Beth Groundwater's Blog, page 21

Tomorrow's Guest: Judy Alter

Tomorrow, fellow mystery author Judy Alter will be a guest on my blog. Also, Judy will run a contest for a free autographed copy of the first release in her Blue Plate Café mystery series, Murder at the Blue Plate Café, choosing the winner from among those who leave a comment!

Born in Chicago, Judy Alter moved to Texas in 1964 and promptly became a Texan, eventually writing countless books about women in the American West. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Texas Christian University and was for many years director of the TCU Press. A dedicated cook in her spare time and a dog lover, she is the single mother of four grown children and grandmother of seven. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her Bordoodle puppy, Sophie. Her priorities? Family, writing, reading, and cooking. Oh, and that mischievous dog.

In her guest post tomorrow, Judy talks about her path to publication, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, feel free to make a comment or ask her a question in the comments.

This sounds like fun!

 The following casting call has appeared on-line. Do you think you've got the stuff to apply? It sounds like a fun time for anyone who is a mystery fan! What do you think?

NOW CASTING FOR NEW ABC MYSTERY REALITY COMPETITION

Are you a budding Sherlock Holmes looking to put your amateur crime solving skills to the test? Do you always figure out the ending before everybody else? Have you always seen yourself as the main character in mystery novels?

From the creator of *CSI*, Anthony Zuiker, and 51 Minds comes a brand new mystery reality competition for ABC. We are currently scouring the nation for armchair detectives, perceptive problem solvers or anyone who believes they have the mental acuity to go up against other like-minded sleuths for $250,000. This show is for everybody from ex-detectives who’ve solved
crimes all their lives, to a mother of three who has to figure out when her children are lying or where they hid her keys.

If you or anyone you know fits the mold of an ASPIRING GUMSHOE then APPLY today. You MUST be at least 21 years old and a legal US resident to be eligible.

For more information and complete eligibility requirements visit ABC.com/Casting or email us:

In Raleigh/North Carolina please submit to castingcatrina@gmail.com
Other areas please submit to: mindycasting@gmail.com

Include name, age, phone number, brief description of yourself, why you think you would be a great crime solver and two (2) recent photos. Make the subject line your current city and state. All submissions become property of producer. Good luck.

This casting notice was posted on auditionsfree.com

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Triss Stein

As promised yesterday, fellow mystery author Triss Stein is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. Also, Triss is running a contest for a free autographed copy of Brooklyn Bones and will choose the winner from among those who leave a comment!

The photo above is the cover for Triss's February 5th release, Brooklyn Bones, the first book in the new Erica Donato series about Brooklyn neighborhoods, Brooklyn history, family life, teenagers and crime. In other words, real life plus mystery. Triss thinks of it as “urban cozy” or “soft boiled.” In Brooklyn Bones, a crime of the past comes much too close to home when Erica Donato's teen-age daughter Chris finds a skeleton behind a wall in their crumbling Park Slope home. Erica - young widow, over-age history Ph.D candidate, mother of a teen, product of blue-collar Brooklyn - is drawn into the mystery when she learns this was an unknown teen-age girl, hidden there within living memory. She and her daughter are both touched and disturbed by the mysterious tragedy in their own home.

Sounds fascinating! Below are triss's answers to my interview questions. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question of your own for her, ask it!


1. Who or what inspired you to start writing and when did you start?

Beth, these are great questions. I came up with some answers that surprised even me!
Thank you for inviting me and giving me that chance to visit with your readers.

Now, back to the question. Probably Jo March, everyone's favorite Little Woman, and I’m not the only woman writer who would say that. I started writing my first book in fourth grade. It was about a little girl in New Amsterdam. I have no explanation whatever for this, but how interesting and weird that it was about history and New York – just like Brooklyn Bones. 

2. What tools and process do you use to “get to know” your characters before and while you’re writing the books?

It might be an exaggeration to call it a “process.” Mostly I wait to see who shows up, though I also scrawl a lot of random ideas in a notebook or on scrap paper to prime the pump. Hearing the narrator’s voice is the crucial beginning. For me, it always begins with someone telling a story. The next crucial part is the characters start talking to each other when I put them in a scene I need.  Eventually I get organized and make a list or even a spreadsheet to keep track of the details.

3. How do you construct your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?

“Construct” would another exaggeration. I am definitely a seat of the pants writer; I find out what I think by writing it. I honestly don’t recommend this method–it is very inefficient and I do a lot of rewriting–but though I always swear the next one will be outlined, I usually lose interest as soon as I try. I begin with a situation, some characters, and usually I know where they will end up.  Everything else is a journey without a map. 

4. In the age-old question of character versus plot, which one do you think is most important in a murder mystery and which one do you emphasize in your writing? Why?

I am a lot more interested in character than plot in my own reading, and it is the characters that keep me reading series. Naturally that is what interests me in my own writing, too. The pitfall–of course!–is that mysteries also need a plot. Those fun and interesting characters need to do things, and have things happen to them. Mystery plots are particularly challenging because there are always two. One is what seems to be happening in the present and the other is the underlying, real story. 

5. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer and what inspires you and keeps you motivated?

The challenge is a long story. Here is the short version: my first publisher dropped its mystery line right around the time I turned in the third book, which was the beginning of a year of many stresses in my life. I lost the energy, focus and even the desire to write. Had I retired, which was fine? Or given up, which probably was not? A wise person told me, “Don’t try figure it out. Write something.” I did, and discovered that I missed it. I dug out a book I had started years earlier, junked the terrible second version and rewrote the original one. More than a few times. Here it is now, Brooklyn Bones. 

6. What is a typical workday for you and how many hours a day (or week) do you devote to writing?

Ideally, I head for the computer right after breakfast, and write until lunchtime. I struggle, though, with a contrary impulse to just get all those little chores out of the way first, thus clearing my mind for writing. The cyber age has proved many, many more of them, too. (This is otherwise known as procrastination.) By then it is time to break for lunch, and I have wasted my most creative time of the day.

7. What advice do you have to offer to an aspiring author?

Understand that knowing how to write a sentence does not make you a writer, any more than playing Chopsticks gets you to Carnegie Hall. As the old joke goes, it takes practice! Treat it like a job, keep learning, and glue yourself to the desk chair. 

8. Now here’s a zinger. Tell us something about yourself that you have not revealed in another interview yet. Something as simple as your favorite TV show or food will do.

Since morning is my best creative time, I often write in pajamas. I go straight to the computer after breakfast.  Sometimes I wonder what the UPS driver thinks of seeing me in a bathrobe at every delivery. 

9. What are you working on now and what are your future writing plans?

I have another Erica mystery in the second draft stage. (As I am a seat of the pants writer this is not as far along as I would like. There will be about two more drafts, I think.) It involves historic and beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery, the theft of a Tiffany window from a mausoleum (this really happened, thought not there – too weird not to write about), and a charming (I hope!) turn of the last century mystery.

10. Is there anything else you would like to tell my blog readers?

Please visit my website. It has writing thoughts and news, a Fun Brooklyn Facts page, and contact information. I am on Facebook as Triss Stein for writing activities. I also belong to two group blogs, Poisoned Pen Authors on the 4th of the month and Women of Mystery, twice a month on varied dates. Come visit!

I am an experienced book panelist and currently co-chair the MWA/NY library program committee. I love to talk books and mysteries at book clubs, library programs or any time at all.


Thanks, Triss! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Good luck in the contest! 

Tomorrow's Guest: Triss Stein

Tomorrow, fellow mystery author Triss Stein will be a guest on my blog. Also, Triss will run a contest for a free autographed copy of the first release in her Erica Donato mystery series, Brooklyn Bones, choosing the winner from among those who leave a comment!


Triss Stein is a small–town girl from New York state’s dairy country who has spent most of her adult life living and working in New York City. This gives her the useful double vision of a stranger and a resident for writing mysteries about Brooklyn, her ever-fascinating, ever-changing, ever-challenging adopted home.


In her guest post tomorrow, Triss answers my interview questions, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, feel free to ask her some questions of your own in the comments.

Engineering a Mystery

Today I am blogging on Inkspot, the blog for Midnight Ink authors, about Engineering a Mystery. I outline the essential ingredients for the recipe of a mystery novel. I hope you'll head over there, read my article, and leave a comment letting me know what you think of it!

An Award Nomination for WICKED EDDIES!

I am absolutely thrilled that mystery fans who will be attending the Left Coast Crime 2013 conference next month (one of the three largest annual mystery fan conferences in North America) have selected my Wicked Eddies mystery novel as a finalist for THE ROCKY award, for the best mystery novel set in the Left Coast Crime geographic area (essentially the Mountain Time Zone and west to Hawaii)! You can read the list of award nominations HERE. I've got some heady competition with two of my favorite authors, Margaret Coel and Craig Johnson, in the running, along with a fellow Midnight Ink author, Darryl James. I'm honored to be in their company.

If YOU are attending the Left Coast Crime conference, I hope you'll read Wicked Eddies, if you haven't already, and consider voting for it to win the award. Another of my books has finaled for a mystery fan-selected award, A Real Basket Case, for the Best First Novel Agatha Award, but I have yet to make it from finalist to winner status. I'd love to be on that podium!

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Ellen Byerrum

As promised yesterday, fellow Colorado mystery author Ellen Byerrum is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. Also, Ellen is running a contest for a free autographed copy of Veiled Revenge and will choose the winner from among those who leave a comment!

The photo above is the cover for Ellen's February 5th release, Veiled Revenge, the ninth book in her Crime of Fashion mystery series. A haunted Russian shawl is featured in the book: a dark family legend come to life—and stalking the living? Washington fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian has always believed clothes can indeed be magical, but she’s never thought they could carry a curse. Until now. Lacey’s stylist and friend, Stella, is finally getting married (with a lot of luck, and a little help from her friends). Lacey's fellow bridesmaid (and psychic fortune-teller) Marie Largesse arrives at Stella's bridesmaids' bachelorette bash wearing a stunning Russian shawl. A shawl, Marie warns, that can either bless or curse the wearer. When a party crasher mocks the shawl and is found dead the next morning, Stella and her guests fear the ancient curse of the Killer Shawl has been unleashed. Cars crash, guns blaze, and puzzles dwell within puzzles. Lacey will need all her famous “Extra-Fashionary Perception” to stop a shadowy villain, one who vows that nobody at this wedding will live happily ever after.

Extra Fashionary Perception! I love it!  This looks like such a fun read. Below are Ellen's answers to my interview questions. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question of your own for her, ask it!


1. Who or what inspired you to start writing and when did you start?

It seems I always wanted to be a writer and was always a voracious reader. I studied journalism in college, but I also started writing plays in my senior year. Plays were much more fun than journalism exercises but certainly not profitable. Still I have had several produced and published under my pen name Eliot Byerrum. (A Christmas Cactus and Gumshoe Rendezvous are available from Samuel French, Inc.) Getting to the point of writing novels took a while. I always knew I wanted to write them, but I felt I needed some seasoning and experience before I produced a book. The first one, Killer Hair, was published in 2003.

Why Lacey Smithsonian and crimes of fashion? I remember distinctly why I came up with Lacey.  There were so many books that featured female sleuths who were rough and tough and smart and always got their man (or woman). But they only wore jeans and t-shirts pulled out from under the bed, and there was always a point where they explained how fashion just frightened them. Oooh, scary. It drove me crazy, and so I wanted a great female sleuth who could also dress herself without apology. However, my choice is a mixed blessing and it can be challenging to write about clothes and style in every book. Some readers reject them out of hand with the explanation, “I never read about fashion,” or something to that effect. Nevertheless, the clothes we wear tell stories about us, and that’s the way I use them in the books. They aren’t about Fashion with a capital F.

2. What tools and process do you use to “get to know” your characters before and while you’re writing the books?

Oh dear. I know there are writers who create character bibles and outline their entire lives, they know who doesn’t like spinach, but I am not one of them. However, I have my own quirks. I can’t write a character without a name. The name always gives me a picture of the person I want to describe. A name can suggest a nationality or a geographic area. It can be harsh or soft. Boring or evocative. In one of my plays, I decided Jericho Starland was better than Craig Golden. Once I changed the character’s name, a whole new back story and way of speech were suggested.

From my playwriting experience, I try very hard to give all the major players their own voice, so they can’t be confused with another character. I really want to be able to hear them and see them through what they say and what they do. Oh yes, and how they dress.

3. How do you construct your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?

My publisher requires an outline for my books, so I must submit one as part of the process. Sometimes they are helpful, but there is always the danger of expending too much energy on the outline and being exhausted by the time I write the book, and losing interest. Outlining definitely requires a balance when I write them. When I write, I love the moments when something occurs to me out of the blue, which is perfect for the book and leads me into completely different story territory and makes it deeper and richer. I can’t foresee that in an outline.

4. In the age-old question of character versus plot, which one do you think is most important in a murder mystery and which one do you emphasize in your writing? Why?

Characters inform the plot and manipulate the plot, so I’m a character writer. Hopefully the plot and characters are so entwined that you could hardly pull them apart. But plot mechanics without a motivated character pulling the strings are simply drudgery for me. Then it simply becomes moving your people around on a chessboard.

I’d like to say you can’t have plot without character and character without plot, but that’s not true. I’ve read heavily plotted works with paper thin characters and character studies where nothing at all happens, which some might call literature. But I’m not highbrow enough to enjoy that. In my book, something has to happen.

5. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer and what inspires you and keeps you motivated?

With all the distractions of marketing and publicity and the Internet, I find focusing on the writing is difficult, and finding the quietude for writing remains a constant challenge. I envy writers in the past who never had to check their e-mail and Facebook updates, who weren’t distracted by television. (Of course they didn’t have spell check or a cut-and-paste function on a computer.) Studies suggest we have lost our ability to concentrate. . .and um, what was I saying? Motivation?  Heaven only knows. I just keep going in spite of what might be sensible.

6. What is a typical workday for you and how many hours a day (or week) do you devote to writing?

I wish there was a typical workday, but there really isn’t. However, when I was working a full-time job, I would head toward a bookstore, coffee shop, or library where I would write, by hand, for an hour or two. Then I’d be able to key it in and revise later.  Now, in the beginning stages of a project, I still head to the coffee shop or library (where have all the bookstores gone?) to write. I couldn’t say how many hours a week I write.  It can vary from a couple hours a day to eight or ten when I’m under deadline. And of course, rewriting and editing are part of the equation. There are days that I am only editing and inserting corrections and complaining how hard it all is. In any day, I generally need some kind of physical activity, mostly walking, to keep the ideas coming.

7. What advice do you have to offer to an aspiring author?

I’m not exactly the best go-to person for the aspiring author. Writing takes a lot of work, dedication, pigheadedness, and Butt Glue. There are no shortcuts, really, although some people think you’ll succeed if you only know the right people. All you need is to do is to be connected and bingo, bango, you’re a bestseller! Maybe it works for some people, but not for me. A friend once commented on my published books: “Look at all you’ve done and you don’t even know anyone.” And I didn’t go to Yale either. So take heart, you don’t have to know anyone or go to Yale necessarily. It might help, it might not. You have to follow the beat of your own drummer and ignore what all your personal critics say.

Just so you know, I have personally discouraged a number of people who wanted to write. Not by anything I said, oddly enough. By example. At least three coworkers in the reporting business told me that after watching me juggle the job, the writing, the varied marketing duties, and show up every day an exhausted wretch, they decided writing a book was not for them. It was too hard: not the writing, but all the rest of it.  So I hope that works in my favor when I stand at the Pearly Gates.

8. Now here’s a zinger. Tell us something about yourself that you have not revealed in another interview yet. Something as simple as your favorite TV show or food will do.

When I was in college, I worked at J.C. Penney in the Housewares Department. When the department was expanded to include cake decorating supplies, we all had to take a Wilton Cake Decorating Course. Not only do I have a degree in journalism from a university that has scuttled and downgraded the program, I have a cake decorating diploma! I can make a frosting rose on a pastry nail. I forgot everything else. It was a long time ago.

9. What are you working on now and what are your future writing plans?

My next Lacey Smithsonian Crime of Fashion is being outlined right now. I have a title I love, but don’t want to divulge just yet. And I am bound and determined to finish a thriller I started a few years ago. I hope to have it finished in a couple of months.

Also, I recently published a middle grade/YA mystery novella, The Children Didn’t See Anything. It is available on Amazon, but will eventually be available for the Nook and other platforms.

10. Is there anything else you would like to tell my blog readers?

If you want more information about me or my books, please check out my website. I am also on Facebook and Twitter and Live Journal and Goodreads.



Thanks, Ellen! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Good luck in the contest! 

Tomorrow's Guest: Ellen Byerrum

Tomorrow, fellow Colorado mystery author Ellen Byerrum will be a guest on my blog. Also, Ellen will run a contest for a free autographed copy of the latest release in her Crime of Fashion mystery series, Veiled Revenge , choosing the winner from among those who leave a comment!

Ellen Byerrum is a novelist, playwright, reporter, Washington journalist, and a graduate of private investigator school in Virginia. Her Crime of Fashion mysteries star a savvy, stylish female sleuth named Lacey Smithsonian, a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington D.C. (which she calls "The City Fashion Forgot"). While researching fashion, Byerrum has collected her own assortment of 1940s vintage dresses and suits, and the occasional accessory, but laments her lack of closet space. Although she currently resides in Denver, Colorado, fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian will continue to be based in Washington. Veiled Revenge is the ninth book in Ellen’s series.

In her guest post tomorrow, Ellen answers my interview questions, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, feel free to ask her some questions of your own in the comments.

The Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championship

Last weekend was the culmination of the 23rd year that my hometown of Breckenridge, Colorado, has hosted the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championship. My husband and I worked as volunteers, serving breakfast to the sculptors Saturday morning and collecting People's Choice votes Saturday afternoon. Fifteen teams of artists from all over the world began sculpting huge blocks of stomped snow on Tuesday morning at 11 AM, and the sculptures had to be completed by 10 AM on Saturday morning. So, we had some sleepy folks coming in for breakfast that day, having worked through the night or only gotten a few hours of sleep before the final push to 10 AM.

My husband took hundreds of photos of the works-in-progress and the finished sculptures, and I selected a few of the photos to share with my blog readers. In the first one, the Canada/Yukon team works on their sculpture of an Inuit fable about a grandfather and young grandson hunting for meat for their starving village (all the menfolk were hunting whales far away). The only weapons they had were a knife (grandpa) and a harpoon (grandson). When they encountered a grizzly bear, grandpa went after him, but the bear ate him whole. Then as the grandson prepared to fight the bear to his death, the grandpa cut his way out of the bear's stomach with a knife, killing the bear, saving his grandson and providing food for the village. The moral of the story? Chew your food! ;-)


This is the  Singapore team working on their sculpture of the mythical Merlion (head of a lion, body of a fish that is the mascot of the country) and a surrounding pod of dolphins.


Here the Mongolian team works on their warriors charging on horseback. The Mongolians swept the awards, winning First Place in the official judging, People's Choice, and Artist's Choice.


Below, the Germany team works on their geometric sculpture of an exploding star.


And here's the Breckenridge team working on their sculpture of a bull-riding cowboy and a rodeo clown in a barrel behind him.


This is Iceland's egg, inscribed with the pattern of a typical Icelandic sweater.


This is the Second Place winner by Estonia, symbolizing a fairy tale where two lovers could only meet two times a year.


And here's the third place winner by Catalonia, an abstract tribute to Picasso.


This is Mexico's mechanical whale. We watched the team chip away the last extra supports minutes before 10 AM on Saturday, and the precariously balanced sculpture collapsed the next day.


Here I am, standing in front of the award winner and my favorite.


This is China's entry, of a Chinese family enjoying the advent of winter.


Below is Alaska's entry illustrating another fable about Raven, who transformed himself into a white bird to please his love. Then he stole the sun, moon, stars, water, and fire, which were all in her father's lodge. He hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, and brought the water and fire to the earth. The smoke from the fire turned his feathers black.


Here's the finished Team Breckenridge sculpture, showing the rodeo clown in the barrel behind the cowboy.


And here's the finished Canada/Yukon sculpture, showing the amazed grandson holding his harpoon off to the left. This sculpture won the Kid's Choice award.


This is the sculpture  by the Great Britain/Wales team, showing huge faces that exemplified each of the seven deadly sins.


And last is a shot of the large parking lot in which the sculptures were created and displayed.


I'm already looking forward to next year's event!

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Donnell Ann Bell

As promised yesterday, fellow Colorado mystery author Donnell Ann Bell is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. The photo above is the cover for Donnell's most recent release, Deadly Recall. It is her second novel. Seventeen years prior to when the book begins, Eden Moran blocked out a murder. Heaven help her, she’s about to remember. Nine-year-old Eden Moran thought she was saying good-bye to her mentor that fateful day in St. Patrick’s. She had no idea she’d witness the nun’s demise, or that her child’s mind would compensate. Now seventeen years later, Albuquerque cops have unearthed human remains, and the evidence points to Eden as being the key to solving Sister Beatrice’s murder. When a hell-bent cop applies pressure, Eden stands firm. She doesn’t remember the woman. Unfortunately for Eden, Sister Beatrice’s killer will do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

Scary stuff!  Below is Donnell's guest article. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question for her, ask it!

Listen to your Mother. . .and Donald Maass
Hi, Beth:  Thanks so much for inviting me to your wonderful blog. I’m particularly excited to be here because, unlike my debut book, The Past Came Hunting , which is romantic suspense, Deadly Recall is a full-blown mystery. I had so much fun writing Deadly Recall , with the exception of one little burr in the keyboard. Let’s call him Donald Maass.

Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘listen to your mother?’ or watched the old sitcom, ‘Father Knows Best?’ If you’re a writer, somewhere in there you need to throw in, ‘Listen to Donald Maass.’

For you readers out there, Donald Maass is a veteran literary agent and speaker who has written bestselling nonfiction books for writers, including Writing the Break Out Novel, The Fire in Fiction, and most recently, The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers. Most might call him an expert in guiding authors to writing the best book that’s in them.

I’m no exception. I’ve bought Mr. Maass’s books. I even attended a two-day workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico (incidentally, where Deadly Recall is set). I agreed wholeheartedly with his statements:  Eliminate needless backstory; every passage, every word you write must belong in that book—or get rid of it; and you must have tension on every page.

Yes, I was fully in his camp of devoted followers until he made a comment that sent my tightly plotted novel into a tailspin. He said if you’re writing a mystery, and you know who your killer is from the start chances are your reader will, too. His advice to attendees in the room—when you reach the end of your novel, turn your killer. Make your antagonist someone your reader will never see coming.

I sat with my head in my hands thinking this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve plotted my book; it works. I KNOW who the killer is. It HAS to be this person. Like a stubborn teenager unwilling to listen to her parents, I went home and went about my business and the way I wanted to write Deadly Recall. The killer who I envisioned in my synopsis stayed my killer.

But darned if Donald Maass hadn’t planted the seeds of uncertainty, and as I proofed that document and prepared to submit to agents and to enter the Golden Heart®, his words led to many a sleepless night. If you know who your killer is from the start, chances are your reader will, too. He taunted me like a construction worker walking into a two by four.

So I went back to my already perfect manuscript and got back to work. I sulked all the way as I took Mr. Maass’s stupid advice and I made my killer somebody else. Then, to my surprise, something magical happened. If I didn’t know who the killer was from the start, maybe my readers wouldn’t know, either.  (Okay, so I’m a slow learner.)

I sent my work through critique, and as my very discerning critique partners read through the numerous red herrings I’d set up, I relished their comments: “Who on earth is the killer?” “I have no idea.” Finally when they were getting toward the end of the book, they took out an envelope and wrote who they suspected. When we opened the envelope upon reading the ending, only one critique partner out of six had gotten it right.

I jumped up and down with glee, particularly when Deadly Recall became a 2010 Golden Heart® finalist and Bell Bridge Books made an offer to buy it. So who does that Donald Maass think he is, anyway? In my mind, and countless others, he’s somebody brilliant and worth listening to.



Thanks, Donnell! Now, readers, have you ever tried to ignore advice that proved to be the best thing you ever heard? Tell us! Also, if anyone else has had an experience with Donald Maass, Donnell and I would love to hear about it. And, if you have a question for Donnell, ask away!