News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #83…
Don’t let any black cats cross your path today…adopt one from a shelter (unless you’re allergic, of course). Watch for ladders too….
[Note: My apologies to my Facebook friends. The geniuses running that social media site have made it impossible to share these posts. I suggest you cancel your accounts and focus on Google+. You can all follow me there, but your best bet is to RSS this blog. I do so on Amazon, Goodreads, and LinkedIn…but you can always put this website in your “favorites list.” Have a great weekend! Spring is almost here….]
Item. Harper Lee’s “new book”. It was only a matter of time. Enough people have raised hell about whether Ms. Lee is competent enough to decide on the release of the sequel to Mockingbird that a court is stepping in to attend to a complaint to that effect. Money, money, money; greed, greed, greed. She seemed pretty spry and all there to me. At her age I expect to be where she’s at too! If she says she wants to release the book, more power to her. We know the motivation of the publisher and the lawyer(s) who manage her estate. What’s the motivation of the naysayers? Dunno. Maybe it’s just an expression of a sentiment I have: Mockingbird was almost a perfect book (sounds a wee bit old-fashioned now, but not as much as Jane Austen), so why add a sequel that Ms. Lee never pushed to publish…until now? That said, it’s her book. She can damn well do what she wants with it!
Item. Author Scott Dyson. His recent post on labels in fiction is interesting. Visit Scott’s website and blog. Scott has published several short story collections and has one in the anthology Quantum Zoo (not to be confused with my Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape). Check him out.
Item. My bookshelf. Speaking of up and coming authors, have you checked out “Steve’s Bookshelf”? I list some old hound dogs in both fiction and non-fiction (yeah, I read that too) and also some stealth reads, books by authors who haven’t received the attention they deserve (I might be in that category too—one reviewer said as much—but I already pound my chest enough on these website pages). Note that the old hound dogs’ book might not be their most popular titles (I only list Deaver’s Garden of Beasts and Preston and Child’s The Relic, for example), but the books listed are their best in my opinion.
Item. Women in my fiction. Hot-off-the-press Silicon Slummin’…and Just Getting’ By is the second Mary Jo Melendez mystery; Muddlin’ Through is the first. Starting with Caitlin Murphy, the FBI agent and protagonist in Soldiers of God, continuing with DHS agent Ashley Scott in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan (she’s also a minor character in the novels in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series”), and now with ex-USN Master-at-Arms Mary Jo, I have a tradition of celebrating smart, intelligent women in my fiction (we shouldn’t forget Dao-Ming Chen and many others either)—women who strive to make their mark in a male-dominated world (thankfully it’s becoming less so).
This is more than just recognition that the majority of readers are female—it’s more than clever marketing, if you will (in fact, with me, it’s NEVER about marketing fads). It’s also a plea to male readers that they recognize their world can be greatly improved if they ignore gender differences when it comes to problem solving and accomplishing things in general. While I’ve mentioned the protagonists (male readers might say, “No real woman is like that”), I celebrate women’s contributions on many fronts. Some of these are highlighted in Silicon—Angela, the nurse, who is devoted to her autistic son; Mrs. Murphy, the motel owner, trying to complement her Social Security; Amy and Janet, staff at Mario’s PI agency and experts in cyber security and other computer-related issues; Darlene, Mary Jo’s old cellmate at Hazelton Penitentiary who shot an abusive husband and is now making a go of it as a CPA. These are in just one book!
Going beyond my protagonists, women play important roles in most of my books. Pam Stuart, Castilblanco’s news reporter wife, is always setting the old boy straight on issues. In that series’ very first book, The Midas Bomb, a female investment expert plays an important albeit ghostly role. Genetics expert Kalidas Metropolis plays an important role in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy.” An ET behavioral scientist plays an important role in Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hands, third book in the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” I won’t overload you with more examples, but let it be said that I also strike a balance in my characters. That’s the way it should be; it’s certainly the way I’d prefer our world to function.
Item. Posts on writing. Like this online newsletter, my posts on writing are for readers as much as for writers—at least they provide a glimpse inside a writer’s world and might serve as source material for what they can put into their Amazon reviews. Indie publishing and DIY writers need reviewers, but too many reviews, especially on Amazon, aren’t very informative. You can make them better by knowing what should go into writing an entertaining fiction novel.
That said, my posts on writing are op-ed too, in the sense that, after sixteen novels and two short story collections, and after reading many books, casually and as a reviewer for Bookpleasures.com, I have pretty strong opinions about what constitutes good fiction. There are 200+ blog posts about writing archived here, plus all the “News and Notices” newsletters. You don’t have to agree with me, of course, but I want people to realize that my opinions are out there.
Item. Cameos. Still not takers on cameos for More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. OK, I get it. Appearing in a cameo in one of Steve’s ebooks isn’t as fun as appearing in one in Harlan Coben’s books. That’s fine, but the offer’s still on the table…until I say it isn’t (I’ll announce that in this newsletter too).
Item. Reviews. I have a review budget for each ebook. While I’m pleased with the reviews I’ve received, excepting one or two which are a bit bizarre, no ebook has enough reviews when compared to the hundreds some have. Of course, if you don’t want to read entertaining fiction for free, that’s your business. If you do, I’ll send you a free copy of the ebook via Amazon (or a Smashwords coupon—about half my ebooks can be found there too) IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW. Note that you don’t have to be a literary critic or author to write a review that’s more than “atta-boy” or “this sucks!” You don’t even have to make it as complex as that old HS English teacher would have wanted. Keep in mind, though, that I like to learn from my reviews. What you like or dislike is important data for me. I’m a storyteller, and I like to know how my stories are received.
In elibris libertas….
