Some things you need to know, if you want to be a writer.
1. Read the kind of books you want to write.
(You have no idea how often someone has told me they want to write a book someday, then say they don't have time to read.)
2. Learn as much as you can about the craft of writing.
(That means read books and magazines about writing, check blogs and other Internet sources that are about writing. Go to writers' conferences. This includes learning the rules of grammar.)
3. Join a critique group.
(You must be able to take criticism. Never argue with folks who make suggestions. You don't have to do everything they say, but do take a look at whatever has been pointed out.)
4. Write.
(Put yourself on a schedule and write at least 5 times a week. You can't be a writer unless you write.)
5. Never send anything off to a publisher or agent without first getting it edited.
(Use a professional editor, not your spouse or best friend.)
6. Never send anything off to a publisher or agent without first reading and following their guidelines.
(That means only sending the kind of book they want and in the proper format.)
7. Be prepared to do your own promoting.
(Promoting is a big part of writing if you expect to sell books.)
8. Don't expect to become rich.
(Very few writers make enough to live on.)
9. Understand the Amazon numbers under a book.
(The higher the numbers the less the sales.)
10. And if you really want to be a writer, never give up.
(Learn from your rejections and keep on writing.)
Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith
(My first book received nearly 30 rejections before it found a publisher. I reworte it several times in the process. And my future books also received rejetions. Now I have nearly 40 pubished books.)
http://fictionforyou.com
http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com
The Mystery Blog of San Joaquin Sisters in Crime
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
Why Book Tours are Expensive (More Comedy on the Road)
By Melodie Campbell
I’ve recently been on a book tour for my
latest crime comedy, The Goddaughter’s
Revenge (winner of the 2014 Derringer and 2014 Arthur Ellis Award. There. Got it in. My publisher can relax now.)
Book tours are expensive. You travel around to independent book stores
and you sell some books and sign them.
It’s fun. You meet a lot of great
people. But it’s expensive. And I’m not talking about the hotel bill and
the bar tab.
I should have just stayed in the bar. It was leaving the bar that become expensive.
Nice night.
We decided to go for a walk. It
was dark, but I had on my brand new expensive progressive eye-glasses, so not a
problem, right?
One second I was walking and talking. The next, I was flying through the air.
Someone screamed.
WHOMP.
(That was me, doing a face plant.)
“OHMYGOD! Are you okay?” said my colleague.
I was clearly not okay. In fact, I was splat on the sidewalk and
could not move.
“Fine!” I yelled into the flagstone. “I’m Fine!”
I tried to lift my head. Ouch.
“That must have hurt,” said someone
helpfully.
I write about a mob Goddaughter. So I know
a bit about mob take-outs. It may come
in handy.
A crowd had gathered. Not the sort of crowd that gently lifts you
off the ground. More the sort of crowd
that gawks.
“Couldn’t figure out why you were running
ahead of us.” My colleague shook his head.
I wasn’t running. I was tripping and falling.
“That sidewalk is uneven. Your foot must have caught on it.”
No shit, Sherlock.
By now I had tested various body
parts. Knees were numb. Hands, scraped. Chin, a little sore.
But here’s the thing. I hit in this order: knees, tummy, boobs,
palms. My tummy and boobs cushioned the
fall and saved my face.
Yes,
this was going through my mind as I pushed back with my tender palms to balance
on my bloody knees.
“Ouch!”
I said. No, that’s a lie. I said something else.
I stood up.
Surveyed the damage. My knees were
a bloody mess, but the dress survived without a scratch. It was made in China, of course. Of plastic.
The crowd was dispersing. But the pain wasn’t over.
Next day, I hobbled to the clinic. The doctor, who probably isn’t old enough to
drive a car, shook his head.
“Progressive glasses are the number one reason seniors fall. They are looking through the reading part of
their glasses when they walk, and can’t see the ground properly.”
Seniors?
I’ve still got my baby fat.
“Get some distance-only glasses,” he advised.
So I did.
Another 350 bucks later, I have a third pair of glasses to carry around in
my purse.
Which means my purse isn’t big enough.
So I need to buy a new purse.
And that’s why book tours are so expensive.
Melodie Campbell bio:
The Goddaughter!
Gina Gallo would like nothing better than to run her little
jewelry shop. Unfortunately, she is also “the Goddaughter,” and as she tells
her new guy Pete, “you don’t get to choose your relatives”.
When her cousin Tony is shot by rival mobsters, Gina is reluctantly recruited to
carry the hot gems he was carrying back to Buffalo. Then the worst happens:
they get stolen. Pete and Gina have no
choice but to steal them back, even though philandering politicians, shoe
fetishists, and a trio of inept goons stand in their way.
It’s all in a day’s work, when you’re the Goddaughter.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Write What You Know…or Not by Velda Brotherton
Writers are often told, “write what you know.” For years
I did not follow that advice, but rather wrote about things I didn’t know and
therefore could enjoy learning about through research and interviews. Then, one
day it came to me that I wanted to write using some of the crazy things that
had happened to me during a nine-year stint with a rural weekly newspaper.
Hired because I was a writer with plenty of clips, not because I had any idea
about journalism, I set about finding stories.
One would think that living in the “boonies” of the
Arkansas Ozarks, not much would happen, but I soon learned that wasn’t true at
all. As a result, I can draw on a multitude of experiences and characters I met
during those years in writing fiction. So, the question was, what genre would
be best suited for these new books? I
settled quickly on mystery/suspense, and since I’m branded sexy, dark, and
gritty, there’d have to be some pretty hot love scenes tucked in between dark murders
and gritty mayhem.
For the first in the series, which I decided to title by
twisting the titles of Edgar Allan Poe, a fortuitous decision, since I was
later able to obtain blurbs from Christopher Allan Poe. I’m a firm believer in
serendipity, especially where writing is concerned. If we open up to all
possibilities, then all of them come to us. So a mystery I had played around
with earlier became The Purloined Skull, twisting Poe’s title The Purloined
Letter. My stories do not twist Poe’s tales, but are original ideas with a bit
of darkness and paranormal added for fun.
In that first book, I used a man who lived in a cave near
the small town where I worked. He became a pivotal character whose name I
changed even though he was deceased.
Townsfolk had many strange stories to tell
about Caveman Jake. I also used a fellow I knew quite well, who grew marijuana
because he couldn’t make a living for his family growing row crops to sell. I
had so much fun writing the opening scene where Jessie West, the reporter (yes,
probably me in another life) deals with him after his dogs dig up some bones
that turn out to be human.
After that book was published, I decided to continue the
series since it had been so satisfying to write. The second book I set around
what was known in our part of the woods as the SEFOR plant, the abandoned Southwest
Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor. This spooky place plays a big part in the
mysteries of The Tell-Tale Stone that include two murders and a thirty-year-old
diamond heist from which the diamonds are still missing.
The next book of this series is titled The Pit and The
Penance and I have plenty of characters to fill it with as well as a ready-made
plot. All I’ll need is a murder most foul. Only one murder actually occurred
while I worked for the paper, and it was such a big headliner that the dailies
covered it. I may use it someday, who knows? The manhunt is an exceptionally
exciting and satisfying tale.
Because I worked less than 30 miles from the Oklahoma
border and the Cherokee reservation, as well as having descended from Cherokee
great grandparents, I created a hero, Dallas Starr, who is a Cherokee lawman, a
burned out ex-narc who has come to Grace County, Arkansas to find peace. So he
signs on as the new crime scene investigator for the Grace County Sheriff’s
Department. Is he in for a surprise. Oh, and he has special powers which he
inherited from his grandfather. A psychic ability to touch the spirits of those
involved in violence, both the living and the dead.
In my time with the newspaper I’ve held and petted a 30
foot long reticulated python, played with white tigers who lived in a
wilderness rescue park, flown with barnstormers, in Fifi, the last B29 still
flying, in a glass helicopter, and took a flying lesson in a Cessna. I
interviewed America’s first spaceman, Joe Kittinger, not once, but twice and
flew with him as well. His story is breathtaking. Here’s a link: http://www.history.com/news/joe-kittingers-death-defying-leap-from-the-edge-of-space
Other people I’ve interviewed and who will appear sooner
or later in my mysteries are Al Houser, the first Apache baby born to
Geronimo’s people, known as the Fort Sill Apaches, after they were released
from captivity. Then there was the
couple who lived so deep in the woods it took me half a day to find them
in the breath-taking beauty of the Ozark wilderness. She had never been off the
place and he only once when he was drafted. The war ended before he was called
up. This couple had been married 75 years and some of the stories they told
were priceless. Today they are buried just up the hill from the house they
lived in all their lives.
So, perhaps it is understandable why I’ve turned to
writing what I know after all these years of spending months researching what I
didn’t know. It’s been quite a journey, either way you look at it.
Blurb: Dallas Starr and Jessie West work to solve a pair
of grisly murders while searching for stolen diamonds and pursuing their
favorite pastime…finding love in all the unusual places.
Bio: Recently Velda Brotherton moved out of her comfort zone, writing western
historical romance, to begin a mystery series, A Twist of Poe, the books based
loosely on her experiences working for nine years with a rural weekly
newspaper. She has been writing for close to 30 years, and besides mysteries
her work runs the gamut from regional nonfiction to mainstream fiction about
strong women who persevere no matter the challenges. Other genres include
paranormal and horror. Her brand, sexy, dark, and gritty serves her well in all
her endeavors, giving her audience what they expect from her, no matter the
genre. Brotherton lives in the Ozarks with her husband and near her daughter.
She has set several of her more recent fiction novels there.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
BUMPING OFF FAT VINNY
BUMPING OFF FAT VINNY
REVENGE IS SWEET
Morgan St. James
At some time or another,
many mystery or fiction writers have been heard to say, “I could kill him/her
in a book.” That’s a great outlet we have as authors, because we can do away
with someone who has wronged us and never have to serve a day of hard time. In
fact, we might even make some decent royalties from the book.
Several years ago a
nasty HOA president made life hell for my husband and me when we were involved
in a construction default suit. As HOA president, I was the one who instigated
the complaints to the developer and spearheaded a lawsuit that won our complex
$1.9 Million.
Then I had to resign
because of my travel schedule, and the man I later vowed to kill in print took
over as President. Our complex consisted of a four-story 16 unit building plus
our freestanding 3,000 sq. ft. house at the back of the property, complete with
its own courtyard and backyard.
The new HOA president was
a retired doctor and had always acted like he hated the fact that we had a
nicer place than he and his wife did. When the default suit was settled, he made
sure everything was fixed but our house. It was cracking all over, water was
accumulating under the raised foundation, and that was just part of the problem.
It cost us $10,000 in attorney’s fees to fight for our rights while he handled
all of the disbursements to repair the 4-story building. We finally settled
through arbitration, they cut some corners, and repairs to our house came to
about $80,000—that’s how bad the problems were that had to be fixed.
Anyway, he caused us so
much stress in addition to the ten grand which we could not recover, I vowed I
would kill him in a book. I even had a title—A Corpse in the Condo. I haven’t written it yet, but it’s still on
my to-do list along with some plot points. Oh yes. The jerk had the nerve to
die before I could do him in. By chance, I saw his obit in the L.A. Times a few
years back.
What triggers an author
to “kill” for a story?
Well, that brings me to
my latest book, co-authored with Dennis N. Griffin. Bumping Off Fat Vinny, a
funny tale of pure revenge. This book is the poster child for the blog named Will Kill for a Story.
After New York Times
bestselling authors Danny Garrett, a former FBI agent, and Margaret Stanton,
who was a power player in the Beverly Hills real estate market, are retained by
Vitali Publishing to co-author the memoir of Mob boss Tony “The Nose’s” widow
Maria Mancuso, elation turns to thoughts of murder.
Hopefully, you as an
author, have never had the desire to murder your publisher, but be honest.
There are possibly times when many of you were really ticked off.
Well, Danny, Margaret
and Maria were more than ticked off. They were totally bummed out when Fat
Vinny Vitali (who topped the scales at around 400 pounds) refused to publish
the manuscript they’d worked on for a year-and-a-half. He ranted and raved that
he’d expected an investigative piece solving the unsolved mystery of who
knocked off Maria’s husband. Never mind that he’d never said he wanted
interviews with mob members and a whole raft of other things when he sat in on development
meetings. He thought he’d get a blockbuster because he firmly believed Maria
knew who murdered her husband. Instead he got what the contract called for—Maria’s
memoir, the story of an abused Mob wife.
Worse yet, in a power
struggle, he not only wouldn’t publish it, he threatened to tie the manuscript
up forever unless they bent to his will. He wanted those interviews and the
revelation of who killed Tony “The Nose.” What were the authors to do?
At first they tried to
reason and cajole. That didn’t work. No matter what they offered, he wouldn’t
release the manuscript even if they gave back their advance. He was determined to
be the alpha dog in this struggle, and he’d do anything to show them how
powerful he was.
Have you as an author
ever dealt with a situation like that? I won’t say we did. Let’s just say we
were inspired to write this book about wronged authors driven to attempt murder
for their story.
With no routes left
open, they conspired to bump off Fat Vinny to get their manuscript back.
What ensues is
reminiscent of “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Every well-thought-out
plan backfired due to some twist of fate. Like a cat with the proverbial nine
lives, no matter how perfect their plan to speed his journey to the Happy
Hunting Ground, Vinny was sitting at his desk the next day, as obnoxious as
ever. And the clock was ticking, because their agent was in the middle of
negotiating a movie deal that Vinny would have to sign off on according to
their contract.
We used lots of twists
and turns. As for the final surprise, it was inspired by something I
experienced in Mexico many years ago.
Would I kill for a
story? Not in real life, but as an author who loves writing about crime capers
with a dash of humor, there are so many delicious opportunities just waiting to
be written. Hmmm. A Corpse in the Condo. I may write that one sooner than I
thought.
What is being said
about Bumping Off Fat Vinny:
Bumping Off Fat Vinny is a fun read!
Morgan St. James and Dennis Griffin have created great characters that are easy
to love or hate. On the top of the “hate list” for me was Fat Vinny, himself.
He was a bad man and deserved to get whacked. What his would-be killers went
through trying to get the job done makes for a highly compelling and humorous
story.
--Frank Cullotta, former
Chicago Outfit associate and author of CULLOTTA and Hole in the Wall Gang.
I thoroughly enjoyed Bumping
Off Fat Vinny. The plot is
great and the characters are easy to relate to. I’ve had some experience with
organized crime figures—including killers—and found the murder plots especially
entertaining. My compliments to Morgan St. James and Dennis Griffin for
producing a great read.
--Orlando “Ori” Spado,
former associate of the Colombo organized crime family.
 |
| Morgan St James |
Bio:
Former interior designer, MORGAN ST JAMES lives in Las Vegas, is
on the board of Writers of Southern Nevada and belongs to multiple writers’
groups. In addition to the Silver Sisters series, she also collaborates with
other writers in addition to writing her own novels and short stories. Morgan currently
has 14 books in publication plus over 600 articles about the business and craft
of writing, with more slated for 2015. She frequently appears on the radio, author’s
panels and is an entertaining speaker. Published short stories include
contributions to two Chicken Soup for the Soul books, many anthologies
including the single author anthology The
Mafia Funeral and Other Short Stories, . Her workshops are presented at writers’ conferences, writers groups
and other venues.
In November, 2014 she and true crime author
Dennis N. Griffin launched the Writers’
Tricks of the Trade Show on Blog Talk Radio, and she is also the publisher of
the Writers Tricks of the Trade
eZine.
Visit www.morganstjames-author.com,
http://morganstjames.blogspot.com.
http://silversistersmysteries.blogspot.com,
http://writerstricksofthetraderadio.blogspot.com
Monday, June 1, 2015
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