Kate Collins's Blog, page 328

My Five Minutes of Fame

Next Tuesday at 9am I'm going to appear on a local talk show called The Morning Blend. A five minute segment. My first time on T.V. The producer wants me to bring a few prepared recipes from the newsletter in the back of Buzz Off, so I'm making the apple gingersnap crunch and the honey candy bites.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm a bit nervous...okay..maybe more than a bit.

I'm sweating what I should wear - suggestions have included:
no patternsno black or whitesomething comfortablego easy on jewelry it attracts lightif I wear a jacket, I need to sit on the hem so it doesn't bunch up around my neckThen there's the presentation - should I bring a whole pan of crunch? Should I squirt whipping cream all over it? How can I spiff it up, make it look delectable, without wearing most of it on my outfit?

I won't even mention the ten talking points they requested.

See all the problems with having five minutes of fame. What would I do with fifteen?

WRITING WITH TWO VOICES

by Sheila Connolly

Many thanks to Maggie Sefton for letting me borrow her slot today.

If my writer friends and I have yelled loud enough, by now you know that I've just launched a new cozy series, the Museum Mysteries. The first book, Fundraising the Dead, joined my Orchard Mystery series in bookstores, both real and virtual, on October 5th.

Curiously, both series begin with books I wrote several years ago. They've both be en through several rounds of revisions, major and minor (one lost a ghost, the other gained a body), based on comments from agents (one passed on one book, the other took me on as a client). Now both series are out there in the world: go forth and prosper, my children!

The question is, how do I keep my protagonists separate? Writers often talk about voice and style, but how do you hang on to your own voice while writing about two distinctly different characters without allowing them to merge? It's a challenge.

There are similarities between them, of course: Meg Corey and Nell Pratt are both independent professional women; they're both in their thirties; they're both free of romantic entanglements (at least in the beginning). But what about the differences? Meg is floundering, trying to figure out how to support herself in a venture new to her and make a life for herself, in an unfamiliar rural area. Nell, on the other hand, loves her job in a city historical society and loves living in an urban area. Meg is an outsider, Nell is an insider.

Both are hardworking and honest, they have friends they care about, and they're committed to seeing justice done as they keep stumbling over bodies.

Still, I fight to keep their voices different. It's made a little easier because I write Meg in third-person point of view, and Nell in first-person, and that's been true from the start. I'll confess: I have more fun writing in first-person. For some reason what I write from inside my character's head comes out a bit more sarcastic and, I hope, funnier. It's also a plus that I can show the good intentions that lie behind Nell's occasionally snappy comments, so they're not taken the wrong way.

In my head, at least, Meg and Nell are clearly different people, not just cookie-cutter characters dropped into a stage set. To me they're real—imperfect, maybe, but aren't we all?

So you tell me: read one of each series (please!) and let me know if you would want either or both of them as friends?

Messages from Beyond

by Kate Collins

As many of you know, my beloved husband passed away two weeks ago today. He was my best friend and soul mate, my rock and my hero. It took us many years to find each other and came along at a time when I no longer believed in fairly tale romances, even while I was writing them.

My husband had enormous energy. No one could believe he was fifteen years older than me because he had the good health and stamina of a man half his age. But he had twenty-two year old grafts in his heart, and he knew they wouldn't last forever. He always said he was on borrowed time. His wish was that he would go out after winning a court case, and that was exactly what he did. Not his time line, but on his terms.

I'm not superstitious. I don't believe in seances. I've never seen or felt a ghost. But what happened after his death was incredible. It was at the end of the most horrific four days of my life. I was in pain inside and out. Then I received a phone call from my dearest friend, the person in whom I would entrust my life, the person I trust most beside my husband. She's a teacher and the most pragmatic, down-to-earth, no-nonsense person you'd ever want to meet. She doesn't believe in ghosts either.

She was busy teaching a room full of first graders, and suddenly a vision of my husband appeared. He was in the place he loved most, Key West, and he was talking to me! He was saying to my friend, but using the nick name only he used for me, "You can do this." She thought she imagined it and so she ignored it. But he would not be ignored. He kept appearing throughout the day in exactly that same manner, saying exactly that same message, until she was so spooked, she wrote it all down in an email and sent it to me, asking me not to think she'd gone crazy.

Immediately, that image was replaced by the smiling face of my husband, and then she saw him walking away, up a street, still smiling. Message delivered, he seemed to be saying. And she hasn't had any visions since.

I can't tell you how comforting that was. I instantly felt his energy around me. It gave me the strength to give a eulogy at his funeral. And at the end of that long day, after the family had gathered for food at a local restaurant on a rainy day, another wondrous thing happened. A double rainbow appeared.

It was so extraordinary, people poured out of the restaurant to stand in the rain, with the sun shining and black clouds overhead, everyone taking pictures with cell phones. The rainbow's lower arch was so brilliant, it seemed to be lit from the ground up. We could see the beginning of it just beyond the parking lot, and it arched over the restaurant to the opposite end of the lot.

We gazed up at it, smiling. It was a sign of hope. A sign that things would be okay. Different, and no less painful, but okay.

My fairy tale romance didn't have the ending I would have written for it, but it did have a rainbow at the end. This is the photo of that rainbow. If you can enlarge it, you will see how it seems to glow from the bottom.

I wanted to share this with you because all of you have been so incredibly kind and supportive. I hope it makes you smile and gives you hope, too.

My best,
Kate

What's Your Favorite New Show?

by Leann

I love the new TV season. Cliff hangers resolved. Characters survive or are sent packing, either by death or for other reasons and there are plenty of new shows to try out. Some will survive, many will not. I tend to go for the lawyer, cop or detective dramas (what else but mystery?) I was even pleased to discover that unlike the past couple years, even BBC America has a few new mysteries. And Wallander is back on PBS and in the fall! Usually Masterpiece Mystery! airs in the summer here in Houston.

So here's my favorites and the ones I do not care for. Hawaii 5-0 is probably my favorite new/old series. Lots of great banter and action. Glad to see a Lost character didn't have to move from Hawaii! The Event holds my interest and shows promise. Another favorite reminiscent of NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Streets is Detroit 1-8-7. Michael Imperioli is fantastic. Blue Bloods is good, but then who doesn't like Tom Selleck? The Defenders is on the bubble for me. It seems a little silly and The Whole Truth just drags. Writers? You're not doing your job! Biggest surprise is Law and Order: LA. I was miffed when they canceled the old standby Law and Order, but this show is good. I am a fan of moral and legal dilemmas and so far they are doing a good job. But I must say that the BBC America version of Law and Order surpasses the American entry. An added plus is that I am learning the similarities and differences in the US and British legal system.

Returning favorites are bothering me a tad. Like Fringe. Love that show. Not so sure I am liking the direction it is taking (I am trying to avoid spoliers!) Criminal Minds (again, trying to avoid spoilers) had a change that really bothered me. If you watch regularly, you know what I'm talking about. The Good Guys, in danger of being canceled, is just laugh out loud funny to me. But I cannot get too attached. Apparently I am in the minority and there aren't many viewers. Oh, and I want my more lighthearted Simon Baker back on The Mentalist, so CBS, fix that please! :-)

What about you? Has the new TV season grabbed your interest? What are your favorite new and returning shows?

You mean Super Powers didn't come with the job?

By Guest Blogger Laura Alden

Back in the age of corded telephones, three television channels, and carburetors (read: in my youth), I used to think that authors had superpowers.

My young brain thought it must be better than magic to be someone who could make up people and places and things. And write about them in a book. Wow! An author who could write books that people laugh and cry over must be someone really special. Someone with those amazing powers of storytelling must have the perfect life.

This idea persisted for decades.

Then I started writing.

There were long years of learning the craft, long years of sending query letters to agents, even longer years of receiving nothing but rejection notices, or even worse, getting no answer at all.

For a while I figured my lack of superpowers was due to the fact that I wasn't published. It was the published writers who had the superpowers. Yeah, that's it.

I spent a few more years writing, rewriting, and writing some more. When I was on the edge of laying down my pen for good, an opportunity came my way and lo and behold, I'm now a published writer myself. Hooray!
But I'm still waiting for those special abilities. Hello? Deliverer of superpowers? Are you out there? Because I'm here, ready and willing to accept whatever you'd like to hand out.

And, um, do I get a choice? Pretty please, could you give me the power to make more hours in the day? Failing that, it sure would be nice to get those thoughts in my head into the computer much faster than 600 words an hour. And if neither of those work out, I wouldn't mind the ability to recall what color hair my secondary characters have. Such a small thing, but it would help immensely.

(Sigh.)

Sadly, I'm getting resigned to the fact that no superpowers will cometh. No matter how many books I publish, no matter how many – or few – books I sell, it'll just be me and my computer, whacking away at the keys as I try and craft a good story.

But that's what it's all about, isn't it? Telling a great story. There's nothing like having someone say she loved your book. Nothing. That connection to another human being through the printed word is all the magic I could ever want.

Just the other day I ran into an acquaintance who is a big mystery fan. I handed her a bookmark and told her where she could buy the book, if she was so inclined.

"Wow," she said, eyes stretched wide, face open with amazement that she was talking to a real live superpowered author. "You wrote a book? That's…that's so cool!"

And you know what? It is. It really is.
===================
Laura Alden lives in northern Michigan with her husband and two very strange cats. When she's not writing her next book, she's working at her day job, taking pictures for the local newspaper, reading, or doing some variety of skiing. She's fond of long soaks in the tub, red raspberries, and blue skies. Her first mystery, MURDER AT THE PTA, was released in October and is the first in a new series. Please visit her web site.  And don't forget, Laura posts every 19th of the month on the Killer Characters blog.

It's All About The Candy, Right?

By Heather

I'm piggybacking off JB's post yesterday and continuing the whole Halloween theme. I want to talk about the good stuff. The treat part of trick or treating.

The candy.

This has to be the best time of year for candy lovers. The Easter Peeps lovers might have once objected to that statement before these came out:



Halloween Peeps! Pumpkins and ghosts and bats (oh my!).

Oh, oh, and these:



And who can forget a classic like:


Candy corn--Halloween tradition.

My favorites are Snickers and Almond Joys, followed by Milky Ways. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Smarties. Have to have Smarties at Halloween.

What's your favorite Halloween candy?

Your First Costume

Halloween is coming and these days, you've got to grab a costume fast or your kids end up with some real duds.
When I was little, there were very few costumes for sale and those all featured plastic Wonder Woman or Hulk masks and didn't stand up to miles of trick or treating.
For us, a costume consisted of things we could find in our parents' closet. We were hobos, scarecrows, ghosts, gypsies, hippies, mummies, devils, and clowns.
This year, my daughter (she's 4) is going as Cinderella. Her costume is so elaborate you'd think I was presenting her at court.
My son (he's 7) thinks zombies are cool. I don't know why, but I suspect I can blame the new Scooby Doo cartoons. He doesn't like masks, but wants me to put make-up on his face so he looks dead (and glows in the dark too).
Because I love Halloween, I'm going with the flow. But I'm wearing a homemade costume (I'm the beanstalk and I sewed a Ken doll climbing up my leg as "Jack.")
What about you? Will you dress up? Do you remember your first costume?

Planting Seeds, Growing a Series

by Kathleen Ernst

I'm grateful to Deb Baker for allowing me to be a guest here on Cozy Chicks. And I'm grateful to readers! I love my work, and I'd be nowhere without you. Leave a comment here, and your name will go into a daily drawing for one free book. The winner can choose any of my sixteen titles. Old World Murder, one of my American Girl mysteries, a Civil War novel—the choice will be yours!

What's even more fun than holding a copy of your own book in your hands? Holding a copy of the first book in a new series. After fifteen stand-alone titles (most in the juvenile/young adult realm), I'm launching an adult mystery series this month: Old World Murder, A Chloe Ellefson Mystery (Midnight Ink).

My protagonist, Chloe Ellefson, is the new curator at a huge historic site called Old World Wisconsin. She's struggling to leave behind some heartaches, and wants nothing more than to get off to a good start at the historic site. On her first day, however, an elderly donor begs (unsuccessfully) for the return of an artifact she'd donated to Old World years earlier. Moments after that meeting, the woman dies in a car crash. Chloe soon discovers that the artifact is missing—and that someone else who wants it is willing to kill.

I knew from the get-go that I wanted Old World Murder to begin a series. Structure-wise, I thought it would be fun to have Chloe visit other historic sites as the series progresses.

But as a reader, I know that what keeps me coming back to favorite series is the personal arc that propels complex and appealing characters from book to book. So I made some choices that will, I hope, give me lots to work with in the future.

First, I decided to have two point-of-view protagonists. The second is Roelke McKenna, a part-time patrol cop in the small village of Eagle. Roelke is struggling with some personal issues of his own, including the fact that his family and friends think he made an enormous mistake to leave the high-intensity Milwaukee police department in favor of a small town. He's got a good heart, but when pushed too far, can cross professional boundaries.

Planning a series gave me the fun opportunity of creating complex backstories for both Chloe and Roelke. Chloe has some unfinished business with a colleague in Switzerland. Roelke keeps a photograph of a woman who disappeared years earlier. Chloe's parents, who live nearby, are affectionate but detached. Roelke's father was an alcoholic, and his brother is in prison. I've dropped some references to these situations into Old World Murder, but I'll be exploring those relationships in later books.

I also had fun creating a couple of recurring secondary characters with their own complicated backstories—all providing more opportunities for future storylines. Book 2, tentatively titled Deadly as Diamonds, is well underway.

I earn my living as a novelist, and I know how lucky I am. I am also enormously grateful to the readers and publishers who make that possible. I hope you enjoy reading Old World Murder as much as I enjoyed writing it.

What keeps you coming back to your favorite series?


Kathleen Ernst is celebrating the publication of her first adult mystery, Old World Murder (Midnight Ink). She has also written eight mysteries for young readers. Several have been finalists for Edgar or Agatha awards. For more information see her website, http://www.kathleenernst.com, or her blog, http://sitesandstories.wordpress.com.

Tour's Over, Now Back to Work...but first, Movies!

The Fatal Four had a fantastic tour in Texas last week. Thanks to all of you mystery readers and fans for turning out for our signings in Houston, San Antonio, Ft. Worth, Round Rock (Austin area), and Denton (Dallas area). The weather was perfect, in the upper 80's, which is mild for Texas. We were in the car a lot since our tour locations were spread out and Texas is a BIG state. But, we discovered the secret to a successful Road Trip: frequent stops for food. And caffeine. Kolaches at the Czech Stop were a big hit.

Now, I'm back in Colorado and back to work doing revisions on the Kelly Flynn mystery that will be published June of next year. But, first---I wanted to alert all of you to a couple of movies that I saw a few weekends ago. I wanted to share and see what your comments were---and---what new movies you've seen that you've enjoyed.

First-- The American with George Clooney. The setting is mostly in the picturesque Italian hilltop towns, where winding roads turn back upon themselves as cars slowly climb toward their quiet villages. This is a suspense flic, and Clooney does an excellent job, maybe his best work. He's a hit man who's been in "the business" quite a while apparently. And now, he's having second thoughts. The entire cast is excellent, and the cinematography is spectacular. The scenes are shot with an artist's eye, as if each could be framed and hung on a wall. And the director uses those beautiful scenes to build up a remarkable tension. You are constantly looking over the characters' shoulders for them.

Second-- The Town with Ben Affleck as main actor and director. Affleck actually wrote the script and produced as well. The Town refers to the tougher-than-tough section of Boston which produces more armed robbers and bank robbers than any other area of the country. Affleck took meticulous care to reproduce the atmosphere and attitudes of the townfolk he remembered from his youth. This movie is one of the best, if not THE BEST, action/thriller movie I've seen this year. Affleck has got a definite winner here. The actors in the cast are spot on. And Affleck himself has totally redeemed himself as an actor in this marvelous tale. He's wiped all memories of those forgettable flics of the past few years. He's done excellent work here. And he's surrounded himself with some other fine actors like Chris Cooper. If you only get to see a few movies this year, try to make The Town one of them. As with The American , there is violence (shootings).
Have any of you seen these two movies? What do YOU think? What movies have you seen recently that you enjoyed?

Kate-tober

With Kate's tragic loss last week, she'll be unable to do any promotion for a while so we're doing an extra push for her in this difficult time. To show support for Kate, we're asking you to please consider buying a copy of Dirty Rotten Tendrils (released tomorrow!) for yourself and perhaps a second copy for someone you care deeply about or even a library you love in honor of her husband.






Synopsis:


When high-powered lawyer Ken "the Lip" Lipinski is found dead from a suspicious overdose, florist and amateur sleuth Abby Knight finds it hard to swallow that his opposing counsel-and her old boss-is the murderer.

Buy:

Mystery Lovers (Buy two and get free shipping!)B&N


What has been your favorite Abby Knight book so far? Do you have any great Kate stories?