Judith Post's Blog, page 72
May 2, 2019
Getting Ready
This week, hopefully, I’ll finish final proof copies for Jazzi #3 to return to Kensington. After that, I have rewrites to do on the notes my critique partner (Thank you, Mary Lou Rigdon) gave me for Jazzi #4. The manuscript’s not due to John Scogmaglio until June 1st, but John, Holly, and I are taking off for Florida to visit our daughter and her husband May 10-15, and I’d like to have my deadlines out of the way before we leave. And THEN, I’m ready to start plot points for Jazzi #5. I’m giving myself a week to do that. AND THEN I want to write Muddy River Mystery Three.
I can’t wait to start that book. I woke up in the morning with an idea that got me REALLY excited. (That happens a lot at the start of a book. We’ll see how I feel when I reach the middle:)
I know I have a long to-do list. Sounds like I’ll be keeping out of trouble for a long time, but I have my old, trusty chalkboard and I bought a new whiteboard to help me keep track of things. And once I fill in that whiteboard with notes for Jazzi #5, I’m ready to write!
https://giphy.com/tv/search/writing-on-chalkboard
I think I told you the story of how I got the chalkboard once before, but a LONG time ago, when the movie RICH AND FAMOUS with Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen came out, there was a scene that cracked my HH up. Candice Bergen and her movie husband are lying in bed, drifting off to sleep, and all of a sudden, she jumps up and runs to her office to scribble ideas on a chalkboard. When she comes back to bed, her husband yawns and shakes his head. “An idea for a new book?” he asks, already knowing the answer. HH swears I do that to him, so he bought and installed the chalkboard the next day.
Now that I have the whiteboard, I use the chalkboard to keep track of deadlines and business stuff I need to do and can’t forget. Unfortunately, on my own, I tend to forget more than I should. And if I write notes on 3×5 cards, I have so many of them anymore, they get lost in the shuffle. But I see the chalkboard every time I enter my office. If I write something on it, I have a decent shot of getting things right. This is my writing wall, and my desk is right across from it.
Every writer finds his/her own way to keep track of characters and story ideas. No technique is better than the next. You just have to find what works for you. So whatever you’re up to, good luck with it! And happy writing!
P.S. If any of you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I did my first author chat on Kensington’s Facebook page for the Between the Chapters bookclub, and I was really nervous about trying to fill an hour answering questions for anyone who showed up, but it was WONDERFUL fun.
April 26, 2019
My Inspirations by Judi Lynn
I didn’t write a regular blog post this week because I’ve been doing a blog tour for The Body in the Wetlands, and I’m just about idea’d out. (I know. Not a real word:) On top of the tour, my cousin ended up in the hospital for a short stay, so we’ve been trying to see her or take my sister up to see her once a day. So my Thursday blog fell through the cracks. To redeem myself, I thought I’d share this. It’s something I shared on Kensington’s Between the Chapters for their HobbyReads. I couldn’t get more support from friends and family for my writing. I’m pretty darned lucky:)
My friends and family know that I’m a writer, and they know how much I love mysteries. We’ve taken a small bedroom at the back of our house and turned it into an office for me, and we lined it with bookshelves. The shelves aren’t just crammed with books, but I showcase some of the wonderful gifts I’ve been given that tie into my writing, too.
I love Agatha Christie, so my husband bought me a clever teapot that looks like a writer’s desk. The piece of paper in the typewriter has words “typed” on it from one of Christie’s novels. The pages tossed in the wastebasket are filled with her words, too. A handgun lies on manuscript pages. Here’s what it looks like:
My sisters bought me a typewriter, too, with little mice scampering across the keys.
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April 25, 2019
Are you a debut author?
BookBub occasionally sends out tips for authors, usually about marketing. I thought I’d share the link for this one with you:
April 23, 2019
#bookreview: THE BODY IN THE WETLANDS by Judi Lynn
The Body in the Wetlands went live today! Happy book birthday, Jazzi, Ansel, and Jerod. And Staci Troilo was kind enough to share it and review it on her blog. Thank you, Staci!
Ciao, amici! Happy Tuesday. I have another review for you. Not long ago, I read, thoroughly enjoyed, and reviewed Judi Lynn’s cozy mystery, The Body in the Attic. You can read that post here.
Today, I have the pleasure of discussing its sequel, The Body in the Wetlands.
Blurb:
High summer in River Bluffs, Indiana, is always sweltering and sweet. But the heat is really on when a decidedly dead body turns up in the neighborhood.
When established house flippers Jazzi Zanders and her cousin Jerod donate a week’s worth of remodeling work to Jazzi’s sister Olivia, they’re expecting nothing more than back-breaking roofing work and cold beers at the end of each long, hot day. With Jazzi’s live-in boyfriend and partner Ansel on the team, it promises to be a quick break before starting their next big project—until Leo, an elderly neighbor of Olivia’s, unexpectedly goes…
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April 18, 2019
Hitting it Hard
My second Jazzi Zanders mystery comes out next Tuesday, April 23, and Kensington has been ON IT with the publicity and promotion. When I published my six Mill Pond romances, they didn’t get much love, and I watched them sink lower and lower in sales and rankings every day. It was sad and frustrating. But Kensington restructured their publicity teams, and right now, I’m ecstatic with the pushes they’re giving my mysteries. They even paid to put The Body in the Attic (Jazzi 1) on BookBub.
They’ve signed me up for a blog tour that starts on book two’s book birthday–April 23 and runs through May 2nd. I love blog tours. It’s a great way to meet readers and get feedback. Bless book bloggers. They do a lot of work and put in a lot of time to promote authors. On the flip side, it takes a decent amount of work and time to get ready for a tour. I lost count of how many 300 word blogs I’ve written, how many character interviews I’ve done, and how many Q & As. Once the blog goes live, I try to visit every host who’s volunteered to support my book–sometimes up to three a day, and if someone comments on the blog, I try to respond. This time, my publicist added something new. I’m going to do an author chat from one to two p.m. on April 29 on Kensington’s Between the Chapters Facebook page. That one makes me a little nervous. I’ve never done one before, but I guess it’s time.
I mentioned before that I use canva.com to make twitter headers and twitter posts, as well as Facebook headers, to promote books. I’ve done that for The Body in the Wetlands, too. I started a countdown of days until the book goes up for sale and created a new twitter post with an image and a short blurb for each day. I made a different twitter header for each month for the last six months.
I still don’t do everything Debbie Macomber suggested on her post for BookBub, but I do more than I used to. I’ve shared her post here before, but in case it slipped past you, here it is again. https://insights.bookbub.com/book-launch-checklist-marketing-timeline-traditionally-published-authors/?utm_source=guest-debbie-macomber&utm_medium=email. And before I leave this week, I want to share one of the posts I created on canva for twitter. And happy writing! Have a wonderful Easter.[image error]
April 16, 2019
New Pen Name and New Cover
My blog friend, Staci Troilo, is coming out with a new sci-fi series, and has decided on a pen name since it’s not her usual genre. If any of you are sci-fi fans, you might want to check her series out!
Ciao, amici! Life’s been busy, and it just got CRAZY. My publisher moved the release date of my new book from October to May 7. May 7! That’s less than a month away! I’ve got so much pre-release work to do. Starting with a cover release. So… ta-da!
It’s it stunning? I’m so excited about it.
Let me back up a step. First, you’ll notice it does NOT say “Staci Troilo” on the cover. We’ve talked about this before, here and there or in passing. I’m writing under a pen name (D. L. Cross) for this series. We can talk more about that later, though.
Second, you’ll note an alien ship on the cover. Aliens, as in sci-fi. It’s not a genre people associate with the name Staci Troilo, which is one of the reasons I’m writing under a pen name. If you’re interested in science fiction and aliens, this…
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April 11, 2019
I only think I’m prepared
I like to be organized. Maybe a little too much. We go to the grocery store twice a month these days. Well, actually, HH only goes to pick up the groceries we’ve ordered online. I always worry I won’t have enough (not that we’ve EVER run out) and that we have all of the ingredients I want for each meal, so I make out menus. I plan our suppers for every night before we’ll order groceries again. And when I scribble down each night’s meal, I list the ingredients we’ll need for it.
For example, for our last list, I served chicken piccata, buttered noodles, and green beans on Monday; BBQ ribs, mashed potatoes, and broccoli on Tuesday; salmon with fried rice and brussel sprouts on Wednesday; almond noodle bowls with ramen on Thursday; etc. When I’m done, I know I’m prepared. Even though there’s always something we run out of between each trip to the store–milk, juice, bread–those pesky everyday things.
The same holds true with my writing. I’m so far from being a pantser, I’d probably break out in a rash if I just sat down and decided to wing it. A lot of people can do it. It’s not in my nature. So I make a plot point for every chapter of my book. I include the things that I think are important that I should cover. And when I finish, in theory, I have enough plot twists, clues, interactions to have a novel. For Muddy River One, it took 34 plot points to come up with 57,000 words. This time, for whatever reason, I expected each chapter to be longer, more involved. I wrote two or three different scenes for quite a few of them. I had two subplots. So I only listed 26 of them. And guess what? There’s no possible way I can reach my word count unless I come up with more.
So, I sat down tonight, after much fussing–my poor husband–and redid the last ten chapters of Muddy River Two. It looks great on paper, and I should have enough, or at least, really close to enough to meet my goal, but who knows? Every book is different. The mystery’s rogue incubus is a lot more clever than I expected, and he’s a lot more ruthless, too. Suspects that I thought Raven and Hester could question end up dead before they get there. Now that blows a few nice scenes. You can’t interrogate a person who’s been drained dry. But even though I do my best to whip my characters into shape to obey me, they don’t always listen. And if they don’t get too crazy, I’m willing to give them some leeway. Then I need to stop somewhere in my writing and restructure the story. Which I did. And hopefully, it works. It should this time:)
Promo Tips
This must be the week the writing world concentrated on marketing and self-promotion. I found this on twitter and thought I’d share. After I read it, I felt a little bit like a slacker, but you can’t do it all. Still, it might give you some ideas.
April 10, 2019
Author Platform
New writers struggle to find readers, and writers who’ve written a few things struggle to KEEP readers. That’s where an author platform comes in. This post, by David Gaughram does a great job of explaining what a platform is and how to build one.
April 4, 2019
Nag, nag, nag
A while ago, over on the Story Empire blog, Staci Troilo was host and asked What is the Favorite Book you’ve written and why? I read all five of the writers’ answers who take turns hosting the blog to see which book they chose and why it was their favorite. Their answers were interesting. You can find the link here:
https://storyempire.com/2019/03/29/bonus-friday-favorite-book/
At the end of the blog, Staci opened up the comments section to other authors to share. I tried to think of the favorite novel I wrote, but I couldn’t settle on one. I love every book I write, or else I’d never be able to slog through 60,000-100,000 words to finish them. But then–and every writer will know this feeling–the question just wouldn’t go away. It rattled around in my head and kept nagging me. Until I finally came up with an answer for myself.
If I had to choose, I’d pick FALLEN ANGELS, an urban fantasy I wrote as Judith Post. It was my first true attempt at urban fantasy. Not that I got it right. Every editor who commented on it said that NO humans should play a major part in an urban fantasy. And what did I do? I made Danny, the detective, work with Enoch, the fallen angel, as a partner. I did a few other things wrong as well, but I learned a lot while I muddled through it. And mistakes and all, I was really proud of that book when my agent finally approved it. First, every time I redid a scene, the book got longer. It’s the longest book I’ve ever done. I’d never written a battle scene before, and I had all kinds of them scattered through the story. I had Enoch–the angel who tackled his friend so he couldn’t join Lucifer’s rebellion–watch Caleb get thrown to Earth as punishment anyway. And when Caleb bites humans to drink their blood to sustain his own energy, he infects them with his immortality and creates the first race of vampires. Who don’t behave well, so Enoch’s sent to Earth to clean up after Caleb.
I liked the ideas I played with for this story. And I was happy that I’d created a character–Enoch’s best friend, Caleb–who was so selfish, but charming–that you waffled between hating him and cutting him some slack. I tried, but didn’t completely succeed, to create a romantic interest who was so hurt that she pushed everyone away. That was trickier than I imagined. Some readers felt sorry for her, and others could have done without her:)
I guess the reason I’d choose FALLEN ANGELS as the favorite novel I’ve written is because it challenged me to leave my comfort zone and write things I’d never tried before. Enoch was a protagonist who didn’t want the job he’d been given. He didn’t want to be a hero. All he wanted to do was convince Caleb to go Home with him. But Caleb LIKED the freedom he’d found on Earth. He never wanted to repent and be forgiven. So Enoch was stuck. Probably for a long time–a brooding hero.
What about you? Which book would you choose? And why? (Be careful. If you don’t answer, the question might nag you for a long time).
Happy writing!
