Lise McClendon's Blog, page 14

March 28, 2014

Spring cleaning, writer-style

Run AWAY quoteSpringtime!? It’s almost here. In my office it’s a time to regroup, plan, and finish up projects. As I wrap up The Girl in the Empty Dress and before I start my next novel I want to share a little of my writing process for other writers.


This book took me less time to write than most of my other novels in recent memory. (I have written a good handful that have never seen the light of day, including that one where I tried to write ten pages a day. What a mess that one was.) Anyway, I got organized this time. Experience with the process is a big help of course. Every time I write a novel I learn a little more about what works and what doesn’t. I can more swiftly recognize when I’m off track or something is just plain boring. More often I write something off-base that is GORGEOUS and HEARTWRENCHING. That doesn’t mean it makes the cut. Usually the opposite.


This time I uScreen Shot 2014-03-28 at 10.13.53 AMsed two tricks. The first is a software program called Scrivener. You may have heard of it or used it yourself. I know I’ve tried to use it before. It looks like this, an on-screen bulletin board with index cards for chapters, files for characters and settings on the left, and so on. So far, so good, right? I’m pretty visual and looking at it on the computer screen, being able to quickly shift back and forth between outline and manuscript is helpful.


I admit, I am a pantser. In the past I have written rough outlines of novels and mostly knew how they were going to start and how they were going to end. The middle? The dark, murky unknown. But guess what? It’s harder that way. One of the problems that comes up is the sudden appearance of a new character, small or large. What is their name? What do they look like? What is their agenda? (Every character has an agenda.) Screen Shot 2014-03-28 at 10.19.06 AM


Scrivener helps you by getting you to think about these characters, name them ahead of time, or at the very least describe them. Here is a sheet I did called “Bad Guys and Secondaries.”


Okay, so I’m getting organized, thinking about all the possible characters, how they interact, what they want. But how is this helping with the plot? In a crime novel especially the plot matters. It matters as much as the characters. Well, almost as much. In some thrillers the plot matters more than the characters. Plotting and structure is the first big hurdle for most beginning writers.


My second trick: using a Scrivener template. Yes, they are out there, templates that use the program but overlay it with story structures based on certain authors or genres. My template is from one of my favorite writing books, Story%20Engineering">Larry Brooks’s Story Engineering. His website, StoryFix.com, is also a wealth of information.


Someone else has developed a Scrivener template based on his Beat Sheet. (Here are a number of useful Scrivener Templates.) I do recommend reading the book first but in case you want to jump in with both hands on the keyboard, here’s the short version. Beats are where the story changes, similar to plot points. There are small beats and large beats. The basic structure is shown in the first screen shot: Set up, Response, Attack, Resolution.


Screen Shot 2014-03-28 at 10.18.11 AM


Seems simple, right? Well, structure looks simple from the outside but putting it into practice, making your story work the most effective way it can, is both simple and incredibly nuanced. And, just like the old plot outlining you may have done, things go awry. Those chapters you stuck in for part three because you really had no idea how things were going to go? They get changed. Many scenes changed and clarified for me as I went along. That’s called creative writing. But because I knew how much time I had until the next Story Beat, what needed to happen before that Beat, I stayed on track. That’s what these tools do for you. They don’t tell you how to write your book, they make it easier to see your goals, what your story needs to do and when it needs to do it.


Here’s how my Attack section, part three, looked when I finished. The Attack section, a reaction to the problems set forth in the first two sections, is full of short, punchy chapters, lots of action, comings and goings. The board reflects this with all 14 cards full. In other sections I didn’t have 14 chapters that Scrivener gives you (you can add more.)


There are all sorts of writing tools that help you outline and organize. Finding one that works for you can be a struggle. But after using Scrivener and the template this time, I think I’ve found a winner. But who knows. Maybe I’ll reinvent myself for the next book. (Oof. What a thought!) No, I think I’ve got a system now. Time to get going on the next book!


Tagged: Beat Sheet, characters, creative writing, crime writing, Larry Brooks, plotting, Scrivener, story, Story Beats, structure, writer, writers, writing
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Published on March 28, 2014 10:56

March 16, 2014

EveryWoman: Amateur Sleuth

My guest this week is Julie Anne Lindsey who writes a mystery series set on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. She discusses the challenges, and the joys, of creating an amateur sleuth. Take it away, Julie!


• • • • • •


Mystery writing can be a load of fun, especially where an amateur female sleuth is involved. Women are tenacious, curious and resilient, not to mention crafty. Let’s face it, once we get it in our minds to accomplish something, it’s going to happen. Period. Clean that stubborn grout? Done. Find Egyptian cotton sheets at a discount low enough to crumble the pyramids? Easy. Catch a killer? Well…why not?


Creating the perfect heroine was simple. She’s every woman. Creating the perfect crime was harder. If mystery writing taught me anything, it was that I am no criminal mastermind. But I do know how to cause trouble. So, I outlined the crime, put myself in my heroine’s super cute shoes and asked myself, “What would I do first?”


Right? If we have a problem, we need a plan to solve it. Normally, we start with the facts we have and the resources already available to us. That part’s easy enough, but what happens when our resources run out? Well, that’s when a girl’s got to get resourceful.


My heroine’s curious and motivated, but she’s not a criminal and this isn’t a James Bond book. She has to get information in legal ways without a crack team of gun-toting, tech-savvy backup waiting in the wings. This is where I had the most fun. Thinking outside the box. I wondered: How can she get answers? Where should she look next? Better yet, how much trouble can she get into while looking? The short answer to my last question is SO MUCH TROUBLE.


Murder-Comes-Ashore-jpg


In my new release, Murder Comes Ashore, body parts are washing up on the beach and Patience is eager to know if there’s a serial killer on the loose. Is her little island community in danger? She learns about the parts first. The cuts are clean. Who would know how to do something like that and who has the room, equipment and privacy to get the job done? All good questions. So, Patience asks the locals. The fishermen. The hospital pathologist. And so on. Pretty soon she asks the wrong person and the killer gets wind of her snooping. As it turns out, killers don’t like snooping. And then the real fun begins.


Hey, launching a private investigation is no easy task, especially for an amateur. Stakeouts and tailing suspects can ruin a girl’s sleep and worry her parents. It can also irritate her FBI boyfriend who insists she drop her investigation and stay out of his way. Not something a woman wants to hear, so she doesn’t listen. Obviously. Who does he think he is?


Then, there’s her real life. Patience has plenty on her plate without an amateur investigation and life keeps getting in her way.  Finding trouble for this character was easy and kind of a hoot. She’s quick to act and slow to worry. She’s loved by her community and has commitments to tend to when she’s not being chased, threatened or car bombed. Writing the antics and shenanigans of a small town counselor turned investigator was so much fun. The locals are quirky. The tourists are cramping her style and her ex-boyfriend is a temptation hard to ignore. Then again, who has time for temptation? She’s got obstacles galore, but curiosity prevails. Patience is everything I would be, if only I weren’t afraid of my shadow, and writing the investigation of an amateur sleuth was a blast. I hope reading the story will be just as much fun.


If you’re looking for a fun new series, I hope you’ll consider my stories. Murder Comes Ashore is available now and there’s a whole island of fun just waiting for you.


Murder Comes Ashore


Patience Price is just settling into her new life as resident counselor on Chincoteague Island when things take a sudden turn for the worse. A collection of body parts have washed up on shore and suddenly nothing feels safe on the quaint island.


Patience instinctively turns to current crush and FBI special agent Sebastian for help, but former flame Adrian is also on the case, hoping that solving the grisly crime will land him a win in the upcoming mayoral election.


When the body count rises and Patience’s parents are brought in as suspects, Patience is spurred to begin her own investigation. It’s not long before she starts receiving terrifying threats from the killer, and though she’s determined to clear her family’s name, it seems the closer Patience gets to finding answers, the closer she comes to being the killer’s next victim.


Lindsey_headshot


Amazon       Barnes&Noble


About Julie:


Julie Anne Lindsey is a multi-genre author who writes the stories that keep her up at night. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd with a penchant for words and proclivity for fun. Julie lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Today, she hopes to make someone smile. One day she plans to change the world.


Murder Comes Ashore is a sequel in her new mystery series, Patience Price, Counselor at Large, from Carina Press.


Learn About Julie at:   Julieannelindsey.com


Tagged: amateur sleuth, Chincoteague Island, female sleuth, Humor, Julie Anne Lindsey, mystery, mystery writing, suspense, Virginia
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Published on March 16, 2014 22:12

March 7, 2014

Book blogger alert!


I’m doing a blog tour for the new book! If you’re a book blogger and love books set in France, check out Words and Peace’s France Book Tours for details. The book is a sequel to Blackbird Fly, a women’s suspense novel.


I can’t wait to get the real cover and share it with you. I’m re-launching Blackbird Fly as well– new cover for e-book and print! The amazing Lisa Desimini is doing original art and I have to say, it is stunning. Stay tuned.


Tagged: blog tour, book blogger, book blogs, e-book, France, France Book Tours, French, Lisa Desimini, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, Thalia Press, thriller
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Published on March 07, 2014 11:56

March 4, 2014

One Picture, One-Thousand Words

Originally posted at Thalia Authors Co-op.


Here at Thalia we are word slingers. We craft sentences that lead to paragraphs that morph into scenes that join into chapters and eventually become novels. We love words. They are our clay, our seeds, our bricks, our dirt.


Movie.jpg


That said, we live in an image-driven world. A world of television, movies, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and the next big photo site. For me writing stories is a way to describe the movies in my head. I am a visual person. I really wanted to be a film reviewer right out of college. I love movies. I love the stories they tell, the subtleties conveyed in a passing look on screen, in a touch, in the twitch of a smile. Film is an emotional medium. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. An image conveys different emotions to different people. Words work on readers the same way but there is something about a picture.



Assuming then that I have added all sorts of pictures to this post and you are still engaged, I’d like to point out that a thousand words makes a very short story. Like short-short. One-thousand words times five is a short story. One-thousand words times seventy is a novel. So a series of seventy photographs might tell you the story depicted in a novel? In a comic book there are twenty or thirty pages with six or so panels per page. That makes 120 to 180 images per story. Does that mean a comic book is richer and more textured than a novel of 70,000 words? Your call. To each his own entertainment.


reading-life.jpgI come to you with no agenda. I don’t write comic books or screenplays. I am a novelist. I love the long form story. I can write short stories but I don’t find them as, well, rich and textured and satisfying as a novel. A novel takes months to organize. It takes another big chunk of time to write from that hilarious outline you wrote before you started. Six, ten, twelve months, sometimes much more. Then more time to clean up the mess of the first draft. If a novelist is lucky and extremely organized — and can we say ‘driven’? — writing a polished long work of fiction in twelve months is good, honest work. That doesn’t include time spent promoting your book, blogging (yes, here we are!), tweeting, traveling to conferences, doing public appearances and booksignings and even getting your book copyedited and proofread. And if you’re not with a traditional publisher, getting your cover designed.


The novel, despite its name, isn’t all that new any more. Today the definition is “a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism.” Realism is a bit of a stretch these days. Novels of urban fantasy, science fiction, and time travel exist. What ties them together is the understanding they have of the human psyche, human existence, its vulnerabilities and ironies. Is that touch, that indescribable something, more easily conveyed by a film clip or a photograph? Or is the depiction of the journey a character goes through, the barriers, the trials, the highs and lows, more honest?


child-watching-movieDuring Oscars week we can take some collective joy in the stories told on film, and every medium. Some movies are adapted from books we love. We hope they translate well. (If not we can always go back to our books.) More are delivered via letters and words and sentences, between pages, on screens, wherever people read. Wherever we get our stories is fine.


Our stories bring us together, help us connect with one another, and illuminate the fabulousness and ironically  deep pain of life. Which makes us all better humans, if only we continue to read and listen to stories.


————


PS: I was watching ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ while I wrote this. Not saying it changed my life. Just saying. ;-)




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Published on March 04, 2014 04:47

February 25, 2014

Is your book a blockbuster?

I was making a fire, grabbing old newspapers from the bin, when I came across this NY Times article from last summer: Save My Blockbuster… It will come as no surprise that I love film criticism. I even worked briefly (and very cheaply) as a film reviewer in my twenties. So this analysis of the summer blockbuster, what makes it, what sells it, caught my eye. Rescuing it from the flames I decided to see if my own action thriller, PLAN X, would make the grade.


In the article a mock action movie called Red, White, & Blood is pitched to a handful of movie exec types as “Fast & Furious meets Nicholas Sparks meets Die Hard.”  I despise these so-and-so meets such-and-such things so that’s out. Besides I can’t think of any movies about female cops related to British spies looking for rare documents. “George Smiley meets Pussy Galore meets Hurt Locker”? Ugh. This isn’t starting out so well. But maybe, I think, my audience isn’t 14-year-old boys! There is hope.


Onward. The first exec says to lose the Nicholas Sparks angle because mush is not what summer blockbusters are about. So far so good. No mush in PLAN X, just a little snogging and a hint of romp.


Exec #2 is the marketing guy who says we need shirtless man candy for the girlfriends of the guys who will go see the action thriller. Damn. Wait! Walker Crum is naked once. At least once. Legal attache at US Embassy in London as man candy? Oh hell.


The Studio exec says redemption of main character is good. In PLAN X Cody Byrne, the main character, is reconciled with the father she hardly knows, and saves his life. That sounds like redemption to me. Score! Exec says last five minutes are all important. In book time that would be the last chapter. There is a big explosion at the end of the book and Cody is almost killed. The last chapter is the resolution though, not the big blow-em-up. Hmmm.


The Researcher exec says you shouldn’t try to appeal to everyone. He says younger characters/actors appeal to the younger audience. Does this cross over to book characters? Do readers want to see someone their own age as a main character? What do you think?


The Global Marketer says throw in some Spanish, or some Chinese baddies, or something. No Spanish in PLAN X but Cody Byrne trots around the world to England from Montana. Not too exotic but at least she’s out of the US.


The Writer takes this exercise the least seriously of all the execs.  Writing isn’t valued much in the summer blockbuster, in fact, the advice is make the explosions so loud no one can hear how bad the dialogue is. Bummer. He also advises time-traveling aliens.


Carl Jung quoteWell, an interesting exercise that would have been more interesting is I was writing books for 14 year olds. Or men, frankly, as my main characters are usually women. I like to think PLAN X appeals to men and women. It has gotten good reviews from men. But there aren’t a lot of hot cars or hot women in it. Just Shakespeare and MI5 and a dead guy without a name.


At the least I can cast my movie, right? Who do you see as Cody Byrne, 30ish, sometime cowgirl and cop? She’s tough on the outside, not wanting anyone to see her PTSD. Alienated from her family. Feeling alone in the world. Relentless in her search for the true identity of the bomb victim. Taking suggestions. Send ‘em on.


Tagged: action thriller, blockbuster, books to film, casting, casting your book, Cody Byrne, films, George Smiley, Hollywood, movies, New York Times, redemption, summer blockbuster, writing
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Published on February 25, 2014 10:48

February 18, 2014

Sixteen Forks

Some years ago I took a trip to France with two girlfriends and my son who had just graduated from college. The goal of the trip was to go to the Cannes Film Festival even though none of us are actors, filmmakers, or otherwise in the business. The general public is generally not invited, you see. But we had connections, and we made it work.


Here then, a piece I wrote about that trip, including an epic French meal involving an avalanche of flatware.


            Sixteen Forks and a Milkmaid 



We’re three hours into our meal at the very elegant Lou Marques in Arles, sitting at starched white-cloth tables surrounded by cutlery. Not the same cutlery we started with back at the dim beginning of dinner. No, we sigh, thinking of the poor dishwasher and the endless stream of forks. Used or not, they leave the table only to return in quantity.


We aren’t complaining. We’re in France, eating a luscious meal at a leisurely pace, the way God and the French intended. We sit by the open door where a light breeze cools our backs. (Instead of the hot table by the kitchen where they tried to stick us. Heh, we Americans have seen that trick.) The waiters do English pretty well, we’ve found, but don’t try the ancillary help. What do they call bus boys in French? What do they call the buxom lass who pushes around the cart of fromage? With her blond braid and extra-large dirndl skirt at first we think of her as Alsatian. We can see her thick arms pounding a pie crust for quiche. Then it comes to us — my two friends and my son (trapped on his graduation trip with three middle-aged, shopping-crazed women just because he wants to see the Cannes Film Festival). She is Swiss — a milk maid! Something about her damp face and the way she pulls her white blouse away from her bust as she stops at each table. Fromage, monsieur? Then she pops the damp fabric away so we won’t stare at her lacy brassiere underneath.


She works hard. The waiters glide here and there, taking orders, pouring wine, delivering steaming plates of lamb or bowls of bouillabaisse. In their black suits they look serene despite the heat. The milkmaid does not look serene as she cuts me samples of fromage, or switches the silverware for new silverware, or sweeps the cloth with a crumb squeegee, or takes away plates. She looks like she might lose a pound or two tonight if she doesn’t sneak some fromage.


We’ve just arrived in this old city with its Roman relics. Across the street the city’s wall stands from two-thousand years ago, and a block away parts of the old theater remain, still ringing with classical poetry. The amphitheater built by Romans in 90 AD, where in the Middle Ages the entire village retreated for safety, has been resurrected and again is the scene of festival and pageantry during the town’s bullfights.


We miss the feria, the bullfights; they are in Nîmes this weekend. Despite the promise of tight-fitting velvet and the swish of the horns, we decline, instead taking a day-trip to Tarasçon where we fall in love with a beautiful old castle on the Rhône. My son wants to make it into a disco and upscale restaurant, perhaps live in a turret. Solid and well-preserved, the castle was built by one of France’s Renaissance-era kings with a passion for barge travel. The doors to the river would open, the barges float in for unloading. The top of the castle is classic, gargoyle waterspouts and a vertigo drop to the water. Sadly, my son admits a nightclub in the middle of sleepy, beautiful Provence is unlikely to make a go. The cannon ball dents, giant pock marks, in the castle walls tell a thousand tales.


Back in the Lou Marques, we tell tales and wait for dessert. New forks arrive. We wave at a few waiters who wave back. The milkmaid delivers fromage to other tables. Our travel mantra, spoken with a lisp courtesy of the movie,”Ladies’ Man,” haunts us: “We gotta get the he’ outta he’.”


Our sightseeing day was warm, very warm. But we trudged on to the Pont du Gard. It’s bank holiday and the campgrounds are full. Daytrippers stream to the river, to jump into the lazy waters or to climb to the top of the bridge, an aqueduct built again by Romans, three levels of arches spanning the canyon. At the top we wonder where the water came from, it is so dry and rocky. Where did it go? We buy a brochure, find there were more magnificent bridges, just to bring spring water to a small town. Another Roman work project. A we-can-do-it-and-we’ve-got-the-slaves moment in history.


Water would be nice as we wait for dessert but all the help is elsewhere, running around the dining room. The milkmaid is miles away, across the cavernous room with its twelve-foot curtains. Being Americans we didn’t wait until nine to go to dinner like the sensible French. So now everyone else is in the middle of dinner while we linger, sated by fabulous food but fading. My son goes to bed. It is ten-thirty.


My friends are in search of gypsy music. They both are in a drum group and are Gypsy Kings fans. We’ve heard of one place in Arles but they only have music on weekends. The concierge looks at us suspiciously when we ask. Last weekend we were in Cannes with the beautiful people. We dressed, we walked the red carpet, we saw incredibly depressing movies. Through the good graces of well-connected friends, we got hard-to-obtain tickets for a working class English drama. Mutterings during the show: “Chemicals. Get these people chemicals.” Up in the nosebleed section, people are leaving in droves. It’s a good movie, raw and honest, and the cast and director are there. We applaud, hoping they will mount the stage and tell us it’s all fiction. They decline.


One night at the Festival du Film seems enough. We’d like to see more movies but next time we have to get press passes so we can indulge all day long. We can’t eat at the café on the Hotel Majestic’s beach. Private Party. We can’t get into the hall. No badges. Security stops us at the Hotel’s drive. We open our bags for inspection but they don’t like our looks and our Cannes mantra ‘we don’t have badges’. We foil them on show night by taking a taxi right up to the door. We walk out of Depressing Movie and music is playing outside between screenings, “The Girl from Ipanema.” Happy to be released from British angst, I sing a few bars, someone behind me sings the rest of the verse. I turn. It’s Sting, with Trudy on his arm. I punch my friends in the back. I have sung with Sting. My trip is made.


Our friend surprises us the next day, delivering more tickets and official press packets. (But alas, no badges.) We have been daytripping but there is just enough time to mend my broken dress strap and go. My son looks fabulous in his new Italian suit. The night before a gorgeous young blonde insisted he buy a bow-tie at the Festival entrance (no long ties!) He gets to use it again, slashing its per-use cost to seven-and-half euros. We see a more uplifting music-themed movie, also English. People still leave in droves. Do reviewers really watch the whole movie? Who are these people anyway? Taxis are non-existent. We traipse the length of the Rue Croisette looking for one. A friendly doorman at the Hotel Martinez takes pity after I adjust my neckline. While waiting we see a mini-van pull up. Young women, bodyguards, and a slight young man with a sprout of chin hair and a pulled-down ball cap pile out. The bodyguards push away autograph hounds. Could it be Leonardo DeCaprio? We see him in the paper the next day with Cameron and Scorcese. We decide to stick to the story. We saw Leo. We didn’t sing with him but we saw his back. Sorta.


At the Lou Marques dessert finally arrives and is worth waiting for, chocolate and homemade sorbet and creme brulée. The bill could have waited. We are charged for four bouillabaisse dinners instead of two appetizers. Negotiations are lengthy. We embarrass ourselves, stumbling through our tired high-school French, but prevail. We stumble through the old convent’s cloisters to our yellow paisley room, exhausted.


Dinner: three-and-a-half hours. Forks: sixteen. Milkmaids: one. Happy Americans: four.


——-


Stay tuned for my new novel set in France: The Girl in the Empty Dress, the sequel to my bestselling novel, Blackbird Fly. Coming in May.



Tagged: Arles, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, cheese, Festival du Cannes, film festival, France, French, fromage, Lou Marques, Pont du Gard, Provence, Tarascon, travel, writing

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Published on February 18, 2014 13:47

February 8, 2014

Last Day for 99¢

Saturday, February 8 (coincidentally my birthday) is the final day of the 99 cent sale for PLAN X! Have you grabbed it yet?


Plan X on Amazon         Plan X on Barnes & Noble        Plan X on KOBO 


Carl Jung quote


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Published on February 08, 2014 01:57

February 4, 2014

Plan X for 99c

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Published on February 04, 2014 03:45

February 1, 2014

The Good Riddance to Winter Newsletter

Goodbye January, and bon debarras! ☃☃☃☁☁☁


♥ Hello February! I always liked you best. ♥


Are you signed up for the mailing list so you can hear about special deals and new stories?


Only takes a second. Here’s the link: NEWSLETTER


The Good Riddance to Winter Newsletter
To view the Newsletter  click here

§ § §


Special for blog followers: To celebrate 20 years in print The Bluejay Shaman, my very first published mystery, is FREE at most book e-tailers. Find out how Alix Thorssen got her start in sleuthing back in 1994. Or refresh your memory with a fresh new download, or even give a copy to a friend. All free while it lasts.


Traveling the back roads of Montana, not-quite-fearless art gallery owner Alix Thorssen is far from home and up to her Ray-bans in shaman’s secrets, mysterious deaths, madness, and – ah yes – passion among the pine needles. Whoever killed Shiloh Merkin hated her and wanted her dead. But did Wade Fraser, Alix’s brother-in-law and University of Montana anthropology professor, do the deed? What happened to the petroglyph of the bluejay shaman? Alix follows a trail of sex, moonlit rituals, and legendary artifacts as another murder leads her to a chilling confrontation with the killer. In this first novel of the Jackson Hole series about Alix Thorssen, Lise McClendon weaves a gripping tale of suspense, blending Indian lore, the timeless clash of western values, and the magnificent landscape of the Rockies. “Reminiscent of Tony Hillerman at his best,” says James Crumley, author of The Last Good Kiss.


                   KINDLE        KOBO US    iTUNES   Kindle UK



Tagged: 20 years, Alix Thorssen, amazon, Bluejay Shaman, books, e-books, february, free, free ebooks, freebies, giveaway, good riddance, iBooks, iTunes, january, KOBO, Montana, mystery, newsletter, publishing, winter
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Published on February 01, 2014 03:53

January 11, 2014

Giveaway winner – yippee!

A winner has been chosen in the latest giveaway. (I used a random integer thingie – cool!) The winner is Lisa Klein of Ypsilanti, Michigan. Congratulations, Lisa!


stickerVNFThanks to everyone who entered, this go-round or some time in the past. If you subscribed to my newsletter you were entered. I’ll be sending out “I’m a VNF just ask me” stickers to all those who entered with their postal addresses (in the US.) Do you want a sticker? Drop me a line at lise at lisemcclendon dot com. (Change those to @ and .)


What to do with a VNF sticker, you ask? What does it stand for? My friend Bess told me it might not be Very Noisy Friend. It could be Very Naughty Friend or something else. You decide. My idea is it is an icebreaker. Put it on your laptop case, your notebook, your office door. When someone wonders what it is, give them your take on VNF. Tell them what books you’re reading! Or whatever you want to discuss. Get social!


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Published on January 11, 2014 03:54