Paul Austin Ardoin's Blog, page 11

Why I Love NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month. And NaNoWriMo, as it's lovingly called, is not only a month, it's also an international nonprofit organization. The goal: write 50,000 words of a new novel in 30 days.

This year, I'm one of the two Municipal Liaisons (which is just a fancy way to say Regional Coordinator) for the Sacramento region. We've got a large, geographically dispersed region extending a hundred miles north and south and to the Nevada border on the east.

While we had our midnight kickoff on November 1 at 12:01 AM (at a woefully understaffed Denny's with whom we had coordinated previously), it was today, November 2, where I gave a presentation at the Folsom Library (yes, Johnny Cash fans, that Folsom). I spoke about the importance of getting into the right mindset for this ambitious task: finding the time to write, shutting off your inner critic, and making the pursuit of your goal a regular habit.

It seemed to resonate with almost everyone in the audience. Fenway Stevenson started as an idea in 2009, but it wasn't until I actually made a commitment to that goal that the first book became a reality eight years later.

Yes, NaNoWriMo is about writing 50,000 words in a month, but the mindset can be applied to everything we do and everything we want to achieve. It requires time, effort, and the willingness to make it a habit. And, like everything we pursue in life, there's an evil part of our brain that is continuously telling us we can't do it. We're not good enough. We're going to fail. We have to silence that inner critic—whether it's getting a degree, learning a new skill, playing an instrument, going after a promotion, learning to cook. We're our own worst critics, and silencing that critical voice so that we're open to learning and open to moving ourselves toward our goal is one of the most important lessons NaNoWriMo taught me.

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Eight Quick Questions

I was recently interviewed by Armand Rosamilia, author and contributor to the Hot Tub Crime Machine blog, as part of his Eight Quick Questions segment. Here are some of the highlights, but for the full interview, head on over to the Hot Tub.

Tell us...

Something unique about [The Upstaged Coroner].
The character-driven mystery series stars a thirtyish biracial woman named Fenway Stevenson. This book explores in the inner workings of a university Shakespeare group. Other books may have a murder in the theater as the core of the mystery, but this theater group is unique—and it was based on my own experience as a student actor at UC Santa Barbara twenty-six years ago.

If it’s a series, do you know how many books it will ultimately be?
I’ve mapped out the course through Book Six, and I’m in the middle of writing Book Five now. I have character arcs mapped out for another three books after that, and I think it will be a total of either nine or twelve books.
A few of the secondary characters are interesting enough to give them their own series, too, so the world of Fenway Stevenson may be continuing for a while.

Your biggest inspirations in writing.
In college, I had this idea that I would write grand literary fiction that would win the Pulitzer and the PEN/Faulkner (and I was a big fan of Siri Hustvedt, Paul Auster, and Marguerite Duras). But I realized just a few years ago that mystery was where my heart lies. 

Excerpt from "Eight Quick Questions with Paul Austin Ardoin," September 30, 2019

Read the full interview at Read More

All the World's a Stage

In 1993, I played Francis Flute in the American Shakespeare Company's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," directed by professor Homer Swander at UC Santa Barbara. I've kept in touch with many of my fellow student-actors, and the woman who played Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, is Genesis Phillips (now Hansen), and is not only the namesake of the Phillips-Holsen Grand Hotel in "The Upstaged Coroner," but is also Director of Library & Cultural Services at the City of Mission Viejo, about 45 minutes south of Los Angeles. I asked Hansen to write about her latest trip to UC Santa Barbara and the theater where we spent most of the winter and spring of 1993.

A few weeks ago I visited my alma mater, UCSB, with my family. At the top of my to do list was a stop by Girvetz 1004—the theater where, nearly 30 years ago, I had the great pleasure of studying and performing two plays with renowned Professor Homer Swander. (This is also where I met one Paul Austin Ardoin.)

Professor Swander was by turns inspiring and exasperating, delightful and infuriating, a sage and a scoundrel. I also learned more from him than in the rest of my college classes combined.

The little theater in Girvetz Hall was a magical place—a bland lecture hall transformed by a couple of wood platforms, some curtains, and the ingenuity of the students and professor into, say, a forest, or a street in Padua, Italy. As students, we were also transformed. It is impossible to step into Shakespeare's world—especially as Queen of the Amazons—and come out the same on the other side.

As an appropriate cap to my summer nostalgia, I had the great joy of being an early reader of The Upstaged Coroner. Fenway fans, you are in for a...Read More

Fenway 4: The Dedication

Dedicated to My Shakespeare Professor

Based on my time as a member of UC Santa Barbara’s American Shakespeare Company in the early 1990s, The Upstaged Coroner is deeply personal for me. The Shakespeare professor in the book is based on UCSB’s own brilliant (if maddening) Homer Swander—and yes, the guy was a pretty big deal. None other than Sir Patrick Stewart, an Olivier-winning actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company (oh yeah, he was on Star Trek: TNG and in a couple of the X-Men movies too) penned his obituary in The Guardian. 

I was lucky enough to be one of Professor Swander’s student-actors in the American Shakespeare Company’s 1993 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I looked forward to performing in his production of The Merchant of Venice the next year, but he decided he couldn’t do the play without a live monkey. But that’s not a problem for Professor Swander’s döppelganger in The Upstaged Coroner!

Pre-Order The Upstaged Coroner today! The book (coming October 1) will debut at a special discounted price of $2.99 now through October 7, before returning to the regular price of $4.99.

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The Upstaged Coroner Cover and Release Date

The Upstaged Coroner gets cover art...

Check out the cover art for The Upstaged Coroner! Like all my covers, the art for the fourth Fenway Stevenson Mystery was designed by Ziad Ezzat of Feral Creative Colony in Oakland, California.

...and a release date!

As I mentioned in my newsletter, my early drafts needed to be significantly rewritten, which delayed me a few weeks. I was hoping that it wouldn’t push the release date out of September… but I’m going to miss September by 24 hours. The Upstaged Coroner will be released—and available on all major ebook platforms—on October 1, 2019. The preorder links will be available on Amazon, Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble this week—they might already be up by the time you read this!

Make sure to purchase your copy early. The book will debut at a special discounted price of $2.99 through October 7, then will return to the full price of $4.99.

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Review: Murder is Bad Manners

Murder is Bad Manners (Wells & Wong Mystery Book 1)

By Robin Stevens • ★★★★★

I don't normally read middle-grade or YA fiction (well, okay, Harry Potter), but after hearing Robin Stevens interviewed on a podcast, I was intrigued by her Wells & Wong series.

There's nothing about this book that isn't just as grown-up as an Agatha Christie mystery. Yes, there's no swearing, minimal gore, and only the barest hint of any characters gettin' busy, but the themes and complications are thought-provoking, and the mystery is just as twisty and inspired as anything targeted at grownups. Stevens sets this series at a girls' boarding school in 1930s England, and the narrator, Hazel Wong, has to deal with racism and colonialist attitudes (which can be excellent fodder for discussion with your child, if they're of the right age). But it never feels preachy or heavy. The characters are well-drawn, and I didn't solve the mystery before Wells & Wong did.

This is a fantastic book whether you're a middle-schooler or a grownup. If you're a fan of British Mysteries (whether classics like Christie or newer authors like Faith Martin) or even just a fan of Veronica Mars, you'll be both delighted and thrilled by this book. I've just purchased the second book—the stack of twenty tomes on my bedside table is just going to have to wait.

Buy Murder is Bad Manners on Amazon.

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Review: Two for the Dough

Two for the Dough (Stephanie Plum #2)

By Janet Evanovich • ★★★★

A solid thriller/mystery from Janet Evanovich. Although—this one left me scratching my head when it was over. I was so prepared for this to be a mystery that the ending left me a little flat—because it's not really a mystery at all, but more of an action thriller.

Stephanie Plum is New Jersey's "fugitive apprehension" agent (aka bounty hunter), introduced to the world by Janet Evanovich in the award-winning and bestselling novel One for the Money.

Now Stephanie's back, armed with attitude -- not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her trusty .38, Stephanie is after a new bail jumper, Kenny Mancuso, a boy from Trenton's burg. He's fresh out of the army, suspiciously wealthy, and he's just shot his best friend.

The book is well-written, and for all of Stephanie's quirks, she's an engaging, well-rounded character who's easy to root for (both in her adventure and in love).

This series is just as engaging at Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries (which they're often compared to), although the tone is as different as the coasts the heroines are on. Still, a good read, and I definitely expect to read deep into this series.

Buy Two for the Dough on Amazon.

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Review: Crap My Ghost Says

Crap My Ghost Says

By Mary Stein Myers• ★★★★★

Today is the new release of a fantastic and unique thriller—totally engaging, completely hilarious, and tantalizingly vulgar.

I was the editor of Crap My Ghost Says: The Hard Beginning, and it was a great experience. Myers has a real gift for dialogue. Marsden, Jess, and Phil are wonderfully realized characters. I loved the pacing—you'll be biting your nails for the last ten chapters as Marsden races toward the killer. And Ghost, for all her weird priorities, inappropriate language, and lack of respect for others' boundaries, is—surprise!—sympathetic and a complete character, not just potty-mouthed comic relief.If the reaction of early readers are any indication, this hilariously irreverent, edge-of-your-seat thriller is going to fly off the virtual shelves.

Buy Crap My Ghost Says: The Hard Beginning on Amazon.

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A Night at the Improv

A local improv comedy troupe asked for victims—I mean volunteers—for a local author to join them for a show! They offered a fun night, the opportunity to sell my books, and free beer. (They had me at "free beer.")

The premise? I would get up on stage, I'd read the blurb on the back of The Reluctant Coroner, and then I'd cast all the improv players in the different roles in the book—and with absolutely no other information, the players would act out the entire book.

Called "SecretStory," the night started with a bunch of improv games (think "Whose Line Is It Anyway?") related to murder mystery—all based on audience suggestions. They played a game called CSI, where players have to make bad puns over an imaginary dead body. In Interrogation, one cast member goes outside while the audience suggests 1) a crime-that's-not-really-a-crime, 2) a location, and 3) an accomplice. The cast member comes back in and then, with others taking the role of police detectives, has to guess what crime they're guilty of. It took surprisingly little time for the cast member to guess that they were blowing spit bubbles in the park with Willy Wonka.

And then, after intermission, they acted out The Reluctant Coroner. With very little information—they knew Fenway came back to town, they knew her father was rich, and they knew Sheriff McVie was a possible love interest—they began to perform.

Y'all: IT WAS AWESOME. In their version, Fenway's father had a hot-air balloon that he insisted on traveling in. Dez smoked cigars and set a national park on fire. A drunk carnival ride operator killed several ancillary characters they made up.

I hope other local authors do this—and I hope improv groups from around the country take this idea and run with it. (And offer their authors free beer, too.)

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Fenway Book 4: The Upstaged Coroner

The next Fenway novel, The Upstaged Coroner, is going through the editing process now—and I hope to have it ready in September! This novel is my most personal to date. The murder takes place at a university where a renowned Shakespeare troupe is two days away from opening night.

The Shakespeare troupe is based on one that I was in my junior year of college. Called "The American Shakespeare Company," the student-actors did all aspects of production and performance. Led by the delightfully and maddeningly eccentric Professor Homer Swander, we put on a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream that I still have fond memories of to this day, twenty-five years later.

The troupe also helped sponsor a trip to London and Stratford-upon-Avon, where students got to experience pretty much every Shakespeare play that was playing in the country—and where the actors would discussed the plays with us at length the next day. I saw King Lear, Hamlet, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter's Tale, and a dozen more Shakespeare plays, as well as the premiere of Tom Stoppard's outstanding play Arcadia. To some, seeing twenty-four plays in twenty-one days would be horrific, but to me, a twenty-year-old student who had never been outside the USA, it was heaven.

I'm dedicating the book to my Shakespeare professor, who probably had the biggest influence on me of any teacher or professor I ever had. While several aspects of the troupe and the events in the book are based on real life, the professor is the only character in the book based on a real person (although my fellow student-actors from A Midsummer Night's Dream get name-checked a bunch—the name of a hotel, the ADA, one of the suspect's former employers). And, of course, the troupe never experienced a murder (not one offstage, anyway!).

I had a lot of fun writing this one, and I hope, come September, you'll have just as much fun reading...Read More