Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "e-book"
Hey, E-book Readers
Somehow they just don't seem real. I got word this morning that my e-book, GO HOME AND DIE, has indeed become a published work. But where is the box of books I can unpack and admire?
My brain tells me that an e-book is real. Acquaintances tell me they love them. My publisher tells me it will soon be available on amazon. You can't get more real than that, right?
So I must believe it. To help with that, I'm giving away gift certificates for GO HOME AND DIE. Comment on this blog, and I'll enter your name in a drawing on April 5. The winner gets a PayPal gift certificate to purchase this Vietnam-era mystery. http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstor...
My brain tells me that an e-book is real. Acquaintances tell me they love them. My publisher tells me it will soon be available on amazon. You can't get more real than that, right?
So I must believe it. To help with that, I'm giving away gift certificates for GO HOME AND DIE. Comment on this blog, and I'll enter your name in a drawing on April 5. The winner gets a PayPal gift certificate to purchase this Vietnam-era mystery. http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstor...
We're Writers--We Make Stuff Up
From time to time, people argue about whether writers can evoke something they've never experienced. I have friends in the writing community who take classes in how to shoot a gun, sign up to go rock climbing, and (of course) travel to faraway places in order to write realistically about a subject.
We know, though, that writers must also use their imagination to create scenes and characters they can't actually visit: battles are pretty much out for me, as is being a teen-aged boy abandoned by his mother. I have to imagine them, like Shakespeare, who created Juliet without ever having been a young Italian girl.
Loser, the protagonist in KILLING SILENCE, (http://tinyurl.com/a8gyqjd) is homeless, mentally fragile, and living in Richmond, Virginia. I spent time in Richmond, so I have a sense of where things are in the Fan, how far one would walk to get to this place or that. I have, in my lifetime, enough experience with mental stress to imagine being overcome by life's trials. Homelessness was a stretch. I've never in my life been truly hungry, never slept outside, never had to deal with the people (homeless and not) who threaten a woman with no place to hide.
I was asked at a workshop if I had to "dumb down" the dialogue, since Loser is homeless. Hmmm. An assumption that homeless people are all stupid?
Interestingly, I recently met someone who was homeless for some time as a young person. She's intelligent, articulate, and amazingly healthy, physically and mentally, considering the life experiences she's had. As we talked, I found that my imagination had served me pretty well as I wrote Loser and her companions. She mentioned that once she was able to have a normal life again with a home and family, she became, as she termed it, "a control freak." Having had a life that was out of control, she's compelled to make sure everything is right, at least in her mind.
Totally understandable. And in addition, it's going to help a lot with Book #2!
We know, though, that writers must also use their imagination to create scenes and characters they can't actually visit: battles are pretty much out for me, as is being a teen-aged boy abandoned by his mother. I have to imagine them, like Shakespeare, who created Juliet without ever having been a young Italian girl.
Loser, the protagonist in KILLING SILENCE, (http://tinyurl.com/a8gyqjd) is homeless, mentally fragile, and living in Richmond, Virginia. I spent time in Richmond, so I have a sense of where things are in the Fan, how far one would walk to get to this place or that. I have, in my lifetime, enough experience with mental stress to imagine being overcome by life's trials. Homelessness was a stretch. I've never in my life been truly hungry, never slept outside, never had to deal with the people (homeless and not) who threaten a woman with no place to hide.
I was asked at a workshop if I had to "dumb down" the dialogue, since Loser is homeless. Hmmm. An assumption that homeless people are all stupid?
Interestingly, I recently met someone who was homeless for some time as a young person. She's intelligent, articulate, and amazingly healthy, physically and mentally, considering the life experiences she's had. As we talked, I found that my imagination had served me pretty well as I wrote Loser and her companions. She mentioned that once she was able to have a normal life again with a home and family, she became, as she termed it, "a control freak." Having had a life that was out of control, she's compelled to make sure everything is right, at least in her mind.
Totally understandable. And in addition, it's going to help a lot with Book #2!
Guesting Today
I'm a guest at Mustard Seed Marketing Group today, so I'll just connect to them. Please stop by and leave a comment!
http://www.mustardseedmarketinggroup....
http://www.mustardseedmarketinggroup....
Jake, the Orphan
"Orphan" is a term not used much anymore in conversation, though in typical American style we've made it into a verb. Children are "orphaned" by a storm or a car accident.
Losing our parents cuts us loose from our first and strongest anchor in the world. That can be threatening, and it's what has happened to Jake at the beginning of my new book A Lethal Time and Place.
Here's Jake's story.
My mother wasn't the best of providers, and my dad abandoned us before I was born. When Mom got sick I took care of her, but when she died, I refused to become a ward of the state. Taking the money from the last welfare check and a few items of clothing, I headed to the streets of Chicago. Winter was coming, but I had a scheme. My mom had a life insurance policy with me as beneficiary. If it appeared I had a stable home with a responsible guardian, I could collect it. I figured I'd find someone on the street to pose as a relative, help me collect the money, and accept a few bucks as payment. I just needed to find the right person.
I'm only fourteen, but I knew I had to choose carefully. The first time I saw Memnet, I realized she was perfect. We looked enough alike to be sisters.
The downside was that Memnet wanted nothing to do with strangers. She rejected every attempt I made to explain my scheme, and she even started running away every time she saw me.
But Fate had something in store for the two of us. When we witnessed a murder (together with Memnet's companions Leo, Libby, and Roy) our lives got tangled. Now I'm a member of their mysterious little group. The more I learn about them, the more intriguing they are.
Losing our parents cuts us loose from our first and strongest anchor in the world. That can be threatening, and it's what has happened to Jake at the beginning of my new book A Lethal Time and Place.
Here's Jake's story.
My mother wasn't the best of providers, and my dad abandoned us before I was born. When Mom got sick I took care of her, but when she died, I refused to become a ward of the state. Taking the money from the last welfare check and a few items of clothing, I headed to the streets of Chicago. Winter was coming, but I had a scheme. My mom had a life insurance policy with me as beneficiary. If it appeared I had a stable home with a responsible guardian, I could collect it. I figured I'd find someone on the street to pose as a relative, help me collect the money, and accept a few bucks as payment. I just needed to find the right person.
I'm only fourteen, but I knew I had to choose carefully. The first time I saw Memnet, I realized she was perfect. We looked enough alike to be sisters.
The downside was that Memnet wanted nothing to do with strangers. She rejected every attempt I made to explain my scheme, and she even started running away every time she saw me.
But Fate had something in store for the two of us. When we witnessed a murder (together with Memnet's companions Leo, Libby, and Roy) our lives got tangled. Now I'm a member of their mysterious little group. The more I learn about them, the more intriguing they are.
Christmas=Cruel to be Kind
December is a month of lies and deceit. Here are some personal experiences to prove my point.
*My mother once wrapped a .22 rifle in a guitar box so my brother would think he was getting a guitar for Christmas.
*My daughter confessed to me as an adult that by twelve she was an expert at finding the presents I'd wrapped and hidden, opening them to see what she was getting, and returning them to their hiding place, carefully rewrapped.
*My husband, abetted by my father, let my son spend most of Christmas day thinking he'd seen all his presents, saving the snowmobile for when we got to Gram and Grandpa's house for Christmas dinner.
*My mother's annual lie was that Christmas was going to be "smaller this year." (We never fell for that one; my mother loved Christmas and could not keep herself from buying just one more little gift...for everyone.)
Watching Facebook posts and talking with friends, I sense joy and satisfaction already in the gift-buying public. Yes, Christmas is very commercialized. No, we don't need all that stuff. Really, it should be about family and friends getting together.
But isn't it fun when someone you love is completely surprised and thrilled by all the plotting you did to keep that gift a mystery?
By the way, if it's a mystery reader you're buying for, A Lethal Time and Place is on Kindle Countdown this week (Dec. 3-10), starting at 99 cents.
*My mother once wrapped a .22 rifle in a guitar box so my brother would think he was getting a guitar for Christmas.
*My daughter confessed to me as an adult that by twelve she was an expert at finding the presents I'd wrapped and hidden, opening them to see what she was getting, and returning them to their hiding place, carefully rewrapped.
*My husband, abetted by my father, let my son spend most of Christmas day thinking he'd seen all his presents, saving the snowmobile for when we got to Gram and Grandpa's house for Christmas dinner.
*My mother's annual lie was that Christmas was going to be "smaller this year." (We never fell for that one; my mother loved Christmas and could not keep herself from buying just one more little gift...for everyone.)
Watching Facebook posts and talking with friends, I sense joy and satisfaction already in the gift-buying public. Yes, Christmas is very commercialized. No, we don't need all that stuff. Really, it should be about family and friends getting together.
But isn't it fun when someone you love is completely surprised and thrilled by all the plotting you did to keep that gift a mystery?
By the way, if it's a mystery reader you're buying for, A Lethal Time and Place is on Kindle Countdown this week (Dec. 3-10), starting at 99 cents.
