Readers Who Care

by Vicki Doudera

One thing I found difficult after my non-fiction books were published was the lag time between when the books hit the shelves and when I actually received feedback from readers. Because Moving to Maine and Where to Retire in Maine appealed to an out-of-state audience, it took a good year before I started hearing from and meeting my readers. The nice thing is that when I finally did, they were wonderful new Mainers who had found my writing helpful and heartfelt. In some cases, Moving to Maine changed their lives.

Writing the Darby Farr Mystery Series has been completely different. I'm constantly meeting my readers, whether I'm at a library event, conference, or in the produce section of the grocery store. I remember the first time someone told me they would purchase A House to Die For electronically. The very next morning they sought me out to tell me they were halfway through and loving it. Heady stuff, for which I'm very grateful.

Readers of Inkspot and Maine Crime Writers share feedback and comments with me on a regular basis (thanks, guys!) and I often hear from blog readers on Facebook as well. All great input from People Who Care. But every now and then, I'll think about my website's personal blog and realize it is the one area that's lagging. There are times I feel like I'm blogging to a big empty nothing. Boy, do I hate those days!

But then I'll visit the moderation panel and see that I am oh, so wrong. My personal blog has some very dedicated readers, and these folks are happy to take the time to write to me. Federico Heichl, for instance. He and I are obviously soulmates. He writes: Its like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is fantastic blog. An excellent read. I will definitely be back. Don't you think his constructive criticism is spot on, too? (I'm inserting some photos into this blog as we speak.)

And then there is Ruhrwerk (a one-namer, like Sting) who says: Wonderful web site. Lots of useful information here. I’m sending it to a few buddies and also sharing in delicious. And obviously, thank you on your effort! I love that Ruhrwerk is spreading the good word about me to his pals, and that he finds my site delicious, like a big plate of pasta carbonara. Obviously!

What about Gloria Buckley? She took the time to give me some much-needed financial advice when she wrote: I strictly recommend not to hold off until you earn enough amount of money to order goods! You should just get the personal loans or just short term loan and feel yourself comfortable. Thank you, Gloria -- my own personal Jean Chatzky.

Of course, she's not alone in offering me some friendly tips. Some of my readers are concerned enough to recommend various drugs that I should be taking. Some even go the extra mile to suggest pharmaceutical aids for my husband. And they are not embarassed to bring up some rather personal body parts! Now these are people who really care.

Really, when you think about it, I'm pretty lucky to have these very caring readers. Glen Bligen's complimentary comment came just the other day: I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your weblog. Keep up the nice quality writing, it is rare to see a great blog like this one nowadays.

I tried to thank Mr. Bligen for his post, but the email came back undeliverable. I hate it when that happens!

I'll close with what's got to be one of the best responses to my personal blog. It's from NovikovNazar, and reads: отличный блок хаyc по отличной цене! I just know that translates to "I loved Killer Listing and cannot wait for Deadly Offer!"

Alright Inkspot readers -- what are your favorite comments from your gentle readers in cyberspace? Please, share in delicious with me!

Humming Along Through the Dead of Winter

Darby will snowshoe.

The realization hit me like a well-thrown punch as I scanned my real estate website, long overdue for an update. There was the photo of fleece-clad Becky and Cindy, my active winter buddies, trudging through four-foot high snow, with my (somewhat) humorous caption: You can always snowshoe to a property!

Yes, I thought, Darby will be on snowshoes, struggling through the darkening Maine woods, pursued by a murderer she cannot hope to outlast. My heart beat faster, a sure sign that my imagination has cooked up something I find truly scary. I snowshoe -- alot -- and it's hard to go fast. Especially when someone evil is chasing you...

Thump, thump. That's my daughter and I in the photo above, on top of Camden's Ragged Mountain with Penobscot Bay in the background. She "shoes" up and snowboards down, but yours truly gave up snowboarding when she decided she didn't have a spare wrist to break.

It proved to be a wise decision. Armed with my good wrists, I'm hard at work on the fourth in the Darby Farr series, and I have to say it is humming right along. Not to jinx myself, but the pages are piling up, and I couldn't be more pleased. I'm fitting in some good, solid writing time, in between selling houses (yes, some people really are buying homes again!) hiking the Camden Hills, cheering for my daughter's Varsity Soccer team (GO WINDJAMMERS!) and volunteering for my favorite cause, Habitat for Humanity. That's my mom, daughter and me at a build in the spring. That house now has sheathing on the roof and is ready for framing. My various balls in the air are a juggle, but one I really love. Needless to say, I fall asleep in about two minutes every single night.

Back to the fourth book, tentatively called Contract for Murder. It takes place once more on the rocky island of Hurricane Harbor, as did the first in the series, A House to Die For. Unlike that book, this is set in what we Mainers like to call the "dead" of winter. Don't worry -- any details that I can't recall from previous blizzards, ice storms, and the like will come back to me when I start revisions in January. In the meantime, I'm having a ball picturing all that white stuff and the havoc it can cause.

People ask me again and again how I find the time to write. I used to say that no one finds the time -- one makes the time. Kind of a pompous answer, don't ya think? Now I reply with a simple truth: it's fun. Especially when those pages are piling up.

Where do you Write?

Where do you write?

People ask me this alot, perhaps because several bestselling authors live in my town, one of whom writes regularly in the Camden Deli (or at least he used to.)

Not me. I could never, ever, write in a public place in my hometown, simply because, unlike the famous guy, I wouldn't get anything written. You see, he's one of those reclusive kinds of writers, so people leave him alone. I, on the other hand, am Little Miss Friendly, and people know me and like to chat. Unless I'm out of state, I need to get my pages done in private.

When we first moved to Camden, we owned and ran a ten-room inn. I created a tiny room up in the attic with old-fashioned flowered wallpaper and a desk that just barely fit under the eave. It was perfect -- the quintessential writer's garret, a place where I could escape from my toddlers and the inn's guests, and I loved it. When we sold the inn and moved to our old farmhouse, we built a loft in the master bedroom (formerly the barn) accessed by one of those sliding library ladders, and that was my writing space. Plenty of room to spread out, to keep files, to hang bulletin boards with ideas and inspiring quotes. Camden Harbor sparkled in the distance and I felt completely cut off from the rest of the house.

Too cut off.

Although I wrote all my non-fiction stuff in that loft, including Moving to Maine and Where to Retire in Maine (Down East Books) I abandoned this space when I began writing fiction. Why? I found it hard to concentrate up there because I was too removed from the "heart" of the house. I'd hear a noise from two flights below and get distracted. The dog would start barking and I'd wonder why. A knock on the door and I was flying down the ladder. You get the picture.

By now my little kids were young adults. The boys were off at college, my daughter walked to school, and my husband left each morning for his office downtown. I got myself a little desk and set up shop in our country kitchen, as close as I could to the woodstove. The sounds of the day -- occasional cars going by, the foghorn in the harbor, someone using a lawn mower or leaf blower -- blend into a pleasant hum of background noise. I find that I don't need as much space to write fiction as I did for non-fiction, so it works out just great. One small file cabinet suits me nicely.

In the summer, I do move around a bit. More people are coming and going here -- my oldest son is home, my daughter's out of school -- so I keep myself flexible. On
beautiful summer days, like yesterday, I sit on our front porch and write. When I have a good chunk of time, I'll grab my laptop and drive 25 minutes to our camp (that is Mainerspeak for lakeside cottage) and pound out the words there.















My writing "studio" at our camp reminds me of that attic garret. It's very bare bones, and, like that attic room, all mine. The little outbuilding was once the boys' bunkhouse, and last year I removed the bunkbeds and had a new window and screen door (an old one I found at a yardsale) put in. I head out here, make myself work, work, work, and then reward myself with a walk and a swim. Obviously it's only useable for a few months here in Maine!



Where do you write? The thing I love most about fiction is that you can really do it anywhere. You can solve story problems while walking the dog. Create characters while waiting for tardy clients. And when you have to sit down and get words on the page, that can happen just about anyplace.

Unless you are Little Miss Friendly.