Mike Martin's Blog, page 31

All Over the World

 

You can now buy The Walker on the Cape all over the world.

In Canada you can buy it in most Chapters/Coles/Indigo Stores in Eastern Canada as well as select independent book stores like Sleuth of Baker Street in Toronto and Books on Beechwood in Ottawa. In Newfoundland and Labrador you can buy it almost everywhere from St. John’s to St. Anthony to Happy Valley-Goose Bay. You can also buy it online at Chapters.ca and Amazon.ca

In the United States you can buy it from Booklocker.com, as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Powells Books, Tower Books and the Itunes store.

In the United Kingdom you can buy it from Amazon.uk and Barnes and Noble.uk

In Australia and New Zealand you can buy it from Amazon.au, Angus and Robertson and Bookworld

In Germany you can buy it from Amazon.de

For all the links please vist:

http://walkeronthecape.com/buy-book/

 

 

 

Sneak Peak: Excerpt from The Body on the T

http://bodyonthet.com/2013/03/12/sneak-peak-first-excerpt-from-the-body-on-the-t-the-next-sgt-windflower-mystery/

New Windflower Mystery Coming on May 1, 2013

The next installment in the Windflower mystery series. The Body on the T will be released in Ottawa on May 1, 2013. Here is a sneak peak synopsis of Windflower’s latest adventure

Synopsis

The Body on the T

The Body on the T is the second book in the Windflower mystery series and it follows up on the highly acclaimed premiere, The Walker on the Cape. The story begins when a body washes up on a beach near Grand Bank, Newfoundland. There is no identification on the body and few clues to identify who the person was or where they came from. The case becomes the responsibility of Sgt. Winston Windflower of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his trusted side-kick, Corporal Eddie Tizzard.

But this is just the beginning. There is also a devastating accident on the highway and another suspicious death to deal with. Throw in a rogue police officer and an international drug ring operating in the waters off the coast and Windflower’s peaceful world is turned upside down. This time Windflower’s adventures take him to the scenic town of Burin where Captain Cook once patrolled the waters looking for French mercenaries. And to historic St. John’s where he faces down an armed suspect on a parking garage rooftop in the midst of a busy downtown evening.

Along the way Windflower also continues to enjoy the food and home-style hospitality of this part of the world. Cod tongues, pan seared scallops and even figgy duff become part of his diet, and his long list of favourite foods. Windflower may be a long way from his Cree home in Northern Alberta but he has found a new place to love in the fog and mist of Newfoundland.

More information to come soon including book launch dates in Ottawa and St. John’s, Newfoundland, excerpts and more… Stay Tuned!!!

More Locations to Buy The Walker on the Cape

There are several new locations to buy The Walker on the Cape and other locations that have re-ordered so that they have copies in stock. They include

New Locations

Moncton, New Brunswick

Chapters Moncton, Dieppe NB

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Chapters-Moncton/101642609893733?fref=ts

 

New Minas, Nova Scotia

Coles New Minas, Country Fair Mall, New Minas NS

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Coles-New-Minas/102068213193020?fref=ts

 

Kingston, Ontario

Indigo Kingston, Kingston, Ont

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Indigo-Kingston/147180785304221?fref=ts

 

Re-Orders:

Chapters St. John’s NL

Chapters Dartmouth NS

Coles Fort McMurray AL

Chapters Rideau Ottawa ON

How I Respond to a Bad Review

It is inevitable that if you write a book or play or craft a giant spacecraft out of left over Big Mac cartons that not everybody will like your contribution to the world of arts and culture. When your work first emerges into public view by cracking the shell of creation the world (at least your family and friends, well some of your friends) gush and goo over your work. In some cases they actually like it and in others they are hopeful that this might lead you into a life where some stability prevails and doesn’t have bars on the windows.

But sooner rather than later someone, usually a non-professional and completely uneducated idiot (did I really say that?) will start gently pointing out the flaws in your work. These people who are probably wanna be writers who’ve never published anything since their high school newspaper let them cover the talent show at Christmas one year (ouch!!) want to start pointing out the minor weaknesses in plot development and the shallowness of your main protagonist. How dare they?

Some even stoop so low as to offer such faint praise of the hidden greatness of the work but this is only to cover up their own inadequacies and to allow them full rein to vent their spleen about the mumbled dialogue and occasional, maybe a few, ok, ok, a lot of misspellings and grammar errors. And then they have the gumption about nearly destroying both author and love child to suggest that I could do better the next time. What? Pour my soul out to the world and let them drip hot boiling grease all over it. Never. Well not right away. Maybe soon.

So how do I deal with a bad review? I ignore it, obviously.

Mike Martin is the author of The Walker on the Cape, a Sgt. Windflower mystery. His new book, The Body on the T will be released in May, 2013.

Feautured Artist in The Mainstreeter

Article from the February, 2013 issue of The Mainstreeter in Ottawa

  Novel idea takes shape on the Cape

 

By Tanis Browning-Shelp

 

Author Mike Martin hails from St. John’s, Newfoundland. While he began his career writing in Ottawa back in1985 poring over labour relations policies, the yarns he spins these days contain a completely different sort of colour and intrigue! From his home in Old Ottawa East he has written a mystery novel set in Newfoundland. It was published in 2012 by Ottawa’s Baico Publishing and is now in its third printing.

 

As Toronto Star Whodunit Columnist Jack Batten wrote in July: “The murder takes place in Grand Bank, Newfoundland. The victim is a retired fisherman. The sleuth is RCMP Sergeant Winston Windflower, a Cree from an Alberta reserve. And everybody loves a Jiggs dinner of salted meat, cabbage and pease pudding. Can a crime novel get more Canadian?”

 

“I have always wanted to write,” Mike explained. “I had two older sisters who were both teachers, so they were always putting books in my hands,” he said. “That, of course, helped me learn to love reading.” He cites Charles Dickens as one of his favourite authors. Although Mike does freelance writing on labour relations issues “to pay the bills” and has written many magazine articles and short stories, he felt that he wasn’t a “real writer” unless he had published a book. So he wrote a non-fiction self-help book entitled Change the Things You Can: Dealing with Difficult People.

 

But Mike still yearned to write fiction, “I just didn’t know where to begin,” he said. “I had heard that you should write what you know; five years ago, I started to think about what that would be.” Mike had been travelling to the same small community in Newfoundland for six summers in a row helping his partner restore her Grandfather’s house, so it was a place that he had come to know very well. “Grand Bank has its own culture. It is on the south coast near the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon and it has a rich history of smuggling. And it always seems to be shrouded in fog! It was a great place to come up with an idea. I researched everything I could about it and I talked to people . . . then one day I heard a story about an old man who had been walking on a trail on the cape overlooking the town. They found his body on the trail and nobody knew how he died. I had my story and the setting for The Walker on the Cape.”

 

“Some of the novel’s characters come from my own experience, but mostly, the characters for the story just showed up and started telling the rest of the tale.” Mike said. It was the same with Sergeant Windflower. “The only way I’m connected to him is that we are both outsiders,” he said. “Even though I am from St. John’s Newfoundland, I am not from Grand Bank. Windflower comes from a different culture and province, so he looks at things a little differently and he treads carefully as he investigates. Aside from a couple of little things we share – he doesn’t like Wal-Mart for example – he is his own person.”

 

The biggest influence on Mike completing his first novel was Stephen King. “One book that really helped was King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Mike said. “I learned that the way to write a novel was to start and then to keep at it until it was finished. You just get up every day and you do it.”

 

Now Mike is well on his way to completing his second novel – another Sergeant Windflower book slated to be out later this year. “And I already know how book three in the series will begin,” he said.

 

Mike’s creative process starts by removing as many distractions as he can. “I tend to write my fiction in intense spurts of three months at a time. Then I take short breaks and get back to a more normal routine. I am almost manic or totally obsessed once the story starts coming,” he said.

 

You can go to Mike’s website at http://www.walkeronthecape.com to read reviews, readers’ comments and excerpts from his novel. Two nearby bookstores selling The Walker on the Cape are Britton’s Glebe (which now has something called a Prime Crime Bookshelf) and Books on Beechwood.

Thinking about Spring

Thinking about spring always helps me get through the February blahs!! If not there’s always Cuba. This spring I will be publishing the second book in the Windflower mystery series. This one is called The Body on the T and it marks Seargeant Windflower’s  return  and of course a new mystery to solve. This time a body washes up on shore near Grand Bank and soon Windflower and his sidekick Eddie Tizzard are back on the case. The new book should be out in May, 2013.

I will be releasing some excerpts once the book has been finalized, probably sometime in March so you can get a taste of what Windflower is up to. Literally!! I will share at least one of his fantastic Newfoundland meals and hopefully leave you hungry for more (Groan!!)

Also to break up February I will be featured in The Mainstreeter, the community newspaper for my neighbourhood in Old Ottawa East. It was written by Tanis Browning-Shelp who is in the process of finishing her own first novel, a coming of age book that we can all look forward to. I will post the full article and link when it’s ready.

Mystery Article on Article Factory

What Makes a Good Mystery?

http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/writing/what-makes-a-good-mystery.html

The Windflower Adventure Continues…With Photo Gallery

Great news from Sgt. Windflower and the gang. The adventure continues. Book two of the Windflower series is now at the publishers for review. I expect that it will be out on the shelves by May 1, 2013. More info to follow in the days and months ahead.

One of the settings for the next book is in the town of Burin, NL and I am almost reluctant to share these pictures with you because I don’t want everyone finding out about this absolutely gorgeous place. But I trust you. So here is the photo gallery from the Town of Burin, one of the prettiest places in all of Newfoundland and Labrador

http://townofburin.webs.com/apps/photos/

Just Start Writing and Don’t Stop Until You’re Done

I guess I have always been a writer but for many, many years that writing was confined to business and non-fiction work. This led to a successful career as a freelance writer and hundreds of published articles and thousands of rejection slips. I have also written a lot of poetry and still do. But that was often personal reflection or a way to express love or other emotions and shared only with those very close to me.

I had never really done any fiction writing and while I have always been an avid reader (I had two older sisters who were teachers) I had never even written a short story that wasn’t based somewhat on events in my life or personal recollections. But somehow I felt that I wasn’t a real writer unless I published a book.

So I wrote a non-fiction self-help book and that helped. But it didn’t seem like it was enough. I somehow knew that I had to write a purely fiction book, at least one in order to feel satisfied. Now I had no idea of where to even begin writing a novel so I did what was suggested, which was to read about how other writers did it. One book that really helped was Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” and in this book and others I learned that the way to write a novel was to start and then to keep at it until it was finished. It didn’t matter about the weather, or money, or the economy, or relationships, or even family or sickness or anything. If you want to write a book you just get up every day and you do it.

The other advice I followed was to write about what you know. No make that what you really know. I know an awful little about an awful lot. That makes me a good freelance writer. But I needed to write about something that I knew a lot about to have any credibility. So I found where I wanted to write about, a small community on the tip of the East Coast of Canada, and researched everything I could about it. It helped too that I spent a month there for six summers in a row helping my partner restore her grandfather’s house. And I talked to people and found out about their lives and their history.

Then one day I heard a story about an old man who had been walking on a trail on the cape overlooking the town. They found the old man’s body on the trail and nobody knew how he died. I had my story and the setting for The Walker on the Cape and the rest is history. The characters for the story just showed up and starting telling the rest of the tale. And they just keep talking to me. I have now finished the second book in the series which will be out later this year and I already know how book three will begin.

This post originally appeared on http://www.aliveontheshelves.com.

Mike Martin is the author of The Walker on the Cape, a Sgt. Windflower mystery.

www.walkeronthecape.com

Toronto Locations to Buy The Walker on the Cape:

Sleuth of Baker Street 907 Millwood at Sutherland, Toronto

Indigospirit Royal Bank Plaza, Toronto