June Shaw's Blog, page 2

November 9, 2016Writing Is My Antidote for Sadnessby Jack...

November 9, 2016Writing Is My Antidote for Sadness
by Jackie King

I have a bad case of the Blues today. Better than last night around midnight, but still feeling sad. In my struggle to avoid a gloomy day, I searched my memory for a happier time.A conversation held at a Malice Domestic Conference sprang to mind. A guy who happened to be another cozy mystery writer said, “My whole day goes better if I write.”
“Really?” I said, “So does mine.” The other authors g...

VOLUNTEER YOUR WRITING by June ShawI love to sell materia...

VOLUNTEER YOUR WRITING

by June Shaw

I love to sell material I write. I really do. Getting to write and have something published was tremendously gratifying. It was when I first began.

Things have changed.

Yes, I'm still thrilled to learn that anyone would want to read something I create. It's especially pleasing when readers tell me or write that they enjoy my work and even ask for more. That is so exciting!

Exciting, too, is getting paid for words I write. The first essay I sold to a magazi...

Characters That Form Our Lives

and Later Come Alive in Our Stories
by Jackie KingOne of my earliest memories is sitting in a circle with my brother, sister and various neighbor kids as my mother told us stories. Delia Hodges Sprague could spin a yarn about any character or characters we might name. Let’s say that I wanted a story about Cinderella, my sister Joan wanted the heroine to be Wonder Woman and my brother J.D., chose Tarzan of the Apes.No problem to Mother. She’d create one tale using each of these characters. The...

Galley Proofs for MURDER AT THE EDGE OF NOWHERE

by Jackie King
Yesterday I received galley proofs of my latest mystery, MURDER AT THE EDGE OF NOWHERE. The odd thing in up-to-date publishing trends, at least with my small regional publisher, is that the ebook came out a few weeks ago. I’ve been reading this version and have been appalled at some of the errors. Did I do that? I ask myself, or was it the publisher’s editor, the publisher himself?



It doesn’t really matter. It’s my book, and I accept all responsibility for any mistakes. Which is...

My Latest Mystery--Suspense, Not Cozy

MURDER AT THE EDGE OF NOWHERE, is now available on Amazon Kindle!
Embezzlement, Blackmail and MurderOn the Oklahoma Panhandle!When Liz O’Brien returns home to make peace with her ailing mother, she expects boredom and monotony. Instead, she finds a morass of secrets that land her in the crosshairs of a killer. Who would have thought that Tumbleweed, an Oklahoma panhandle town so tiny it could disappear as a mirage, would be rift with embezzlement, blackmail and murder?
Plus: The romantic design...

REACHING THE ENDby June ShawI'm breathing. Just breathing...

REACHING THE END
by June Shaw
I'm breathing. Just breathing. And actually moving my fingers over the keyboard right now to pen this blog. The reason I'm allowing myself time to just breathe--actually, relax and do whatever I want to, even if it's nothing--is because I just finished writing my newest book.
I finished writing it!
Okay, not really. What I've done is complete my second book in the upcoming series, and then I rewrote and revised and edited three times. Day before yesterday I sent it t...

GUEST WRITER—MARY COLEY

Posted by Jackie King
Mary Coley is an Oklahoma writer. During her professional career, she has worked as a journalist, a park planner, an environmental educator and a public relations officer. A native of Enid, Coley lives in Tulsa, where she is an active volunteer for Oxley Nature Center. She holds membership in state and national writers groups, as well as the Tulsa Chapter of the Women in Communications.



Finding a Storyline
by Mary Coley
We've all heard that there are no new story lines, they...

BRAINSTORMING AND WRITING TRUTHS

by Jackie King

 Brainstorming for plot points is another of those writing conundrums: I love plotting—I hate plotting.
Friends sometimes help.  In an email to a colleague, I mentioned I was struggling over which type of book to write next, suspense or cozy. This writer/lawyer called me that afternoon and said, “An idea for your next book just came to me, and it's about Grace.” (The protagonist in my cozy series.) My heart sank a bit, because I'd almost decided on w...

GUEST AUTHOR DEBORAH CAMP ON WHY WE READ

WHY DO WE READ?


INFECTIOUS READING
by Deborah CampI recently read an interesting article by the ever-interesting novelist Neil Gaiman about the importance of reading. Often, I see posts on Facebook and other places wherein people fret about the younger generations not appreciating reading and preferring to play video games. This fretting flies in the face of huge sales of Harry Potter books and many other adventure novels aimed at children and teens.I'm of a mind that there will always be avid...

DIALOGUE AND CHARACTERIZATION FROM REAL LIFE

by Jackie KingRealistic dialogue with clear attributions makes the characters in your story come alive. Natural sounding dialogue helps distinguish one character from another. 

The death knell for a writer:Have you ever been reading, and suddenly wondered which character is speaking? I have, and the experience frustrates me. I'm forced to stop reading and count quotation marks backward to the last attribution, then count forward to learn who’s talking. I’m annoyed right out of the story....