Took a Week Off

Well, sort of.

I am on Chapter 6 of my next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery in that series. I've sent the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery off to the publisher.

But this week my daughter and her husband came to visit. And except for doing a few email and Facebook things, I've mostly concentrated on having fun with them.

Both are retired now and moved from the home on the coast down to Murietta which is close to San Diego and much farther from our home. About a 6 hour drive--would be less except the traffic is horrific on the So. Cal freeways. Their reason for moving? To be near their children and grandchildren--and they are loving going to birthday parties, dance recitals and competitions, track meets and ball games,

Because hubby and I have given up driving on the L.A. freeways, to get down there we have to rely on another daughter to drive us. (We still drive other places but So. Cal drivers are scary.)

This daughter is our first born. She was a great kid and so helpful when her four siblings came along. Hubby was on active duty in the Seabees when our children were growing up and was gone on many assignments, including three tours in Vietnam.

She married her high school love when they were 18 and 19--and it turned out great. She had a wonderful career as a personal assistant for a school district after her two kids grew up.

With their motor home parked in our second daughter's driveway, we've all spent a lot of time going back and forth from that house to ours. (A 5 minute drive.) We're having a great time catching up, watching movies, playing games and sharing meals.

So--what does this have to do with mystery? I'm brainstorming with the girls (yes, even though they are grandparents they are still my girls) about the mystery I'm working on now. I want to rev up the excitement and I'm gathering ideas from them. See, no matter what, we mystery writers can't get too far from what we're working on no matter what's going on.

I promise next time I'll stick to mystery. (Or maybe not--we have two grandsons weddings in a row.)

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

To Blog or Not to Blog

Some years ago—I can’t remember how many—we writers were first told to set up a website. Then we were instructed to blog. “Blogging is an essential part of your marketing arsenal. You will attract readers this way.” I took an online course in blogging. I started my own blog, which I only wrote sporadically. I joined a group blog. It disbanded. A few years later, I joined another.

I blog. Almost every author I know blogs. But like many of my fellow writers, I’m beginning to wonder if blogging gets me new readers or sells copies of books. Most of the people who respond to my blogs are my fellow writers. Most of them are my friends. Of course they’re all readers, but I’ve no idea what to blog about so that readers who aren’t writers will read what I’m writing,

Every day I receive notices via Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo groups of new blog posts. I don’t have the time to read most of them. Everyone’s blogging, but who’s reading them? The posts I read and comment on fall into three categories: 1) the topic is interesting, 2) it may prove helpful regarding marketing, and 3) it’s written by a friend. One of the best reasons for blogging—though not its original purpose—is to keep in touch with writing friends.

But maybe I’ve become too pessimistic. I think blogging is here to stay as a means of communicating with others. I don’t blog very often on my own blog, Tides and Tidings, but when I do, it’s about a subject I care deeply about. A few weeks ago I blogged about “Life Changes” and how life changed for me after my husband died. Many people responded to it. And I’ve won several books by leaving a comment. How cool is that! Most recently, I left a comment on one of my cyber friend’s blog, and her editor emailed me regarding my books. The upshot is, I’ll be sending her a manuscript.

And so, for now I’ll continue to blog. Who knows? Soon another social media may arise, one we can’t even imagine. What do you all think about blogging?

Fans, Death Threats and The Question of Ownership

by Janis Patterson

It’s getting scary out there, people.

Fans are turning from appreciative readers into ravening packs of dictators and usurpers.

Is there anyone who hasn’t heard about the outrages perpetrated against Charlaine Harris?

Charlaine – who is one of the nicest people on the planet – finally ended her long-running Sookie Stackhouse series after umpteen books. She ended it a logical and nice way, but it just proved that you can’t please everyone. A portion of her fans erupted into a frenzied storm of verbal violence, sending her hate mail and death threats and fervent wishes that she would be raped and murdered for daring to end the series that way. Just because they didn’t like what happened.

First of all, it’s fiction!

Second of all, it’s her story, her characters, her vision – she and she alone should have the right to decide the ending. The fact that anyone should think otherwise is downright frightening, bringing up the image of a writer chained to a desk in a basement writing to the order of her fans. Sound over-the-top? Remember Stephen King’s MISERY? That too was fiction, but I wonder how close real life might be getting to these scenarios.

Just about the same time this was going on, there was a horror story making the rounds of the writers’ loops about some fans at a conference getting on their high horse and declaring that the writers should stop feeling that they own the characters and the stories – that they really belong to the readers.

Huh?

That makes just about as much sense as some weird political pundit announcing a few weeks ago that “parents have to get over the belief that their children belong to them personally and not to the state.” Crazy talk! Parents have the children and the children are their family and their responsibility. The writers have the vision, the writers do the work, the writers create. Readers read. How in the heck does that make them think that the characters and stories belong to them? What gives readers the right to believe that they make the decisions?

To me, this is an example of today’s all-too-prevalent entitlement mentality run totally amok. They want, so they feel they should have, so they demand – and then they get bent out of shape when they don’t get exactly what they want. Yes, there is a definite resemblance between this and a badly-behaved toddler having a tantrum.

There once was a day when authors were regarded if not with awe, at least with respect. They created living characters and entire worlds out of little more than imagination and caffeine and readers respected them for it. Now, however, things have changed. While there was once a respectful distance between writers and readers, the internet and its resulting social media have thrown the two close together, which is both good and bad.

As writers we are pretty much responsible for our own publicity nowadays, which means a lot of interaction with readers. That has removed a lot of the aura of specialness that writers used to have, and has made the readers more involved on a closer scale, which is not altogether a good thing nor a bad thing, though it has the potential to be either. Readers feel entitled to approach the writer, even feel that the writer has become their friend. All too often, though, for a certain kind of reader, this freedom of association becomes license. They feel the writer is their employee, bound to produce what they want at their order.

That is not altogether untrue. This is a free market, and if a what writer is producing is something a reader dislikes, the reader has the perfect freedom to stop buying it and take his business elsewhere. It does NOT give the reader the right to issue orders or make threats disguised as demands and threats as if they were some wild-eyed Middle-Eastern fanatic. On the other hand, if a reader is unhappy, I don’t know of a writer who would be upset about a civil, rationally phrased letter unemotionally stating their concerns. Hysterics, accusations, threats and ill-wishes are beyond the pale and unacceptable!

Now I like getting to know my readers – to a point. I enjoy chatting with them, hearing their concerns (when  civilly and politely phrased) and most especially their validation of my work when it pleases them.

On the other hand, simply because I am open to communication does not mean that I take orders from them, that the characters and stories which come from my imagination and hard work belong in any way to them, or that they have the right to demand anything of me. I am one of those people who have to write; I do not have to make what I write available to them, and when I do it is on my terms. If they are so unhappy, let them go create a world and the characters to populate it on their own. That they can do anything they want to with.

And I would be sardonically gleeful to see exactly what would happen when some other reader tried to dictate to them. The results just might be memorable.

Like I said, it’s getting scary out there, people. 

News, News, and More News

Okay, maybe just news. 

In April, I signed a three book contract with Kensington for my Tourist Trap Cozy mystery series.

The query read like this –

The tourist business can be murder.

Jill Gardner traded in her big city condo, high stress job, and low potential boyfriend to run South Cove’s Chamber of Business chapter.  South Cove’s a tourist town steeped in California history, known for artisan craft houses and keeping the secrets of its residents. She'd be living the dream, but when one friend winds up dead and another disappears, Jill finds the big city isn't the only place where murderers hide. And she’s up next on the killer’s to do list.

ALL THAT GLITTERS Now called book #1 weaves quirky characters in a small town cozy with series potential.  History and tourist lore bring a unique twist to life in this coastal California town. South Cove, just like other tourist towns, has one primary goal—keep up the image.  Even when that means murder.

I loved this series and had a second book started, when someone told me I may not want to write book two if I hadn't sold the first book in the series.  I stopped at chapter four and wrote a new cozy series set near the ski capital of Idaho, Sun Valley which I’m currently shopping to agents.  But now I've returned to writing book two and enjoying coming home to South Cove, my fictional central coastal California setting.

And the house in the picture?  That was the image that started the story. 

That’s my big news.  I’m excited to have a cozy mystery under my author belt but nervous at the same time. 

So MMM bloggers and readers, what should I know as I wander my way through this new landscape? What advice would you give a new author in Mystery Land? And what conferences do I need to attend? 

Distractions

Why is it that sometimes when I’m distracted by life’s events, nothing will help me except to write? Other times, I’m too distracted to write. What’s the difference?

Going on the premise that everything that happens to a writer is grist for the mill, here’s my theory. Some distractions (life events, disasters, glorious successes) can be celebrated by immediate writing. Others have to be processed a bit first.

But eventually, everything has the potential to be written about.

Right now, the upcoming Malice Domestic is distracting me--in a good way. I’ve found the bookmarks I had safely stowed where I almost didn’t ever find them again. I’ve located the books I’m bringing for consignment, and the extra copies of my new book for a signing right after Malice in Baltimore (at The Gift Cellar, 4337 B Harford Rd., Baltimore, Maryland 21214, from 2-5 on Sunday, May 5th). I bought new clothes and sewed the buttons that came off the first time I washed them. My vitamins are packed and I have plenty of audio books and snacks for the drive.

But I need to practice my pitch for the Malice Go Round some more! This is a fun event, like speed dating. Two authors pair up (I’m going around with Sasscer Hill, lucky me!) and each give a two-minute mini-talk about her new book, allow a minute for discussion, then rush to the next of the 20 tables, each holding 10 eager listeners. You hope the result will be that some readers who’ve never heard of you decide they’re interested in what you’re writing.

So, enough blogging. Off to finish packing and practice my two-minute talk, which is about one minute and twenty seconds.

(I’ve written this well ahead of my day to post, since I’ll still be out of town when the 11th of May rolls around. Malice will be over and I’ll be exhausted.)

So--What Do You Do for Fun?

As writers we get so wrapped up in the writing, editing and promoting that sometimes we forget to take a breath and live.

My latest, Dangerous Impulses, available from Amazon in paper or e-book.

 One thing I've found, many of the things that I consider fun are writing related. For instance, I consider going to a conference fun. But the reason it is fun is because I know I'll be seeing writing friends and making new ones.

I went to a Central Coast Sisters in Crime meeting in San Luis Obispo--which meant a nearly three hour drive and two nights in a hotel. I have lots of friend in that chapter I haven't seen for awhile. Besides the meeting which featured a crime scene investigator, we all had lunch together--and that evening dinner with two other couples. (Both the females are mystery writers and good friends.)

CC SinC after lunch. The red head is me. Love these guys.

But what else is there that I do for fun? Hubby and I love movies and we try to go at least two times a month. We're picky though and try to only pay for movies that will be more fun to see on the big screen. We usually combine our movie going with a restaurant meal and have our favorite places. Because we live in a rural area we don't have a lot of choices and tend to favor the Thai and Japanese restaurants.

We also subscribe to Netflix and watch a lot of the series that way--a year later than everyone else, but doesn't make any difference to us.

We have two big weddings coming up--both are for grandsons and their chosen ones. The first will be the end of May. It's our youngest son's eldest boy, Nathan. The wedding is being held up in the mountains at a lodge right in the middle of an old growth forest--giant Sequoias. Most of the wedding party and guests will be staying at the lodge or in cabins. (I feel a setting for a mystery coming on. I'll be taking notes and photos.)

The following weekend is our youngest daughter's middle son's wedding. Gregg is an Aspen police officer. Since both he and his wife came from California and have many friends here, the wedding is in Montecito in Gregg's uncle's backyard.

Besides loving weddings, both will be like family reunions with plenty of relatives to enjoy. And yes, I know that will be fun.

Of course I read for fun too, though not nearly as much as I used to, all this writing and promoting take up a lot of time. I tend to stick to books written by my friends or ones someone has asked me to review.

What do you do for fun?

Marilyn

I’m Practicing Yoga – Again

Recently I took a series of classes of Chair Yoga at my library. I’d taken yoga classes for many years, but had stopped because it wasn’t the best thing for my body. Yes, yoga’s supposed to be excellent for your spine. It keeps you limber and in good health. Perhaps, but I found I that staying in an asana (position) while the teacher went around correcting stances wasn’t good for my arthritic-ridden body. Of course we were supposed to come out of the pose if and when we felt pain, but I never did. I can do it! I can hold it always ran through my head in a most un-yogalike way.

I liked Chair Yoga immediately, and enjoyed doing breathing and stretching exercises sitting in a chair. We stood up for some asanas, and I discovered I wasn’t using the chair at all. I was flexible from all my previous years of practice, though my balance needed more – balance. When the four sessions came to an end, I promised myself I would continue to practice yoga a few minutes every day.

We writers sit at our computers for long stretches at a time. We do our best writing when we lose track of the passing minutes. Still, it’s important to get up occasionally and stretch. Walk around. Do a bit of yoga. It's best to take classes with a certified instructor who will let you know if you're doing each asana correctly. There are many yoga sites on line. The one I’ve used and like is Desktop Yoga: http://www.mydailyyoga.com/yogaindex.html