Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 31

Mindless by Debra H. Goldstein

Mindless. That’s my favorite word this week. I recently finished the first draft of a WIP, had an opportunity during the past few weeks to see all of the kids, grandkids and granddogs, learned that I have a short story being published in the next few weeks, had some wonderful things happen in terms of organizations I belong to, and am getting ready to take advantage of an educational opportunity I’ve only dreamed about participating in for many years. With all those things going on, I decided I’m entitled to take a day off to be utterly mindless.

So, what should I do with my mindless day? Well, I could sit and read, but I’ve been doing a lot of that during my spare time. I could watch television – the game show channel seems to be having a marathon of Family Feud and I noticed the cover of the current issue of TV Guide lists 35 shows to catch up on streaming. I could play the piano, but it badly needs tuning. I could go shopping, but then I would have to clean my closet. I could go play Mah Jongg or bridge, but those don’t exactly fit the definition of mindless games.

I guess I could sit and stare at the wall or I could sit with my computer and randomly string words together to write a blog that poses a question to you, my readers. It’s a simple question: What do you do when you have the chance to do something mindless?

Guest Blogger: Maggie Toussaint – The Evolution of a Bad Guy

Maggie Toussaint

The Evolution of a Bad Guy

By Maggie Toussaint

When I began plotting my second paranormal mystery, Bubba Done It, I knew one thing for sure. All the suspects had the nickname of Bubba. Other than that, I didn’t have a clue.

Before I could cast men in the suspect roles, I considered my setting and the types of characters I needed. I’m familiar with the setting as I use a fictional locale that’s similar to where I live in coastal Georgia. We have townies and imports. We have people with plenty and people with nothing. We have blacks and whites. We have a stalled economy and our share of foreclosures.

All of the top suspects needed a motive to kill the banker. Some good motives to consider were previous criminal record, financial trouble, and love.

The sheriff immediately adds four Bubbas to his suspect list. Since seafood is the main industry around here, it would be good to have a fisherman Bubba. I also wanted someone who’d moved to the county as a retiree, someone who didn’t quite get locals or their customs. That worked. Two Bubbas down, two to go.

Drugs are a universal problem in today’s world. I decided upon a Bubba with a bad track record as a crackhead, but who had allegedly reformed into an evangelist.

Lastly, I wanted to ensure my sleuth Baxley Powell had a definite call to action. She’d taken the heat in Book 1 as the top suspect, so for Book 2, I found a patsy in her brother-in-law. Why would he want to kill the banker? Baxley knew her Bubba was a dreamer who often needed money for get-rich-quick ventures. Baxley and her husband had bailed Bubba Powell out of financial scrapes for years.

With her husband dead, the task of saving Bubba fell to Baxley. She’s certain he couldn’t have done it.

Or at least she feels that way at first. With each layer of story revealed, she discovers more reasons for the Bubbas to have killed the banker. Her challenge is to sort through the evidence, in this world and the next, to finger the killer.

To summarize:

Populate your suspect list with characters fitting to your setting.

Give the suspects motives to kill your victim.

Layer the suspects’ relationship with the victim to create complex characters.

Make sure the sleuth has a clear call to action.

Maggie Toussaint

Buy link for Bubba Done It:

Kindle

Amazon hardcover

Guest Blogger: E.B. Davis – Finding the Right Beta Readers

Finding the Right Beta Readers by E. B. Davis

I read a myriad of genres and mystery subgenres. To me, the writing is the most important element of a good read, and variety is the spice of life, isn’t it? When I thought about what I wanted to write, my thoughts turned to fun reads—entertainment, summoning books of the supernatural variety. The manuscript I wrote and am now querying fits into many shelf categories. It’s a mystery, but it also has supernatural, romantic, and police elements. It hadn’t occurred to me when getting beta readers that my subgenres would affect reviews because I like different subgenres, but I found that I am not the average reader. What your beta readers write and read will affect their critiques of your book. I went into the process ignorant of this fact.

Most writers I know write cozy mystery. When I submitted my manuscript to those writers, the reviews I received were not helpful. The responses fell into two categories: Cut the supernatural, or cut the mystery and make it romantic suspense. I wanted to do neither.

Was my script bad? Did those readers’ comments have validity? I decided before butchering my manuscript to find other beta readers. My need for expedience led me to hire a professional—a conceptual editor.

The letter I wrote her prompted an immediate reply. She read my first chapter and wrote back asking why I was so negative about the manuscript. I told her of my beta readers’ responses. She said she’d get back to me. Her review found problems with the execution of the mystery in the second act, the investigation, but she had no problems with the supernatural subgenre. Her suggestions forced me to portray the supernatural world in a more definitive way, but, as I suspected, getting rid of the supernatural would have killed the best of my novel. Hiring a professional gave me confidence in my work.

But even a professional’s opinion is only one opinion. I looked to authors and readers of fantasy to beta-read my work. Two responded to my call, read my manuscript, and gave me suggestions that were constructive. Their reviews provided further edits in defining the supernatural world, providing more clarity for readers and improving its credibility. Another, more academic reader, who writes traditional mystery, provided more edits to the romantic relationships from a male point of view. Not only did it increase the validity of the romantic relationship, it cut the manuscript by two thousand words—a plus since an unpublished writer has little chance of selling a ninety thousand plus word novel.

Lesson learned: Don’t blind yourself to beta readers’ comments but also don’t believe everything you read, not even reviews of your work. Look at what your beta readers write and read before submitting your work to them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

E. B. Davis writes mystery stories. Her current novel manuscript, Toasting Fear, is a supernatural mystery set in the Outer Banks, NC. Chesapeake Crimes: Homicidal Holidays presented her short story, “Compromised Circumstances.” A Shaker of Margaritas: That Mysterious Woman included E. B.’s “Wishing For Ignorance.” “Ice Cream Allure” a romantic crime spoof, was included in Carolina Crimes: 19 Tales of Lust, Love, and Longing. More of her work is featured on her website. (www.ebdavismysteries.com) She blogs at Writers Who Kill (http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com), and is a member of SinC and The Short Mystery Fiction Society.

My Granddaughter is a Mutt by Debra H. Goldstein

My Granddaughter is a Mutt by Debra H. Goldstein

People Magazine, CNN, and most public media outlets covered the birth of England���s Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. The reactions of Prince William, Kate (I feel that friendly to her and jealous of how she looked ten hours after giving birth), Prince Charles, Cornelia, and the Middletons were duly noted. Nowhere, except on Facebook, have I found a mention of my new rescue granddaughter grand-dog, Arya.

Her name is beautiful. Arya of Game of Thrones is resourceful, bright, educated, athletic, and a fighter ��� a contrast to the gangly way our Arya chases a ball with a leap of her entire body or attacks a chewing toy. Our Arya also differs in that she is sweet and loving. They both have long faces and while we know the Game of Thrones��� Arya is left-handed, ours has yet to show enough coordination to determine paw preference. As part of the Game of Thrones, Arya is considered to be a warg or skin-changer. We don���t know what our Arya is.

She���s a mutt with a curled tail. At four months old, she���s skinny, but already weighs about thirty pounds. The shelter indicated she probably was part lab and part pointer, but friends who���ve seen her mention beagle, terrier, and other possibilities. What do you think?

Shakespeare wrote: ���A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.��� Arya may not be Charlotte Elizabeth Diane, but she���s ours. No matter what our mutt���s birth line is, we love her. Still, we can���t help but be curious. Weigh in with your thoughts.

Guest Blogger: Jim Cort – The Story of a Story of a Story

Jim Cort

THE STORY OF A STORY OF A STORY��by Jim Cort

���Before I Wake��� had its genesis in my desire to try a story entirely in dialog. A few experiments were enough to convince me that some compromise would have to be made, and I wound up producing a story composed of documents and letters and transcripts that I thought still gave the effect I was looking for.

The story languished for while. I finally shipped it off to a house looking for stories to adapt into audio plays on tape cassettes. I���m not going to give the name of the company, because I intend to say mean things about them shortly. There it found a home, and they offered me a chance to do the audio script myself.

My experience with the audio house was less than idyllic. A little background: ���Before I Wake��� is the story of a man who believes himself threatened by his own dreams. The threat can reach him only when he is asleep. He winds up causing a disturbance and being held in jail, where he tells his story to a police psychiatrist. The original story had an all-male cast. I thought a female voice would provide variety in the audio version.

When I received the recorded cassette, I ws horrified to find my psychiatrist showing up at the county lockup in a party dress, detoured from the country club cotillion. Her whole professional status was undermined. The whole script had been rewritten and had come out pedestrian, clich��-ridden, clumsy and predictable. I had foolishly sold all audio rights to the house from then until the end of time, so there was nothing I could do about it.

 

So ���Before I Wake���, in its radio incarnation, remained a thorn in my side for a long time. However, the story in its original version took off on its own.

In 1989 saw a call for submissions for a new anthology to be called October Dreams, put together by Dave Kubicek and Jeff Mason. The reference to dreams in the title made me think of ���Before I Wake���, so I sent it along. A month or so later, the familiar rejection letter arrived, but not so familiar, either. Unlike most rejections, I sensed in this one a genuine reluctance to pass this story by. They mentioned their disappointment with the ending. I was moved to do something I had never done before with any story

I phoned them up.

I called the office number on the letterhead. I can���t remember now if I spoke to Dave or Jeff. I pitched a new ending over the phone. I have no idea where it came from. It was as if the words came out of my mouth at exactly the same moment the ideas came into my head. In the end, Dave said (or maybe it was Jeff), ���OK, write it up that way, and we���ll take another look.���

I did and they did and they said yes. We all signed the papers, and everybody was happy. But that���s not the end of the story.

Fast forward 10 years to 1999.

I got a letter from a nice lady at Perfection Learning, a house that publishes educational material. They were putting together a middle school anthology to be called Flights of Fantasy. They had taken the trouble to track me down because they wanted to include ���Before I Wake���. (Note to self: always be track-downable.) I was flattered. I must confess I did feel a little strange about becoming required reading. But I said yes and we all signed the papers and everybody was happy.

But that���s not the end of the story.

Fast forward 14 years to 2013.

I had been posting some of my old teaching materials on Teachers pay Teachers. (unsolicited testimonial: teacherspayteachers.org is a sort of clearinghouse where teachers, or former teachers like me, can share materials they���ve designed for their own classrooms and pick up a little money as well.) I came across a quiz on the story ���Before I Wake��� prepared by Marianne Todd of Sioux City Iowa (not her real name) for her Language Arts class. I got in touch with Ms. Todd. She was happy to hear from me, and told me that the story was a class favorite. I���m glad she didn���t ask me to take the quiz. I���m not at all sure I would have passed.

Deaf Dog Press has come out with a special edition of ���Before I Wake��� through Smashwords. It contains the original published story along with the original radio play. You can find it at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/527874.

Or, if you happen to be in Sioux City, Iowa, drop by Ms. Todd���s class. She might still have a copy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jim Cort has been writing since the cows left home. He is curretly chief cook and bottle washer at Deaf Dog Press. His novel The Lonely Impulse is available at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/337106.

What I Learned From Our Passover Seder by Debra H. Goldstein

What I Learned From Our Passover Seder by Debra H. Goldstein

Confession: when I have more than four people, even if I put the food in my own bowls, I have the evening catered. This year, with only four breaking matzah and because I���ve become addicted to cooking competition TV shows, I decided to tackle the Seder myself. Here���s what I learned:

1) Timing is of the essence ��� don���t start heating, reheating, or cooking things for when the guests arrive ��� there���s a service to be done before dinner is served!

2) If you make chicken soup from scratch but add pre-made matzah balls and broth, stop there ��� an entire bag of wide noodles will soak up the soup even during a short service. In fact, it soaked it up faster than I could ladle the soup into bowls. Although the noodles and matzah balls were well seasoned, it is hard to serve soup when it no longer exists.

3) Don���t get excited and heat things up too early ��� meat resting is meat drying.

4) Amy Garber makes fantastic chopped liver. Thank G-d!

5) Mogen David and Maniwchewitz wine is sweet. Macaroons aren���t what I remember them as being from my childhood and they only put twelve pieces of candy in the dark chocolate jellied candy box now ��� but combining those twelve pieces with the dead macaroons can make a nice dessert platter especially if a fifth cup of wine is incorporated into the meal.

6) It���s all about family ��� who else would tolerate my cooking?

7) Cleaning up from four is much easier than fourteen or forty.

Anything to add from your Passover or Easter meals?

Guest Blogger Michele Drier – Keeping it Real

Keeping it Real by Michele Drier

Because I write in two genres���traditional mystery and paranormal romance���I���ve been reading a LOT of genre fiction over the last few years and I see some scary trends.

One of them is what I call verbalization: Taking perfectly good nouns and turning them into not so good verbs. So many of these come from the jargon that various careers develop.

Two of the ones that make my jaw ache are exit and task.

���He exited…��� No, he ���left���, he ���went out��� he ���walked away.��� An exit is a freeway ramp…unless it���s a stage direction.

���She tasked me with…��� No, ���She gave me a task,��� ���I performed my task��� ���She told me (or asked me) to do…���

I know that English is a constantly evolving language, but let���s not slip into the trap of using these buzzwords. There are more than a million words in English today…don���t forget to use those good old Anglo-Saxon and Norman French words that gave birth to English as such a vibrant language.

And please, study up on verb tenses. The past tense of ���sink��� is not ���sunk.��� It���s ���sank.��� As in ���She sank to her knees in grief.���

One popular writer will use this and it���s as though the dam bursts…inaccurate words escaping everywhere!

The other frightening trend is lack of basic research.

I read a book by a NYTimes best seller (romantic suspense) and the author talked about the ���1859 Gold Rush.��� The author supposedly lived in Northern California. How could s/he not know it was 1849?

I will not read any more books by this author since s/he was too lazy to look up one crucial fact.

Most recently, I read another romantic suspense where the author had one character in the epilogue say ���well, the company is community property.���

The entire tension and plot of the book hinged on an inheritance of a company from a grandfather. This was sole and separate property and would not become community property simply because of a marriage.

I write fiction, but I care enough about my readers to make sure basic information is correct and accurate, to use as many action verbs as I can, to not write jargon because it���s fast and easy. I���m asking my readers to come into my made-up worlds and devote a few hours to my stories���I owe it to them not to use false facts.

Michele Drier was born in Santa Cruz and is a fifth generation Californian. She���s lived and worked all over the state, calling both Southern and Northern California home. During her career in journalism���as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers���she won awards for producing investigative series.

SNAP: All That Jazz, Book Eight of The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was awarded second place by the Paranormal Romance Guild���s reviewers for best paranormal vampire book of 2014. The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles also won for best series in 2014. The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles include SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, Plague: A Love Story, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Night and SNAP: All That Jazz. SNAP: I, Vampire, Book Nine in the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles is scheduled for publication early 2015.

She also writes the Amy Hobbes Newspaper mysteries, Edited for Death and Labeled for Death. A third book, Delta for Death, is coming in 2015.

Guest Blogger: T.K. Thorne – What the Heck is “Writing What you Know?”

What the Heck is ���Writing What You Know���? by T.K. Thorne

Write what you know. A well know axiom for writers. But is it really a rule? Is it good advice? What the heck does it mean?

I can���t tell you how many times I have scratched my head thinking, okay, what do I know? I know about police work, having had a career in law enforcement. I know about horses, having loved and worked with them all my life. I apparently know about a few other things, as I give out a lot of advice. Or perhaps, as my mother often said, I just like to generalize without specific knowledge.

But try as I might, I can���t seem to want to write a book about those topics . . . not yet anyway. And maybe that���s a good thing, because I don���t think that write what you know means limiting your writing to topics or places or people you literally already know about. If it does, then a woman should never write from a man���s perspective; a person living in Alabama should never write about a setting in New York; and a fantasy writer should just stop.

I certainly did not know anything much about early religion or Turkey or Asperger���s when I got a bug to write a novel about Noah���s wife. I wanted to write the story, not as a religious retelling, but one that I, as a humanist, could belief might have really happened. It took four years to bring that story to life and almost as many for my newly released historical novel, ANGELS AT THE GATE (the story of Lot���s wife). The research involved did help me ���know��� about the land, the culture, and the archeological and geological evidence that existed in my time periods and locations. Even trips to Turkey and Israel, although enriching, can���t substitute for being there at the time and experiencing what my characters experienced. But then, of course, if I lived in the time of NOAH���S WIFE or ANGELS AT THE GATE, I would be several thousand years old. Not really practical.

I believe you should do whatever research is required to honor your pact as a writer with your reader and establish authority in your writing. Getting details ���right��� is important, but I don���t believe in limiting your imagination or subject matter. Actually, I think write what you know is about something else.

All writers are experts about one thing���what it is like from the inside to be a human being, specifically, to be you. Write what you know means drawing upon that experience. You may have never been raped or divorced or thrown over a cliff (and hopefully not), but you know fear, an aching heart, and the terror of falling. You know it. When your characters feel something or think something, you must draw from that well of knowledge inside you, dig for it if you need to. It is about opening yourself to yourself.

As a police officer I saw things and spoke to people who had been through terribly traumatic situations. I tried to empathize with them, but unless their pain connected in some way to a pain I could understand, I didn���t really feel it. When your characters cry, will it affect your readers? It will if they connect with the reader���s sorrow or pain in some remembered or imagined way. You don���t have to lose your mother to imagine that pain in a very personal way, and so that is almost a universal emotional connection (unless you hated your mother.) As a writer, you can remember or imagine what it was or would be like (for you) to experience something your characters experience. And that is when the magic happens, and you are writing what you know.

��

�� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� T.K. Thorne

T.K. Thorne���s childhood passion for storytelling deepened when she became a police officer in Birmingham, Alabama. ���It was a crash course in life and what motivated and mattered to people.��� When she retired as a captain, she took on Birmingham���s business improvement district (CAP) as the executive director. Both careers provide fodder for her writing, which has garnered several awards, including ���Book of the Year for Historical Fiction��� (ForeWord Reviews) for her debut novel Noah���s Wife. Her first non-fiction book, Last Chance for Justice, was featured on the New York Post���s ���Books You Should Be Reading��� list. Her new historical novel about the story of Lot���s wife is Angels at the Gate. She loves traveling, especially to research her novels, and speaking about her books and life lessons. She writes at her mountaintop home, often with two dogs and a cat vying for her lap.

Guest Blogger T.C. Lotempio – Can a Cat be Inspirational? Oh yes, especially if his name is ROCCO…..

Can a Cat be Inspirational? Oh yes, especially if his name is ROCCO���.

By T. C. Lotempio

I have always been an animal lover, especially of cats. When my calico died a few years ago, I went to the Clifton Animal Shelter and adopted a handsome tuxedo cat named ROCCO. It soon became apparent that he is the ���boss��� of my family, which includes three other cats! But never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever expect him to be the driving force behind our blog, http://www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com, or end up as the star of his own mystery series!

Well ��� to clarify ��� the series isn���t named after ROCCO. He was just the inspiration for one of the main characters, a feisty tuxedo cat named Nick. Nick���s a cool cat, one with a sharp mind who likes to play SCRABBLE, and spell out clues so his human, Nora, can solve mysteries! Volume One in the Nick and Nora mystery series, MEOW IF ITS MURDER, came out December 2, and if you enjoy cozy mysteries featuring a cat that was inspired by a cat, maybe you���d like to give it a try.

Here���s a brief synopsis, taken from the cover back:

Nora Charles doesn���t believe in fate, even if she is a crime reporter who shares a name with a character from The Thin Man. In fact, she���s moving back to Cruz, California, to have a quieter life. But after finding an online magazine eager for material, and a stray cat named Nick with a talent for detection, Nora���s not just reporting crimes again. She���s uncovering them���

Back in her hometown, Nora reconnects with old friends and makes some new ones, like Nick, the charming feline who seems determined to be her cat. But not everything about Cruz is friendly. Writing for a local online magazine, Nora investigates the curious death of socialite Lola Grainger. Though it was deemed an accident, Nora suspects foul play. And it seems that her cat does too.

Apparently, Nick used to belong to a P.I. who disappeared while investigating Lola Grainger���s death. The coincidence is spooky, but not as spooky as the clues Nick spells out for her with Scrabble letters���clues that lead her down an increasingly dangerous path. Whether fate put her on this case or not, solving it will take all of Nora���s wits, and maybe a few of Nick���s nine lives.

Granted, ROCCO wasn���t the only inspiration for the series ��� but he was and is a large part of it! And he reminds me, every day, in his own catly way���I mean, you would think HE wrote the book! Although���.in many ways, I think he did. But let���s keep that OUR secret. ���

What are some things your pets do that inspire you to do different things? Leave a comment with your email address. I���ll pick two of the most interesting comments and send the commenters an autographed copy of ���MEOW IF ITS MURDER��� and a MEOW bookmark! And you can visit ROCCO (and me too) at our blog, http://www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com, where we interview authors and have giveaways every month!

Friends by Debra H. Goldstein

Friends by Debra H. Goldstein

Friends? Girl Scouts and Brownies sing of making new friends but keeping the old. The TV show Friends highlighted friendship. Even the premise of the movie,��It���s A Wonderful Life, annually reminds us that ������no man is a failure who has friends.��� Friends are lifelines, support systems, memory and laughter sharers, business door openers, and most importantly, folks who accept me for who I am. I wouldn���t trade you for anything.

��~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Debra H. Goldstein���s debut novel Maze in Blue received a 2012 IPPY Award and was reissued by Harlequin Worldwide Mystery in May 2014. Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Player Murder Mystery will be released by Five Star Publications/Cengage in 2016. Debra also is an award winning short story and non-fiction writer. When it comes to her friends, enough said.