Inkspot News - July 18, 2009

G.M. Malliet will be appearing with women-of-mystery Donna Andrews, Susan Froetschel, and Marcia Talley at the Frederick County Public Library on July 25 at 1 p.m. Address: 110 E. Patrick Street, Frederick, MD.
G.M.'s Death of a Cozy Writer was an Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller in June: http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/bestsellers.html

Terri Thayer will be selling and signing books at the Fabric Patch booth at the IQA quilt show in Long Beach, CA on Friday and Saturday, July 24th and 25th.

Rescued by the Kinfolk

By Deborah Sharp

I'm offering a shout-out to my Chicago cousins today. It's not just
that I'm feeling guilty about all those winters they visited us in
Florida, when I laughed at their pale, Northern legs and begrudged
them the fresh squeezed orange juice and my mama's Key lime pie that,
rightfully, I believed, should have been reserved for my little
brother and me.

Nope, I owe them props for tossing me a cousinly life-preserver in the
stormy book-signing sea.

A whole slew of cousins -- firsts, seconds, thirds, even
cousins-in-law -- showed up to support me at the Borders bookstore in
LaGrange, Illinois, this week. I managed to draw a nice crowd in a
spot where I know no one, where I didn't even know LaGrange was one
word with a capital L and a capital G until I saw it on the ''Welcome
To . . .'' sign on the way into town.

And yet, there we were, taking over the place. The Sharps and Markles
and Cochranes and assorted offspring and significant others and
nearly-cousins that make up this patchwork North-South clan I call my
family. All is forgiven -- the times I gave up my bed, the emergency
room visits with third-degree burns in the middle of the night because
SOMEONE thought they knew more than the natives about the intensity
of Florida's sun, the incessant Yankee carping about Florida's creepy crawlies.

Forgiven, forgiven, and forgiven. There is no one more lonely than an author standing alone in a big bookstore. Without the cousins, their neighbors, and my friend and fellow writer, Chicagoan Julia Buckley, that solitary figure would have been me. I promised the good folks at the LaGrange Borders that I could draw a crowd. Book-sellers don't like to schedule signings unless they think they can sell some books. They're funny that way.

And because of the cousins, I made good on my promise. So bring on the third generation of Chicago kinfolk fleeing the cold this winter. I'll even squeeze the orange juice and make the Key lime pie. It's the least I can do.

So, how about you? Do you tap your family to buy your books? Or do you think that's tacky? Hey, they can always say No, right? Lucky for me, and for the sales figures on my second book, MAMA RIDES SHOTGUN, all my fantastic Chicago cousins said Yes.

Goals and Dreams

Last year I watched with amusement as Ellen DeGeneres set out to entice the elusive George Clooney onto her television show. She eventually succeeded. This year Ellen set her goal to be on the cover of Oprah’s magazine. It was almost too easy. Then Ellen needed a new goal.

Goals are a very hot topic in life. We all know about New Year’s resolutions, which are just a different term for goals. Weight loss is always associated with targets or goals. And who hasn’t been asked in a job interview about their short term and long term career goals?

Writers talk a lot about goals. Some make themselves sit for a certain amount of time each day, writing words—whether they’re publishable words or not. Others force themselves to write a certain number of words per day, no matter what. Ever wonder if some days they write #*!!**# over and over?

Often writers give themselves one year (or two or more) to finish a book. They talk less about what the term “finish” means. Is it 80,000 words, perfected, proofread and ready to publish? Or is it an unedited stream of narrative, description and dialog that will need another year (or more) of revisions before it can be marketed?

When I decided to write a book, my goal was to write a mystery that a publisher recognized by Mystery Writers of America would deem worthy of publication. (Note that my goal was not to be published—that’s a goal fraught with peril, IMHO). For Better, For Murder will be released in September. For Richer, For Danger will follow in 2010. The third book in the series is ready for market, too.

Now I need a new goal. It can’t be too easy, like the Ellen/Oprah magazine cover. And it has to be measurable, reasonable, and attainable. Otherwise, it’s not motivating, and a goal should be motivating. And fun, because life should be fun.

I could write more books in this series. That would be fun, because I love these characters. They talk to me in the shower and the car and sometimes even when someone else is talking to me. But I don’t see any point to it yet, so it’s not motivating. Maybe if the sales on my first book go wild by year end, I’ll get busy on book four. Still, I need a goal now.

I could set a goal to write a different standalone book or series. Now here’s the rub. I don’t feel like it. Plus the characters from my Broken Vows mystery series might get jealous and stop talking to me.

I’m thinking about a goal to write a saleable screenplay. I have no experience or training in writing one of those either. But I love movies almost as much as books and I bought a book on how to write screenplays. That’s a start. And I understand and appreciate formulas, which seems to be what Hollywood is sticking to at the moment. Who can blame them? Formulas work.

And if my screenplay should by some miracle get the green light, maybe I could get Ellen to set a goal to entice George Clooney to star in the movie.

Dream big, right?!

Characters welcome

I’ve started watching TMZ, a celebrity gossip show. Not watching in a cozy chair with a big bowl of popcorn, reveling in the nonsense that our celebrities get up to. Watching in the sense that I’m doing kitchen clean up and turn it on for background noise.

And then stand in front of the TV, dish cloth in hand, mesmerized.

It’s not the sight of Lindsay Lohan getting into her SUV or Mickey Rourke’s ravaged face that keeps me interested. It’s the cast of reporters.

I don’t know much about this show but my take is that it’s a bunch of reporters talking about footage captured that day in various spots. New York, Hollywood, Cote D’Azur. Places where movie stars and heiresses hang out. The conceit is that they pitch their favorite clips the paparazzi took that day. Mostly, they’re trying to impress Harvey Levin, the ersatz host.

Harvey’s like the dad. He stands in front of a whiteboard, with a drink (not a cool Martini but something in a reusable cup with a straw). The kids (there’s only one or two that look older than college age) introduce their clips. They vie for Harvey’s attention like siblings at the dinner table. They try to shock him, or make him laugh. Getting him to spit out his drink is a bonus. Like any good TV dad, he’s slightly befuddled by the kids’ references or appalled at their lack of knowledge of anything before 2003.

It’s the mix of characters that I find fascinating. There are a lot of archetypes in that room. There’s the brainy girl, smarter than the boys by far. There’s the iron-jawed guy with long hair with the body of a linebacker. He’s not as dumb as he looks but sometimes plays to that stereotype. There’s the edgier guy, who you know is too good for this job but he’s been caught by the bright lights and the spectacle. There’s the hot girl who often says things she shouldn’t.

Then there’s the voice of reason. Sort of the mom. In this case, it’s a 40-something guy with wonderful braids that sometimes reminds them that libel is a sueable act and that even McCauley Culkin was a cute little guy once upon a time. Tells the siblings to simmer down. “Oh, Ricky,” you can almost hear him say.

The interplay of these characters is mesmerizing. Not always predictable, yet recognizable. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Finding a way to imbue our characters with enough familiar characteristics so that the reader knows them but with enough edge, a secret agenda, or a dilemma that makes them interesting.

How do you people your novel with memorable characters?

ThrillerFest Report

Keith here, in one piece but exhausted.

With Sophie Littlefield, Alex Sokoloff, and Jim Rollins at ThrillerFest.

(I'm drinking regular iced tea. Honest.)

I left home on Sunday July 5 and got home last night. The first four days of the trip I visited my daughter in Boston. I'd arranged for researcher passes, and we searched through the archives at the JFK Presidential Library to explore an idea for a thriller. Did everyone but me know he got a D+ in European History?

My daughter is a college student and knows how to cut corners. She recommended the Bolt Bus which left the train station in Boston at 10.30 AM Thursday and delivered us to Penn Station in NYC four hours later. I really lucked out by sitting next to Hallie Ephron, who is as good a conversationalist as she is writer and reviewer. I also managed a few pages of the terrific Prime Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan. The time whizzed by. (Did I mention the ticket cost $10?)

Thursday night the opening reception at ThrillerFest was sponsored by Writers House, my literary agency. While everyone else was imbibing, the other Writers House authors and I (I was next to fave M.J. Rose) were signing books. That night my agent Josh took me and James Phelan, who is plotting world literary domination from his base in Melbourne, Australia, out for sushi.

The next morning I met with Carol Fitzgerald and Erin Quinn of The Book Report to discuss revisions to http://www.keithraffel.com/. Good things are coming. From there I toddled over to see old pal Rick Wolff of Grand Central Books. Friday afternoon I managed to hit a couple panels, one with Simon Lipskar of Writers House acting as a family counselor between authors and editors and the next with Hallie, Doug Preston, and more on creating great villains. After, I bought Joe Moore, co-president designate of International Thriller Writers, a drink, but one without the umbrella that I thought he favored. Two beers with tip ran $23. That's the downside of NYC. Joe and I finished our brewskis at 5.45 at the bar in the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central. I was supposed to meet friends Ian, Lexa, and Sam, my much put-upon hosts when I visit to NYC, at Telepan at 6. God bless the subway. I was seated at 6.04, although there was the incident when the subway doors shut on my glasses along the way. Great to spend some time with them and enjoy that sublime smoked trout appetizer.

Saturday morning I had the best of intentions. I got to the Grand Hyatt with the panels I planned on attending all picked out. But I sat down for a minute in the lobby with homegirl Sophie Littlefield, whose Bad Day for Sorry is out next month, and with old bud Alex Sokoloff, who would win a Thriller Award later that night. Then came Sophie's Shamus-winning brother Michael Wiecek and then Maggie and Sheila.... Well, you get the idea. Never quite made it to any morning panels. I did sneak in to hear most of Doug Preston's interview of Sandra Brown, who is charming, beautiful, and articulate. She sold me. I'm going to give one of her 57 New York Times bestsellers a try.

Any hope of making it to the afternoon sessions started to evaporate when I ran into Becky Cantrell, whose A Trace of Smoke has been garnering praise everywhere. We gathered up Andy Peterson, Bobby Rotenberg, Pam Callow, C.J. Lyons, Shane Gericke, and more and found a place that would serve us sandwiches. Shane's theory about thong underwear and female police officers was pooh-poohed by the women at the table. Just as we were going to split up, Jim Rollins strolled by. Jim's The Doomsday Key is #2 this week on the NY Times bestseller list (not shabby). (#4 loved the autographed copy of Jim's Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow that I brought home for him.) We retired to the hotel bar with Jim, his partner David, and Sophie. We managed to stumble across Alex again and ITW co-founder Gayle Lynds whose terrific The Last Spymaster I read just last week. Gayle and I compared notes. She's busy writing about the tunnels underneath Moscow while I'm writing about what's under the streets of Jerusalem. We got so caught up in the conversation, I almost missed my own panel.

The panel was scheduled at 4, in the last slot before the pre-awards banquet reception. Other panels we were up against boasted writers like Eric Van Lustbader, Karin Slaughter, Joe Finder, David Hewson, David Liss, Brad Meltzer, and M.J. Rose. I was amazed to find 30 people ready to listen to us prattle on about "Do We Need Another Hero?" Under Tony Tata's expert guidance, Andy Harp, Ward Larson, Paul Wilson, and I talked about what writers needed to do to make their protagonists shine with appeal and originality. My first suggestion was to make them bald. Anyway, I did voice my opinion that we don't need another protagonist who is consumed by work, is divorced but with strong feelings toward an ex, and has problems with alcohol and a precocious child.

At the banquet I was at the Writers House table with, among others, agents Simon Lipskar and Dan Conaway, James Phelan, Charlie Newton (whom I'd interviewed about his Calumet City, nominated for both an Edgar and Thriller Award, but never met face to face), Josh Gaylord whose Hummingbirds will be out this fall and whom I'd met on the phone without knowing who his wife was, and that very wife, the brilliant Megan Abbott. I was so tickled with Alex's win for best short story.

Last year, after the banquet I found myself in a midtown Irish bar with Dusty Rhoades, Tom O'Callaghan, Tasha Alexander, and Sean Chercover, among others. When I suggested to Sean we do it again, he was up for it, but I was bluffing. Home by 1.30 this year.

Liz Berry, Kathy Antrim, Shane Gericke. Shirley Kennett, Steve Berry, and the whole ITW team did an amazing job. In the face of this economy, attendance was up.

Display at airport bookstore

At the airport on Sunday went to the book stall to pick up a paper and saw the display of Jim Rollins' The Doomsday Key. There it is above. Terrific. Not a nicer guy in the biz. On the flight itself, I was on American to SFO, seat 37G. Guess who were in 37 H and J? The effervescent, Bruce Alexander Award-winning Kelli Stanley and partner Tana. I read the Sunday Times, did the crossword, discussed the previous three days with my seatmates, and listened to some of the compelling things Kelli had turned up in her research. Also promised Tana that Dot Dead wasn't too dark for her tastes and that no dogs were hurt in the book.

Home now. Beat but with a pile of to-dos as high as an elephant's eye.

Guest Blogger Neil Plakcy

Please welcome our guest blogger, my friend Neil Plakcy.

1. Tell us about yourself. I know you teach, Neil. What do you teach and where? How does that work with your career as an author? What sort of impact has this had on your writing schedule? What have you learned through teaching that you apply to your work?

Though back in 1988 I signed up for the new Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at Florida International University just to learn to write better, I can see that my classes also taught me how to teach writing. Taking workshops with great writers like Les Standiford, James W. Hall and Lynne Barrett forced me to write and rewrite. I also learned how to take a more analytical approach to writing as I came to understand the basics of character, dialogue, scene, plotting and so on.

Today I teach writing at Broward College, #3 in the country in the number of associate’s degrees granted. (My campus is halfway between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, with a very multi-cultural student body that ranges in age from teenagers to mid-life career changers.) Over 60% of our students enter lacking basic writing skills, so I teach two levels of developmental writing—sentence to paragraph and paragraph to essay. I created my own approach to freshman composition, using writing about food to build skills in narration, description, and research. I’ve also taught writing about literature and creative writing.

My favorite is a literature course on mystery fiction, where we read academic essays about the mystery as well as short stories and novels in three genres: amateur sleuth, private eye, and police procedural. The students love the chance to read great contemporary stories, and I enjoy exposing them to the mystery and hearing what they have to say about it.
Teaching is a great gig for a writer. Three of my courses are fully online, so my schedule is very flexible, and I can carve out writing time every day. And guiding students to write better has impacted my own writing—I hear that “teacher voice” in my head saying things like “Wait—you’re changing point of view!” or “This paragraph is awful long.”

2. Tell us about your new book--the characters, the setting and a bit about the plot. How does it fit in with your other works?

The elevator pitch for my first mystery, Mahu, was “gay cop gets dragged out of the closet while investigating a dangerous case.” Once I’d finished that book, though, my hero, Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka, told me that his journey had just begun. I came to see “coming out” as a process, rather than a single event, and looked for cases Kimo could investigate that would challenge him and move him forward.

In subsequent books, Kimo has traveled paths common to many gay men, particularly those who come out in their 30s, as he does. In Mahu Surfer, when he went undercover to discover who had been killing surfers, he began by making gay friends and getting more comfortable with himself. In Mahu Fire, he met fire inspector Mike Riccardi while investigating a bombing, and fell in love.

In Mahu Vice, the newest in the series, he’s discovering that the path to true love has more than a few twists and turns. Called to an arson homicide at a shopping center built by his father, he is forced to work with Mike again, nearly a year after they broke up. Tension rises as the case gets more complex and he and Mike rekindle their attraction.

But will the same things that drove them apart a year before doom this renewed relationship? What was going on at the acupuncture clinic where the victim, a teenaged Chinese illegal immigrant, was working?

Prostitution, gambling and immigration are all hot-button issues in Hawaii, as in many places, but the isolation, multicultural community, and tropical heat in Hawaii conspire to raise the tension level for Kimo and Mike as they figure out not only whodunit, but where their relationship can go.

3. Your books feature gay characters. In the beginning, did this make it harder to get a publisher? Or was it easier because you had a niche market? Has this influenced your marketing attempts, and if so, how? Does this ever pose any challenges at signings?

I didn’t realize I was writing for a niche when I started. I didn’t even know that the niche existed! Like many beginning writers, I was woefully undereducated about the business side of publishing. But I learned. When I approached agents at first, many thought that the idea of a gay detective was too radical. So I had to do my research, and discovered a thriving niche. (There were 18 nominations last year for the Lambda Literary Award for best gay men’s mystery, for example. Mahu Fire was a top-five finalist for that award.)

My first agent targeted all the publishers she thought would be interested, and every one of them turned me down. When I’d just about given up, I met an editor at the Miami Book Fair who told me his press was expanding their gay genre fiction line (mystery, romance, horror, etc.) and encouraged me to send the manuscript to him directly. That’s why I say my career has benefited from both hard work and luck. And of course, the harder I work, the luckier I get!

Booksellers tend to have an idea, even if it’s narrow, of the audience they can bring in for signings. For example, I’ve tried without success to convince a chain bookstore that I know a lot of older gay men who read who live in a neighborhood south of Miami. But they say gay books don’t sell at that store, so they won’t offer me a reading.

Maybe the books aren’t selling because they aren’t bringing in authors and marketing to that community. Or maybe they’re right, and I’m wrong.

It was much harder to set readings up with my first publisher, a small press; one independent bookstore owner told me “You’re one step above self-published,” even though that press published 200 books a year, had a big marketing department, and offered co-op advertising. Now that I am lucky enough to be published by the biggest GLBT press in the country, Alyson Books, I get great distribution and booksellers know my titles.

Interestingly enough, I got much more negative reaction when I was in graduate school writing about Jewish characters than I’ve ever gotten writing about gay ones. When I wrote humorous stories about dumb Jews (I have a lot in my own family, so I’ve got lots of material) people were really offended.

4. You have a robust online presence. Tell us about that. How do you compare the online community with other writing communities?

I started coming out myself just as the Internet began to boom, so the ability to seek out GLBT people, news, and online communities has been important to me for years. While I love volunteering with the Florida chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and attending mystery conferences like Bouchercon, Sleuthfest, and Left Coast Crime, the ability to stay in contact with other writers more than once or twice a year, or even once a month, is very important. I belong to a local critique group, but I also email stories and chapters to more far-flung colleagues, and I enjoy being part of their lives through Twitter and Facebook, too.

I think there’s also a degree of intimacy you can develop with an online friend that harder to duplicate face to face. Even with my closest writing friends in Florida, we might meet only at events or exchange the occasional email or phone call, because we all have busy lives. I can spill my heart out over a rejection to an online friend, though, and get commiseration back right away, as well as suggestions on where to market next.

5. You recently won a "Lefty." Tell us what that's meant to you and your career.

I was absolutely thrilled to win the Hawaii Five-O award for best police procedural at the 2009 Left Coast Crime festival. I grew up watching that show, and it still influences my writing. It was fun to receive the award in Hawaii, because my books are set there, but the best part was that the voters were fans rather than critics. My publisher donated copies for the book bags, and throughout the conference I had people come up to me and say, “I just started reading your book and I love it!”

As far as my career goes, I don’t think it means much. If it had been an Edgar…. though now I can be introduced as “Award-Winning Author Neil Plakcy!”

6. You've been very involved with SleuthFest. How has that benefited you? What would you say to someone considering coming to the conference?

Any writer’s conference is a great chance to network, learn, and be energized, and I think Sleuthfest does a great job on all those fronts. Inspiration is a funny thing; it often comes when you’re not expecting it. I’ve gone to seminars and workshops just out of a sense of duty or obligation, and walked out with fresh ideas and a desire to get back to my computer as fast as possible. I’ve also loved meeting the writers, published and unpublished, who attend, and swapping stories about writing. So personally and professionally, Sleuthfest has been a great event for me.

Sleuthfest has a terrific core of volunteers, so just walking in the door you know you’re going to be welcomed into a wonderful group of writers. And how can you beat South Florida in February?

**
About Neil Plakcy

Neil Plakcy is the author of Mahu, Mahu Surfer, Mahu Fire and Mahu Vice, mystery novels set in Hawaii, as well as the romance novel GayLife.com. He edited Paws & Reflect: A Special Bond Between Man and Dog and the gay erotic anthologies Hard Hats and Surfer Boys.

Plakcy is a journalist and book reviewer as well as an assistant professor of English at Broward College’s south campus in Pembroke Pines. He is vice president of the Florida chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and a frequent contributor to gay anthologies.

The Simple Comfort of Books

The dolly and the thing that resembles a faceless Medusa are my seven year old daughter’s favorite things in this world. Yes, they’re the famous Dirty Baby and Blankie. I put them on a bookshelf to give them a more attractive backdrop for their…interesting…appearance. I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but most of Dirty Baby’s stuffing is currently down in her legs. It makes her look as if she suffers from an unusual medical condition. And Blankie? I collected all the strands of Blankie together for the photo shoot. Now Blankie is disconnected again on my daughter’s bed.

I know age seven is a little old for loveys, but I figured we can all use some comfort in this world. Mine is reading a good mystery.

It’s funny how comforting a murder mystery can be. Why is murder relaxing? None of the characters in the books are finding the murders relaxing. They’re desperately trying to learn the killer’s identity before he murders again.

I think it’s the same reason I find scary movies relaxing. They’re cathartic. You have all this tension bunched up in this one book or movie. When it’s done it’s an ‘ahhhhh’ moment. Tension is immediately relieved! Unlike real life, where worries can roam wildly out of control and encompass the troubled economy, out-of-control boxwoods that must be hacked into submission, and an annoyingly drippy faucet.

My favorites to read and write are cozies. Here you’re introduced to a tranquil setting—that’s suddenly ravaged by terror! The bad guys are caught, justice prevails, and the town regains its idyllic status once again.

What’s your comforting escape from reality?