#235: Strong and smart female protagonists revisited.  While I’m sure all readers will like DHS profiler and analyst Ashley Scott and her older friend, ex-FBI agent Virginia Morgan, in my recently released The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, female readers might also identify with some of the lifetime issues these two women face.  The two women have different solutions for these middle-agers’ problems.  Ashley, for example, once divorced and quite independent (for example, Ashley resents her daughter Jacky’s opinion that she is a doddering old biddy when she turns fifty), doesn’t know if she needs a man in her life or not and certainly doesn’t want to just settle for someone comfortable.  These, of course, are all subthemes as the reader plows through a lot of action and suspense.

I’ve written posts about creating strong and smart female protagonists before.  I never received any feedback on those posts (they were reposted in several other blogs too), so I’ll assume, like ex-NYC Mayor Koch, that I’m doing all right even before I ask, “How am I doing?”  (The lovable, irascible mayor just passed on and received accolades from both sides of the aisle, including from Al Sharpton, who started out his career with verbally battling with the mayor.)  Since I admire smart women (too many men fear them), I also admire authors who feature strong and smart female protagonists.  Jon Land comes to mind with his sheriff’s deputy Caitlin Strong (I was always struck by the similarities between her and FBI agent Caitlin Murphy in my Soldiers of God—no Jon, I didn’t steal your Caitlin).  Another I recently liked was Sid in Sylvia Dickey Smith’s Dancing on His Grave—this book is definitely on my to-read list.

Note that the two examples above, Jon’s Caitlin and Sylvia’s Sid, are both Texans.  But I don’t see why living in the South necessarily makes a female protagonist strong and smart.  In fact, because New Yorkers are known to be acerbic in-your-face types anyway (Mayor Koch was a famous example), you would think that crafty New York women would be featured in thrillers and mysteries set in the tri-state area.  Amelia Sachs, Lincoln Rhyme’s lover and confidant, comes to mind, but she plays second-fiddle to the forensic scientist in Deaver’s many-tomed opus.  Dao-Ming Chen, NYPD homicide detective and partner to Rollie Castilblanco in many of my short stories and novels, also has a secondary role relative to the ex-Navy SEAL.  (Her roles in Angels Need Not Apply and in an upcoming mystery are a bit more substantial.)

Only Ashley let me completely inside her mind to see her thoughts and emotions.  This was an interesting experience, probably the most interesting in my writing career.  In that sense only, you might consider The Golden Years to be a psychological thriller.  It is available at Amazon and Smashwords and will soon be available in other digital formats via the Smashwords distribution system.  You will also find it listed on the website newbookjournal, recommended to all indie authors for announcing your books at zero cost.  I hope you enjoy reading this sci-fi thriller as much as I enjoyed writing it.

#236: “White male literary darlings”?  I hope I’m not one of these.  This is a related note to the one above.  I recently read the NY Times magazine’s interview with Jodi Picoult titled “Sisterhood’s Keeper.”  Her pronouncement refers to a 2010 interview where she conjectures that women authors are reviewed less frequently and differently than men and there are fewer female reviewers.  I’m not sure about the first: Are women authors reviewed less frequently?  (Weigh in, please.)  I certainly couldn’t testify to that.  I don’t have much luck obtaining reviews from anyone, period (see below).  I do concur that there seem to be fewer women reviewers in standard media (newspapers and magazines), but I’m not sure if that’s true online.  (Again, weigh in if you have some opinions here.  I don’t know much about standard media’s reviewing processes because it emphasizes traditional publishing over indie publishing.)

Authors of thrillers can be either female or male without much consequence.  Moreover, their protagonists can be either men or women, independently of the author’s gender.  What impresses me more is Jodi’s statement that 60% of book buyers are women.  That covers all genres, of course, including romance and erotica—I can imagine that these two genres include some male authors but I’d bet they don’t include many male readers.  On the other hand, many women will enjoy a good story about a hard-boiled, misogynistic detective (Robert Parker’s Spenser and Ian Rankin’s John Rebus come to mind), although they, quite appropriately, would never consider him husband material!

In any case, I stick to my opinion: An author who ignores women as readers does so at his (or her) own peril.  Fiction is about culture—even in sci-fi.  In human culture—at least Western culture—women play a very important role.  Recent legal changes where women can take on some jobs historically reserved for men are important to recognize and applaud.  Equally important is the realization that women can do some jobs better than men.  Writing might just be one of them.  And, with that, I’ve definitely excluded myself from the rolls of “white male literary darlings.”

#237: Are you missing out?  If you’re not a regular reader of this blog, you’re missing out on some interesting freebies.  I’ve been posting chapters of my novella Flight from Mother World.  It explains how the Rangers, our bug-like ET friends from Sing a Samba Galactica, came to colonize New Haven, an E-type planet circling the G-type star 82 Eridani.  You don’t think there are such planets out there?  Then you haven’t been keeping up with the astronomy news.  Science News even reported on new calculations that highlight the possibility of an E-type moon with life circling a J-type gas giant planet like I wrote about in Samba.  Exciting stuff!

#238: Speaking of freebies.  Are you just waiting to pounce when I put up a give-away weekend on Amazon’s KDP Select for one of my books, maybe The Golden Years?  Not likely.  Most authors know that Amazon changed their algorithms—give-aways count much less now for the Amazon rankings.  I’ll follow my own advice: putting a price less than $2.99 on one of my ebooks just devalues my hard work.  I value my time even though I spend it to develop an entertaining product for you, the reader.

But there is a way you can receive The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, priced at $4.99, or any other ebook of mine for free.  I just ask you to write a review and post it everywhere you can (Amazon and Goodreads is a start).  This isn’t a bribe.  It’s a recognition of your hard work in writing the review.  I’m also only asking for your honest opinion, although I’ll assume you’re at least interested in the book if you offer to review it.  My review budget is limited, so first come, first serve.  Use my contact page on this website to query me.

#239: Decisions, decisions.  If you’re wondering whether to splurge the $4.99 for The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, try the freebie short story “Roles,” posted here last week, or any of the other freebie short stories found in the “Steve’s Shorts” category of this blog (what?  You thought this contained photos of my BVDs?).  Or, try Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java—at $0.99, it’s less than a cup o’ joe.  You’ll find an introduction to my two favorite characters, NYPD homicide detectives Chen and Castilblanco.  Oh yeah, I also like Agent Scott in Golden Years a lot—both detectives help her out some there.

#240: Goodreads?  People talk up the websites Goodreads, Shelfari, and LibraryThing as useful tools for writers to promote their opus.  Don’t you believe it!  They’re mostly for readers.  That’s fine, but they’re not user-friendly for either readers or writers.  They grew by accretion into an internet abomination.  I tried to add my new sci-fi thriller today to Goodreads (sure, I have an author page or site or whatever it’s called) and just couldn’t hack it.  I figured it out once before, wrote it down, but I’ve lost the cheat sheets.  It just doesn’t work for me.  I’m no Luddite, but come on!  This is terrible.  To be fair to them, I’ve run across the same thing at other “service websites.”  The programmers should get off their Javas and write code that’s user friendly.  ‘Nough said.

#241: A heartfelt thanks.  I can’t say it often enough.  Even if you just read my blog and free stuff, thank you for being my reader.  You might not realize what you’re missing, though, until you try some of my books.  Sure, I entertain myself by writing this stuff, but I feel better when I discover I’m entertaining readers too.

I realize you have a wonderful world of reading material out there.  I feel privileged when you look at my stuff, even if it’s borrowed from a public library.  (By the way, you can have access to my ebooks in your public library—there are various systems out there, but I think most of them service Kindles and Nooks.  Not all ebooks have ISBN’s though, so some might not be available if your library insists on it.  All my ebooks have ISBNs—most even two, one for Amazon, which also uses an ASIN number; and the other for Smashwords and everyone they distribute to.)

If you buy my ebooks, greater thanks are in order, because that means I can keep producing them.  FYI: Believe it or not, I’m not in this for the money.  My primary goal is to entertain.  I do need to recover costs though.  There are costs associated with the production of the ebooks.  I’ve kept these to a minimum but also made choices that allow me to release books to you, the reader, in a timely fashion (much better than the sluggish turn-around at your big publishers).  There are also costs associated with getting the word out to you—this website represents one of them and gifting ebooks to reviewers is another.

Indie publishing is a brave new and democratic world where you, the reader, are the person in control.  Again, I thank you if you have let me into your life to entertain you.  I have many stories to tell—watch for them.  And write me if you have particular books and/or characters that you like.  I love to read your comments and e-mails!

In libris libertas….

[If you enjoyed this post, support this blog: buy, read, and review the new sci-fi thriller The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, available on Amazon and Smashwords.]

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 4:00 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.