Kindle Me

Well, my birthday's come and gone, thank God. A real non-event now the years are piling up. Ironically, it's only recently, and after some 20+ years together, that my husband's up and started remembering the date on his own. Kind of like an old watch you've long ago given up on that suddenly, inexplicably, starts ticking rather reliably on its own.

Traditionally, birthdays in our house mean an actual dinner out at some place other than the Scottish restaurant at the corner (McDonalds). This year, though, my husband got it in his fuzzy little brain to surprise me with a Kindle, never mind I wasn't even sure I wanted one. First thing I downloaded was Kate Atkinson's latest: Started Early; Took My Dog which I Started Late (ha-ha) last night and hated, hated, putting down, it was so good. Bodes well for my electronic experience, I'm thinking, though I may have to keep a couple "real" books propped open in my lap while reading so I can get that "book smell" I love so much.

Wintery Reads

Writers read a lot. A LOT. For me, reading an hour each day before I start my own work fires up the brain cells. The story has to grab me, of course, but I also read for craft: to see how other authors put their stories together; how they use dialogue, voice, tense, etc. And winter's the perfect time: no grass to mow, the boat's wrapped up tight in the back yard, and the icicles are getting longer by the day above the back bedroom window.

Gotta tell you, I've been reading some pretty cool stuff lately. By far the most unusual novel I've read in years is Don Winslow's The Savages, which follows three twenty-somethings as they get drawn into the world of crime--a spoiled, lost young woman and the two men in love with her (and yeah, this gets a bit kinky). Everything about this book is different: the structure, the syntax, the dialogue, even the way Winslow uses punctuation. Case in point: the first chapter is just two words. "F--- you." Succinct, no?

Just this week I finished Tana French's excellent Faithful Place (one of Time magazine's Ten Best Books of 2010). A mystery-love story set in Ireland, it follows a cop whose seminal life moment was the night the woman he was planning to elope with left him--or so he thought. Gritty storyline, excellent pacing and use of dialogue. No pat ending, either, which is very important to me.

Dennis Lehane's Midnight Mile, the sequel to his excellent Gone Baby Gone was another good one, and I'm about to start the much lauded Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

So send me your suggestions! I'd love to add them to my list...

The Snickers Bar

This is the deal. A while back, when I first got serious about trying to "sell" one of my novels, I bought a candy bar (something I NEVER do cause they're just a little too tasty) and put it in a little side drawer in my desk. It was a Butterfinger, as I remember, and I promised myself I could have it when I sold the book.

Years went by.

When I began submitting my 2nd book, I did the same thing with a Snickers bar. Sad to say, the Butterfinger was still there. The 3d ms saw a Mounds Bar added to the pile. Things were getting pretty crowded in that little drawer. Luckily, right around that time I sold Hunter Huntress and got to eat the Butterfinger which, as you can imagine, was pretty stale. I mean we're talking 7 or 8 years. Still, never has success tasted so sweet!

The recent acquisition of Matinicus means I can finally eat that Snickers bar--something I plan on doing tonight. Can't wait...this one's only 4 years old.

"Matinicus" to be Published March, 2012

Happy to report that a just last week I signed a contract with PublishingWorks, a terrific small publisher here in NH, for the publication of Matinicus--the first of three mysteries set on the coast of Maine. Matinicus is a double murder mystery tracing the development of a stubbornly self-sufficient fishing community through the eyes of a disturbed and unhappily married island woman of the 1820s, a conflicted twenty-first century teenage girl, and a middle aged, womanizing university botanist—Dr. Gil Hodges—who arrives on-island to verify the existence of a purported 22 species of wild orchid only to find himself hounded by the ghost of a child some 200 years dead. Matinicus is the prequel to Reese's Leap, the novel I'm currently writing. PublishingWorks specializes in the fiction of New England and just as importantly from my point of view has signed on for national and international sales distribution with Publishers Group West (PGW), the leading book sales and distribution company in the United States. One thing I've learned over the last few years: distribution is everything. Funny how I found them, too. I was scouring the mystery section of RiverRun, our local indie book palace, for publishers I'd not yet submitted to. PublishingWorks had just come out with a new New England-based mystery entitled Sumner Island which was set prominently on RiverRun's "new releases" table. I jotted the name down, emailed them that afternoon, later sent them some chapters and then the full ms. Four months later, they signed me. How cool is that? Look for Matinicus in March, of 2012. Available everywhere in paperback and all e-formats!

Home Again, Home Again...Tickety-Boo

Just back from Florida where I made time for a few very cool book events--the first, a "Tea with the Author" get together in the sleepy town of Welaka, where I read and discussed the book for about two hours. Lovely well-read ladies all, and I'm going to skype in to their book club meeting probably next month. Next day it was over to Jacksonville for a meeting of two book clubs--this one lasted almost three hours as so many people wanted more info about this writing business.

I've given this talk about Hunter Huntress so often now, I've pretty much got a handle on what people want to hear. Every meeting/reading is unique, of course, but in addition to hearing about the book, most are also intrigued about where I get my ideas and about the writing process itself, as well as all the crazy changes taking place in publishing. Now THERE'S a topic I could natter on about for hours!

So I'm taking my dog-and-pony show on the road again. Next up is a reading and signing February 11 at the York Maine Public Library beginning at 7:00. Hope to see some of you there!

See, Now This Is What I Love About Writing...

So picture this. You're making your way through your manuscript, tweaking here and there, feeling like you know pretty much the whole story and how it unfolds, when you stop cold--realize something's missing. The paragraph you just read for the hundredth time leads logically and interestingly enough into the next, yet there's something missing. You feel it in your gut. You try and suss it out, but intellectual thought isn't any help at this stage. So you take a walk, make some tea, lie down for a 20-minute power nap.

Going back to the computer, you suddenly realize if you add a line just here it touches on two or three structural elements you were never really sure you needed but somehow couldn't let go of, or bits of character or dialogue you really love but weren't quite sure where to use or even if they belonged in the book at all. Pulls all of it together to become something larger--a plot twist, maybe, or an insight that adds deeper meaning to one or more of the plot lines. Raises the stakes, in other words.

Little miracles, these--precious gifts from the writing gods--and like all such serendipity the key is letting go of the plan and letting yourself be led by instinct. Keeping an open mind as you read your work and seeing it with fresh eyes every time.

This shot is of my "character wall" for Reese's Leap, which keeps me visually oriented to the characters and their storyline.

The Thing About Publishing

Want to know what trying to get published is like? Sit down in the back yard, stare at the ground and wait for the grass to grow.

I've been getting some interest in another of my ms (a double mystery called Matinicus--the prequel to the one I'm writing now), which is a good thing, and while checking out the publishers involved I've learned some interesting stuff. It's all about distribution. Signing with a publisher means nothing if the house doesn't have a decent distributor. These are companies that visit the brick and mortar stores (B&N, indies, etc.) and convince them to stock your book. Publishers hire them for a percentage of the take. Some publishers have told me they have a distributor when what they actually have is a wholesaler. Whole different animal. These are big companies like Ingram and Baker & Taylor, who physically warehouse books, mailing out orders as they come in. They do nothing to help spread the word or pump the book up.

Complicating matters even further is the fact that some wholesalers also have distribution arms (Ingram for instance), so unless you actually push the publisher on it, you'll never known which part of the company it's using.

Just because things aren't already hard enough...