly. In most cases, it’s the only language we have. Thanks for listening.

PROLOGUES

For as long as I’ve been writing, some 40 years now, authors have pondered the question, “Should I use a Prologue?” Some writing teachers approve of prologues, but others do not, often arguing against them on the theory that literary agents don’t like them, and to use one would hinder chances of your book being published.

Well, times change and publishing, especially mainstream fiction publishing, has changed dramatically. Today, very few authors care what agents think because they have no intention of trying to get agent representation. These days, many writers are self-publishing. Those authors are cutting out middle-men such as agents, and even traditional publishers.

However, even if you don’t plan to try for an agent, knowing if you should use a prologue or not can be important for the success of your book with readers. Their acceptance of your work is the ultimate goal. Besides, many authors believe that readers don’t actually read prologues, so what’s the point?

From my reading about the topic, as well as these 40 years of experience writing fiction, I believe there are few reasons to use a prologue and many more not to. For instance, don’t use a prologue if:

1. It’s only there to give your book an interesting “hook.”
If your reader won’t read your prologue, it’s wasted, and you’ll still need a “hook” for chapter one.

2. It gives information which rightfully belongs in chapter one. Try doing it both ways, and see which works best.

3. It’s there only because your book is a mystery and you’ve seen many published mysteries which have prologues. For a long time, mystery prologues were almost considered necessary (certainly they were a cliche), but aren’t used that much anymore.

4. It’s long. The most successful prologues are only one or two pages. Certainly, the shorter they are, the more likely they’ll get read.

5. It’s an information dump. Authors who use prologues to insert lots of backstory instead of weaving that information into the text gradually - when the reader needs to know it - can sabotage their work.

But, guess what? Backstory introduced via a prologue can actually work and is one of the few reasons to use one. However, the operative word here is “relevant.” Make sure it fits and is really necessary. Another reason to use a prologue is if there’s a significant time difference between that and the main story.

With my own work, I didn’t use one in COLD APRIL, but the author of DANGEROUS AFFAIRS, another book about the Titanic, started with the iceberg developing off the coast of Greenland and eventually coming into contact with the ship. THE GREEN BOUGH, my memoir about Aunt Gladys, has, not a prologue, but a Foreword, a short letter from Gladys to me when I was writing the book. My mainstream novel, CHOICES, has a prologue because I needed to start the story in the cockpit of the airplane before it crashes into the Pacific. And that’s all. If I can publish sixteen other books and four novellas without one, perhaps they’re not needed.

RESEARCH

Writing Fiction, especially historical fiction, requires research. Even contemporary fiction requires a certain amount, especially if the setting of your book is unusual or far away. This is the part many writers dislike, but I find it fascinating and rewarding. Yet, only two of my books are historical.

Of course, I was lucky, in that my husband and I traveled to different countries, and I took notes in order to describe those places accurately. At the same time, I didn’t want my book to sound like a travelogue, so I tried to limit descriptions to actual sights my characters would encounter or interact with.

Our most recent trip was to Italy, where we had the opportunity to visit Rome, Florence, Venice, Pisa and Lake Como. Naturally my character did the same thing (I made my female protagonist a travel writer so I had a good excuse, but I hope I didn’t overdo it. See THE ITALIAN JOB.) In addition to actually seeing the sights, I purchased a book on Rome, Florence and Venice beforehand, and bought one about Lake Como while there.

We visited England several times because we had both relatives and friends there. Bits of that area can be found in FINDING AMY and DEAD IN THE WATER (A cozy, humorous mystery to be released October 6th). Because we owned condos on Maui, we traveled to Hawaii many times, and those books include STRANGER IN PARADISE and CHOICES. A train trip from New Orleans to Washington D.C. sparked the plot of NORTH BY NORTHEAST, and two weeks on a friend’s yacht resulted in SOUTHERN STAR. Aunt Gladys told me all about being a schoolteacher in a logging camp in Oregon in 1913, (THE GREEN BOUGH) and the many books I accumulated about the Titanic told me much of what I needed to know for COLD APRIL.

I was born and grew up in Illinois (very flat and dull), but I also lived in Phoenix briefly. However, most of the last fifty years I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, and that helped me to write ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, FREE FALL, DEAD MEN’S TALES (coming in 2016) and the novella, THE WEDDING GUEST. Also, three other novellas, under the name P.J. Humphrey, A STUDY IN AMBER, THE SIGN OF FIVE, and THE RED HERRING, are set in the “city by the bay.” A fourth in the HOLMES AND HOLMES Series is THE MISSING MAN, of which I’ve written two chapters so far.

The woman-in-jeopardy mystery, EYEWITNESS, set in New York, is due October 15, my mystery novel set in Phoenix is written but not yet published, as is BEATING THE ODDS (about horse racing in Kentucky) and a YA novel, A YEAR IN PARNEL.

Wait! I still haven’t written stories about Mexico, Germany, Canada or Africa. Hold your breath about Africa: I need to go there first. Isn’t  writing the best occupation for travelers and we who wish to travel?