C.L.R. Dougherty's Blog, page 5

One, two, three … nine books … thoughts on writing a series.

In March of 2012, as I was finishing the second book in my Bluewater Thriller series, I wrote a blog post about my experience.  By now, I’ve written seven books in that series, and I just released the second book in a second, related series.  Sailor’s Delight - a Connie Barrera Thriller is available now in the Kindle Store.  I thought it might be time to revisit the question of writing another series.

At least it’s sort of another series. In some ways, it’s more of a fork in the road of the first series. Connie Barrera played a major role in my first novel, Deception in Savannah. That was before I was even committed to this notion of writing full-time, let alone writing a series. We got to know one another then, but it was only after I was well into the Bluewater series that I saw Connie’s potential. I decided to feature her in Bluewater Ice, the fourth Bluewater book, as a guest on the charter yacht, Vengeance.

She played so well with Dani and Liz that we collectively decided that she should stay for another book, Bluewater Betrayal. After that, though, two things happened. Dani and Liz were getting tired of sharing the spotlight with this dark-haired interloper, even though they were fond of her. That could have been sticky, but Connie solved the problem when she decided she wanted her own boat.

Her own story as a charter captain began in Love for Sail and continues in Sailor’s Delight. While she was hanging out with Dani and Liz, she met a friend of theirs named Paul Russo. Paul had just retired from his position as the head of the Miami P. D. homicide department. He had two compelling interests which caught Connie’s attention – sailing and gourmet cooking. Thanks to Dani and Liz, Connie had become a fine sailor, but she had no aptitude for cooking. She knew that if she wanted to run a successful charter yacht, she needed a first-rate chef.

Being the opportunist that she is, Connie persuaded Paul to join her as crew on Diamantista, and the Connie Barrera Thrillers got their start. During their first adventure in Love for Sail, she and Paul managed to survive an encounter with drug smugglers. In the process, they discovered that they shared a love for more than just sailing. Committed to being partners in life as well as business, they decided to sell Diamantista, get married, and buy another, more suitable yacht together.

In Sailor’s Delight, they’re waiting on delivery of the new boat and planning their wedding when their second set of charter guests arrives. They’re also wrestling with problems in their relationship that are exacerbated when their guests’ teenaged daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. Paul and Connie don’t agree on the best way to recover the girl, and there’s some doubt as to whether either their romance or the missing girl will survive.

I’m having fun with this second series, because I can bring in some of the more interesting secondary characters from the Bluewater series and add more depth to them. That’s how Connie got to where she is, so she’s willing to help. Once her series is well-established, it could be that Sharktooth, or Phillip Davis, or Marie Lacroix will want the chance to tell tales of their own.

It’s great fun to work with this expanding group of characters who all know one another. That’s an unforeseen benefit of having a second series branch off from a well-established one. Speaking of the well-established one, I hear Dani and Liz grumbling. It’s time to get to work on the eighth Bluewater Thriller now.

Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight ...

It's a gray, rainy afternoon in St. Martin, and there's a blustery wind that has Play Actor tugging at her anchor chain.  She's fitful, like she's ready to go sailing, but I'm not.  I've just sent  Sailor's Delight, the second book in the Connie Barrera thriller series, off for the first round of edits, and it's time for me to catch up with my neglected blog posts.  As I sat down to write this, I noticed that my last post was on August 4, and that I was a little over halfway through with the first draft of Bluewater Bullion, the seventh of the Bluewater Thrillers, when I wrote that post.

Since then, a lot has happened.  While we were visiting family in California, I had cataract surgery on both eyes.  The results were phenomenal; I had no idea how poorly I had been seeing.  Even though cataract surgery is trivial these days, it still interrupted the rhythm of my work.  As I mentioned in that last post, Dani and Liz aren't exactly patient.  They wanted their story told, my eyes not withstanding, so between follow up visits to the doctor, I finished Bluewater Bullion and released it in early September.  Dani and Liz have been enjoying the attention of their fans since then, which has left me free to work on Sailor's Delight.  That's a good thing, because Connie Barrera has more stories to tell since her debut in Love for Sail.

When I wrote that last post, I mentioned that Connie was tapping her foot in the background while I helped Liz and Dani tell their latest tale.  Connie's not as impulsive as Dani, but no woman likes to be kept waiting, especially if the delay is caused by another woman.  She's happier with me now, I think.  Certainly, she's relieved to get through the problems in her relationship with Paul Russo that plagued her in Sailor's Delight.  For a while there, they were having serious difficulty, and they had to wait for me to fly back to the Caribbean and get Play Actor back in the water before they could resolve their conflict.

Being the persuasive person she is, Connie kept reminding me that it wasn't all about her; one of their charter guests was in a dire situation as well while I was messing about in boats.  That's been handled, too, largely as a result of Connie's selfless bravery.  She's turned out to be quite a character, Captain Barrera has.  At first, I thought she was more patient than Dani Berger, but the truth is, she's just a little smoother in her approach.

I think I have a fleeting opportunity to catch up on some boat repairs and bring my blogs back to life, but I'm keeping a weather eye out for Dani and Liz.  They're up to something, and I know that before long, my services as a scribe will be in demand again.  They've got an eighth Bluewater Thriller in mind, I'm sure.  Meanwhile, the rain has blown over, and cocktail hour is upon us.  I'm off to sit in the cockpit and watch another Caribbean sunset while I splice the main brace with a bit of Gosling's Black Seal rum.

Look for Sailor's Delight, a Connie Barrera Thriller, to appear in the Kindle Store in the next couple of weeks.  The paperback will follow soon after.

Meet the Characters in Bluewater Bullion and Get to Know Some Writers Whose Work I Enjoy.

Thomas Scott
I had just released Bluewater Bullion, the seventh of the Bluewater Thrillers , when Thomas Scott, the author of the Virgil Jones State series of mystery, thriller, and suspense novels, invited me to participate in this blog chain.  He lives in Indiana and has a background in aviation, but chooses to write detective thrillers. His novels have garnered high praise; learn more about Thomas and his books at his blog by clicking here.


Thanks for the invitation, Thomas!


Part of the fun of writing a series is the chance to watch the characters grow and develop over several books.  Dani Berger and Liz Chirac, the protagonists in the Bluewater Thrillers , have changed significantly over the course of the series.  Dani was the victim of human traffickers in Bluewater Killer , the first book in the series, and she and Liz met and went into business together in Bluewater Vengeance , the second book.  They also learned a lot about one another in that book.  Let's take a look at them now, seven books down the road.

Dani Berger and Liz Chirac:

Dani Berger is fictional, but she and her alter ego, Liz Chirac, are composites of several young women that I’ve known. Their appearances, attitudes, and personality traits are all drawn from life. The two of them are the protagonists in the Bluewater Thrillers , a seven-book series about their adventures running Vengeance, a luxury charter yacht in the Caribbean. They’re best friends and partners in the yacht, and they have a few overlapping interests, but they’re very different people.

The location:

The Bluewater Thrillers are set in the present, in the beautiful islands of the Eastern Caribbean, where I’m fortunate enough to live on my own sailboat. Writing about Dani and Liz is like writing about my neighbors.

A bit about their personalities:

Dani’s a no-nonsense woman. She’s the daughter of a French arms dealer, originally from Martinique but now living in Paris, and his American ex-wife, whose family is in the investment banking business. Dani’s mother attempted to groom her for a career in the family banking business, but Dani worked summers from her early teens as deck crew on her father’s charter yachts and became hooked on the freedom of blue-water sailing. She worked in the family’s investment bank briefly after college, but, as she says in Bluewater Vengeance when asked if she’s going back to work there, “No way, Phillip. I tried that. I’m not cut out to be a parasite. Besides, you know how I love the sea.” Decisive and quick-tempered, she’s not reluctant to resort to violence when she’s provoked. A diminutive, attractive woman in her early twenties, she’s often underestimated by those who would take advantage of her.

Liz, similar to Dani in age and appearance, is equally pragmatic, but more even-tempered and tolerant. She often runs interference when Dani gets annoyed by their guests. Witness this exchange between the two in the opening scene of Bluewater Voodoo . Dani has just mentioned feeling a ‘rush’ from her first encounter with their male guest.

“I’m surprised that you find him so attractive.” (Liz said)
“What do you mean by that?” (Dani asked.)
“Your ‘rush’ that you felt when he looked at you.”
There was a long silence as Dani stared at Liz, a frown on her face. Then a flush spread over her cheeks as she grasped what Liz was thinking.
“Not that kind of rush! I meant the kind of rush I get right before the first punch. I just about kicked his ass before he ever got aboard.”
A worried look crossed Liz’s face. She picked up the carafe and poured more coffee into her cup. “Get a grip, Dani. Beating up our charter guests would be bad for business.”

Although Liz frequently keeps Dani out of trouble, she’s learned to hold her own in physical confrontations.

As a number of nasty characters have discovered, it’s dangerous to cross these two women.

The Conflicts that drive them:

Patrons of high-end resorts and cruise-ship visitors rarely notice, but the open waters around the tiny island nations of the Caribbean can be a lawless environment. There are those who seek to profit from smuggling drugs, people, and arms, not to mention just plain thievery and extortion. The relative wealth of the people who charter yachts like Vengeance can make them targets for crime, and the very isolation that makes the yachts appealing increases their vulnerability. Or, as in Bluewater Ice and Bluewater Stalker, the guests sometimes bring their troubles with them to the islands. When trouble comes to a yacht like Vengeance, it often falls to the crew, in this case Dani and Liz, to sort things out.

Their goals:

Despite the occasional bad experience, Dani and Liz seek to make a life for themselves in the eastern Caribbean by introducing others to the pristine beauty of the islands and the genuine warmth of the people who live there.

About the Bluewater Thriller series:
Bluewater Bullion, released last week, is the seventh book in the Bluewater Thriller series. For more information on the series,  click here. To learn more about Bluewater Bullion, click the cover above, or click here.

And now, I'll pass the baton to some writers I've read and recommend:


Diane Rapp writes in several genres. I’ve particularly enjoyed her cruise-ship mysteries and her fantasy novels. I’m looking forward to her soon-to-be-released book, Dragon Knight . For more information on Diane and her work, CLICK HERE.








Gae-Lynn Woods first caught my attention with The Devil of Light, the first of her Forney County thrillers, featuring Cass Elliot. I also enjoyed the second book in the series, Avengers of Blood . I’m eager for the next one, Gae-Lynn. For more information, CLICK HERE.








David Cassidy’s first novel, Velvet Rain , was so vivid that I still remember scenes from it even after several years. His novella, Fosgate’s Game, is on my to-be-read list. He’s also a talented graphic artist and photographer. You can learn more about David at his website.  CLICK HERE








Ellis Vidler’s suspense novels deliver on their promise. I’ve read most of what she’s written, and I’m looking forward to her new release, Prime Target , coming next month. More information on Ellis and her books is at her WEB PAGE, or HER BLOG.





Kathleen Patel is passionately involved in campaigning against bullying, as you might guess from The Bullying Epidemic . She also co-authored Twenty One Days Of Healing and Inspiration: For anyone who has suffered abuse . Besides her work against all forms of abuse, she’s a prolific writer of fiction with four novels to her credit. Her positive reaction to my first non-fiction book, Dungda de Islan’ , was a major factor in my decision to write my second non-fiction book. Get to know her work by visiting HER BLOG.


Thanks for visiting, and come back soon.

Bluewater Bullion - Book 7 of the Bluewater Thrillers

I promised that after I finished writing Love for Sail I would write another Bluewater Thriller.  I’m 23 chapters along in Bluewater Bullion, the seventh book in the series. It’s nice to be working with Dani and Liz again, although I can feel Connie Barrera looking over my shoulder. She’s got something to say, and she wants me to get this next Bluewater book done so that she can have the stage again.

Dani and Liz are claiming that they have seniority, insisting that they’re entitled to my full attention. They’ve been sulky and difficult to work with when I’ve taken time off to contemplate Connie’s next adventure. It was one thing before her first book was published, but they’re seeing her in a different light now. I wouldn’t say they’re jealous, but they’re demanding that I take my time with their story and not let Connie rush me.

After six books, they’re wanting to do things a little differently. They’ve decided they want to be less dependent on their network of friends. They think that they can make it on their own, without calling Phillip and Sharktooth every time things get rough. So far, they’re doing all right, but they’ve had to slap me down a couple of times when I thought bringing in reinforcements would be expedient.

Characters in a series are like children; they grow and change quickly. That’s as it should be. Otherwise, their stories would become stale. This particular change isn’t one that I anticipated, though. I’ve been expecting one of them to get involved with a man, but their standards are high, and neither has found an attractive candidate yet. Witness the following exchange, where they’re discussing their two male guests in Bluewater Bullion.

“Gerald’s kind of hot,” Liz said.
“Not my type,” Dani replied. “He’s a little too limp-wristed.”
“So you like Joe better?” Liz was referring to their other guest. Joe Thompson was a former Navy SEAL employed by Yates to help him find the wreck.
Dani shook her head. “Loser. My bet is he got run out of the Navy. He strikes me as a bully, and he’s way to quick to tell you about his experiences.”
“He’s sure built like a Greek god,” Liz said.
“Like they say in Texas, ‘big hat, no cattle.’ That body comes from too much time wasted in the gym – not useful muscle.”
Liz laughed. “There’s no pleasing you. At least they’re both easy to look at.”

Or this one, where they’re talking about one of the guests and a woman friend that he’s brought aboard for a day’s sail:

“You know, he’s a nice enough guy, but … ” Dani shook her head.
“But what?” Liz encouraged her.
“I don’t know. She seems a lot more outgoing than he is.”
“So?” Liz said.
“They seem a little mismatched, I guess.”
Liz chuckled, shaking her head.
“What?” Dani asked. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“Not you. Us. Sometimes I think neither one of us is ever going to find a guy that measures up.”
“Nothing wrong with high standards,” Dani said. “I don’t want somebody that I have to take care of all the time; that’s a pain.”
Liz smiled.
“Well, do you want somebody like that around all the time?” Dani asked.
“Not all the time, but maybe just every so often. I mean, he is pretty hot, you know?”
“That’s what you said about Joe the other day. He ever get around to asking you out?”
“I think he sort of lost interest after Gerald told him I was going to shoot Rigo.”

I need to get back to work and finish Bluewater Bullion; I certainly don’t want these two annoyed with me. Besides, I hear Connie tapping her foot …

Second Chance?

When I published Twisted Love in February, 2013, it was my sixth title.   The book never sold  well.  Though I changed the cover twice and the product description several times, the sales remained well below the average for my other titles.
 
In hindsight,  the title was a poor choice.  It had nothing to do with the story and it made the book sound like it belonged in the erotica genre, which it does not.  It even received a review from someone who panned it as "twisted and s and m love."  I found that hilarious, as the book is a thriller and has no explicit sex scenes.  I suspect that person based her review on the title alone.

With 12 titles published and reasonable sales volume, I've had my share of reviews, good and bad.  I'm thick-skinned by nature; I don't pay much attention to negative reviews unless the reviewer raises a specific point about the book.  That one, however, has stuck in my mind.

 I think the message in that review was that the title misrepresented the book.  To that reviewer, Twisted Love  meant  kinky sex.  I began to wonder if other people read that into the title as well.  If shoppers were put off by that, they'd pass on the book.  If they were looking for kinky sex, on the other hand, the product description would have caused them to pass on the book.

 I decided to change the title to something that I hoped would not trigger erroneous expectations.  To reposition the book in the market, I decided to change the cover as well as the title.  I didn't want to annoy anyone who had  bought the book already by tricking them into buying it again, so I mentioned in the product description that it had been previously published as Twisted Love.

 The mechanics of changing the title were simple enough; the original book was 'unpublished' and the new one was treated as a new book.  I've done that for the ebook version; I haven't yet done the paperback version, but the overwhelming majority of my sales are ebooks.

 Will people who passed up Twisted Love give The Redemption of Becky Jones a closer look?

Big Savings on Some Great Books, but HURRY!

Need to load your Kindle for summer reading?  The Books-a-Fire authors are offering a Countdown to Summer promotion starting June 23 that will run through June 29.  We have blazing hot deals and NEW books on the page!  There are no gimmicks or hoops to jump, just incredible prices on every single book.  Point, click, and buy books in every genre for just 99 cents plus you will find amazing Amazon Countdown Deals offered at deep price reductions!  Time is running out for the best deals!
YES!  Every book on the page is discounted to make your shopping easy and affordable.  For less than the price of a dinner out, you could buy every single book!
To make it really easy, we also created clickable categories.  Click your favorite category at the top of the page and see all the books listed in that category.  Load up your Kindle for good summer reading, or give your favorite readers a summer gift!  Go to http://bit.ly/15u8DGF starting June 23!Unlike

Are Kindle Countdown Sales Worthwhile?

Last Thursday, I ran a Kindle Countdown Sale to promote Bluewater Killer, the first book in my Bluewater Thriller series.  Besides scheduling my own Tweets and requesting Twitter support from fellow writers, I sponsored Kindle Nation Daily's Kindle Daily Deal newsletter.  Kindle Nation Daily featured my book at the top of their mailing and their web page for the day.  
The book's regular price is $2.99. On the first day, when the book was priced at 99¢, I sold thirteen times my average daily unit volume for that title.   That was the day that the paid ad ran.  The book was ranked at about 65,000 in the Kindle Store the morning before the promotion.  Over the last few months, it has frequently been ranked in the 30,000 to 40,000 range.  Bluewater Killer has often been in the top 100 on the Action /  Adventure / Sea Adventure list.  On the first day of the promotion, the ranking peaked at about 4,000 in the Kindle Store, and it reached number 7 on the Sea Adventure list.  
The second day, when the price was $1.99, the only promotion was on Twitter.  Sales for the second day were minuscule -- one half of the long term average daily rate, and the book began a slow decline in ratings.  As of Sunday, it's ranked around 25,000 in the Kindle Store and around 50 on the Sea Adventures list.  Daily sales now are about average.   
The increase in total royalties for the first day offset a substantial portion of the cost of the paid advertisement.  Because I haven't used Kindle Nation Daily before, at least some of the purchasers are probably new to my work.  I also think that someone who buys a book, even for 99¢, is more likely to read it than someone who picked it up for free.  If 10 percent of the people who bought Bluewater Killer for 99¢ go on to read the rest of the books in the series, I'll more than recover the cost of the ad.  I didn't see any significant change in the sales of my other titles during this promotion.
I don't think that the countdown sale provided any benefit over previous straight 99¢ sales that I've done, but I did see a dramatic boost from the paid advertisement.  Without paid advertising, 99¢ sales haven't increased unit quantities enough to offset my lost royalties from the lower price.  In this case total royalties for the title were slightly higher than my daily average.  With no loss in royalties during the sale, my only expense was for the ad.  I think the paid promotion was worth doing.  It didn't change my short term income, but it probably expanded my base of readers a bit.  I'll continue to use paid advertising as part of my marketing mix in the future, but I'm leaning toward heavily promoted, single day 99¢ sales as opposed to countdown sales.
I hope this is useful to other independent authors.  Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome.  What's your opinion, either as a writer or a book buyer?

How to Sell More Books, or Even a Blind Hog Finds an Acorn Once in a While

Women's Fiction Adventure
in the Kindle Store yesterdayIn the same way that a blind hog occasionally finds an acorn, I think I’ve found a better way to promote my books. For the last year, I’ve spent less time on promotion, and my sales have increased. So what did I do, and how am I spending the time that I once invested in promotion?

There have been countless books and blog posts written offering advice to self-published authors on how to market their books. There are endless schemes for ‘building a platform,’ using social media, and gaming Amazon’s ranking system. People spend hundreds of dollars on advertising to give their books away for free in the hope of building a base of readers or to sell them for 99 cents to improve their sales rank.

All of these ideas have some merit. I’ve tried most of them, and they work, up to a point. The problem is that they don’t usually produce long-term results. Watch what happens to the books that are given away repeatedly; follow their sales ranking over time. You’ll discover that not many sustain their sales rankings for more than a few days after a giveaway. The same is true to a lesser extent with the 99 cent sales. With carefully coordinated promotion, it’s possible to stretch the results over a longer period, but it takes a lot of time and effort.

So what about that acorn?  How am I spending the time that I used to invest in promotion?  I'm spending it writing more books.  I realized over the last year that the most effective way to boost my sales for the long term was to release a new title.   The results were masked at first, because I had so many other promotional things happening, but I noticed it accidentally when I released the fourth book in my Bluewater Thriller series last May.

I released the book, and a few days later, Leslie and I went sailing for a couple of weeks. With no Internet access, I wasn’t around to tweet and make noise on Facebook, or blog, or do any of those other things that we all do. After we came to rest in Antigua, I went online and was stunned by the sales numbers. While I was away, my daily sales had ramped up by a factor of 15 during the two-week period after the release. That’s a 1,500 percent increase, and all I did was release the book and schedule a few tweets announcing it.

The most interesting part of that to me was that while the new release racked up some nice numbers, it was surpassed by the increased sales of the first book in the series. The new book attracted attention, but people who had not read the series clearly went back to the first book and started there. Overall sales declined gradually over the next several months, but I could see the ripple in increased sales roll through the series from title to title.

I released the next book in the fall of last year, and I got another boost. I’ve seen the same sort of result with the release last month of Bluewater Stalker. The results from the last two releases weren’t as dramatic, but the base numbers are higher now. My same-month sales year-over-year have increased a few hundred percent on an average basis.

The release of each new book in the series also boosted of the sales of the titles that aren’t part of the series, which at first was counter-intuitive for me. Lately, I’ve gotten emails from readers who volunteered that while they were waiting for the next book in the series, they decided to try some of my other books.

So if you don’t see me as often on Facebook and Twitter, you’ll know it’s because I’m implementing a new, two-part marketing strategy. It’s a simple plan. First, to sell more books, I’ll write more Bluewater Thrillers. Second, I’ll write another series that is related to but slightly different from the Bluewater Thrillers. The thing I like most about the plan is that my favorite part of this whole business is the writing.

Thanks for visiting; I have to get back to Connie Barrera and Love for Sail. She’s just overcome the first big obstacle in her new role as the skipper of Diamantista, and she’s trying to sort out her feelings about this guy who’s going to become her crew in the Virgin Islands. She’s already pestering me about her second book, too, but  her second book won't happen until after the seventh Bluewater Thriller. I’ve promised that next slot to the Bluewater ladies after I release Love for Sail.

New Writing Tools for a New Series

I've been working on a new book for the last few weeks, and I've also been using some new tools to write it. I wrote the last couple of books using Scrivener for Windows, and I found it to be a substantial improvement over writing in Microsoft Word. The most significant advantage to me was the ability to use the index card view to organize the scenes and move them from chapter to chapter by dragging and dropping. A close second is the ability to keep all the reference material right in the workspace. While writing in Scrivener, I continued my normal practice of sending my last three days' work to a PDF file which I then read and marked up with a stylus on my wife's iPad.

Before I finished Bluewater Stalker, I bought an iPad of my own, as my use of my wife's iPad was beginning to interfere with her work. As I was thinking about the current Work In Progess, I began using three inexpensive iPad apps to capture my ideas. These were Drafts, a text editor; Phraseology, a companion app that provides some useful statistics and editing tools; and Terminology, a dictionary and thesaurus that integrates with the other two.

Drafts provides an uncluttered space for writing, with no distractions such as formatting and font choices. It also opens with blinding speed when you tap its icon, so it's immediately ready for your thoughts. Once you have some text that you want to polish, with a single touch you can send it to Phraseology.

Phraseology analyzes the text and provides several statistics as well as some handy editing tools. For example, Phraseology will categorize parts of speech with the frequency of use for each. I tend to overuse certain words, and this is a great way to catch myself. If you touch one of your overused words, you can see a listing of its occurrences in context. Touch an occurrence that you'd like to replace, and you can send it to the Terminology app, where you'll find a definition and a list of alternative words and phrases. Touch your choice, and it replaces the offending word in either Drafts or Phraseology. I also use this to make sure that I haven't overindulged my penchant for adverbs and adjectives. 
Phraseology computes the three most common indexes of reading difficulty, which is a big help in cleaning up my work. To assist in that sort of polishing, it provides word count by sentence or paragraph, with the ability to reorder sentences and paragraphs by touching and dragging – no selecting required. 
I've forgotten what I paid for this trio. They're sold individually by the same developer, and I think all three together cost less than $10. 
As I progressed to actually writing this next book, I went searching for an iPad app that would sync with Scrivener, as I had become hooked on writing on the iPad. I discovered that Scrivener for iPad has long been promised, but after several years, there's no delivery date. However, I found an app called Storyist, which mimics those functions of Scrivener that I find most useful. For $9.99 I decided to try it. 
I've written 30,000 words in two weeks using Storyist, and I don't miss Scrivener, nor do I miss working on the PC. The iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard is the ideal writing environment for me. Because it only has one application visible at a time, I don't get tempted to go check my book sales or my email when I hit a snag in my writing. My productivity, measured in words written per hour, has increased by about 30 percent, and though the screen is smaller than the one on my notebook PC, it's easier on my eyes because it's so crisp. 
I still send my last few days' work to a PDF file every evening, but instead of just reading it and marking it up, I use another inexpensive iPad app called PDF Expert. This app offers text-to-speech conversion as well as supporting handwritten notes with a stylus. It's amazing how many more typos I catch when I hear the mistakes as well as seeing them. I'm eager to finish this book and get it in the hands of my editing team to see if it turns out to be a cleaner manuscript than my others.

Look for Love for Sail early this summer; Connie's not a patient woman.

The Start of a New Adventure / Thriller Series: Writing Book 1

Connie and I have been working away on the first book in her series for the last couple of weeks.  She didn't like the cover I used in the last post; she thought it looked too much like the Bluewater Thriller covers.  She wants her own look, so we're working on that.  Any comments would be welcome; we probably need a referee or two.

We've also had more than one set-to about her behavior.  She keeps reminding me that she's not as volatile as her friend Dani Berger.  After all, she's a little older, and she's had a few more hard knocks, besides coming from a completely different background.  She's a bit more mellow, or at least she thinks she is. Time will tell.

We're doing all right, though, in spite of some minor differences.  She was right about having a story of her own.  We're about 20,000 words into it now, and it's moving along smoothly.  She's got me hooked, at least.

After spending some time in the Annapolis, Maryland, area fitting out her boat, she's now a couple of hundred miles off Cape Hatteras on her way to the Virgin Islands.  Paul Russo, her first mate and cook, couldn't make the trip with her, so she's stuck with pick-up crew.  Kirsten and Jimmy are a mismatched couple, each with their own agenda.  Connie's suspicious of Jimmy, but she's growing fond of Kirsten.

There's trouble brewing with Kirsten and Jimmy; we're going to see just how mellow Connie is when things turn nasty aboard Diamantista, her 56-foot yacht.  I'm braced for another struggle with her as she deals with the first challenge to her role as captain.  I'm sure she'll have her own ideas about how to handle the problems that are coming her way, and I already know that she's tougher than she lets on.  That's come across clearly as she's set me straight on some of my misapprehensions in the early part of the story.