Mike Martin's Blog, page 34

What Makes a Good Mystery?

Since I am a much better reader of mysteries than a writer I feel somewhat qualified to throw my oars into the water in giving my opinion about the qualities of a good mystery. We may all have our particular settings or styles or the love of blood or lack thereof in our mysteries I think we can all unite on one thing. A good mystery requires a good story.

Maybe that is the basic element of any book in any genre, even in non-fiction. The story has to get our attention and make us want to read more. For mystery books there has to be some element of the unknown that we are promised will be revealed if only we hang around long enough. Or even if we know ‘who dun it’ how the perpetrators are brought to justice or not may be enough to hold us fast to our seats and keep us turning the pages.

But how the story is told and the definition of the main characters are close behind in terms of factors that make up a good mystery. Style, pace and plot development are keys to ensuring that the reader is not just entertained, but engaged along the way. The sub-genres of mystery start diverging here, particularly around style which tends to involve detailed and sometimes flowery descriptions in cozies or technically detailed forensic talk in police procedurals. But they all come back together when it comes to the flow of the story. Good mysteries in all forms have a rhythm that somehow just seems right. Great mystery writers have the ‘Goldilocks’ touch: not too fast, not too slow, just right!

Great characters are another key to great mysteries. We all remember the giants like Poirot or Miss Marple or Rebus or any number of great cat writers. But I find that it is actually the sub-cast of characters that separate the great from the good. And it’s not usually the person or persons who get killed that are the most interesting. It’s the Corporal under the Sergeant, or the old friend who always shows up with advice or a bottle of scotch at exactly the right time.

But what really sets the mystery category aside from all other writing is the added characteristic of surprise. Every mystery book has a few twists and turns but a great mystery book has an absolutely brilliant surprise. It may be that the butler didn’t actually do it, but he was certainly involved in helping the less than legitimate heir bury the bodies. Or an unheard of relative who surfaced just after the will is read or… you get the picture.

Reading a great mystery book is like having a candle to light the way down a dark and unfamiliar hallway. You don’t know what you are going to find down there, but you just have to go and see for yourself.

This post first appeared on Mystery Maven.com

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

www.walkeronthecape.com

Mystery Maven Blog Post and ITUNES news!!

Mystery Maven Blog Post

I am guest blogging today at MysteryMaven.com. Come visit me

What Makes a Good Mystery?

Since I am a much better reader of mysteries than a writer I feel somewhat qualified to throw my oars into the water in giving my opinion about the qualities of a good mystery. We may all have our particular settings or styles or the love of blood or lack thereof in our mysteries I think we can all unite on one thing. A good mystery requires a good story.

http://mysterymavencdn.blogspot.ca/2012/12/mayhem-on-mondays.html?showComment=1354536280604

You can now buy The Walker on the Cape on ITUNES

This book is available for download on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iBooks and on your computer with iTunes. Books must be read on an iOS device.

Here is the ITUNES link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-walker-on-the-cape/id579937782

Reminder about our Holiday Book Offer:

For $20.00 a copy I will sign, wrap and mail a copy of  The Walker on the Cape anywhere in Canada. If you order by December 10 Canada Post and I will almost guarantee a gift to someone you care about under some form of plant or tree by December 25.

And I will be donating $5.00 from every book sold in December to OCISO, the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization’s iContribute Campaign to help them assist newcomers have a happy holiday season too.

For more information about OCISO please visit http://ociso.org/En/index.php/you-can-help/icontribute

Expand Your Mind

One of the “big” things of the 60′s and 70′s was to learn to expand your mind using a variety of tools and techniques, most of which I vaguely recall as involving a chemical intervention. Not that I would know anything about that. You don’t hear much talk about that concept these days but I still think it’s a good idea.

The creativity genius Edward de Bono wrote a book called “The Mechanism of Mind,” which offered suggestions to improve anyone’s creative thinking. Most of his advice is very practical and simple. But not necessarily easy. That’s because we have been trained to think in a certain way and really don’t know any other. de Bono starts by suggesting that we look at a problem in different ways if we want to be creative.

To do that he suggests a number of techniques:

Expand Your Thinking, Randomly: Try opening a book at random, or pointing to a word by random. Go for a walk and let the objects you see influence your thinking. Whatever the input is, it has to be random and from outside your mind.

Expand Your Idea Quota: Just because you have thought up a perfectly good solution to your problem, don’t stop. You may be able to come up with an even better solution. One way to practice this is to set a goal of finding three solutions and picking the best.

Expand Your Attention: Try and bring your attention to different parts of the problem: If you bring one aspect of a problem into the foreground of your thoughts for a while it will sometimes lead you to a full solution of the problem.

Expand Your Thinking, in Reverse: Try thinking of the opposite situation or problem to what you might be facing. It might be a reversal in size, time, direction or meaning. Asking a question about a problem in the opposite way may in fact lead to some other solution that one might not have thought of if one hadn’t asked the question.

As I said, simple, but not easy. But try expanding your mind. It just might work. After all, what’s the alternative?

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

www.walkeronthecape.com

Ottawa Authors and Artisans Fair Sunday Dec 2, 2102

Ottawa Authors and Artisans Fair Sunday Dec 2, 2102

 http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/387958884624881/

Join us for the annual Ottawa Authors and Artisans Fair on Sunday, December 2 from 10 am to 4:30 pm at the Jack Purcell Centre, 320 Jack Purcell Lane (just off Elgin) in Ottawa. There will be over forty Indie authors from the Ottawa area.
 
And don’t forget I will be donating $5.00 from every book sold in December to OCISO, the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization’s iContribute Campaign to help them assist newcomers have a happy holiday season too.

For more information about OCISO please visit http://ociso.org/En/index.php/you-can-help/icontribute

Don’t Let Procrastination Block Your Writing

Don’t let Procrastination Block Your Writing

I am a writer and by definition that gives me the almost right to delay, defer, postpone or re-schedule my activities. The truth is that I use excuses rather than push my way through a less than productive period. It sounds romantic to say I have lost my muse and it may be a great alibi to have ‘writer’s block’.  But they are just homogenized ways to put off until to tomorrow what I could write today.

If you are like me, and up to an estimated 20 percent of the population you are sick and tired of getting stuck. So here are a few ways to help you get through the sometimes deadly habit of procrastination.

Admit you have a problem

Take a look at your work habits and determine why you are putting off doing some particular tasks. You might find that you are not deliberately avoiding you maybe don’t have the time to get it done. If that’s the case then you don’t have a procrastination problem you actually have a time management problem. That’s good news because it’s easy to fix by setting priorities and sticking with them.

Set priorities and stick with them

Start your day off with a “to do” list that prioritizes your most important tasks. Watch for some tell-tale signs of procrastination. These might include leaving something until the last minutes of the day when you run out of time to complete it. Or starting in on a job and then getting up for a cup of coffee or checking your e-mails before you get it done. Stay focused on the job at hand and don’t give in to distractions that can take you in another direction.

Deal with your time management problem

Get yourself a good time management book and start following some of the techniques they suggest. You may never be perfect at time management but you will be better and that will certainly help you deal with your procrastination.

Eat the elephant in small bites

Take large or particularly difficult tasks and break them down into smaller and more manageable pieces. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. This will get you moving and as you complete the smaller pieces you will feel good that you are accomplishing something and eventually you can cross that job off your list.

You may be perfect, but… Let it go

It’s also okay to give yourself permission to do the best job you can rather than always striving for perfection in everything you do at work. Sometimes perfectionism leads to procrastination and we put so much stress on ourselves that we can just give up on the job completely or leave it until another day. It’s okay to be human, make some mistakes and complete a task that is very good, even if it’s just shy of being perfect.

Put down the stick

Stop beating yourself up about making mistakes or your procrastination habit and don’t let others do it either. The last thing you need when trying to get over a difficult habit or pattern is negativity, from internal or external sources. Learn a little tenderness with yourself as you are growing out of both your perfectionism and procrastination.

Change your Thinking and Change your mind

Most procrastination is about our thinking. We put up mental blocks that get in the way of getting things done. Sometimes our thinking gets us so worked up that we start avoiding tasks that just have to get completed. The secret to avoiding procrastination is to change our mindset and reset our brains so that we can actually accomplish what we set out to do. Change your mind and your thinking and your body will follow.

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

www.walkeronthecape.com

 

 

New Locations to Buy The Walker on the Cape

Look for The Walker on the Cape on shelves in Fredericton, New Brunswick and Scarborough, Ontario

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Chapters Fredericton

Regent Street Mall

Fredericton

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Chapters-Bookstore-Fredericton-NB/146243298735905?fref=ts

Scarborough, Ontario

Chapters Scarborough

20 William Kitchen Road

Scarborough

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Chapters-Scarborough/132966063411758?fref=ts

And Don’t Forget:

Ottawa Authors and Artisans Fair

Sunday Dec 2, 2012 10-4

Jack Purcell Centre, Ottawa

…………………

Holiday Book Offer

For $20.00 a copy I will sign, wrap and mail a copy of  The Walker on the Cape anywhere in Canada. If you order by December 10 Canada Post and I will almost guarantee a gift to someone you care about under some form of plant or tree by December 25.

And I will be donating $5.00 from every book sold in December to OCISO, the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization’s iContribute Campaign to help them assist newcomers have a happy holiday season too.

For more information about OCISO please visit http://ociso.org/En/index.php/you-can-help/icontribute

Reflections on the Evil Empire of Amazon

A column on Salon.com that was forwarded to me by a friend recently got me to thinking about my relationship with the evil empire of Amazon. The post by successful e-book writer Art Edwards reveals many of the same doubts that most of us ‘old school’ writers feel about the new world of electronic books and publishing.

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/18/letti...

My own experience is that I am certainly grateful for the opening that self-publication has provided to me and my work. I may have been able to get The Walker on the Cape published through a traditional publisher but I didn’t want to wait three years to do it. And I have had the opportunity to really understand the publishing/marketing business along the way. I have a lot of sympathies for publishers, especially small ones. They cannot afford to take too many chances nor make even one mistake.

I do however remain a skeptic when it comes to the idea that we will all become e-readers in the not too distant future and that the end of the printed book is nigh. Yes there will be a lot more books available in electronic versions but I think that we will continue to have a printed book universe, smaller but maybe more intense, as we move forward.

As for me even though I now have two books in e-print and available on the devil spawn, Amazon, I do not own an e-reader and I have no plans to get one, even to review my own books. I do not like them, any of them, and still want to curl up with a printed version of my favourite books. Can you even curl up with a Kindle?

Thoughts anyone?

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

www.walkeronthecape.com

Holiday Offer for The Walker on the Cape

Seasonal Greetings. Sorry, but yes it is that time of year already.

I am writing to make you a special holiday offer for The Walker on the Cape. You are looking for gifts for family and friends, right? And you don’t really want to go out shopping, am I right again? Then I have a solution for you. I will sign, wrap and mail a copy of The Walker on the Cape to Aunt Millie or Uncle Joe for you.

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Bodhi Day (the Buddha’s Enlightenment), Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or the Winter Solstice The Walker on the Cape makes a perfect gift. For $20.00 a copy I will wrap and mail the books. If you order by December 10 Canada Post and I will almost guarantee a gift to someone you care about under some form of plant or tree by December 25.

So I am paying the shipping and handling as well as the gift wrapping as my special holiday gift to you. This offer applies only to Canadian orders. If you are interested just send me an e-mail and we can work out details.

Mike Martin
Author of The Walker on the Cape, a Sgt. Windflower mystery
www.walkeronthecape.com

P.S. In the spirit of the season I will be donating $5.00 from every book sold in December to OCISO, the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization’s iContribute Campaign to help them assist newcomers have a happy holiday season too. For more information about OCISO please visit http://ociso.org/En/index.php/you-can-help/icontribute

So You Wanna Be A Writer

A friend recently wrote to me about his 14 year old daughter who wanted to be a writer. He asked if I had any advice or suggestions to offer her. Here’s what I sent back.

I have been a writer all of my life. Sometimes it was little scraps of a story on the back of my exercise book. Other times it was a little bit of poetry that described the highs (and mostly lows) of being a teenager. I knew from a young age that I would like to be a writer but didn’t have a clue how to do it. Most of the time these pieces of writing were locked away, burnt, or otherwise held in secret. I was terrified that someone would find them and gulp… read them.

So I kept my writing hidden for a long time, letting out a little tiny bit here and there, to people that I loved and/or trusted. To my amazement almost everybody said they were pretty good. That felt good but it still took me many years to reach out past those trusted few people to share my stuff with the world.

As I began working I kept both writing and finding jobs where I could write as least part of the time. This meant writing business correspondence, policy papers, items for the company newsletter, editorials, even speeches. I came to enjoy these parts of my jobs much more than anything else and I knew that I was supposed to be writing more. So I did.

I fell in love and wrote tons of love poetry. Sappy, heartfelt, drippy, but quite lovely poetry. I shared it with the woman I loved and she was very, very happy with me. I also started writing short stories about Christmas growing up and shared them with my family. They were surprised but also happy with me.

Then one day I realized that I had become a writer, just by writing and sharing and I decided to take a chance with the rest of the world. I sent off a little piece to a magazine and they accepted it and paid me $25.00. Amazing. Then I send out a hundred more pieces and nobody bought, not one. But I kept going and sold piece # 101. I haven’t stopped since. To date I have published thousands of articles and blog posts in magazines, newspapers, and on-line publications in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. I have published two books and I have my third being edited for publication next year.

What a thrill to go into my local Chapters and see my book on the shelves. Or go online and see it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Books a Million… whatever that is.

So you wanna be a writer? You already be one. Just say it out loud. I am a writer.

You wanna write a book? Look at my blog post here:

http://walkeronthecape.com/2012/11/15/getting-it-out-of-your-head-and-into-a-book/

Write, a lot. Every day. Share, a lot. Especially with people in the business. They will tell you if they like it or if they think it’s any good. But you will learn to know what is good and what isn’t yourself. You probably already do. Don’t be discouraged. Your work will be rejected. Hundreds of times. Thousands of times if you are lucky enough to write that much and live that long. Keep going and be the best writer you can be.

Send me a copy of your first book.

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

www.walkeronthecape.com

E-Book Links

Here are new e-book links for Kindle, Nook and pdf versions of The Walker on the Cape

AMAZON Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A95U6JQ

BARNES & NOBLE Nook:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-walker-on-the-cape-mike-martin/1113728332?ean=2940015727500

BOOKLOCKER:

http://booklocker.com/books/6497.html