MWA and U

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re a mystery writer or mystery fan/reader (or criminal, I suppose, looking for hints about how to beat the law). That’s why I think you should consider joining Mystery Writers of America (unless you’re a criminal—then change your ways and contribute positively to society!). Disclaimer: I am a proud member of MWA and I’m the treasurer of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter. However, the opinions I’m expressing here are my own, unofficial and slightly biased, ones.

MWA offers many valuable benefits and services to members, as well as to the public at large (and you don’t have to be a published author to join!)—newsletters, discounts, a listserv, the Edgar awards, anthologies, scholarship programs, and others. But I’d like to highlight two important aspects of being in MWA: the networking and the education.

Our local chapter has monthly dinner meetings, and because of our D.C. location, we get a wide range of terrific speakers. We’ve had an ex-spy, an FBI hostage negotiator, and museum director (and a wealth of great writers, too). During our last meeting, we learned about stalking, which was fascinating, in a totally creepy way (Did you know that about 2% of stalking cases end in murder or attempted murder? And that, in Virginia, stalking is only a misdemeanor?).

In addition to hearing great speakers, these meetings are excellent places to network. You can connect with potential research sources, find other writers for critique groups, or discover which mystery/writing conferences are worth attending. You can also learn about agents, publishers, and other arcane workings of the publishing biz (if your stomach is strong enough).

On a national level, MWA has recently (within the past year or so) begun offering what it calls MWA University, in different locations throughout the country. It’s “a full-day, low-cost writing seminar designed to teach participants the essential skills needed to write a novel, from the idea stage to the final editing. The focus is on the craft of writing, and the college-level courses are taught by published writers and experienced teachers.”

I had the great pleasure of attending the pilot seminar last summer, and it was fantastic. I recommend it to any writer, at any level.

If you don’t already belong to MWA, what are you waiting for?

 

Alan

When Movies Inspire

It goes without saying that books have profoundly influenced my writing career. From Nancy Drew to Nancy Pickard, mystery novels have given me tips about plot, characters, and settings. I've studied openers with hooks and endings with twists, traveled to Agatha Christie's Egypt, Sue Grafton's California, and Stephen King's Maine -- all thanks to the written word.

Books are compelling, but movies? Now that's powerful stuff. Give me a good suspenseful flick and I'm educated, inspired, and... scared silly.

I can vividly remember one of the earliest suspense movies I saw as a child. It was The Spiral Staircase, a 1945 drama in which a young mute woman must evade a serial killer. I was ten or eleven, it was a school night, and my mother left the house for some sort of meeting. My father promptly suggested that we watch a movie, and minutes later (or so it seemed) the black-and-white thriller flickered on our set.

I found the film terrifying, even though I'd been a Dark Shadows groupie since kindergarten. The murderer targeted handicapped, or as they said in the film, "afflicted," young women. He was a predator in the most evil sense of the word. Rather than showing his face, the camera revealed his eyes, menacing and dark, stalking his hapless victim. To top it all off, his profession was one that encouraged trust.

When it was over and the villan was dead, I remember wondering whether The Spiral Staircase would give me nightmares. I can't recall that it ever did. The film did impart a sense of true terror, mingled with something like awe. I'd been scared, yes, but in the relief following the movie's white-knuckle conclusion, I was more alive than ever. Energized.

Which movies have scared you silly? Have they also influenced your writing? Which is the one that made the biggest impression?

Promoting a Re-Release

On November 8th, Midnight Ink will be re-releasing my mystery, A Real Basket Case, in trade paperback and ebook. This is the first book in my Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery series, which debuted in hardcover in March, 2007. As a result of that debut, it was one of four books nominated for the 2007 Best First Novel Agatha Award (named for Agatha Christie). The book gathered a bevy of good reviews from Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Spinetingler Magazine, Crimespree Magazine, and many other places. Quite a few mystery readers and libraries bought the book back then, but because of the publisher's distribution policies, it wasn't widely sold.

Midnight Ink and I hope to gain many, many new readers for the series with this re-release in formats that are more inexpensive, more popular, and more widely distributed than the original hardcover format. Midnight Ink has put a jazzy new cover on the book and updated the back cover copy:

"A-tisket, a-tasket, an indiscretion gone terribly wrong...

Feeling neglected by her workaholic husband, forty-something gift basket maker Claire Hanover joins an aerobics class at the urging of her best friend Ellen. Divorced and bitterly unhappy, Ellen and most of the other women in the class add a little vicarious excitement to their lives by flirting with the handsome instructor, Enrique. In a moment of weakness, Claire agrees to let the charming Enrique come to her house to give her a massage. She realizes she has made a deadly mistake when Enrique is shot and killed in her bedroom and her husband Roger is arrested for the murder.

Determined to clear Roger's name and save her marriage, Claire sets out to find the real killer, encountering drug dealers, jealous ex-girlfriends, and angry cops along the way."

My promotion quandary with this release, though, is how to promote a book that's already been widely reviewed and that I've already conducted quite a few signings for.

I do plan to promote the re-release on-line with a few guest blog posts, Internet radio and chat room appearances, email loop notifications, and getting the word out to my followers on Goodreads and Facebook or who've subscribed to my email newsletter. Also, I'll be running a Goodreads giveaway contest for it from October 15th through November 5th, so if you're a Goodreads member, be sure to enter once the contest opens!

As for signings, though, I didn't think many bookstores would be interested in hosting a signing for a re-release. I did agree to participate in a multi-author fundraiser booksigning for Pikes Peak Writers (PPW) in Colorado Springs on November 12th. But then I was stymied.

Enter Ann Parker. Ann is a good friend and a fellow mystery author, whose historical series takes place in Leadville, Colorado during the mining heydays of the late 1800s. The fourth book in her series, Mercury Rises, will be released November first. Ann lives in California and will be visiting Colorado for a week and a half in November to promote her book. She asked if I'd be interested in doing some events with her. Would I?!

I immediately roped her into the PPW event and volunteered to drive us around and house her at my Colorado Springs and Breckenridge homes. Then we divvied up the work of contacting local bookstores and other potentials hosts. Ann arranged a library event and bookstore signing in Leadville and a panel signing in Longmont with another mystery author, Michelle Black. I organized a workshop in Salida, Colorado, a signing in Manitou Springs, and one in Boulder. A couple of other events are in the works but are not finalized yet. See our websites for up-to-date details about our appearances.

Ann's Colorado visit will be crammed full of events, many more than she would have managed on her own, and I now have some events at which to promote A Real Basket Case. We'll be sharing expenses, making the costs much lower for both of us, and we'll be sharing the fun! What could be better?

But, could there be more? Do you Inkspot readers have any suggestions for me of other ways I can promote a re-release? I'm looking for activities that are fairly inexpensive and that won't take a lot of time away from my writing schedule for Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure series. I'd love to see some out-of-the-box suggestions here!

AHH, THAT AIN’T WORKIN’…

Darrell James

Even the weather was perfect when I rolled into Bowling Green, Ohio, Wednesday—79 and sunny. I started by checking into the hotel and running through some notes I had made for the night’s event. See, I was scheduled to speak to a group at the Wood County Library at 7:00 pm, just one stop on the three month book tour I have planned.

The event was arranged and hosted by Mary Boone. Mary is a Sisters in Crime National Board member and Library Liaison for SinC. She’s also the librarian at the Wood County Library, a stunning facility that was recently remodeled to include a naturally lighted atrium reading area, that I found myself wishing I could make my permanent writing retreat.

Mary picked me up at the hotel, making me feel like a visiting head of state. I first got the walking tour of downtown Bowling Green. It’s quaint and traditional. The farmers market was alive with early evening shoppers, the booths filled with baskets of late corn, apples, and pumpkins. We had diner at Easy Street, a charming little eatery along the main drag. (For those who don’t know Mary, she’s charming, gracious, and fun. Everything you would hope for in your favorite librarian.)

At seven, we returned to the library where I had the opportunity to address a group gathered patiently to hear about my debut novel, Nazareth Child. To my delight a number of the attendees had already purchased and read the book, and were quick to add supportive comments. (It seems they loved it. And loved Del Shannon as well.)

Readers are the best. They’re knowledgeable of the genre and know what they like and dislike. Their questions are insightful, and they seem to have as much interest in how an author and a book came into being as in the book itself.

It was a great stop on my continuing book tour that started on September 9th in Pasadena, and will end roughly on November 19th back in California, at the Men of Mystery event in Irvine.

On Thursday, I met Craig, the Assistant Manager, at the Maumee, OH, Barnes & Noble. Nice guy! He immediately ordered in copies of Nazareth Child to be featured in their “new release” mystery section. (BTW: he would have been a nice guy even if he hadn’t ordered my books.)

As I write this post, I’m at the B & N coffee shop, drinking a root beer, and anticipating the signing I have later tonight, at Barnes & Noble Franklin Park, Toledo. The weekend will find me at B & N in Dayton, next week at Foul Play Books in Columbus, then Youngstown to speak to a writers group, and then to Cincinnati for a huge Midwest launch party with high school friends and family.

Many authors lament the trials of book promotion. I have to say, “If this is workin’, I’ll take it any day of the week.”
Now… on with the show.


Nazareth Child- A Del Shannon Novel has just been released from Midnight Ink, Llewellyn Worldwide. It is available through booksellers and online retailers and for download to all popular electronic readers.

Says The Mystery Reader: “The characters make this first mystery a stand out.”

Splat!

Cricket McRae

You would think on a blog written by mystery authors, I’d be talking blood spatter with a title like that.

Nope. Sorry.

Lately I’ve been refining my workshop on getting to know your characters better. It consists of nine ways to dig deeper when developing protagonists, antagonists and the secondary folks who populate fiction. The last time I taught this workshop I was reminded of a screenwriting intensive I took from Stewart Stern in 2006.

Stern is the soul-sounding writer of, among other things, Rebel Without a Cause, Rachel Rachel and the teleplay for Sybil. He wrote old-school style – no Vogler or McKee outlining how stories ought to work (though I bet he was familiar with Aristotle’s Poetics). In the intensive, he shared with us the impetus behind his genius.

He called it going through splat.

In fact, there is a documentary about his life, writing, and war (he fought in the Battle of the Bulge), called Going Through Splat: The Life and Work of Stewart Stern.

And here is an interview with him.

Splat was his way of talking about the difficult, psyche-scraping process of discovering something about ourselves that we have always avoided facing. In doing so, we are able to give that same gift to our characters. Protagonists in particular need to do that which they have always avoided in order to grow. 

Splat comes from wounds in the back story of a character. They do not have to be huge dramatic wounds – abuse, death of a parent, or great tragedy. But Stern maintained that there needs to be a point of connection between our protagonists’ back stories and our own. That connection may not be obvious to others, but we know it’s there.

Splat is facing the thing that stands in our way in our lives. Facing that thing creates hope. We may deprive ourselves, or hurt ourselves to avoid dealing with it, but in the end it is necessary. Stern maintained, “Courage is the price that life charges for peace.”

Splat is “being skinless in order to communicate,” to really tell the story. Your art lies in your own experience. Your fantasy about facing something you want to avoid is nourishing to others.

Do the thing you don’t want to do, to understand what that’s like, so you can pass that knowledge on. The mission of an artist “is to give to their audience one single moment in which they can glimpse their own capacity for greatness.”

So does all that sound like a bunch of hooey to you? While it resonates deeply with me, I think it does depend on what kind of story you’re telling. Applying the idea of splat to the lighter fare some of us write could defeat the purpose of providing, say, humorous escape. On the other hand, having that dimension of character even in a cozy provides a welcome depth – as long as it’s applied with a feather touch.

As a writer, do you dig deep, uncomfortably deep, to grant your characters life? As a reader, do you enjoy it when a writer does this?

When One Thing Leads To Another…

by Kathleen Ernst

I’ve mentioned here before that I often write in coffee shops. This post is about some nice and unexpected things that came my way because of that.

My favorite haunt is a local spot called the Prairie Cafe. The staff is nice, the food is good, and they make the best mocha lattes in town. There’s an outlet right next to the table in the quiet corner. All good stuff.

After my first Chloe mystery came out, several young women who work there told me they belonged to a book club. Would I be willing to meet with the group to discuss Old World Murder? Of course I said yes. Alisha, who manages the cafe, offered to host the gathering in the cafe, which is closed in the evening. It turned out to be a marvelous gathering. In addition to good conversation, the club members put out a pot luck to shame all pot lucks. They gave me flowers. I got a beautiful thank-you card, and even a gift certificate from the cafe (more mochas!).

I gave Alisha a copy of The Heirloom Murders when it was released. (The acknowledgments thank the Prairie Cafe staff for their hospitality). She and my husband Scott put their heads together and came up with a plan to display both of my books on a shelf beside the cash register. Pretty good exposure! I think we even sold a few.

Alisha is a professional baker. I like to work with friends whenever possible, so we asked her to bake the cake for the launch party for The Heirloom Murders. The party was last week, and she provided an amazing cake. In addition to creating the book itself, she created a hand cultivator, Swiss flag, and a chunk of green cheese from fondant. (That all actually makes sense if you read the book.) And she added a crystal to represent the legendary diamond at the heart of the plotline.

I know that writing in public places isn’t for everyone. Sometimes, though, you end up making new friends, selling a few books, and serving a cake that will, I hope, have my guests ready for more when the next book launch rolls around.

Rules and Regulations

by Robin Allen

I love rules. Really love them. They mean that someone a) is in charge and b) has considered the likelihood of things getting out of hand and c) has put measures in place to keep things neat and orderly. I love neatness and order.

A No Parking sign in front of a convenient place to park? I drive around until a spot opens up, even though I've had to use the little mademoiselle’s room for the past hour. No bottles allowed on the beach? That's why they make Shiner Bock in a can. Clean lint filter before each use? Always. Do not remove this mattress tag? Never have, never will.

I also love working in restaurants. The intrigue, the alliances, the gossip. The fun, the friendships, the factions. With every new customer comes a new challenge, a new story—an allergy to yellow cornmeal or the latest fad diet that forbids cruciferous vegetables to be eaten with red dye number eighty-six.

So when I set out to write a mystery series, what else could Poppy Markham be but a by-the-book public health inspector who has worked every job from busgirl to manager to chef in her family’s restaurant? And when an obnoxious Michelin-rated French chef invades the kitchen—currently under the command of Poppy’s cranky, territorial stepsister—what else could happen but murder?

Poppy loves rules, too, but only the ones she can enforce. Some of the others get a little bent and banged around as she tries to discover who really killed Évariste Bontecou. Yes, Poppy flashed her inspector's badge in a police station, but she was trying to see her stepsister. And, okay, she used her badge to detain and lecture a litterbug in traffic, but he messed with Texas right in front of her! Rest assured, however, that Poppy never wears white after Labor Day and she does not run with scissors. So far.

As readers, are there fictional characters you love (or hate) because you identify with them? As writers, what parts of you have you given your sleuth?


This post was previously published at Murder by the Blog.

Inkspot News: Cheap Read?

Dailycheapreads.com, a site specializing in ebooks for the Kindle that cost under $5, somehow came across Drop By Drop and decided to feature it. (Click here.) No complaints from the author.