P.D. Martin's Blog, page 11
December 4, 2009
The countdown is on
With only a few days to go, it seems the basic premise for the first chapter of Coming Home has been decided. Thanks to everyone who's voted so far!
What sparks Sophie to investigate her brother's murder? Thirty percent of voters went for: After 28 years with no abductions or murders similar to John's a young boy is abducted (or found dead) in very similar circumstances.
The two options coming in equal second are only at 18%, so I can't imagine they'll topple option A. Which means it's time to ...
November 27, 2009
Quaking in my boots
You guys are deciding Sophie's fate. That's right, you get to vote for what's going to happen in each chapter of my next book. Ahhhh!!!
You've probably never thought about the decisions an author makes when writing a book. From the get-go, we're making decisions – some big, some small. In terms of crime fiction, it's things like:
Who is our main character and what are they like?
What's the crime?
Will someone die?
Whodunnit?
These are massive decisions, plus along the way an author is...
November 20, 2009
Review: Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong
In this week's blog I'm going to review a book I finished a couple of days ago, Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong.
Kelley Armstrong is better known for her paranormal books and series (including the Women from the Otherworld Series), but Exit Strategy is about a hitman…well, actually a few hitmen, a couple of hitwomen and a serial killer.
The main character, Nadia Stafford, is an ex-cop turned hitwoman/vigilante. Of course, being a hitwoman isn't a position of natural reader empathy or...
November 13, 2009
What to write next?
It seems impossible to think that book 5, Kiss of Death, is done…let alone that it's the middle of November! How did that happen?
Although I've got lots of projects on the go (updating my website, a new interactive e-book (more on that later) and a book trailer for Kiss of Death) I do find myself thinking more and more about the next book. Soon it'll be time to start researching and writing.
To Sophie, or not to Sophie? That is the question. I've got five ideas kicking around taking up...
November 6, 2009
New blog features, Melbourne Cup, hitman manual
Today I'm launching my new blog features! My web guru has incorporated Wordpress into the site, which gives me some of the more standard blog features such as the blog roll, an RSS feed and a comment field.
So go ahead, write something! Yep, scroll down and type. You can do it! And click on the RSS feed button on the left to sign up for the blog feed.
Onto writing…or maybe not….
I have to confess, not much went on this week in the way of writing or author-type activities. I did, however, back...
October 30, 2009
Big week
It's been a big week…The Killing Hands official release date in the US and Canada, the release of my very first book trailer and I've been continuing work on my website – including the case file section for The Killing Hands and a new section on safety for women and how you can protect your children from predators, online and offline.
The case file for The Killing Hands is almost done (actually, it is finished but I'm having problems formatting the page so it looks pretty bad at the moment!). ...
October 22, 2009
Case file – coming along nicely
This week I've been getting stuck into the case file for The Killing Hands. In fact, I'll be loading it on the web next week.
Here's a sneak peak of what you can expect:
Photos – including pics of the crime-scene location and pics of the FBI building in LA and the Coroner's Office.
Below is the car park where the victim is found in The Killing Hands.
Comment: The car park was quite a bit smaller (like about...
October 15, 2009
Storyboard
I've started work on the page proofs for the Aussie release of book 5, Kiss of Death. However, I decided to spend this blog talking about the storyboard for The Killing Hands book trailer…I mean, you guys don't need to know if there was a typo on page 54 of my page proofs, now do you?!
I've gotta say, it was pretty exciting when I saw an email with two attachments – one PDF file and a QuickTime file titled "storyboard". Of course, my natural reaction was to madly click on the QuickTime file...
October 8, 2009
Page proofs and case files
Well, the page proofs are now sitting on my desk, ready for action! That's right, Kiss of Death, book 5 in the Sophie Anderson series, is almost ready for the printers here in Australia – sorry, quite a bit longer until press time in other countries 
My job now is to do a final proof of the typeset pages and write the acknowledgements – that's it. Can't believe it's almost done. A huge sense of both relief and fear; relief that I'm finished and fear that it'll soon be entirely out of my...
September 30, 2009
Who's got time to write?
Another week? Gone already? Yet again, no writing or editing this week, but I've managed to get some book-related work done.
After some umming and ahhing, I've finally chosen the video producer for my book trailer. He's Aussie-based and has done some recent work for Pan Macmillan Australia, my Aussie publisher. You can see a few of his book trailers at: www.youtube.com/user/PanMacmillanAus
I'll be working on two book trailers with him, the first will be for the North American release of The...
