Stacy Verdick Case's Blog, page 9

Audio Book Giveaway!

Hi Everyone!

As part of my blog tour I am giving away a 3 month Audible membership to one lucky winner. This membership includes 1 credit each month good for one free audio book so the winner will receive 3 free audio books plus 30% off any additional audio books they wish to purchase during this time. If you would like to enter stop by today’s tour stop my interview at Book Professor. There’s a Rafflecopter box at the bottom with instructions on how to enter!

Book Professor Click Here

Good Luck!

~S~

Filed under: audio book, Blog Tour!, Contest, give away Tagged: Audio Book, audiobook, give away, Giveaway

Audiobook Blog Tour Starts Friday

Hi All!

I am working with Orange Berry Book Tours this time around for the release of the A Luring Murder audiobook!  The full tour schedule with links to stops can be viewed by clicking over to my Orange Berry author page.

The tour will keep rolling through September, October and part of November so I won’t be inundating you all with posts about each stop. There are a few guest post thought that I’ll probably link to and there will be a giveaway of a 3 month Audible Membership I know you’ll want to get in on!

Thanks to everyone for all the support for both A Grand Murder and A Luring Murder. I’m working hard to get the book 3 out and book 4 finished so hopefully you won’t have long to wait (yes, I get the emails – keep nagging though it makes me feel loved).

Many blessing to you all!

~S

Filed under: audio book, Blog Tour!, books, Contest, fiction, free book, give away, Mysteries Tagged: A Luring Murder, Blog Tour, Giveaway

A Little Something for That Long Car Ride Ahead!

Hello all!

As many of you in the states head to the lake for the 4th of July holiday, maybe you’d like to take a good audiobook with you.

I’m so proud to announce that A Luring Murder is now available on audio. Below is an excerpt of the audiobook so you can hear what a fantastic job Susan Saddler my narrator did on this one! You can read my interview with Susan below. She’s a fantastic talent and I am so happy to be working with her!

Happy 4th All!

-S-

 

An Interview with Susan Saddler the Voice Behind A Luring Murder’s Audiobook
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Susan Saddler

How did you get started as a voice artist/actor?—I’ve had hundreds of voices, characters and personalities chatting non-stop in my head for as long as I can remember.  I’ve always liked to tell stories in many different funny sounding voices just to make it more interesting and entertaining.  Plus it’s a good way to let out all the crazy.  Voice acting allows me do just that.

Tell us how you approached the characters in A Luring Murder?

As I read the book, each character’s personality created a face in my head.  Their voices just naturally fell into place to match their face and personality.  Most of my visions and instincts were symbiotic with yours Stacy, and needed very little tweeking along the way.  I am fortunate that you let me have a lot of creative freedom to play around with different voices, but still stay within your creative vision of who the characters are and how you wrote them.

Did you have an affinity to any of the characters?

I did Catherine in my own voice because I could relate to her personality.  She has a lot of my own sarcasm, straightforwardness and twisted sense of humor.  But the non-named character of ”Ma’am”(a witness that comes forward later in the story), is the voice that made me giggle the most.  I strained my neck when contorting my face in order to get her specific sound.  We all suffer for our art, and good comedy hurts.   I still laugh every time I hear her and/or imitate her.

What was the biggest challenge working on A Luring Murder?

When the old men, Sheriff Anderson and Mr. Peterman are speaking to each other.  They both have raspy tones that put quite a strain on my vocal chords, but they were worth every second of it.  Also, going in and out of different characters that were in a five-way conversation was quite challenging but a lot of fun.  When I was editing all of it I didn’t hear myself at all, I only heard the characters in their own voices.  It was pretty wild.

Tell us what you’ll be working on next. Any big projects on the horizon?

I am currently working on a kid’s cartoon series called “Space Heroes Universe”.  The pilot episode is on YouTube and Episode2 will be out very soon.  We have high hopes that it will be picked up by a network.  I’ve also worked on a few video games soon to be released.  I would like to do another audio book in the near future.  And of course if a national commercial happens to come my way, would be a huge blessing as well.  My own comic creation called “Gutter-Girl” is a project I’ve had on the back burner just waiting for the proper twisted person/studio to pitch it to and possibly evolve into a full cartoon.

Where can we find you online?

I just recently started my own website, SusanSaddler.com.  It’s still a work-in-progress with new stuff being added and changed weekly.  My full resume? and demos can be seen and heard at Voice123.com, Voices.com, ACX.com, and .

Susan Saddler’s Bio

I grew up in a small town north of Dallas, Texas where I started taking acting classes very young.  I moved to Orlando, Florida in 1994 specifically to do stunt work for Universal Studios where I currently still perform.  I started dabbling in voice overs in 2000.  I now have my own home studio where I voice, edit and

produce professional quality voice overs for clients all over the globe.  From Australia, to Europe, to Canada and the United States.  “A Luring Murder” is my first full length audio book production, of which I am very proud.  I am honored to be a part of Stacy Verdick Case’s creative team and look forward to a life-long kinship.

Filed under: audio book, books Tagged: Audiobook; excerpt; A Luring Murder; Catherine O'brien; Susan Saddler

Writers Without Compassion Produce Work Without Heart

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A while ago, I wrote a blog post in which I showed compassion for someone that many people consider a villain. Though I in no way agreed with or condoned what this person had done, I was sympathetic toward them. It was a very unpopular viewpoint.

I received a lot of feedback on the subject – mostly from people letting me know that they had no such compassion. What surprised me the most was how many of the people telling me that my compassion was misplaced were writers.

Why would this surprise me? Because, as a writer you are required to have compassion for everyone. I can already feel the knee jerk reaction to that statement. Did you just get indignant by the word “required”? I’m betting many readers have and are already commenting below without finishing this post. To the rest of you who are curious enough to ask why I believe that, please continue reading.

When a writer sits down to create a character we want (or should want) that character to be as full of life and well-formed as possible for the reader. Even the villains. How can we do that if we cannot empathize with them?

Without compassion, villains become Snidely Whiplash twisting his moustache. Evil for the sake of evil. A one dimensional, cartoon character plopped on the page with as much thought as tossing away a used tissue.

If you’re looking for a good example of an author having compassion for all the characters in a book then read Jodi Picoult. Her books are a study in seeing all character’s perspective. In the novel My Sister’s Keeper, I cast the Mother as the villain because of the pain she caused her daughter. I prepared to hate this character. Instead, Jodi so deftly wove the character together will heart, emotion, and compassion for what this character was going through that it was impossible for me as a reader to take sides.

I saw a news story about a woman who after dinner with some friends hit and killed a man on an exit ramp. Yes, she had been drinking at dinner. She panicked and fled the scene. At first, I was angry but then I felt compassion for her. Notice that I did not say forgiveness here but compassion. I could feel her fear and panic in that moment when I put myself in her place.

Now our natural sense of superiority makes us say, “That would never be me. I would never drink and drive.” That may be true but have you ever taken your eyes off the road for a moment? Glanced at a text message? Glanced over your shoulder to see what your child was doing? Bent to pick something off the floor?

What about, have you ever changed the radio station in your car? That’s all it took for a man passing my home. He looked down for a moment to change the radio station and veered up onto the curb colliding with my mailbox. Lucky for him that a few minutes before a school bus had picked up the kids who wait there every morning, or it could have been much worse. He was lucky in that all he had to feel was embarrassment instead of anguish.

What if the bus had been late? What if he had struck a child? What if he had killed a child? What if you had?

Not everyone who makes a mistake, even a mistake that is criminal, is evil. Some are driven to the edge by circumstance. Some are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some make a poor judgment call. Some just take their eyes off the road for a moment. If you’re a writer, you need to know how you would feel in that position, and what could bring you to this place. In fact, you need to feel every moment deep inside before you can ever sit down to write that scene. If you don’t feel it, your reader won’t either.

As a writer, you don’t have the luxury of not having compassion for other human beings no matter what they’ve done. It’s your job to tell their story, and you can’t without compassion.

Filed under: Writers, writing Tagged: Compassion, writers, writing

To All The Moms Out There . . . Have a Good One!

Filed under: books, Mommy, Moms, Women Tagged: Moms, Mother's Day

Bad Spellers Untie! & Then Finish the Darn Book!

When I was a kid a teacher told my mother I would never learn to spell. Unfortunately as it turns out she was quite correct. I am not a good speller.

Does being a good speller automatically make someone a good story teller? I don’t think so. I don’t think I need to learn to spell to tell a good story, however when an error is caught I still feel anxiety.  I still feel like I should have known that. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT!

There’s one thing I can do that many good spellers and perfectionist can’t. Finish a story.

I know a woman who has been working on chapter one of her manuscript for the past eleven years. It’s not that she doesn’t have a fully formed story in mind it’s just that she cannot get past the fact that chapter one is not exactly perfect so she can’t move on to chapter two. She in analysis paralysis and she spends all her time perfecting chapter one.

She’s been told many times, and I’ll tell you now, chapter one will never be perfect. And in some cases chapter one maybe scrapped altogether. Eventually, you have to break down and move on to chapter two and ultimately finish your story.

Once you’ve completed a whole manuscript, you can angst about perfecting the whole book. Even that can stunt you from moving ahead. At some point, you have to declare your work good enough and move to the next project. If you can’t then you’ll never get anywhere.

Sure there are a few noted authors who only ever penned one book, but is one book what you want? Or do you envision yourself with a career with more than one book?

For my part, I have too many stories rambling around in my head to stop at one book.  I trip over stories as they push their way out of my brain. My pen can’t keep up with my thoughts. I lose fragments of sentences and paragraphs that I know are the most perfect thing I’ve ever written. Or at least as perfect and I’m ever going to make them.

Filed under: books, Writers, writing Tagged: Bad Spelling, Finishing Your Novel, Perfection

Make A Free Donation by Decorating an Easter Egg

When I heard that PAAS and Heinz would donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish foundation just for decorating an Easter Egg for free I was in. Below is my egg-ee efforts. It’s ugly but it’s for a good cause. Click Over to Decorate your own egg today and make your free donation to Make-A-Wish.

(Shut your speakers off if you don’t want loud music playing right now!)

Happy Easter!

Filed under: gratitude Tagged: Easter, Heinz, Make-A-Wish, PAAS

Writing From Life

When people hear that I’m a writer they want to know if I write from my own life. I write mysteries so maybe they’re hoping for a juicy confession, but alas I’ve never offed someone for the sake of my art.

There are certain aspects of my stories though that do come from my life. Every personality trait is directly stolen from someone in my life.

The relationship between Catherine and her husband Gavin so closely resembles mine with my own husband that my sister is refusing to read the series anymore. She says it creeps her out too much, like being a fly on the wall of our bedroom. Though the situations the two get into are nothing like us the interactions between them, the playful banter, is us.

Other characters are amalgams of people I know and some are direct rip offs. Hey Dad, did you see yourself in the chief?

Some conversations and situations (aside from murder) are also filched from my life usually because they were too funny to be forgotten. Catherine’s dorkiest moments come directly from my own stupidest moments.

I’ve said before if you read me you know me. I think you might be able to extend that to if you read me you know some of my friends and family too.

Even though I’ve not (yet) killed anyone there are plenty of chance in real life to plot a murder. It’s no secret that my first Catherine O’Brien mystery A Grand Murder was created because I wanted to kill a former boss, so I did, on paper.

All writers tend to put themselves in their characters or books, even if they don’t want to admit it.

One writer I know says she doesn’t write from life yet when she began to struggle in her relationship with her husband she wrote a character struggling over whether she should divorce her husband or not. It was obvious even to her after it was gently pointed out) that she was writing her way through her problems.

Writing is cathartic, it’s a great way to sort through how you’re feeling about issues. One great author and teacher the late Cheryl Anne Porter once said as a writer you don’t get the luxury of sitting on the fence you must pick a side. That’s why so many people write about atrocities, injustices and tragedies. It’s our way of trying to understand the world and in at least on paper fix what wrong.

So while I still maintain that I’ve only ever killed someone on paper, my answer to the question of do I write from life? Not directly but yes.

Filed under: Writers, writing Tagged: writers, writing, Writing From Life

Google-nosing Should be Outlawed

The other day I woke up with my hands and feet itching so bad I wanted to cut them off.  Not one to be a wimp I downed some Benadryl and got ready for work anyway. By the time I reached my office the Benadryl pretty much had the itching under control, however the itching was determined to break through and had spread to include my stomach.

Itching is one of those things that you can’t hide, so everyone around me asked are you okay? Are you alright to which I responded, “I don’t know I think I need to go to the Doctor.”

This age being what it is all my well-meaning friends and family took to Google within 10 minutes I’d been diagnosis with scabies, lice, liver disease, and a few other maladies which in short meant I am grossly unable to take care of my own hygiene and/or that I’m dying. I went from being mildly uncomfortable to sure I was on my death-bed.

What the well-intentioned among us thought would help me avoid an unnecessary doctor appointment instead sent me scrambling for a phone, so I could get to the hospital. QUICK!

As it turns out I didn’t have lice, scabies, or any of the other deadlier diseases that I’d been Googlenosed with. What happened was I had accidentally ingested soy a substance which is toxic to my system. A substance that is now being sneaked into so many food products under so many sneaky names that a trip to the grocery store is like an archaeological dig for hidden soy.

Google must be the bane of so many physicians’ existences. Though I can see the benefit to people wanted to be in more control of their own health, but Google seems to think the top ranked searches should be the direst.

I recently saw a commercial for Nexium that stated you wouldn’t want your doctor doing your job why are you doing hers and I chuckled. There’s something to be said for that ad agencies wisdom. Next time I wake up itchy and uncomfortable I think instead of going to Google, I’ll call my doctor and instead.


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Filed under: humor, Poll Tagged: Google-nosing, Humor

Evolution of Story – Tour 2013

The 2013 blog tour wraps up with a stop at Writers and Authors. I’ve written a guest post for this fantastic blog about the evolution of story. Stop by Writers and Authors  and find out why I never want to die (aside from the usual reasons).

Thank you to Writers and Authors for helping me wrap up this tour!

Filed under: Blog Tour!, Writers, writing Tagged: Evolution of Story, Guest Post, Writers and Authors