Brutal Season the fourth book in my Seasons Mystery Series made its digital debut on April 10, and long before the release I was working on marketing and promoting, hoping to give it a big boost when it launched. So much of a successful book launch depends on luck, popularity, and marketing skills, and not every writer - certainly not this one – excels in the marketing department. Still, I did my best to develop a plan for this book.   After finishing the writing, and my own self-editing of the manuscript, things were set in motion for getting some pre-pub ducks in a row - cover art design, editing, requesting blurbs from other authors and getting ARCs to them, and formatting. Then I made a calendar of when each task would be completed. This process started in mid-January, and I jumped ahead several months to choose a release date, giving the various professionals plenty of time to hatch their individual duck. Once there was a working cover image, the book was listed for pre-...

In a recent episode of Fresh Air Weekend, there was an interview with author Thomas Mallon, renowned essayist and historical fiction novelist. It was a most fascinating interview, focused on highlights of his career, an article in The New Yorker Magazine, and the recent release of his novel Up With The Sun .    A story about  Dick Kallman, who was an up-and-coming actor in the fifties and sixties, a closeted gay man for much of his life. Kallman had faded into obscurity until his murder in 1980. Here's what Booklist said about Up With the Sun,    "Another superb novelization of real life . . . Fluidly written with well-realized characters, the novel is great gossipy fun to read. Film and theater buffs will be delighted." In response to the question of whether the characters he creates have to be real people who interacted with historical figures; or whether what he puts into the mouths of historical figures is credible, he said that the reader should alwa...

In previous posts I’ve shared here about how reading newspaper articles has triggered a story idea. This happens a lot for my mystery and suspense novels, especially, One Small Victory and Boxes for Beds , and even some of the story lines for the Seasons Mystery Series. Many writers, if not most, get story ideas from just such experiences, especially those who write mysteries. If we run across an article about an unsolved crime, our writerly minds may latch on to that story and start trying to figure out a way to ferret out a solution. Topics for a story also come to us out of current events, as Dani Greer pointed out in her post last week I can Use This.. .about her Kindle Vella series. However, for other novels, we may draw directly from our experiences or those of people we know. For example, the story idea for my women's novel Play it Again, Sam came from a dreadful experience that a good friend lived through. She called me up one day to tell me that her husband of over twe...

This month we’re posting about our pet peeves here at the Blood-Red Pencil. Previously I’ve shared some of the craft issues I see repeatedly in some published books that bother me as a reader, and I like to think of them as a mishap. Those same craft issues also bother me as an editor, especially if I'm working with a new client who decides that just because they see it in already published books that must mean it’s okay. It's not okay. We owe it to readers to give them our best, and our best doesn't include weak or ordinary writing. In a second or third draft of a story we can take an ordinary turn of phrase and make it extraordinary. Here are just a few little things that could be changed to improve a narrative. They're ones that jar me every time I read them in a novel and prompt me to consciously pay attention to avoid them while writing: Shrugging shoulders . Very few of us ever shrug anything other than a shoulder, so why not just write "shrugged." Or ...

Note: Contest 1 closes midnight March 9th . Contest 2 closes on March 17th. Scroll down for more details. Many writers don't enjoy the marketing and promoting side of the business of being an author. Myself, included. Those first steps in the overall process - the writing - creating characters - coming up with a plot - finding the perfect setting - and then ending up with a finished novel - are the most satisfying. As Neil Gaiman, who writes the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline , and The Graveyard Book  says, “Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” Still, we have to promote if we want our books to rise in the rankings at Amazon - the giant retailer that controls so much when it comes to book sales and a force in the business that we can't ignore. There are millions and millions of books listed on Amazon and where does ours land in that mix? Unless an author i...

Recently I listened to a short story, Slingshot by Souvankham Thammavongsa , being read on the podcast Selected Shorts too hot for Radio . The story centers around a 70-year-old woman who meets a 32-year-old man, her neighbor, Richard, and they start a short, but intense, relationship. The woman has been a widow for 30 years and in her words, “I hadn't had sex for such a long time that I could consider myself a virgin. I couldn't remember how it all happens."  That story, originally published in Harper's magazine in 2018 , made me wonder how many other stories are now being written about older characters being in love and having sex. That's not something we tend to acknowledge very often. It's as if we don't think older people have those desires. But they do. Recent studies, such as this one in Prevention Magazine , indicate that people well into their 80s and 90s still want romance and physical intimacy. "Sex isn't like a carton of milk that goes ...

 “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou That quote from the talented poet, performer, and activist who passed from this life in 2014 really resonates with me, as I’ve long believed that we have to keep the creative juices flowing. It's definitely not good for any kind of productivity with our work if we stagnate. What we do to prime the pump, so to speak, can take many forms. If you’re a writer, write That seems like a non-starter for writers. That's what we do, right? But too often we get distracted by social media, things life throws at us, or an impulse to play a game instead of getting into the groove. What we need to be doing is writing first.  As the wonderful writer Anne Lamott says, “How to write: Butt in chair. Start each day anywhere. Let yourself do it badly. … Get butt back in chair.” Back when I was a lot more prolific as a writer, before Ramsay Hunt Syndrome decided to cozy up to me and bring along the gift of optic ner...