Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "choices"

I'm on the road, which means shorter blogs, for one thing. Never knowing if I'll have time to think of something really wise to say, I'll ask some questions, rhetorical and otherwise, and see who's paying attention.

When you choose a book, are you influenced most by the cover art, the title, the author's credentials, or the blurb? (She asks after agonizing over the cover for the new book.)

I don't know why this came to mind, but it seems to me that what we watch on television says something about us as individuals.

Of course, there are plenty of factors that enter into the equation. People with little to do, such as the elderly or the unemployed, often watch shows they really don't like very well, just for something to do. I visited someone in a nursing home recently who was watching one of those Disney Channel teeny-bopper shows about junior high school angst. I know she didn't really care, but it was bright and lively, the opposite of the real world around her. And time is a factor, too. Those who work miss a chunk of the TV day, though I've known women who tape their "stories" so they don't miss a minute of soap opera action. I've also known people who hurry out of a meeting or other event so they don't miss the beginning of some show like BURN NOTICE or AMERICAN IDOL. I can't say that I've ever cared that much about anyone else's adventures, real or unreal.

Then there are the people who turn up their noses and say, "I don't watch T.V." Maybe they don't; I would never call them liars. It just seems like as the conversation proceeds, they know a lot about what's on and who is who.

Think about what you watch when you have the time, the inclination, and the power or choice (when your S.O. isn't holding the remote). What do you choose to watch, and what does that say about you? No answers here, but I really like the question.

Few comments give an author a greater thrill than "I couldn't put it down!" We love to imagine readers glued to our books, unable to eat or sleep until they find out what happens to the hero. We don't even mind if there's a bit of complaint beneath the words, as with one reader who informed me that she got nothing done all day long once she started HER HIGHNESS... (Yay, says I.)

For most books, I find that a tipping point exists. I read along because I love to read, but there's a spot where I MUST read, want to find out the end, want to know it and see if I approve. That point can come anywhere in the book. At times, I read along until the middle, even past it, enjoying the story but not really concerned. I can set the book down and walk away, no problem. But then there comes a point where I can't set it down, where I keep reading till the end. That's good.

For other books, the tipping point is negative. I read until I realize that I don't care about any of the characters enough to get involved. In such cases I might read on, depending on circumstance. If I'm in the airport and it's the only book I've got and the flight is delayed, I'll finish it. Otherwise, I will probably find something I like better.

Best of all are the books where the tipping point comes early, sometimes as early as the first chapter. I'm involved right away. I care about what happens, about the people. I can't put the darned book down. That doesn't mean a bloody corpse on page one. It just means that I care about something in the book from the beginning. A person. An event. An idea. I must know!

It's not good for my housekeeping to-do list, but still.

A frustrating part of being a reader is that you're never, ever, done. People are always mentioning books that sound interesting, recommending authors whose work I might enjoy, or even handing me books with a "You've got to read this."

But there isn't time!

Although I never made it to a lot of the old classics, there are new classics, prize-winners, best-sellers, and unread works of authors I like lined up on my mental TBR list, waiting for my attention. I used to read everything, but now I can't even keep up with mystery, my own genre. I'm several behind on most of my favorite authors' books, haven't even tried books by people I've met at cons or online. Titles, blurbs, reviews, and recommendations come so fast I don't even remember most of them, much less find the book and actually read it.

The upshot of all this is that I read a mish-mash of books, mostly chosen by the mood of the moment when I walk into a bookstore or visit amazon.com. My Just-read list in no way represents order or even orderly intent. You may find me erudite on the subject of one book or author and totally clueless when it comes to another. I suppose I should attempt some sort of system, but I doubt it would work. No matter what I say I'm going to read next, I'll always respond when someone waves something different in front of my face and says, "Have you read this one?"

It's time to choose the next book. My second Simon & Elizabeth (POISON, YOUR GRACE) and my paranormal, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, are both in the editing process, so there is nothing I can do about them until I get the editors' suggestions. My newest endeavor, which I titled DEAD INSIDE, is awaiting word from an agent or two. So what do I want to do next?

The perspiration part: write the third of the historical series. I have it outlined on my handy-dandy little tape recorder, and I know and like the characters. I've researched the history. The next step will be to start putting it into real words.

But inspiration just hit on what the next book of the DEAD INSIDE series should be. I find I'm excited about writing that one, too. The plot is evolving, the characters have begun to talk in my head. So do I write the book I know I need to write, or the book that calls to me?

I have to tell you, it's a dilemma I have no problem harboring. I love having two exciting, absorbing projects to choose from. So much better than real life, and I have TWO ways to escape!

Okay, so I bought an e-reader. And I had to try it out, of course, so I downloaded a book my husband has been wanting to read (and tricked him into trying the thing and finding out how easy it is to use. HA!)
Then, of course, I had to download my e-book (GO HOME AND DIE) to see what it looks like to my readers.
I heard from an online contact who likes my work, and I thought about her first book, which I read and really liked, so I tried her name, and there she was, an e-book author. So of course, I bought her book.
Do you see where this is going? Financial ruin, reading bliss, a TBR list stacking up in my little hand-held wonder. Am I happy? Of course!

Here is the list of ebooks featured on mysterebooks.blogspot.com this week:
Monday

Title: L.A. HEAT

Author: P.A. Brown

Genre: Police Procedural w gay characters

Setting: Los Angeles


Tuesday

Title: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY

Author: Stacy Juba

Genre: Mystery/Romantic Suspense

Setting: New England


Wednesday

Title: JOURNEY TO DIE FOR
Author: Radine Trees Nehring

Genre: Mystery/senior citizen detectives

Setting: The story opens on the (real) A&M Railroad historic excursion train operating between towns in Northwest Arkansas, unfolds in the 1809 Arkansas River town of Van Buren, moves to Kansas City, and then back to Van Buren. Though the book refers back to historic events, action time is present day.


Thursday

Title: THRILLED TO DEATH

Author: L.J. Sellers

Genre: mystery / suspense / police procedural

Setting: Eugene, Oregon


Friday

Title: HER HIGHNESS' FIRST MURDER

Author: Peg Herring

Genre: Historical mystery

Setting: Tudor London (1500s)

Everyone agrees that nobody knows what makes a bestseller. Books that were BLOCKBUSTERS often leave me asking, "On whose block?"

Those who know me can guess that I do not care about vampire boyfriends, Glenn Beck's rantings, or the people you meet in heaven. But even in my favorite genre, mystery, I'm puzzled by what others like that I find insipid or overdone or unbelievable. It may be Grouchy Reader Syndrome, which results, I believe, from reading so much that anything average isn't good enough.

So it is with trepidation that I approach Steig Larsen's GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Friends have told me I will like it if I wade through the long initial setup. Friends have said things like that before, sometimes rightly, sometimes not so much.

I want to like it. I want to be swept up in the bestseller that everyone else has already read and formed opinions on, from terrible to terrific.

I'll let you know how it goes.

There are big arguments about Kindle versus real books and indie bookstores versus chains versus Amazon. All I know is that when I get near a lot of books, I want some of them. Okay, a lot of them.
Yesterday a friend and I hit a bookstore where the manager (who knows real customers when she sees them) engaged us in conversation. Soon we were trading authors and titles. There's nothing like, "Have you read..." for lovers of reading.
I bought. My friend bought. The manager added a couple of titles to her TBR list. And everyone got happier, despite life's buffets.
Bookstores, online lists, fliers in the library, even Amazon's "People who read this also liked..." offer possibilities for reading, and it's like picking flowers in a huge garden. You can't pick them all. You don't know which are the perfect ones for you, but standing in the midst of it all, you don't care. It's just fun to have all those choices, all those possibilities for satisfaction.

I think they are, although you may have heard differently.
Humans can't help but be more attracted to some things than to others. Even if it's a person's job to read a whole bunch of things, we tend to want to read some of them and not want to read others. I know this from years of sophomore essays.
So a submission must either appeal to an agent or not upon reading the query. We know they get tons of them. Do they save the good ones for last, as a reward for their labors, or do they shove the not-so-intriguing ones to the bottom of the pile?
I suppose it's a personal decision, and it could vary with a person's mood. I recall that some nights I read the essays with the worst handwriting first, to get them over with, but other nights I started with one I knew would be well done, to sort of get me in the mood to finish them. Of course there were nights when I just read through the stack as it came. No choices, just get it done.
So there's my question for the day. How do agents decide what they will read and in what order? Unlike English teachers, they don't have to read them all, and they don't have to read all of any one submission. They have that tiny bit of luxury I never had as a teacher: writing "Not for us" in one corner and going on to the next.