Seven Years Later

 Tomorrow, November 18th, marks seven years since the first book in my Aurora Anderson cozy mystery series, Fatal Brushstroke, was released. Four books followed, spaced a year to a year and a half apart. The last one came out at the end of 2019.

Kindle Box Set

 It’s hard to believe that much time has passed. I recently reread a post I wrote for the Mysteristas blog right after my second book came out, reflecting on my first year as a published novelist. I thought I’d share a slightly edited version of it. I’ll have some comments after.

Reflections on Being A Published Novelist

 by Sybil Johnson 

When I signed the book contract with my publisher, I thought I knew what to expect. I mean, as a member of the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime and former board member of that chapter, I know a lot of published writers. I've heard the war stories. I've gotten lots of great advice. So I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't realize just how hard and, at times, gut-wrenching it was going to be.

Not that I regret signing that contract. Not at all. It's been quite a growing experience for me as a writer and a person. I've discovered a lot of things about myself and this mystery writing world I’ve become a part of.

• The mystery community. The generosity of the mystery community never ceases to amaze me. Not only have authors written endorsements for my books when I know their plates are already overflowing, they’ve also helped me gain exposure and given me encouragement and advice when times got tough. For all of these things I’m eternally grateful. I pay it forward wherever I can.
•  Writing. I’m a slow writer, probably the slowest in the world. I’ve discovered in this past year that writing to a deadline is hard, way harder than I expected. I don’t know about anyone else, but for me it sometimes causes so much anxiety it can be crippling. So I’ve found coping mechanisms that help out. I’ve also discovered that writing the first draft longhand often works best for me. I write better drafts and I’m not tempted to check out things to buy on Amazon or watch that cat video someone told me about.
•  Convention Panels. I've been on panels at conventions—Bouchercon, Malice Domestic and California Crime Writers. What I've discovered, and this shocked me: They don't make me nervous at all! For some odd reason, they don't bother me a bit. Not even a twinge of nervousness, not even the first one I was on. In fact, I actually *gasp* ENJOY them and, *double gasp*, look FORWARD to them. Now, this particularly shocks me because, well, I stutter. I have since grade school. Not the kind where you duplicate sounds, but the kind where you get caught on certain sounds at the beginning of words. So, on the days where I'm not fluent—usually high stress days—there are a lot of pauses in my speech pattern. I know exactly what I want to say, I just can't get it out. When I was a kid, some people who didn't know me thought I was retarded. (It was the 60s, no political correctness!) Nowadays, people think I'm done speaking or think I can't remember my own name. (Yeah, S is one of the sounds that often trips me up.) So speaking in public can be a bit nerve-wracking for me. But for these panels the enjoyment that I get out of being on them overrides any fears I have about talking.
•  Learning when to say no. Conventional wisdom says do not turn down an opportunity. If someone asks you to do something related to promoting your book, do it. In general, I agree but I also know how much I can handle so a few times I’ve said no when most people would say yes. It may not be the brightest thing to do, but I’m the only one who can truly know if that “yes” will be the straw that breaks my back.
•  Persistence and courage. I’ve discovered persistence is probably the most important thing to have in writing. When you encounter a setback (I’ve had doozies, believe me), just dust yourself off and keep on trucking even if you’re scared to death.
•  Compliments. Whenever someone tells me I’m a great writer or that they enjoyed my book, my gut reaction is that they must be mistaking me for someone else; they couldn’t possibly be talking about me! I don’t say this to their face, of course, but that’s what’s going through my mind. I’m also blutterbunged* at the impact a positive comment has on me. A simple email can transform a bleak day into a bright one. Now when I enjoy a book I try to reach out to the author to express how much I liked their work because I know the impact it can have on a writer.
•  Social Media. I’ve read so many articles and heard so many talks about what authors should be doing on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Post at least twice a day on Facebook. Tweet multiple times a day (I’ve heard everything from 3 to 10). The list is overwhelming. I understand the value of social media, but I know I can’t do everything, get writing done and have a life. I’ve made peace with that. I do what I can and concentrate on the activities I enjoy the most.
•  Breaks. I know so many writers who work on several series at once. I don’t know how they do it; how they balance a day job, family and writing. They don’t seem to need breaks. I’ve discovered that, for me, I need periodic breaks from writing or thinking about writing or promoting my writing. I used to feel guilty about it, but I know that I come back stronger from a day off than I would have had I continued to try writing.
•  Making your own path. Probably the most important thing I’ve learned is that there’s no one approach to writing and marketing your books. Everyone needs to figure out their own path like author Jenny Milchman who went against conventional wisdom and embarked on a year-long book tour. Read about it here: https://writerunboxed.com/2015/06/29/the-worlds-longest-book-tour/
  

* confounded, overcome by surprise

 I’m back. You notice in the piece that I didn’t say “published writer”. I’d considered myself one of those when I had some short stories published in online mystery magazines a few years before my first book came out.

I still believe everything I said. I still write my first drafts long hand. I still believe it’s important to know when things are too much for you. I still believe in the power of persistence.

One thing that has changed is my writing process. I’ve been pretty much a plantser since the beginning. That means I know who did it and why, I know the victim and the major characters. I do a bit of outlining, figuring out the major events in the book before I start writing from point to point. I started out writing the story in sequence. But, while writing book 3, I discovered that it was easier to write scenes out of sequence. The book got done faster and I wasn’t half as stressed out. Now, if a scene pops into my head, begging to be written, I write it even if I don’t know exactly where it fits in the story. I may have to rewrite bits of it when I do figure out where it goes but, surprisingly, they aren’t major rewrites.

 Another thing I learned about writing is that every project is different. Some stories are easier to write than others. Overall, writing a book takes a lot of work. I also get a lot of satisfaction out of completing the project. That makes it all worthwhile.

My Own Little Happy Dance

 

You know that happy dance that Snoopy does? That’s what’s going on in my head right now. 

 Last week I finished the book I’ve been working on for about two years now, the sixth book in my Aurora Anderson Mystery series, Final Brushstroke. Now it’s with a Beta reader who will tell me if I’ve jumped the shark or not. I think it’s pretty good, but I always feel there’s room for improvement in my writing. This book took way longer than it should have, but I persevered, working on it in some capacity most days, either writing or researching things like love locks, lock sporting groups, bank robberies and stun guns. Yep, they’re all in my book somewhere.

While I’m waiting for comments, I’m celebrating by taking a little time off and doing things I’ve been meaning to do for a while now: cleaning, painting projects, watching Icelandic crime dramas and doing other stuff around the house. I think it’s important to pause and acknowledge a writing victory.

Things are looking up here in Los Angeles County, virus-wise, as well. We went from overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes to having way, way fewer cases of COVID-19. More things are opening up, as well, including Disneyland. I don’t intend to go anytime soon. I’m just glad it opened back up. Not that everything has been peachy-keen in my world, but there’s been enough positive stuff, I’m optimistic.

My challenge right now is what to do with this book. The publisher who published the previous five books in my series passed on this one. I’m reluctant to look for another one because this is the last one I want to write in this series, at least for a while. I have other ideas I want to work on. I’m considering self-publishing this one, but I have yet to grasp the magnitude of that task. I’ll figure it out. Right now, though, I’m just enjoying the victory.

Casting The Aurora Anderson Mysteries

It’s been fun to see the recent Type M posts on the actors my fellow writers would cast in the movie version of their books. I thought I’d get in on the discussion and talk about who I would cast for three of the characters in my Aurora Anderson mystery series.

I started thinking about this a couple years ago when an interviewer asked me that question. Some authors have particular actors in mind when they write their characters, but that’s not me. I do have a vision of what each one would look like, though.

So here are my selections for my main character, Aurora (Rory) Anderson, her BFF, Liz Dexter, and Detective Martin Green, the Vista Beach police detective who appears in all of the books.

Whoever plays Rory needs to be tall since she’s 6 feet. My choice is Mandy Moore who is in “This is Us”. She exudes a girl next door vibe, which is how I see Rory, and she’s fairly tall.

For Liz, I chose Kimiko Glenn best known for “Orange is the New Black”. I’ve never watched the show, but from what I can tell it’s not exactly a “cozy” storyline. Still, I saw an interview with her about “Waitress,” the musical she was in and thought she’d make a good Liz. They also have a similar mixed parentage.

For Detective Green, I chose Daniel Gillies who plays Elijah on “The Originals”/”The Vampire Diaries”. Dashing D as Liz calls him in the books is handsome and a tad shorter than Rory. I can see Daniel Gillies in the part. Well, I pretty much can see him in any role and I'd watch anything he's in.

I gave the above photo to a friend of mine who decided she was going to work on portraits of some of the characters in my books. After studying the descriptions in the books, talking with me about the characters and looking at the photo, here’s what she came up with for Rory.

I think it represents my vision of Rory pretty well. I’m really interested in seeing what she comes up with for some of the other characters.

This has been a fun exercise. I hope you all have a nice holiday. I’ll see you in the new year.

It's G&T Time!

Yep, It's gin and tonic time! Although my preferences run to a nice glass of white wine or Maker's Mark bourbon, I'm still declaring it G&T time! I'm celebrating the turning in of my latest book to my publisher.

It's not completely done, of course. I have two edit rounds to go and I have to come up with back of the book copy for it. Plus we have to settle on a title. Designed for Haunting has been my working title for a while now, but I'm not completely satisfied with it. Will have to ponder more.

As you might have guessed, the fourth book in the Aurora Anderson Mystery series is set around Halloween. Rather a fun time of year to write about. Originally, I was going to put in a haunted house, but eventually decided, instead, to have an escape room experience. My fictional town of Vista Beach is in Los Angeles County. There are a lot of escape room companies around here so it seemed appropriate. Are escape rooms a popular thing in other parts of the world as well? I’ve heard of one in Scotland and of the Murdoch Mysteries themed one in Toronto.

The other item I put in was a pumpkin race. Yep, we race pumpkins here in the South Bay. Manhattan Beach has had a pumpkin race since 1990. I based the pumpkin race in my fictional town on it.

The travel channel has a video that describes it pretty well: http://www.travelchannel.com/videos/the-great-pumpkin-race-0188510 You'll have to tolerate a 15 second ad first, but the video's pretty fun.

So it's celebration time here. I'm currently on my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the Creative Painting convention where I'm planning on having fun, but also hope to find some inspiration for things to put in the next book.

Why I Stop Reading a Series

After viewing 31 seasons of the TV show “Chopped”, I recently dropped it from my list of shows to watch. That’s over 400 episodes of chefs creating appetizers, entrees and desserts from some of the oddest combination of ingredients you’ll ever see.

I stopped watching it because it dawned on my I wasn’t enjoying the show anymore. That I was watching it because I always had. That was quite a revelation for me. You see, I’m the kind of person who must see every episode of shows I consider worth watching. I can get quite obsessed about it.

That goes for books I read as well. If a mystery series captures my attention, I’ll generally read every book in it. Sometimes long after, shall we say, its expiration date.

This got me thinking about why I stop reading a mystery series and if there’s such a thing as the perfect length for one. I had a discussion with an avid mystery reader about the latter at a library event once. After some thought, he decided 7 books was the right number for a series. He felt the books after that didn’t match up to the first seven.

This interests me now in particular because I recently signed a contract for books 4, 5, and 6 in my Aurora Anderson mystery series. I have lots of ideas for these three books, but whether or not I’ll have ideas for ones past that, I don’t know. That’s a bridge that I’ll cross a few years from now.

Back to thinking about mystery series in general. I’ve read some where only 3 books were published and I felt there should be more. And others where 3 books were published and I thought that was too many. Then there’s the Aunt Dimity series. I’m 17 books in and still loving them. Sure, there are ones I enjoy more than others, but I love the characters and settings so much I don’t envision dropping it from my mental TBR pile.

After some thought, here’s my list of reasons why I stop reading a series:

I no longer care about the characters. I don’t necessarily have to like the characters to enjoy a series, but I at least have to find them interesting. Once I feel ho hum about what happens to them, that’s it for me.

The main character is too much of a wimp. I don’t expect the main character of a series to be Wonder Woman or Batman. Everybody has their wimpy moments and that’s okay. I’m pretty much a wimp myself. I also know there are professions where the customer is king and you’d better kowtow to them or you’ll be out of a job. I don’t count those in this. But there is a point that I find it hard to define where a character crosses once too often into Wimpville for me. That’s when I’m apt to not even finish the book and immediately cross the series off my reading list.

Situations have become too preposterous. I’m pretty easy going when it comes to books, especially amateur sleuths. Situations and reasons for investigating only have to be marginally believable for me. But sometimes, after many books, things become a little too preposterous even for me. This hasn’t happened very often. Maybe it has more do with the next item below than anything else.

I’ve grown tired of the main character. Sometimes a character I enjoyed at the beginning of a series no longer appeals to me. Maybe they’ve grown too far away from what I liked about them in the first place or maybe I’ve grown tired of their quirks.

I’m no longer enjoying the books. And then there’s the revelation I talked about at the beginning of this post. Nothing’s changed about the series. I just don’t enjoy the books anymore. Maybe this has to do with growing older and really realizing there’s limited reading time and I don’t want to waste it on something that’s just okay.

That's my list. Type M readers, why do you stop reading a mystery series? Do you think there's a perfect length for one?

Malice Go Round

At the recent Malice Domestic convention, I participated in the Malice Go Round, aka Speed Dating With Authors. It’s quite an experience, whether you’re presenting or listening.

Imagine 20 tables of 10. Eight of the chairs at each table are filled with listeners. The other two are for authors who are pitching their latest book(s). All of the listeners stay put while the pairs of authors move around from table to table. At each table, each author has 2 minutes to pass out postcards, bookmarks, etc. and talk about their book(s). Every 4 minutes the authors move on to the next table. There’s a 21st table where the authors get a four-minute break. Approximately an hour and 45 minutes later all the pitches have been done and everyone is exhausted.

For those listening, it’s a great way to learn about books and authors you haven’t heard of before. On the pitching side, it’s a great way to make others aware of your work.

I teamed up with fellow Henery Press author, Christina Freeburn, who writes the Faith Hunter Scrap This mystery series. Here we are looking chipper as we wait to begin pitching.

Christina’s giveaway was a stamped frame with a postcard of her latest book while my giveaway was a set of postcards of the two books in my Aurora Anderson Mystery series.

We put both our items in Ziploc bags so they’d be faster to give out. Here are our packets of giveaways.

Here’s the ballroom as the authors gather and get ready. Tip: If you’re pitching get there early and snag a table as close to #10 as you can get. That way your break will be halfway through your round.

And here’s the ballroom when the Go Round is in full swing.

Type Mer Vicki Delany and Cathy Ace were right behind me so I kept on hearing “We’re the Criminous Canucks...” every time we moved to a new table. I have to admit I wanted to hear the rest of their pitch. I learned later it continued “We kill people, but we do it politely.” My pitch wasn’t quite as interesting, but I think I did okay for the first time. It was definitely an experience I’m glad I had. So that’s my experience at Malice Go Round.

Oh, and by the way, I sent my third book to my publisher on Monday. Yay!