Sara Jayne Townsend's Blog, page 48

…And Another Publicity Update

The publicity train for DEATH SCENE continues to roll.

The virtual blog party was a big success – thanks to all who stopped by, and congratulations to the prize winners: Gary, Jim, Carole and Stuart. In hindsight I'm glad I took the day off work on Monday – I would not have been able to waste nearly as much time on the Internet had I been at work.

I used my Wednesday slot over at WriteClub this week to plug DEATH SCENE further. I decided not to subject you to it here, but if you haven't yet OD'd on DEATH SCENE promos, click here.

The 'real space' launch party is next Wednesday – the 13th – at The George pub in The Strand. if you can get to London on Wednesday evening, I'd be glad to see you there.

And on Thursday 14th, I'm on Blog Talk Radio again, this time on Edin Road Radio. This is at 6:30pm East Coast Time, which is 11:30pm London time. If this is past your bedtime, you can listen to the recording on the site later on. Here's the Edin Road Radio link.

All of this activity is not leaving much time for writing, but I'm still working on the second Shara book. So if you like her first adventure, don't fear – there will be others….

Monday's Friend: L. K. Below

This week's Monday's Friend comes to you a day late, as yesterday my blog was playing host to the virtual launch party for DEATH SCENE.

Yesterday was also the the release date of NEVER A PRINCESS, ALWAYS A FROG by fellow Lyrical Press author L.K. Below. I am delighted to welcome her to my blog today, to talk about her latest release.

Halloween Fever

By L.K. Below

Yes, I know Halloween is still a far cry away, but the "fever" bit is appropriate, wouldn't you say? I don't know about you, but in Ontario (Canada), it is hot. I'm daydreaming of colder times, let me tell you.

How fortunate that my latest release, NEVER A PRINCESS, ALWAYS A FROG takes place in October. Specifically, Halloween.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of dressing up. At home, I've got an authentic Chinese fan and kimono (the latter which I still can't recall how to tie right). I've dressed up as Scarlet O'Hara and the Paper Bag Princess. But, I have to admit, I've never done what my heroine, Colleen, does and dress up like a frog.

Or, as her friend Hannah puts it, as "the blue chick from the X-Men movies. Except you'll be green." Colleen is definitely more daring in that respect. Or, truth be told, her sense of daring probably matches my own – Hannah's the daring one, and pushy, too. Poor bookish Colleen has little choice but to go along with it – it's for her own good, after all!

Personally, I've always wanted to host or attend a masquerade. To be able to be yourself, completely, but no one else knowing who you are? That holds definite appeal.

Even if Colleen doesn't have a mask in this book, she's in much the same scenario. Hannah sends her to a stranger's party. Colleen's left to her own devices… but fortunately, she meets a prince willing to rescue her from the leering party-goers.

Who else shares my love of dressing up? What's your favorite Halloween costume? Have you ever done something half as daring as Colleen?

Here's the blurb for Never a Princess, Always a Frog:

Has this frog finally found her prince?

From the moment Colleen confesses her deepest desire – to experience the same passion she's read about in books – she is swept away on the most daring escapade she's ever experienced. Dressed in nothing but green paint, she attends a Halloween party searching for the man of her dreams. She finds him, but then fears she won't be able to give him up.

Since the death of his wife five years ago, Dan's life has been on auto-pilot. But from the moment he meets Colleen, he starts to feel alive again. And he knows he can't let this would-be princess stride out of his life…



Buy the book or learn more at http://bit.ly/NeverAPrincess.

Want to win this book? Be sure to visit L.K. Below's blog for her Week-After-Release Party on Monday, July 11th 2011. One lucky commenter will win this book! Visit http://lbelow.blogspot.com and leave a comment on her party post on Monday to enter.

L.K. Below writes romance and speculative fiction. Under her full name, Lindsay Below, she pens young adult novels. Visit her online at www.lbelow.net.

DEATH SCENE Release Day!

Happy release day to me!



DEATH SCENE is released today, and it's virtual champagne all around. And you can drink as much as you want, because it has no calories. It also has no inebriating effects.

Thank you for stopping by my 'virtual launch party'. I said there will be prizes on offer, and indeed there are. There are two give-aways here on the blog today.

a) a free copy of DEATH SCENE the e-book, emailed to the lucky winner in whichever s/he prefers.

b) a limited-edition mouse mat, which features not only the DEATH SCENE cover but SUFFER THE CHILDREN's as well. Who knows – if I ever get to be famous, maybe one day it'll be worth something. This will be posted by snail mail to the lucky winner. I might even be able to sign it for you first.

In order to be in with a chance at winning one of these two prizes, all you need to do is answer this question:

In what Canadian city does my amateur sleuth Shara Summers reside at the beginning of DEATH SCENE?

Don't put your answer in a comment on the blog – that will give everyone that comes after you an unfair advantage! Instead, email your answer to me at the followign email address, replacing the words in brackets with the indicated punctuation mark:

sara(dot)jayne(dot)townsend(at)googlemail(dot)com.

Make sure your own email address is included.

All correct answers received by midnight (British Summer Time) tonight will go into the draw, and the winners will be notified tomorrow.

If you want to be in with an extra chance of winning, go on over to the Facebook group and enter the contest over there, too. There's nothing to stop anyone entering both!

I will be hanging out on the blog all day, so if you want to post a comment to let me know you've entered the contest, feel free!

DEATH SCENE is now available to buy in all e-bok formats from Lyrical Press.  If you have a Kindle you can buy it in North America from Amazon US and in the UK from Amazon UK.

I am very excited. Now I'm going to go for some of that virtual champagne. Cheers!

Latest Report From the Publicity Tart

Two new promotional activities to report this week.

Firstly, I am the guest on Rebecca Rose's "Talkin' Tuesday" Blog Spot, talking about The T Party, juggling the day job with the writing and why people find me a bit scary. See the link here for the full interview.

Second, I am being interviewed by Page Readers blog radio later on today, where I will be talking about my forthcoming release DEATH SCENE. This is at 8pm London time. Clicking on the link will tell you what time it's on in your time zone. If you can't listen live, it will be recorded, so you could always pick it up later in the week!

I am currently suffering a rotten cold, so a radio interview should be interesting, at the very least. Still, perhaps I can get away with a croaky voice that sounds sexy as opposed to just sick…

Introducing Shara Summers

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

With less than a week to go before my amateur sleuth Shara Summers is unleashed on the world, I thought it was a good time to talk about how she came into existence.

I've always been fond of strong female characters, and been a fan of kick-ass female sleuths since first introduced to Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski. When I decided I wanted to create a crime series, I looked to my fictional heroines for inspiration – as well as VI, these include Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, Linda Fairstein's Alex Cooper, and Kathy Reichs's Tempe Brennan. But they are all American, and I wanted – being British – to base my sleuth in the UK.

British private eye stories are an entirely different kettle of fish to US ones, due to the differences in the law (not least of which is the UK's much more stringent gun control laws). And I am not a big fan of research. Writing about a private investigator or a detective inspector involved far too much homework, to my mind.

I decided instead to create an amateur sleuth. Then you can perhaps get away with a bit of creative licence, as people are prepared to suspend belief when it comes to the fact an amateur sleuth trips over dead bodies far more often than a normal person could reasonably expect to. And I wouldn't have to do quite so much homework into the workings of a police department, which I've only really picked up from cop shows on TV.

Then there was another snag. Most amateur sleuth series are set in the past. History is not my strong point. There's no era I know enough about, or wanted to learn enough about to set a series there. So that's why I decided to set my series in contemporary South London, specifically my own stomping ground.

That did prove to be a bit of a sticking point when I started shopping DEATH SCENE around to agents, as it got rejected by more than one on the basis that they didn't feel they could sell a contemporary amateur sleuth novel to a publisher – fans of the genre apparently prefer historicals, or so I was told.

In deciding what day job to give to my amateur sleuth, I decided to make her an actress. The theatre is an area I'm interested in, and I spent many years involved in amateur dramatics, both onstage and behind it. I thought that a sleuth who could act would open up some interesting possibilities – she could disguise herself and play a role when she's poking around where she shouldn't be, in order to get information. And like being a writer, actresses can get away with being incurably nosy – an actress can claim to be doing research for a role, if she's listening in to conversations she shouldn't be.

Finally, I drew on my own history to give my sleuth a Canadian background. I spent eight years of my life in Canada, and I still have an affinity for the place, having family and friends there I visit frequently. So I gave my amateur sleuth one parent in Canada and one parent in the UK (which is my own situation). Although she eventually relocates to the UK, I felt making her a Canadian in London might make her a more interesting viewpoint character, as she adapts to British life and British way of thinking.

And so this is how Shara Summers came into existence. Known as Shari to her friends, she'll step out into the world on Monday, in my forthcoming novel DEATH SCENE.

I can't speak for Shari, but I'm certainly feeling a bit nervous about her debut. I have a lot of ideas for future books about her. I really hope I get the chance to write them!

Monday's Friend: Aheila

Today I welcome Canadian writer Aheila to my blog to explain the concept of "Drabble Days".

A Mouse to Help my Lion

By Aheila

Last year, I started labelling a day of the week « Drabble Day » on my blog. Since then, every Monday, a few writers challenge themselves to write a story of exactly a hundred words based on a prompt.

Though the very short stories might not be as glamorous as a majestic novel, they can definitely help a novel shine.

Writing Exercise

Drabbles (or shorter works like hint fiction) are priceless because they're too short to tell a story.

Yep.

They have to show it.

The limited number of words forces us to choose each one carefully, to make sure our sentences are crafted as meaningfully as possible. We can get away with writing a descriptive or a philosophical drabble – telling stuff – but crafting a complete fiction piece (beginning, conflict and climax) requires that we develop our "showing" skills.

Pacing and tension building are of the essence as well and the shortness of the story helps us realize if/when we lack in these areas.

Editing Exercise

While we grow used to the format and better at writing exactly a hundred words without much cutting or adding, the first few drabbles typically need a lot of editing. Some of the participants on my blog had to cut theirs in half.

Drabbles are manageable bites, easy to wrap our head around, so editing is relatively painless. We pinpoint the essential bits more easily and notice the missing information at a glance. Both of these skills soon become reflexes when we fall in "edit mode".

Reflexes that translate nicely to the editing of a longer manuscript.

Anti-Writer Block

I often say that Drabble Day is my palate cleanser, my vacation from my other stories. It takes an hour out of my writing schedule tops but energizes me for the week.

Why?

Drabbles have two rules: stick to a hundred words and use the prompt. That's it.

We have room to experiment. Try point of views or tenses we don't usually use. Dive into a genre we've never written. Write a whole story only with dialogs. The list goes on and on.

We're having fun with it and temporarily letting our current masterpiece rest without sacrificing too much time in our crazy schedule.



Drabbles have been a nice addition to my weekly writing routine for about 40 weeks. On top of everything I've mentioned, they are also a great networking opportunity. I want to read more stories from my fellow writers and leave them a comment but I'm always fighting to find the time. Luckily, reading drabbles is easy to wedge into a schedule!

If you want to join the challenge, hone your writing and editing skills, take a break from your current project and interact with a lovely bunch, you're welcome to join this week's Drabble Day!

Somewhere in Quebec City, Aheïla works as a game designer by day and writes by night. Known for her blue hair, undying energy and tasty cooking (quails, anyone?), she's convinced "prose is the new crack", a belief she embodies daily on The Writeaholic's Blog.

Cultural Differences

This recent BBC article studies the cultural differences between the Germans and the British. Germans don't indulge in small talk, apparently. The British are very good at small talk – or in other words, the art of talking rubbish for ages without saying anything worthwhile. Consequently the British think Germans are rude, and the Germans think the British tell too many lies.

It's these cultural differences that make travel so fascinating. Having been to Berlin, I agree with the concept that Germans can appear abrupt. They don't intend to be rude. They just can't see the point of talking without saying anything. I've also noticed no one in Berlin crosses the road on a red light, even if the road is empty of traffic. They always follow the rules, and the rules dictate that one doesn't cross the road until the green man appears.

Contrast this to crossing the road in Vietnam, which I posted about recently. There are no pedestrian crossings in Hanoi, and the traffic doesn't stop. Ever. To cross the road you step into the traffic and hope for the best.

In Greece, no one queues. The Greeks value personal choice and freedom, which tends to mean what the individual wants to do might over-rule what the crowd wants to do. So when the bus arrives, it's a bit of a free for all as everyone's trying to get on first.

The British, on the other hand, are pretty good at queueing and even in London, where the crowds get so bad it's a matter of survival, when you look at any bus stop in rush hour you will see everyone standing in an orderly line. I've never been to Japan, but I understand that the Japanese are even better at queueing than we Brits are.

The differences between the American and the British mindset are so vast I might save that for blog post all by itself. But one point that struck me on our recent trip to New York is the service culture. Americans have a very high expectation of customer service. We discovered a British style pub in Greenwich Village. It was a nice place, and the decor and the beer were spot on with regard to their 'British-ness'. One crucial difference, though. We sat down and a waitress came and gave us menus, then took our order and brought it out to us, even when we only wanted drinks.

In a real British pub, you don't get and can't expect table service. Even in a pub which serves food, you find your table and go to the bar and place your order. If it's a nice place that's trying to attract families and is serving decent food, someone will bring it to you when it's ready. Occasionally you might even have to go get it yourself.

This concept of going up to the bar must fox many a first-time American visitor to London, unless they've been briefed beforehand. I have heard tales of Americans visiting London who sat in the pub for half an hour waiting to be served, before giving up and leaving, without realising that table service wasn't going to happen.

Cultural mindsets are the little things that are so inbred in a society's way of thinking they might never consider the fact this might seem odd to an outsider. Sometimes doing a little research into a place before visiting can give you insight into some of these cultural differences – and understanding them can make your visit a bit more enjoyable.

Busting The Myth of the Word Crunching Machine

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

Novel #2, DEATH SCENE, is being released 15 months after SUFFER THE CHILDREN, my first novel.

A lot of people, upon hearing this news, have indicated how impressed they are that I have been able to finish a second novel so quickly. What they don't know is that both novels had been finished for a long time, and had been riding the rejection circuit, before they got picked up by Lyrical Press.

And there is the myth. To the average uninformed person, a writer is a word crunching machine, churning off one novel after another. The reality is that most writers have several finished novels under their belts by the time they find a publisher willing to take one on. And once one novel has been released, the publisher's probably willing to take a look at what else you've got, which is when you haul out those other finished novels.

However, I only had two finished novels that I felt were anywhere near publishable standard. The first was SUFFER THE CHILDREN and the second was DEATH SCENE. The imminent release of DEATH SCENE is making me a tad anxious, as I can no longer roll out anything I did earlier for Book #3.

I have to write something new. And that's a scary thought. Although I have several WIPs on the go, they are all a very long way from completion.

I can't help but feel that once I have two published novels out there, the game will have changed. There is no room for procrastination in the life of the professional author. I guess I need to get my backside onto that chair and get on with writing.

Knowing When To Quit

(Cross-posted on the WriteClub blog)

This post is not about quitting writing. No, even in my darkest moment I don't seriously consider that. It's about knowing when to give up an idea that's just not working.

I have been struggling with the urban fantasy WIP for months – nay, it's years now. Having started from the beginning four times, and never getting more than 10,00 words in, I knew in my heart there was a serious problem. So I sent it out to a few beta readers to get some other opinions. And all the beta readers, independently and unanimously, have told me that the plot, for a variety of reasons, just isn't working.

There are some parts that can be salvaged. Some good ideas have come out of my world-building, including a sub-plot involving Loki the Nordic trickster god that seems to have some mileage. But the main plot has to be scrapped, as everyone who's read the WIP thinks it's either too weak, too flawed or just plain not working. And I think I need to get a better handle on my main character, too.

In some ways this is a bit depressing, but to be honest it's nothing I didn't already know, deep down. The problem is I now have a couple of characters and a sub-plot, but not enough to fill a full-length novel and no idea what the main plot's going to be. So I have decided to abandon this WIP for the time being. Maybe if I let the idea stew in my head for a while, it'll cook up something tasty in time.

Sometimes you get too close to a manuscript to be able to see its flaws. That's when its useful to get other opinions. And painful as it might be, there are times you have to let go of the idea you've been dogging so hard you can no longer see that it's falling apart. And I think that's where I am at the moment.

So I'm letting go of my supernatural private eye for now. Some time ago she stopped talking to me, and I failed to listen. I'm rather hoping that some day soon she'll appear again, saying, "this is my story, and this is how to tell it". At that point I'll go back to the computer and write it down.

In the meantime, I'm going to carry on chronicling my amateur sleuth's adventures. She's been talking to me quite a lot of late. It's time to listen.

An Unusual Diversion

Yesterday's meeting of the T Party Writers' Group was interrupted partway through when a procession of naked cyclists went by.

This was apparently part of the the World Naked Bike Ride, an organised event to protest about oil dependency and car culture. Whatever the politics, it made for quite an entertaining diversion, and we had to put the meeting on hold for ten minutes or so while we all watched out the window at hundreds of naked cyclists pedalling down The Strand.

Most of the cyclists were wearing nothing but shoes and back packs – which must have chafed a bit, I thought. Some of them were riding 'Boris Bikes' – the new transport scheme initiated by London mayor Boris Johnson, where bicycles have been placed around London for public use by anyone who wants to sign up for the scheme. I rather hope that the naked cyclists were going to wash off the seats before they put these bikes back for someone else to use…

Several bemused tourists looked on as the naked cyclists went by, and I think that those in the open-topped London tourist bus felt they got their money's worth.

Most entertaining, though, were the two chaps who put down their bicycles and paused by the Royal Courts of Justice, which is right opposite the pub where the T Party meet. They were there several minutes posing and taking pictures of each other. As neither of them were wearing a stitch of clothing, we all got an eyeful.

Eventually I gave up trying to call the meeting back to order until all the cyclists had passed by. There are some things you just can't compete with.