Lea Wait's Blog, page 276

Burying the Lede

A groggy, bleary-eyed Chris Holm here. As I write this, my wife and I are recovering from a whirlwind road trip to Bar Harbor for the Jesup library’s inaugural Murder by the Book.

Despite some hiccups getting there (an actual, honest-to-god manhunt halted traffic on Route 3 and added nearly two hours to the drive), the event was a blast. The Jesup’s staff is as ambitious as they are enthusiastic, and they put together two days of fantastic programming, most of it free (which is darn near unheard of). And the setting, both town and library, was stunning. To cap it off, I got to spend time in the company of dear friends and talented writers (many of whom are featured in the sidebar of this blog), and meet loads of passionate readers. I hear tell the Jesup’s planning another Murder by the Book for next fall. Be sure to check it out.

Hmm. What else was I gonna tell you guys? I feel like there was something. Eh. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be that big a deal.

Oh, wait. I remember. THE KILLING KIND came out last Tuesday!

I can’t tell you how pleased I am it’s finally out in the world. There was a time I worried this book would never see the light of day. My prior agent was so unenthusiastic about it, she sat on the manuscript for nine months without reading it. Parting ways with her was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make. It’s also proven one of the best, because thus far, the response to THE KILLING KIND has been astonishing. It’s garnered raves from NPR, Huffington Post, and the Maine Sunday Telegram. It’s been highlighted as a top read for September by Strand Magazine, Barnes & Noble, and MysteryPeople. For five crazy minutes, it was even a trending topic on Twitter.

Maybe the hype will continue to build. Maybe it’ll fade. But either way, I’m very grateful to everyone who’s helped me get to where I am today. Here are but a few who deserve my thanks. Most of all, I’m grateful to the readers, librarians, and booksellers who make it possible for me to live my dream. Without them, I’m just some nutball making up stories in my pajamas.

Cover Story’s Back Story

By Brenda Buchanan

In the beginning, Joe Gale was Marty Gleason.

This was eight or so years ago, when I sat down in my cramped study on Peaks Island, determined to write the book I’d been thinking about for many years. We’d decided to move to the mainland, and my intuition told me that enormous transition would be eased if I were already engaged in something that would feel as powerful and central to me as had my life as an islander.

I don’t think I wrote more than a chapter before we moved off Peaks. I looked out the window a lot, and did that ‘round and ‘round in circles thing, having no clue how to start writing a book. No bolt of insight arrived after we’d ferried all of our possessions across the water. But I remained committed to writing the mystery I’d been ruminating about since I’d left journalism for law school.

That long-ago conceived book—now called Cover Story—will be released a week from today, on September 28.

As it turns out, it’s not my first published novel, and there are good reasons for that.

My early drafts were amateurish. The manuscript improved in tiny increments as I navigated my way through numerous workshops, notably at New England Crime Bake. I also was fortunate to have the feedback of a good writer’s group.

The writing group that helped me during early stages of COVER STORY – Richard Bilodeau, James Hayman and Jane Sloven

But after several years of steady work, there was no way around it—the manuscript, then called Relative Defense, had problems.

Several of the agents to whom I sent query letters or met at conferences offered constructive feedback. You know how to write, they said. But you’re making all the rookie mistakes.

Their eventual advice that I hated to hear? Set your manuscript aside and write another book.

Though painful, it was the right answer.

If I couldn’t accept that the book wasn’t what it needed to be, and if I couldn’t bring myself to set it aside and start a fresh book, then I’d be a person who fantasized about being a published author, but I’d never be one.

So I wrote another book. The result was Quick Pivot, the first book in the Joe Gale Mystery Series, which was released in April.

Early in the process of writing Quick Pivot I realized why those in the know had nudged me in the write-another-book direction.  Though I hadn’t cracked my first manuscript’s particular code, I was starting from a different place. This was a critical revelation.

What had seemed so, well, mysterious the first time around was now less so. I’d figured out point of view. I’d gotten the hang of writing dialogue. I knew I could sustain a narrative arc for 350 pages.

I also learned that my characters were disgruntled about a few things.

It turned out my reporter protagonist was a one-syllable first name, one-syllable last name kind of guy. That’s when Marty Gleason became Joe Gale.

His diner-owning best friend Christie was Greek, not WASP, so her last name became Pappas instead of Perkins and she grew a stronger personality to match. Unfortunately, I had to kill off her live-in grandfather. He was a nice guy, but he made for one too many characters, so he had to go.  And most importantly, Joe’s mentor Paulie Finnegan came out of the shadows, which is when Joe himself began to make sense.  Why did a thirty-something newspaper reporter go at every story with old-school verve? Paulie Finnegan, that’s why.

When my agent offered me representation on the strength of Quick Pivot, I was thrilled. Then she asked if I had any other manuscripts in the drawer. My stomach did a couple of flips. It had been a long time since I’d touched that first book, and the chorus of “not readys” that had greeted it when I sent it out into the publishing world still rang in my ears.

But I heard myself saying, sure, I have another Joe Gale book, one where he goes to Machias to cover the trial of a man accused of killing a politically well-connected DHHS caseworker. It happens in the middle of a brutal Maine winter. When Joe reports that the evidence doesn’t match up with the pre-trial hype, he learns the hard way about Downeast-style intimidation.

That was the gist of the story I’d written, and it was enough to construct the pitch and plot summary she needed to sell my publisher on a three-book deal.

Before that happened I’d taken that first manuscript off the shelf and gone into overhaul mode. Nixed the sloooow beginning. Cleaned up wordy sentences. Added and subtracted characters. Juiced up flat chapter endings. More times than I can count I thought I was done. But every time I did a start-to-finish read with my newly critical eye, it was clear I needed to revise some more.

Last year, with additional insight from my brilliant editor, I finally got there. Next Monday, the first novel I conceived will come into the world.

The moral of this tale? For all but the most gifted among us, getting published takes years of steady work. To those who are laboring on your own first (or fifth) manuscript, I hope this post encourages you to stay with it.

And to everyone who helped me bring Cover Story into the world, this one’s for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hot Off The Press! Photos from Murder by the Book

Brenda Buchanan, here, with some on-the-scene photos from Jesup Library in beautiful Bar Harbor, where many of us who kill on the page converged this weekend to participate in the inaugural Murder by the Book conference.

Kate Flora and Gerry Boyle during the panel titled “Sex Change,” about writing a protagonist of the opposite gender

Julia Spencer-Fleming, reading work in progress

 

Chris Holm. whose novel The Killing Kind was released to rave reviews last week

 

Maureen Milliken during the Real World vs. The Page panel discussion.

The Real World vs. The Page panel: Maine Superior Court Justice William Stokes, journalists Maureen Milliken and Earl Brechlin, Hancock County District Attorney Matthew Foster and retired Portland (and crime writer) Det. Sgt. Bruce Coffin

The eye-catching entrance to the Jesup Library. In addition to the crime scene tape, there were chalked outlines of bodies on the sidewalk out front.

 

Many thanks to all of those who attended and to Ruth Eveland, Melinda Rice, Kayla Chagnon and the rest of the wonderful staff at the Jesup Library for a memorable weekend.  A lot of local businesses were behind this event as well, a model of community engagement.

Weekend Update: September 19-20, 2015

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Brenda Buchanan (Monday) Chris Holm (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Wednesday), Jessie Crockett (Thursday) and John Clark (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

From Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett: Next Saturday, September 26, I’ll be doing a “chat with the author” and book signing at Liberty Public Library, Liberty, New York. That’s my old home town and I’m going back for my 50th (gulp!) high school reunion.

Also, I’ve finally taken the plunge. I’m on Facebook (although I don’t really know what I’m doing yet) and you can see (and hopefully like) my page by using this link: Kaitlyn on Facebook

Meanwhile, this weekend, as in today, lots of MCW authors are at Murder by the Book

Lea Wait: Have fun at your reunion, Kathy! In addition to being at Murder by the Book, Kate Flora, Dorothy Cannell and I will be speaking  at the Rangeley Library,  7 Lake Street, in Rangeley, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, September 22.  And on Thursday, September 24, I’ll be speaking at The Mustard Seed bookshop in Bath at 7 p.m. Busy week!

Kate Flora: Wow, Kathy. I hear the 50th is really fun. And now, with apologies for “marketing” but it’s part of our job. The group of five who’ve written a novel about a serial killer are trying out something new and fun for the book launch:

We’re Launching Beat, Slay, Love with Thunderclap:

What is Thunderclap? It’s a new crowd-promoting site where your friends donate a tweet or a Facebook or Tumblr status to help get the message out. With Katy Munger, Kate Flora, Gary Phillips, and Taffy Cannon (the creators of the great and powerful Thalia Filbert) we’re launching our new book in just 14 days! Charlaine Harris calls it “An incredibly sly mystery… everything you’d want when you bite into a dish: suspense, spice, and a new take on an old classic.”

Can you help us with a tweet or status? We’re looking for 100 supporters. It’s simple and powerful, plus you get ‘Thalia Filbert’s Killer Cocktail Party’ book full of deliciously sinful drinks and appetizers, some featured in the novel when you do. Check out the details at the site. (Click below) It’s safe, friends, you can connect your account and let it post just once for you on October 1. Thank you!

Thunderclap campaign: http://bit.ly/BSL-thunder

 

 

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com

WHENCE IDEAS, THAT’S THE QUESTION

Susan Vaughan: “Where do you get your ideas?” That’s the question writers most often hear from readers—and even from friends who aren’t readers. Every writer answers it a different way, but here’s a general overview. Ideas pop up everywhere. For example, a news story, an overheard (read: eavesdropped) conversation, a suspicious character on the street, or a couple seen arguing in a restaurant. I’ve begun books based on only a location or a particular character, an object, or a plot thread. Not all ideas can be massaged into a plot and characters in a viable story. I’ve dumped a ton of what at the time I thought were terrific ideas but that led me nowhere. But some ideas do lead to completed books.

A few years ago my husband and I vacationed in the Yucatan area of Mexico on what is called the Mayan Riviera. After some beach time, we toured two of the ancient cities. Chichen-Itza offers the most famous Mayan pyramid and is mostly restored. Fascinating but not inspiring. Another tour led by a Mayan guide to Cobá, an un-restored ruin deep in the jungle, flooded me with ideas and questions. I pictured archeologists working alongside nearby Mayan villagers. When the guide said some of the buildings’ destruction was from earthquakes, I thought: what if the people believed an artifact with a curse caused quakes. These musings eventually led to my romantic thriller On Deadly Ground, set in a fictional Central American country with a pending earthquake.

 

The picture here I took at Cobá is of the temple dedicated to the god of commerce, shaped like a beehive because one of their big trding commodities was honey. A similar temple appears in the book.

For the second book in the series, another romantic thriller, Ring of Truth, an idea I had years ago about a puzzle ring and a news article about lost crown jewels set my plot in motion. My puzzle ring isn’t exactly like the one pictured, but you get the general idea.

Also, I wanted a story for Mara Marton, the researcher introduced in On Deadly Ground. Puzzling over these seemingly unconnected ideas led me to the unlikely hero of the story and the threads of the overall plot of Ring of Truth. What if Mara’s deceased father had been the insurance investigator tasked with solving the theft of the crown jewels of Gramornia, and what if the heist’s mastermind had been ex-con Cortez Jones’s father? What if they had to work together to find the jewels?

Another news article contributed to the plot of the third book in the same series, Cleopatra’s Necklace. In 2009, Egypt’s top archeologist, Zahi Hawass, claimed to have found the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony at a site near the Mediterranean Sea. Hawass displayed artifacts found inside the tomb, exciting everyone about the possibilities. No one has reported any further discoveries since. Upheaval and continued unrest in Egypt may have stopped the search, or that particular tomb turned out not to be the Queen of the Nile’s resting place. A disappointment, but that didn’t stop me from imagining what might be in Cleopatra’s tomb. What if the tomb contained jewels and scepters and other treasures similar to those from the tomb of King Tut? And what if while these were on tour protected by Devlin Security Force, they were stolen?

The necklace seen here is as elaborate as the one in my book, but doesn’t contain the precious gems of Cleopatra’s. The typical necklace pictured on images of Cleopatra became the dingus, the Maltese Falcon, if you will, that Thomas Devlin himself must find, and his heroine, an old flame, had to be named Cleo.

You may have noticed that my plot musings seem to begin with “What if” questions. I don’t think I’m alone among writers in asking that question.

And here’s a final example. When I began writing for publication, rejections from editors often mentioned weak conflict. I saw that as a challenge. What would be the strongest conflict that would prevent my heroine from becoming involved with anyone? What if she believed that she was cursed, that everyone she became close to would die? Starting with that premise, I was able to create the characters and plot of what became my first published novel, Dangerous Attraction. I now have the publishing rights back to that book and have revised and updated it for re-publication soon as Always a Suspect.

***

Find more about my books and sign up for my newsletter at www.susanvaughan.com.

Some Maine Pretty to Brighten Your Day

Hi. Barb here. Or rather, Barb in the hospital recuperating from knee replacement surgery.

So, to give myself a bit of a break and celebrate the end of the summer season, I thought I would share some pretty.

Back in February, I posted about how my husband, Bill Carito, had taken an iphone photography course and was taking a photo a day while we were in Key West. You can see those photos here.

Not only has he kept it up since, then, but he’s taken several additional online iphone courses.

Here are some photos from this summer. Honestly, there are too many to choose from. If you want to follow his project, you can friend him on Facebook here.

Kitchen Memories

Lea Wait, here.

Several days ago I developed a craving for blueberry cake. (This is Maine, after all!) The blueberry season may be over, but the magic of freezing keeps wild blueberries available twelve months of the year, and almost every day I have them in my oatmeal … so finding them in my kitchen wasn’t a problem.

I stood in our kitchen — the kitchen where my mother had cooked, and my grandmother, before her — and suddenly memories filled my head. Blueberry memories. My grandmother, especially, had loved them, and during blueberry season had made not only blueberry pies and muffins and pancakes and blueberry grunt, but the blueberry cake I was remembering, and had put up blueberry sauces and jellies for the winter.

My grandmother, age 20

The more I thought about blueberries, and my grandmother, the more I wished I could ask her how she found the energy for all she did. I knew how she’d learned many skills. Like me, she’d depended on books. (The one great sorrow of her life was that she hadn’t been able to attend college. In her sixties, she listened to “sunrise semester,” early morning courses broadcast on television from New York University. I went with her twice a year to the original Barnes and Noble in New York to buy the books for her classes:  Russian literature, Victorian literature, European history, Introduction to Philosophy, and other courses I don’t remember. She never took the exams, but she read every book and listened to every lecture in the courses.)

So I knew that, excellent cook though she was, her cookbook was the source of most of her recipes. I don’t have her copy of Fannie Farmer’s The Boston Cooking School Cook Book (one of my sisters has that,) but I have my mother’s copy.

Fanny Farmer didn’t disappoint. I found my grandmother’s favorite recipe for blueberry cake, and for the lemon sauce she always poured over it. I stood in the same kitchen where she’d made it so many times for me when I was a child, and I followed the instructions. My husband and I enjoyed every bite.

And now, with memories of my grandmother, here’s the recipe she followed, with a couple of minor changes for the times.

Blueberry Cake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. butter two 8-inch cake pans. Mix 1 cup blueberries with 1/4 cup of flour. Work 1/3 cup of butter until soft and creamy; add 1 cup sugar and beat until light. Add two eggs, beaten, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; and 2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix thoroughly. Add in blueberries, stir, and pour into cake pans. Bake 20-25 minutes.

Lemon Sauce:  Mix together 1 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cornstarch. Add 2 cups boiling water, and stir over heat, boiling for 5 minutes. Take off stove. Add 4 tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons lemon juice, a sprinkle of nutmeg and a pinch of salt.

Simple, delicious, and a taste of the past for today.

Enjoy, with my grandmother’s complements!

Lea Wait is the author of the Mainely Needlepoint mysteries, the most recent of which, Threads of Evidence, was just published. She also writes the Shadows Antique Print mystery series, historical novels set in 19th century Maine for ages 8 and up, and a collection of essays, Living and Writing on the Coast of Maine. See her website for more about Lea and her books, and for links to prequels of her books. 

Setting Yourself Up for Self-Publishing Success

Jen here, writing on a slightly overcast and delightfully fall-ish day in midcoast Maine. I’m very excited about the subject today, since it’s something near and dear to my heart: independent publishing. Since Kate Flora wrote the very popular post, “Can You Afford to Get Published?” examining the challenges inherent in being traditionally published, she suggested that I write something about the indie publishing world.

First, a bit about me and my writing career: I graduated from the Stonecoast MFA program in the summer of 2005, when self-publishing was still very much a dirty word. Fast-forward seven years, to 2012. Popular opinion had shifted with respect to the validity of choosing to publish oneself rather than go the traditional route, though there are still many folks out there who have their doubts. I had a completed mystery that had been through endless beta reads, edits, and revisions. I’d been told more than once that it was good – which meant, in theory, that I should start querying agents, who would ideally see promise in an untried novelist and might then, months later, respond by taking me on as a client. At which point, I could expect months more of waiting while my manuscript languished on an underpaid and overworked editor’s desk. If a publisher did actually choose to sign me on, as a first-time author with no real track record, the best I could hope for was an advance in the very low thousands while I waited for the book to come out. Then, eventually, I might earn royalties. Hopefully. Meanwhile, I would be at the mercy of the publisher’s schedule in terms of when the next book came out, most likely at least a year down the road.

Despite the cachet that comes with being a traditionally published author, none of these things seemed appealing to me.

So, in February of 2012, having never submitted my manuscript to an agent or publisher, I self-published All the Blue-Eyed Angels as an ebook on Amazon. In June, I did a free promotion through Amazon’s KDP-Select program, which was getting great press at the time. The novel hit number one in Amazon’s free store in Thrillers and Mystery/Women Sleuths, and number three overall in Amazon’s free store. Which is super, except that you don’t actually earn money when a title is free. However, the momentum was enough that it carried over once the book was no longer free. In June, I sold 1,260 copies of Angels, which may not sound like a lot, but was about 1,200 copies more than I’d sold previously. Suddenly, I found myself with an inbox brimming with new fans eager for the next installment of the Erin Solomon series.

I published book two, Sins of the Father, in July of 2012. That one hit the paid bestseller lists on Amazon, and carried Angels right along with it. Though I was hardly getting rich on two books, I was earning upwards of $3000 per month on two titles alone, having been in the game for just over six months. I’d been a starving writer long enough to consider this big bucks.

That pretty much cemented my stance on independent publishing. I was – and am – firmly in favor of it.

Three years later, I now have five novels out. Those five novels comprise the complete Erin Solomon Pentalogy. They are well-reviewed and have been well-received, and regularly hit the bestseller lists on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. In April of this past year, I did a paid advertising spot on the promotional website BookBub for Angels, which is now permanently free with multiple online booksellers. That month, I sold just under ten thousand copies of my other four novels on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble.

All of that sounds great, right? But the reality is that I recognize that I’m an outlier in this game; there are plenty of other self-published authors out there who make next to nothing and have no idea how to change that. So, how did I increase my chances of success in the indie publishing game? Here are six strategies I used, and a good way for you to gauge for yourself whether self-publishing is for you.

Jen’s online magazine

Establish an online platform. Personally, I actually started by writing fanfiction purely as a fun exercise to see how quickly I could complete a full-length piece of fiction and keep readers engaged. Many of my most loyal readers now actually discovered me through the fanfiction I wrote back in the day. I also worked as a freelance journalist; created my own website and began reviewing mysteries by other authors; started a Facebook group adevoted to fans and writers of mystery, suspense, and thrillers; and created my own online magazine that revolved around the Erin Solomon series. It’s not necessary to go quite so elaborate as your own magazine, but don’t be afraid to try new things. These days, the pressure is on just as much for traditionally published authors to make a connection with their readers online, so whatever route you choose, be prepared to get comfortable with social media in some way or other. The key is to do it on your terms, and to play to your strengths.
Have more than one title in your repertoire, and a plan for writing and publishing going forward. If you’re the kind of novelist who writes one book every nine or ten years (or every two to three years, for that matter), trying to break into traditional publishing may be a better option for you. I’ll be honest: The numbers game in independent publishing is such that you are far more likely to get readers’ attention if you publish regularly (conventional wisdom says at least once a year, and ideally more than that) and have a few titles to offer. If you’re uncomfortable with the pressure that puts on you as a writer, you can look at things in the long-term, continue to write at your own pace, and simply accept that it may take you a little longer to create a backlist for readers. One of the nice things about being an indie, and particularly being an indie in the world of ebooks, is that your novels have a much longer shelf life than they do if you have a publisher trying to sell hardcovers at a premium price in a crowded market.

Write a damn good book. There are thousands of independently published books that people put online because it seemed easy and they just wanted their books up there for the world to see, or they had lofty ambitions about making their fortune for next to no work. Happily, there are now plenty of quality independently published books out there as well, by authors who are conscientious enough to work with beta readers, hire a great editor, and take the time to ensure that what they’re putting out there is worth readers’ time. If you’re going to self-publish, be prepared to spend some money up front to make sure you are one of the independent authors putting out a truly great book. If you want more specifics on just how much start-up cash you’ll need, I’ll break that down next month. Spoiler alert: It’s probably not as much as you think.

Network with other authors, both independent and traditionally published. I mentioned previously that I had a website through which I reviewed other mystery authors’ books. I also did author interviews, promoted books I enjoyed, and offered spots so that authors could do guest posts if they wanted some extra exposure for their work. While you should never forget that you’re trying to connect with readers more than other writers, it’s good to keep in mind that authors in your genre are also readers – and they’re readers with clout and an audience you have yet to reach. My strategy is always to figure out what I have of value that I can offer someone else, and cultivate a relationship from that starting point. While our world is undoubtedly more technologically complex than it once was, those advances have made the publishing world a very small place. Use that to your advantage, and you’ll be amazed at the connections you can make…and what those connections can do for you in the long-term.


Price your work reasonably. I run an editing business in addition to my writing career, and am often flabbergasted when I see independent authors with genuinely great work, who then price themselves out of the game by offering their ebooks for prices readers today simply won’t pay. Look at other authors in your genre – and not Stephen King or Patricia Cornwell. Look at other popular independently published novelists, and watch what they are doing with their prices. Personally, I have the ebook of my first novel available free on most online stores; the others are priced at $3.99, with the most recent release priced at $4.99. In April, when I blew away my previous sales records, I did a massive sale and offered all four of my other novels for just $2.99 each. Clearly when you have access to a global market, those dollars can add up quickly. Is it a blow to the ego to offer work I’ve slaved over for months or even years for just a few dollars? I guess it might have been initially, but at this point I personally am far more concerned with continuing to sustain myself so that I can keep writing than I am with taking a political stand on the value of creative expression.

Educate yourself, and keep up to date on current and shifting market trends. I mentioned Amazon’s KDP Select at the beginning of this article as the way I first got a foothold in the indie publishing world. Though Amazon still offers the KDP Select program (in which you agree to sell exclusively through Amazon for a minimum of three months, in exchange for increased publicity and access to promotions otherwise unavailable to authors on the site), I don’t use it any longer and don’t usually advocate it for others, for a variety of reasons I won’t get into now. Pixel of Ink was the big advertiser in 2013; in 2015, if you can get an advertising spot on BookBub, do everything in your power to make that happen. The face of publishing is changing at an astonishing rate right now, so it is in your best interest to make yourself aware of the trends and plan accordingly. This past year, I’ve taken Joseph Michael’s course Learn Scrivener Fast, Nick Stephenson’s Your First 10K Readers, and am currently enrolled in Joanna Penn’s stellar Creative Freedom course. I’ve already seen significant dividends with each of these courses, and have ideally given myself an edge that will enable me to continue growing as time marches on.

If all of this sounds exhausting to you… Well, sometimes it is. I won’t lie – it’s a lot of work, and if your dream is truly to simply be a writer and you have no interest in the business side of things, you may find independent publishing to be a trying task. My goal from the time I was a kid has been to be a full-time author. I’m not there yet, but if things go according to plan, I’ll ideally be making my target income purely from my fiction by 2017. I don’t need to get rich – I just want to make a livable wage and feel as though I have control over my own creative destiny, and this happens to be the path I’ve chosen. As far as I’m concerned, there is no right or wrong answer in terms of your own publishing career. I have nothing against traditional publishing, and have no illusions that indie publishing is the cure-all for every author out there. But if you can honestly evaluate your own strengths and you find yourself leaning toward the indie way of life, an adventure – and a potentially financially viable, creatively fulfilling adventure, at that – may await.

I’m curious about your opinions on independent publishing today. If you’ve considered self-publishing but have yet to take the plunge, what gives you the most pause?

It’s hard to be grumpy, even me, when I can say ‘Yeah, I wrote that book.’

A beautiful day in Bar Harbor. This was the view from my parking space. What, me grumpy? Nah.

Maureen Milliken here, enjoying one of the last beautiful weekends of summer.

Despite the beautiful weather this summer, I can get a little cranky. It’s how I roll.

That was definitely the case on a beautiful but way too hot day a week or so ago, when I managed to get most of the day off from work to drive a load of my books to Sherman’s Book Store in Bar Harbor. I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in next weekend’s Murder by the Book event at Jesup Library and the vagaries of publishing being what they are, it was easier and cheaper for me to drive 20 copies of Cold Hard News to the store than have my publisher (or me) ship it.

Normally I love a road trip. But it was a hot, hot Thursday in what has been a very busy summer and no day off has been one where I can just relax and enjoy the weather.  In fact, all I could think was how much I had to do, that I should be doing, instead of spending a good chunk of the day driving. And it was 9:15 and already close to 80 out. Grump grump grump.

It ain’t heavy, it’s my box of books.

I had to stop at work in Waterville for a meeting before I truly got on the road, adding a layer of guilt that my generous but overburdened boss was doing what I should have been doing. And not that I needed a reminder, but it was one of  how much work there was left to do to in the next 48 hours to get the newspaper ready for the three-day Labor Day weekend. (Those stories and pictures gotta come from somewhere, folks).

Did I mention it was hot? It was even hotter when I got back in the car sometime after 11.

I didn’t want to spend one second on hot and crowded Interstate 95 — it gets boring when your state only has one real highway — so I decided to take U.S. Route 202 as far as Bangor.

I was on the bridge between Waterville and Winslow, stopped at the light, planning my route to 202 in my head (GPS? Not this gal. Gotta use that brain or lose it), when I felt a giant thump. Yup, the car behind had rear-ended me. Hard. I’d just spent an agonizing week or so dealing with a repair that had cost me more than a mortgage payment and my already sour mood grumped a little lower.

The other driver didn’t want to get out of her car to check the damage, was more interesting in fretting over why her brakes had failed (something I would have thought an unlikely story if mine hadn’t a couple weeks before, hence the expensive repair). Did I also mention I have no patience? I ordered her to back up so that her bumper, lovingly nestled under mine, would unlock, then get out of her car and appraise the damage. She finally got the message and she and I looked at the car — she nervous and fretting, me impatient and hot. A few scratches, all seemed fine. I was anxious to get to Bar Harbor, so we called it good and went on our way.

Local mechanic Tim Cottle finishes up a bumper fix in April. Tim has spent more time with my car than I have the past several months.

I stopped at a convenience store a little later, took another look at the scratches and realized my bumper was now hanging half off. The grump meeting rose a few notches as I jammed it back in place as best as I could. Same bumper that came off when I hit a deer in April and got kinda-fixed until I had the time and inclination to get it better fixed. Not related to the mortgage-busting more recent fix.

It didn’t help that my already funky left shoulder seemed to have taken the brunt of the accident and I couldn’t turn my head to the left.

Did I mention how hot it was?

There was one quick moment of joy: Zooming out 202 past Unity, “Layla” came on the iPod. And there is really no pure moment of bliss as sweet as cruising around 70 mph on an empty roller-coaster Maine two-lane while the guitar/piano instrumental from “Layla” blasts. But it was short lived when an 18-wheeler pulled in front of me and slowly escorted me the rest of the way to Bangor.

Heat, traffic, ugh. Summer traffic between Bangor and Ellsworth, then Ellsworth and Bar Harbor is enough to make me never want to see the Atlantic Ocean, which I love, again.

By the time I got to busy Main Street in Bar Harbor, trying to avoid hitting slack-jawed tourists wandering slowly across the street and giant SUVs trying to parallel park into spaces that were not made for giant SUVS, the top of the grump meter was blown.

I found a parking space less than a block from Sherman’s — but it was too little too late.

As I stepped out of the car, my back seized up and I found that as bad as my neck and shoulder felt, my lower back and really taken the brunt of that accident and driving for 90 minutes after hadn’t helped. I lifted my box of books — grump, ouch, grump — and brought them to the store.

Deb Taylor, the buyer for Sherman’s, was lovely, welcoming, gracious, friendly. I tried to act the way I’ve seen normal people do and be as nice as she was. She had me put the box of books on the counter and follow her to a back room to fill out some  paperwork.

I decided while there to buy a book (I’m not only a writer, but the daughter of a bookseller, so I try to always buy a book when in a bookstore). I picked out my friend Lea Wait’s Threads of Evidence and brought it to the counter, sidestepping and squeezing past the fanny-pack crowd, who seemed to be milling around everywhere I wanted to be.

Through all of this, the entire morning and early afternoon, the constant drumbeat of everything I had to do, both later that day, the next day, the weekend, hammered away at me. I was hot, I was tired, annoyed, sore, resentful, hungry, broke, put-upon. Grumpy.

When I went up to the counter, my box of Cold Hard News was still there.

The cashier made a joke about the the register being open despite the box taking up the counter.

“I don’t mind. I wrote it, so let it sit there all you want,” I said.

“It’s my book.”

If you’re ever lucky enough to be able to say that, I hope it makes you feel the way it does me. I’d be smart never to forget the feeling.

Did I say it was hot out? Funny, I can’t remember now.

See you at Murder by the Book. I’ll be the one who doesn’t have to be reminded how I’m living the dream.

Maureen Milliken is news editor of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel and lives in central Maine. Her debut mystery novel, Cold Hard News, was published in June. She will be appearing at Murder by the Book at Jesup Library in Bar Harbor Sept. 18 & 19.

Weekend Update: September 12-13, 2015

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maureen Milliken (Monday) Jen Blood (Tuesday), Lea Wait (Wednesday), Barb Ross (Thursday) and Susan Vaughan (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Murder by the Book is next weekend at Jesup Memorial Library. Check it out!

Kate Flora sometimes suspects that few of you out there are actually reading our updates, so I’m sneaking something in here. One person who leaves a comment during the upcoming week will win him or herself one of the very first, hot off the presses, copies of the group novel she wrote with four other crime writers. Kate, Lise McClendon, Taffy Cannon, Gary Phillips, and Katy Munger teamed up to write a novel about a serial killer who is knocking off famous TV chefs. The book is Beat, Slay, Love by Thalia Filbert. Bound to be a best seller and likely made into a movie, or at least to make you laugh. You heard it here first.

Bacon, squid ink pasta, and hot peppers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com