Beth Groundwater's Blog, page 37

A Day Off

I took yesterday off from editing to ski at Copper Mountain. Here's a photo of me with three friends there (I'm in the red suit). Back to editing today ...

Author At Work ...

I'm taking off from blogging this week to focus on final edits for my CATARACT CANYON manuscript. Please wish me luck, and please tune back in next week, when a very special guest will visit. In the meantime, for your enjoyment, here are some funny cartoons that illustrate 101 Excuses Not to Write.

Watching a River Come Back to Life

American Rivers is my favorite river conservation nonprofit, and I contribute to it regularly. I was moved by this article at their website about how dam removal has helped a river come back to life as steelhead, other fish and wildlife, and the health of the entire stream has dramatically improved. Take a look!

Horse Creek Dam: Six Years After It Was Blown to Bits

And just for fun, here's a link to an article giving 5 Reasons Whitewater Rafting Is Better Than A Theme Park!

Multitasking as a Series Author

Today I am over at Inkspot, the blog for Midnight Ink authors, talking about multitasking as a series author, which I equate to juggling. Please visit the blog and let me know how you keep those balls in the air in your life!

The Next Phase: Full Manuscript Review

Like many writers I know, I belong to a writing critique group, where we periodically review and comment on each other's work. My group meets twice a month, and we can submit up to 20 pages or 5000 words for critique each time. That means it takes quite a few months to review a whole book-length manuscript. Like the pencil pusher above, I've been pushing chapters of my latest manuscript through my critique group for a long time and have been editing the chapters based on their feedback. They still have a few chapters to go, but it's time to move on to the next phase of soliciting feedback on my manuscript.

That phase is a full manuscript review, where I ask others to read the full book manuscript at once and give me overall comments on the whole thing. One of the main things that this can accomplish that is hard to do one chapter at a time is to discover pacing problems, where the story slows down too much and the reader loses interest. Another type of problem that a full manuscript review can often find is continuity or logic problems that span multiple chapters--or skip multiple chapters.

Yesterday, I sent off the full manuscript of my latest book project (Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series) to two trusted reviewers. The first is my literary agent. She reviews all of my manuscripts before I deliver them to my publisher. She has a good feel for the mystery market, for quality writing, and for what readers prefer and can tolerate, so I respect her judgement. The second reviewer is a fellow mystery author whose work I admire and who has traded critiques with me in the past. He doesn't have a full manuscript for me to review right now, but I am willing and ready to return the huge favor whenever he finishes his next book-length manuscript.

While I wait for their feedback, I'll continue to edit the manuscript myself, using critique group feedback and my own editing criteria and guidelines that I've developed for myself over the years. And, I'll hope that my two full manuscript reviewers don't find anything drastically wrong!

Water Sports Blogs and Websites I Recommend

Given that my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series has a whitewater river ranger as its sleuth, you would expect me to have my finger on the pulse of the whitewater sports community, and you would be right. If reading Deadly Currents has piqued your interest in this activity and you want to learn more, here's some recommended blogs and websites:

American Canoe Association blog

American Rivers blog, a river conservation organization that I support

River Ranger blog (particularly if you're inspired to become a river ranger and are looking for job postings)

Waterblogged, the blog for O.A.R.S.

Rafting.AllAboutRivers.com for a list of outfitters serving each state with whitewater rivers

Whitewater Rafting for similar information about outfitters throughout the US

Rafting Colorado website for information about Colorado outfitters

About.com's Whitewater festival calendar

FIBArk whitewater rafting festival website

US National Whitewater Center website, where our Olympic whitewater athletes train

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Sherry D. Ficklin

As promised yesterday, fellow Colorado mystery author Sherry D. Ficklin is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post.

Above is the cover photo for her recent mystery release, After Burn, the first book in her YA Military Brats series. In the book, Reece Barnet and her father have just relocated to sunny North Carolina, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Just as Reece is starting to fit in, a rash of bomb threats rocks her father's experimental aircraft squadron. When the authorities track the threats to Reece's school, she decides to do some investigating of her own. Can she uncover the shocking truth of the person behind it all?

Below are Sherry'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! Every comment is an entry into a contest for a free ebook copy of After Burn!

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

I've been writing for about five years, professionally, though I feel like I've been telling stories all my life. I was writing some fan fiction one day and my husband said, "you should really write something all your own." So I did.

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

It's pretty intense. I have a notebook for each novel where I keep my character stuff. Everything from a very in-depth history to pictures of things they might wear and postcards of places they are from. The notebooks for this series have scraps of fabrics, song lyrics, and random things like that. Anything that reminds me of a character gets stuffed inside.

For some of my new characters I am doing something new. I gave my MC a Facebook page where I go on and post as her. It's been a great way to sort of crawl in her head when I feel disconnected and also a fun way to get plot ideas. Most of her status updates actually end up in the book as chapter headings. So if you follow her posts, you get a glimpse of whatever novel I'm working on in that series. It's been really fun.

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

That depends on the series. The Gods of Fate, for example, was a complete surprise to me, plot wise. I sort of wound everyone up and let them run loose. Honestly, I didn't know how it was going to end until I got there myself. They just took me along for the ride. For my other series I've had to do varying degrees of plotting. The new YA series I'm working on has gotten the most time on the plot board so far. It's a time travel novel so I really had to step carefully with the plot so as not to tangle anything up.

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

Ironically my adult paranormal mystery series, Palmetto Moon, is much more character driven. There's a murder to be solved (or two or three) but it's all sort of secondary to my character and her personal entanglements. My GOF books are much more plot driven, and in some ways that's easier. Murder is easy, personal issues are hard.

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

The early rejections were hard. Heck, even now getting rejected is hard. It's a little easier when you can cry into a stack of your paperbacks, though. It's a tough business and it's easy to take rejections personally. I'm not so much inspired to keep publishing, I'm just one of those people who is too stubborn to ever quit. If I ever stop writing, it will be because I've fallen in love with doing something else. But I doubt that will ever happen.

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

I do two full days a week, 9-4pm. I have little children in the house so that's all I get most weeks. But if I'm on a deadline or editing a draft, I will lock myself in my office and push for days at a time.

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

Relax. Finish your book. Polish your book. And don't take no for an answer.

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.

I watch really terrible TV. Right now my obsessions are Castle (because of my long standing crush on Nathan Fillion) and The Secret Circle.

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

I am currently finishing up the first of my new YA series with my co-author and friend Tyler Jolley. It's a steampunk/time travel novel. I'm really excited about it. My book launch party for Hindsight is the 8th so I'm gearing up for that. My first YA mystery novel, After Burn, just came out last month so I'll be working on the next one of those later this year, and I just finished my next Palmetto Moon novel, Grave Secrets, which I'm hoping will be out later this year.

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

You can check out all my books over on my website and you can follow me on Facebook. I love chatting with readers and writers and speaking at events so if you'd like to have me, there's a contact page on my website. Thanks so much for having me here today!


Thanks, Sherry! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Remember that every one is an entry into a contest for a free ebook copy of After Burn!

Tomorrow's Guest: Sherry D. Ficklin

Tomorrow, fellow mystery author Sherry D. Ficklin will be a guest on my blog. Sherry is a full time writer from Colorado where she lives with her husband, four kids, two dogs, and a fluctuating number of chickens and house guests. A former military brat, she loves to travel and meet new people. She can often be found browsing her local bookstore with a large white hot chocolate in one hand and a towering stack of books in the other. That is, unless she's on deadline at which time she, like the Loch Ness monster, is often only seen in blurry photographs. Her YA mystery, After Burn, the first in the Military Brats series, was released in December.

In her guest post tomorrow, Sherry 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. Sherry will pick a winner from among those who comment for a free ebook copy of After Burn.

The Keystone Culinary Festival

This past weekend, my husband and I and some friends indulged in some of the less expensive events of the Keystone Winter Culinary Festival. We had a great time talking to chefs and sampling their wares. First, we went to the kitchen demo at the Alpenglow Stube, the highest AAA 4-diamond dining experience in North America. Below are photos of the entrance sign and my group.


Executive Chef David Scott talked about the restaurant, how he trains staff, and the appetizer that he was going to make for us to sample: Ragout of Blue Crab, comprised of lump crab meat, sautéed shiitake mushrooms and leeks, and lemon chive beurre blanc. The first photo below is of him making the beurre blanc sauce, the second is of the plating process, and the third shows the final product. Was it yummy! After devouring that, Chef Scott took us on a tour of the kitchen.



The next event we attended was a pastry demo performed by Ned Archibald, Keystone's Executive Pastry Chef. He made burgers, tacos, and spaghetti, all constructed from pastry, chocolate, and marzipan ingredients. The first photo shows Chef Archibald constructing a dessert burger. The bun is yellow cake, the meat is chocolate cake, the mayonnaise is buttercream frosting, and the ketchup and mustard are raspberry and apricot marmalade. The lettuce and tomato are fashioned out of marizpan. The second photo shows him topping a dessert taco with fake sour cream (more buttercream frosting). The next two photos show the results of his work. These were absolutely delicious and whimsical desserts!





After the pastry demo, we rushed over to the North American whiskey tasting that included Bulleit Bourbon, Bulleit Rye, George Dickel, Barrel Select Tennessee Whisky, Crown Royal Black, Crown Royal Reserve, and Crown Royal Cask 16. Accompanying the drinks was a lovely platter of crackers and cheeses. These events proved that you don't have to spend a lot of money to have a great time at the culinary festival, but from what I saw of the preparations, and from what the chefs were saying about it, the Grand Tasting Saturday evening must have been spectacular!

Today's Mystery Author Guest: C. E. Lawrence

As promised yesterday, fellow mystery author C. E. Lawrence is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post.

Above is the cover photo for her recent release, Silent Kills, the third book in her Lee Campbell thriller series. In the book, a vampire is loose in New York City. Not the usual kind, with fangs and a long black cape. This vampire uses modern medical technology to drain the blood of his victims. When a young woman is found in Van Cortland Park, in the East Tremont section of the Bronx, Chuck Morton calls in his old friend Lee Campbell to help profile the unusual killer. It is obvious at once to everyone that this is the work of a serial offender in the making. The bizarre nature of the crime, coupled with its undeniably ritualistic elements, can mean only one thing: the Van Cortland Vampire will strike again. The only question is how soon?

Below are C. E.'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?

My parents were both great storytellers. My dad used to tell us "Ruthie and Paulie" stories at bedtime – adventures he had with his younger sister, our Aunt Erma Ruth. Sometimes they were true, but others were made up, and involved colorful characters like Uncle Evil Eye, a nefarious villain based on his Uncle Levi. (He was actually a very nice man, but there was something odd about one of his eyes, so my father spun that into the fictional Uncle Evil Eye.)

Uncle Evil Eye played mumbelty-peg with a jackknife he carried around. We didn't know what that game was, but I Googled it recently and it involved tossing a knife into the ground. Kids used to play it in schoolyard when my dad was young, but can you imagine anyone allowing that these days?

I was making up stories by the time I was four or five – I illustrated them on long sheets of office paper my Aunt Clara brought me from her job. Later, when I was old enough to boss other people around, I wrote plays and corralled my siblings and cousins to be in them. Our curtain was a pink flannel blanket strung up on the clothes line, and we served those little multi-colored mints at intermission. All my productions involved mints.

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

I get to know my characters as I write them. It's like being at a really long cocktail party, where everyone has enough to drink that they reveal the truth about themselves. I don't make lists or anything like that – I tried that when I was an actor working on a character, and frankly I never found it very helpful. I just like to have a person enter a scene and watch what they do.

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

When I wrote my first five or six novels, I always outlined! Now I do a combination of outlining and "seat of the pants" – I know who my killer is, and what the climax will be, but nowadays I tend to let the middle take care of itself. I'm always thinking about the plot, but now I outline as I go along.

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 think it's kind of an artificial separation. Without character, there is no story. And without story, there is no character – to me, the best stories are crucibles that shape the characters in them. Take Rick in Casablanca, for example – look at where he is at the beginning of the story vs. where he is at the end. It's the challenges and conflict he faces that define who he becomes. He starts as a bitter, cynical drunk and ends up a hero.

For me, the problem arises when the writer doesn't work hard enough to create a strong or interesting enough conflict to challenge the characters. If you don't throw a lot of curves and twists at your characters, they can't rise to heights of greatness. They remain flaccid, undefined. You have to test them, and that's difficult – coming up with plots twists is gritty, sweaty work. In the end, as I tell my students, story trumps everything. But I see story as a true partnership of character and plot, a beautiful dance in which they become inseparable.

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

When I set out to write a play about physics, that was probably the biggest challenge I had ever faced. I think I ordered every book on physics in the Mid Hudson Library system! The result was the play Strings, which I was lucky enough to have produced in New York. I was even luckier to have a brilliant cast, led by Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey) his lovely wife, Mia Dillon, and the supremely gifted Warren Kelley.

As for what keeps me motivated, it's story, story, story. I just love stories, and I want to keep telling them as long as people want to hear them.

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

I feel sheepish telling the truth about this, because I know a lot of people say you have to write every day. For me there is no typical workday. If I'm on deadline or "on fire" with a project, I might write up to five hours or more a day. But it's not unusual for me to not write anything for a week or two at a stretch. It just depends. In between projects I collect material and ideas but I may not write anything at all during that time. Sometime I just have to let the well replenish itself.

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

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't write. If you need to write, if it's as natural as breathing to you, then go ahead and write. Be in it for the long haul, because it is a long haul.

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.

I absolutely adore The Office (American version.) And I'm pretty sure I'm related to Dwight Shrute on my father's side.

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

Right now I'm working on an ebook that will come after my 4th Lee Campbell thriller, Silent Slaughter. It's a tough one to follow, though, because the serial killer in that book is a nasty piece of work. It will be hard to top him.

I'm also working on a musical about Rasputin, as well as one about a real life murder that took place on Bond Street in the 19th century. Jack Finney wrote about it in Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories, and I'm aware of a play and a novel based on it, but so far no one has done a musical about it.

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

Yes, yes! Please visit my website. Also, I'm available to book clubs anywhere in the New York or Woodstock areas. I'm in New York City October-May and in Ulster County from May-September. I have a car. And I bake cookies.


Cookies! Yum. If I was in a book club in New York, I'd be contacting you. Thanks, C. E.! Now, who has a comment or question for her?