Jane Tesh's Blog, page 3

Giveaways and Other Things

Kings River Life is offering a copy of Just You Wait. You can follow this link:

http://kingsriverlife.com/02/28/just-you-wait-a-grace-street-mystery-by-jane-tesh/

And here’s a short report on Book’Em North Carolina, the event I took part in this past weekend. First of all, thanks to everyone involved with this event. It was extremely well organized, and the people of Lumberton and Robeson Community College couldn’t have been nicer. Although the turn out was smaller than anticipated, it was great to talk to readers and writers!

I’m heading to Australia and New Zealand this month, so my other events will be later in the summer. Stay tuned!

New Events

Thanks to everyone who joined my online release party for Just You Wait! Over 2000 people stopped by — ah, the power of the Internet!

And thanks to those of you who braved the cold to come to Pages Books in Mt. Airy, NC, for my first signing of the new book. I’ll be at the Mt. Airy Public Library Wednesday, February 25 at 1 PM for a reading and Q&A session with the library book club.

For another more traditional event, if you’re in the area, join me Saturday, February 28, for Book “Em North Carolina at Robeson Community College, 5160 Fayetteville Road, in Lumberton, NC. This will be my first time at this huge event, which will be from 9:30 until 4:30, and will feature over 75 authors, panels, discussions, things for kids to do, and it is all free. Proceeds from book sales go to help literacy organizations and the local police department.

Jane at Pages Books & Coffee, Valentine’s Day, 2015

Update on Online Release Party

Tomorrow at 3 PM, please join me at Bitten By Books for an online release party/chat session/and Q&A!

Here’s a link where you can RSVP.

http://bittenbybooks.com/author-jane-tesh-release-party-and-50-00-amazon-gift-card-contest-210-rsvp-here/

I’ve also posted this on Facebook and Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, please reTweet the link!

The link to the actual event will be available tomorrow.

Instead of a $25 Amazon gift card, you can win a $50 Amazon gift card.

If you RSVP, you get 25 additional chances on this gift card!

The Wait is Over!

Today is the official release date for Just You Wait, my eighth published mystery novel and the fourth in the Grace Street Series, all from Poisoned Pen Press, http://www.poisonedpenpress.com.

Besides the usual book signings and author events, I’ll be taking part in my first online chat February 10 at 3 PM Eastern on http://www.bittenbybooks.com. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I’m excited to try!

A $25 gift card from Amazon will be awarded and a copy of the book. Please stop by on February 10 and find out if I can indeed find my way through the vast inter-web to answer your questions!

Winkie

Winkie, the one-eyed Chihuahua, came into my life in 2005. I had retired and had time for a little dog, and Winkie was indeed little. She fit into my hand and would later grow to be three pounds and about the size of my sneaker. She had beautiful markings, brown with white around her neck and throat, white feet, tan legs and markings on her face. The woman who gave her to me had named her Mindy, but from the beginning, I knew this little dog was not a sweet timid Mindy. She needed a name with pizzazz. Since she had only one eye, my mother suggested Winkie because she looked like she was winking at me. ���Winkie��� also had literary roots, from Wizard of Oz to Harry Potter. As an English major, I appreciated this.

Winkie became the most expensive free dog ever. I used to tell people I spent thousands of dollars so a little animal could sit on my lap. The vet said if there was a market for Chihuahua ear wax, I���d be a millionaire. She developed a skin condition that required special (read: expensive) shampoos, oils, and shots. Her back legs had to be operated on because her knee caps were so small, the ligaments kept slipping off. The fancy name for this is patella luxation. Her one good eye developed something called an ossified iris and later, a cataract. She occasionally had separation anxiety. She developed a heart murmur and needed three medications, plus a liquid I got to squirt in her mouth twice a day. All this was in addition to teeth cleanings, nail trims, and normal Chihuahua maintenance, which she hated and would resist with three pounds of fury. The nurses at the vet���s have the scars to prove it.

I thought it would be fun to dress Winkie in cute clothes. Winkie thought otherwise. Whenever I put something on her, she became Houdini Hound and could get out of the outfit in record speed, usually prancing around as if to say, I���m naked and I like it that way. She managed to stay in her Dracula costume long enough to win ���Smallest Dog��� in a Halloween contest. The prize was a bone bigger than she was.

She was too tiny to sleep on my bed, so she had her own crate in the spare bedroom. She was too tiny to walk, so I found an old stroller at a yard sale and often took her around the neighborhood. She was paper trained and never had an accident unless she was angry at me for some reason, once for bringing in another dog. I thought, oh, she���ll have a playmate, someone to keep her company when I���m not here. Wrong. She hated the other dog, and I had to take it back. Winkie had no idea how small she was. Once she tried to chase a truck. An eighteen-wheeler.

If I wanted her to take a pill or to reward her in some way, all I needed was a piece of cheese. She loved cheese and would spin around in happiness. She also loved green peas, broccoli, apple, peanuts, and anything else I was eating. I���d look up, and her tongue would be sticking out as if she were starving. Please give me some pizza.

Winkie���s favorite place was on the sofa where she would burrow under her blanket. If I had to leave, she would roll over as if to say, Look how adorable I am. Let me stay on the sofa. At night, she knew when I turned off the TV and the light that it was bedtime, and she���d get ready for her evening cheese and trot into her room, and hop in her crate. If I was too slow with the cheese, she���d come get me, her expression indignant, as if to say, I���m waiting.

Well, you know where this story���s going, don���t you?

Gradually, Winkie���s heart condition worsened until she couldn���t breathe without staying in an oxygen box at the vet���s. I���d bring her home a few days, but I couldn���t bear to watch her little sides heaving as she struggled to get enough air. This went on for a few weeks until I had to make the decision that all pet owners dread.

Winkie was nine years old.

I���d had lots of dogs growing up. We raised collies, and my father and grandfather had beagles to hunt rabbits. There was always at least one little dog in the house. But Winkie was all mine. Even though she was only three pounds, she was a huge part of my life. I���m glad I took hundreds of pictures and made little videos. You do that with your first child.

Sometimes I wonder how our pets can love us so much. Sure, we feed them and take care of them, but you can���t deny when they look up at you with such adoration, there has to be something else there. I know Winkie loved me. And the last thing she felt was me patting her. The last thing she heard was, ���Good girl.���

Just You Wait

It’s always a happy occasion when a book is accepted for publication, but this one is especially exciting. Several years ago, the first Grace Street Mystery, Stolen Hearts, was published by Poisoned Pen Press, followed by Mixed Signals and Now You See It. The fourth book was called Cover Up, and I wasn’t sure it would see the light of day. It was finished and ready to go, but there are many factors involved in the publishing world, many of which are beyond a writer’s control. Reviews, sales, mergers, recessions. But then, I received the email that all authors love to receive. My editor wrote, “So Cover Up is the next one you want published, right?”

You bet!

There are 13 books in the Grace Street Series. All of them have been written and are in various stages of readiness. I really hope they can all be published, but you never know. However, for now, I am celebrating the publication of Cover Up, now titled Just You Wait, which is a much better title, thanks to my editor. February 3, 2015 is the publication date. Then it’s on to the next one!

The Long Way Around

Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m a thirty-eight year overnight success. Yes, you read that right. It took me thirty-eight years to get published, and, as you can imagine, round about year twenty, I was getting a little anxious about my chances.

It’s difficult as a child to explain to people what you want to be when you grow up when you’re already what you want to be. I started sending out manuscripts when I was eighteen, having finally realized that this writing thing that was so much a part of me might become a career. This was back in the days before the internet and involved typing on a typewriter, making copies with carbon paper, and hunting for the right size boxes to mail the completed manuscripts off to New York. After many years of this, I finally got an agent! Woo-hoo! Fame and fortune awaits!

But no.

The book was Stolen Hearts, the first of twelve Grace Street Mysteries. My hero, David Randall, is a struggling PI trying to deal with the death of his little daughter. In this first book, Randall had come to live in his friend Camden’s boarding house at 302 Grace Street in the fictional city of Parkland, NC, where he met an array of colorful Southern characters and Kary Ingram, who was to become to love of his life. My agent was sure she could sell the book if I changed one tiny little thing. She wanted Randall to be a woman.

Now, my agent meant well. Female detectives had just become very popular. However, if I changed David to Dana, the whole universe I had created for the characters would have to be radically altered. The dynamic between Randall and his best friend and the woman he was trying to win would be, to put it mildly, slightly askew.

I couldn’t do it. I lay awake many nights, talking sternly to myself. Twenty years. I finally had an agent. She was telling me what to do to sell my book and fulfill my lifelong dream, and I couldn’t do it. So I looked through some other manuscripts, and thankfully, a male protagonist stepped up and agreed to have a sex change for the good of the cause.

Mac Tobrin became Madeline “Mac” Maclin, and his best pal Jerry Fairweather became Madeline’s love interest. Mac had been a con man, so that honor went to Jerry, and Madeline became an ex-beauty queen turned detective because I think beauty pageants are the goofiest thing ever invented. This book was A Case of Imagination. I sent it to my agent with very high hopes, and you can probably guess what happened. She didn’t like it. So I no longer have an agent, but after many more years, I did find a publisher. Two months after I retired from my elementary school media specialist job, Poisoned Pen Press took the book, as well as the others in the series, A Hard Bargain, A Little Learning, and A Bad Reputation.

They also took Stolen Hearts with everyone’s gender intact and its sequels, Mixed Signals, Now You See It, and the soon to be published Just You Wait.

I really wasn’t ready at eighteen, and neither was my work. I certainly didn’t plan on achieving my goal so late in life, but that has made the achievement even more special. It was the long way around, but it was the right way for me, and now I see it!

The Next Big Thing

Being an author in today’s tech-heavy world is a challenge to those of us who grew up in the Fifties before personal computers, cell phones, and the Internet. I’ve managed to figure out Facebook and Twitter and how to post to this blog. I’ve learned how to manage my own website, Amazon Author Central Page, and Goodreads. And then I decided to have a book trailer because it is The Next Big Thing.

Like movie trailers, book trailers hit the high points of the story and leave the viewer wanting more. My latest Grace Street mystery, Now You See It, was coming out in the fall, and the series needed a boost, so it was time to give the trailer a try. I went with Book Candy Studios because I’d seen their work and thought it looked great. So in early June last year, I contacted them and had a very nice informative phone call with the owner. I also got in on a sale, which is always good. I emailed copies of my book cover, synopsis of the story, and addresses I wanted on the trailer. Then I sat back and waited to see how the studio would interpret what is basically 30 years of my life.

Well, I was amazed. Now You See It, featuring PI David Randall, is about a missing box that may have belonged to Houdini and a magician found dead in a trunk at the Magic Club. The video captured the look and feel of the book, opening with a beautiful shot of doves being released from a magician’s hands. There was only one image that needed to be changed. My detective doesn’t carry a gun or sneak around with a flashlight a la Nancy Drew. After changing that image to something that looked more like Randall, the video was ready and off it went out into cyberworld.

Lately, I’ve been creating my own book trailers using animoto.com. While not as slick as the professional video, these trailers are a lot of fun to make and add color and interest to my website and to this blog. I even have my own YouTube Channel. Who would’ve thought all those years ago when there were only three TV channels that someday people could have their own!

It’s exciting to see how technology has progressed over the years and hard to imagine what’s next. But as writers, we have to be up to the challenge and find ways to engage our readers, no matter where they are: on the sofa, on the phone, or on line.

Stolen Hearts

Here is the video for Stolen Hearts, the first Grace Street Mystery.

Let’s Dance!

            You’ve heard this story before: shy, overweight, non-assertive Southern girl grows up, bringing all that baggage along.  Well, maybe not all of it.  I did lose weight, and I did learn that if someone cut in front of me in line, it was acceptable to say, “Excuse me, I was here first, wait your turn or I will hurt you.”  But still, when I was in my late twenties, I wasn’t quite assertive enough to approach a man, not confident enough to make that first move.

            Here’s how that changed.

            Being a pianist and a fan of ragtime music, I was excited to find the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, where Joplin wrote his famous “Maple Leaf Rag.”  It’s a five day celebration of ragtime, and people and entertainers come from all over the world.  And of course, there was dancing.  I took the free lessons and learned the one-step, the two-step, and the novelty dances of the era like the Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear.  But partners were in short supply.  Usually the dance instructor took turns dancing with the single women.  The rest of the time, I sat, my feet tapping to the infectious rhythm, wondering why I bothered to learn dances when I didn’t have anyone to dance with

            The highlight of the festival was the Ragtime Ball, a gala affair with a fine orchestra and everyone decked out in vintage suits and gowns.  Just like a turn of the 19th century Cinderella, I wanted to dance at the ball, and not just a few dances with the instructor.  I wanted to dance every dance.  I had my gown.  I had my dancing shoes.  I was going to have to push through my self-effacing upbringing and snag a partner.

            At the dance lessons the afternoon before the ball, I saw a man about my age sitting by himself, watching with interest.  As I kicked aside that small but heavy carry-on bag of Southern manners, I tried not to listen to the voice that said: People are looking at you.  Women don’t ask men to dance.  I took a deep breath, reminded myself that no one knew me in Sedalia, Missouri, walked up to the man, and said, “Would you like to dance?”

            He smiled and answered in a pleasant Latin accent, “I only know how to tango.”

            Tango!  I took a moment to recalibrate.  Maybe this was too much.  But I was in it now and had to keep going.

            “Well,” I said, continuing my out of body experience, “if you can tango, you won’t have any trouble with the one-step.”

            He shyly agreed to try.  When he realized how easy the dances were—even the tricky Grizzly Bear—he became very enthusiastic about learning them and agreed to meet me at the ball that night.  We danced all night and the rest of the week whenever music was playing, all through the nights and into the early mornings.  When the festival was over, he went home to Argentina.  I went home to North Carolina.  For the next five years, we met in Sedalia, Missouri, and danced and danced and danced.

            I found out he was just like me, worried about looking foolish, paralyzed by the thought of rejection, but willing to take a chance and try something new.  And I learned that if I could ask a man to dance, then it was entirely possible I could do whatever scary thing came along, even if people were watching, even if it was something “women don’t do.”

            I’ve been coming to the Ragtime festival by myself for over thirty years now.  Every year, I ask a man if he’d like to dance.  So far, every one has said yes.

            Yes.

            Let’s dance!