Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 229

What's Your Specialty?

A few times this summer, we've gone out to eat with our son and he's been dissatisfied with his meal.

He was really excited about the food when he ordered it, but when he got the steak from the seafood restaurant, or the seafood salad from the deli, he wasn't thrilled with the results.

I wasn't really connecting the dots on my end, either. But finally (I'm slow sometimes) I realized there was a pattern to the problems with his orders. He wasn't ordering the specialty of the house....

Marketing vs. Creativity

I've basically trained myself to be creative on demand—and leave my muse out of the equation all together. Inspiration is too unpredictable—I seem to get better results from just old fashioned perseverance.

But there are times when it's more difficult to write than others and I wonder if there are other writers out there in the same boat.

I'm going to limit my observations here to genre writing, which is all I'm familiar with. But—and this is a generalization—I think that genre writers are...

Writing While Traveling

I was basically out traveling for almost two weeks. But—I still had writing to do.

Actually, while I was gone, I had a call from my agent. I had revision requests on a project I'm working on and she suggested I knock them out in two weeks. That meant that half of that time I would be on the road while working on the edits.

I've always been able to work while I'm gone—but I'm not nearly as productive when I'm traveling as when I'm home.

So this is what I did—and I thought it might help...

The Trouble With Smart Phones

It's so good to be back and blogging again! I missed it more than I'd thought---and especially missed visiting with all of y'all!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, starting out with the book tour and then ending up by catching up with family in Alabama and South Carolina—and my daughter's 9th birthday and subsequent party.

One thing that's been different from other trips out of state is that I was more plugged in than usual.

I've always traveled with my laptop, but usually didn't connect...

Blogcation

I've hesitated doing this, since I'm a creature of habit and I've blogged every day since May 1 2009. :) But looking at my schedule, where I'm coming back from the book tour and then visiting with family and celebrating family birthdays—and going to open houses at my children's schools—I'm thinking that I will take a blogcation until Wednesday, August 25th.

Until then…Happy Writing, everybody!

Thoughts on Group Blogs

Besides this blog, I'm on a few group blogs: Mystery Lovers' Kitchen (Berkley Prime Crime mystery authors and our recipes), Inkspot (for Midnight Ink authors), Killer Characters (where cozy writers' characters have taken over the blog), and A Good Blog is Hard to Find (Southern authors).

I love my own blog and feel like it's my own little front door to the online world. But it's also fun being part of a group blog of other writers. You have a chance to connect with them (Mystery Lovers' ...

Make Your Characters Earn Their Keep---Guest Post by Wendy Lyn Watson

Hope you'll joining me in welcoming Wendy Lyn Watson to Mystery Writing is Murder today. Wendy is a fellow mystery writer and a friend of mine from the Killer Characters blog. Scoop to Kill releases September 7.

First, I want to thank Elizabeth for letting me hang out on her blog today. So many generous writers have helped me over the years (and continue to help me every dang day), so it's nice to get a chance to pay it forward now and then.

The first time I sat down to hammer out a...

Twitterific

Here are writing links that I've posted to Twitter for the past week. If you're looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand corner of the blog (on the black header right above my blog name…next to the Blogger symbol…the small search window is next to the magnifying glass) and the roundup with your subject will come up. To narrow your search down on the page, do a CTRL+F, type your subject, and hit enter.

Novel Done, Soundbite...

Signings

Busy day on Friday, but we really covered some ground!

First of all, actually, was the signing Avery and I did at Joseph Beth bookstore in the South Park area of Charlotte.  They did a beautiful banner for us, which you can see in the background.  Great crowd came out and they asked wonderful questions.

I think that really I never need to follow a presentation by Avery!  She (as her alter-ego Daryl Wood Gerber) was a professional actress on television.  And me? I need to work on my...

Getting From Point A to Point B

One of the group blogs I'm on, A Good Blog is Hard to Find, is re-launching and asked its members to tell a little about themselves and how they started writing.  Mine is up today and I kept it pretty brief! :)  Hope you'll pop by.

I'm traveling for the next four days on my book tour, so I won't be as active online as I usually am (and probably going through internet withdrawal!)