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Showing posts from April, 2016

WRITING A MYSTERY IS LIKE DIETING by J.L. Greger

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Before you say no, think about this standard advice to dieters. 1 . Set realistic priorities . You are more apt to attain small achievable goals (such as losing a pound a week or writing a page a day) than larger goals with artificial deadlines (for example losing fifty pounds before your class reunion or writing a three hundred-page novel by Christmas). 2. Control problems and distractions . For writers, the distractions on the Internet are comparable to high fat, sugary foods to dieters. Perhaps this advice from Murder… A Way to Lose Weight will help you sort through your clutter . “There are three types of problems. A few problems are like wine. Those situations improve if you delay decisions and let them age. Most problems are like waste paper. You can ignore them because they don’t matter. Unfortunately like waste paper, they tend to be messy when they pile up. And some problems are like manure. You must identify them quickly before they stink.” 3. Be prepare

About Blogging and Being on Someone's Blog

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Of course I'm in the middle of a blog tour for A Crushing Death so my mind is on blogging. Anyone who follows my blog also know that I host many authors right here. What I can't understand is why, after either paying someone to set up a blog tour, or just asking someone to host you on a blog, why so many don't bother to promote the blog. I promote everyone who is on my blog on Facebook and Twitter--but there are many more place to do this. How can I tell when someone doesn't promote? No, I'm not just checking the comment section, but I also can go behind the scenes and look at the stats and see how many people visited. Speaking of comments, when someone does comment on a post, the featured person needs to respond. I'm shocked at how seldom that happens, especially when I know the person paid money for the blog tour they are on. I probably drive people nuts when I'm on a blog tour because I promote everywhere I possibly can, Facebook, Twitter, Face

Introducing Tara Willis, author of Carry Me home.

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Carry Me Home was written over the course of fifteen years, give or take a little. I think the book was inspired by what I saw, at the time, as a lack of life. I grew up in a tiny Bush village in Alaska. I didn’t exactly miss the outside world because I knew very little about it. But I did wonder. I wondered what the rest of the world was like outside of a tiny Aleutiq fishing community of 100. I had never seen a real city; I had never visited another state. Our life was incredibly isolated from what most people know as modern mainstream society. I imagined other lives, other places, other cultures, people and ways of life. So I began to study with the limited resources available to me.  Computers were not available in my part of the world in the late 90s-early 2000s. But I didn’t let that stop me. I wanted to find out about what I didn’t know. And I did. I read everything I could get my hands on though available reading material was also quite limited and outdated. I was quic

Nicks and Noras in the Real World: The Thin & the Thick of It By Colleen Collins

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Husband and Wife Sleuthing Teams Most of you know about Nick and Nora Charles, the husband and wife private detective team in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man . William Powell and Myrna Loy played Nick and Nora in the 1934 movie of the same name, the first in the popular six-film series. While wise-cracking, canoodling, and imbibing martinis, they also managed to solve a murder or two. Before my husband returned to being a criminal lawyer, we worked together for over a decade as a real-life private eye team. Even today we sometimes still work cases together for his law practice. As much as I like to think we held our own in the Nick-and-Nora wise-cracking department, only one of us drank martinis, and we never solved a murder, although we investigated and solved a few attempted murder cases. However, just as Nick and Nora had their terrier Asta, we worked cases with our Rottweiler Aretha, who has sat on innumerable surveillances, helped serve legal papers, and once climbed p

SOFT TARGET'S Beginnings, by John R. Beyer

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Some writers wonder where they receive the idea for the next novel and for me the crucial aspect of the conjuring up of ‘Soft Target’ was partly due to my years in law enforcement. As a former street cop and member of the elite SWAT I had witnessed multiple hostage situations – some with positive results and some with not so much. Entering public education after nearly ten years behind the badge left me wondering what would happen if a hostage situation occurred at a school in the United States. Sure, there had been school shooting like Columbine, Sandy Hook and the like and as terribly tragic as they were my imagination kept coming up with the greatest question a writer in two words ‘What if?” After attending a symposium concerning school safety when I was Director of Student Services put on by local and federal law enforcement agencies one speaker intrigued me. Col. Dave Grossman, retired Army and psychologist who had created a program called ‘Killogy’. The psychology of w

Moving Right Along Despite the Bumps in the Road

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My book launch for A Crushing Death was fun. The little shop, Fair Finds, where it was held, despite being in the middle of town, isn't well-known. However my Facebook and the posters I put up around town worked.  People came in dribbles which was good, giving me time to chat with each one. And yes, I sold some books.  The bump in the road came on Sunday when hubby felt bad enough to make another trip to the ER. We arrived at 7 a.m. and didn't leave until 5 p.m. They took many tests and they all came out negative--meaning they didn't keep him, but they also didn't even guess at what his problem might be. We learned later his heart doc was out of the country. He'll see his GP on Thursday. In the meantime, I've been to Redwood High School in Visalia to talk to students. I'm in the white sweater. I talked about writing and gave every student an autographed copy of one of my early Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries. I spoke with two classes--

What Does it Take to Succeed (as a writer)? by Elena Hartwell

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Many years ago, I asked my first acting teacher what was more important, natural talent or commitment to learning the craft? He didn’t even stop to think about it. “Tenacity,” he said. “Tenacity wins out every time.” I never actually pursued a career in acting — though I did get some very nice reviews from the only show I ever did in New York — but as a writer I’ve often thought about the same question. What makes a writer rise to the top? My answer? Working on craft… and tenacity. Tenacity is the component every writer needs, because everything else comes from there. Of course it’s nice to have both and I think most serious writers have at least a kernel of talent or they wouldn’t have anything to attach their tenacity to, but survivors in the arts keep at it. The last one standing really does get the part, the agent, the book deal… the wonderful, elusive, sought after, yes. When I got my book deal for One Dead, Two to Go , (and Two Dead Are Better Than One and Thre

Blog Tour Schedule for A Crushing Death

  Blog Tour for A Crushing Death April 15  Why With all your Experience Did you Choose to Write Mysteries? https://bookbrowsing.wordpress.com/ April 16  What a Great Name for a Blog! http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/ April 17 What Makes Me Write? http://www.celebratewithabook.com April 18 The Basics of a Blog Tour or Did I Love my Mind? http://jwillsbooks.com/blog-posts/ April 19 Public Appearances http://www.jacquelinevickauthor.blogspot.com/ and The Confessions of an Almost Cured Introvert April 19 http://cncbooksblog.wordpress.com/ The Setting for A Crushing Death April 20 http://www.thoniehevron.com/blog April 21 What Makes a Series Work? http://jlgregerblog.blogspot.com/ April 22  A Favorite Character in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series https://mmgornell.wordpress.com/ April 23 Where did the Idea for A Crushing Death Come From? http://profilesofmurder.com April 24  About the Rocky Bluff P.D. Series http://willkillfo