Meg Perry's Blog, page 31
June 6, 2014
Top twenty for a week!
Psyched to Death has been in Amazon’s top twenty best-selling gay/lesbian mysteries for an entire week! It made it to as high as #5 and right now is at #17.
Thank you all!! :D
Who killed Matt Bendel? The police suspect his partner, Elliott Conklin, the assistant chair of the psychology department at Santa Monica College. Elliott was found with the body, covered in blood – and he doesn’t have an alibi. Elliott wants Pete Ferguson to help clear his name. But Pete doesn’t have time – he’s had to take over one of Elliott’s classes – and he thinks Elliott might be guilty.
Jamie Brodie isn’t so sure. Matt had a secret that may have gotten him killed. The investigation of that secret leads to someone from Jamie’s past – and another death that will change Jamie forever.
June 4, 2014
What does Jamie look like?
A couple of my readers have mentioned that, after six books, they’re forgetting what Pete and Jamie look like. I’ve described them briefly here and there, but I suppose it’s been a while. I have such a clear picture of them in my mind, especially Jamie, that I forget to mention it.
Here are the basics. Jamie is 6’2″ and weighs about 185. He – all the Brodies – tend toward the thin side. (I hate them! :D ) When the stories began, Jamie hadn’t been playing rugby for several years and so had lost some of the muscularity that he’d had in college, although he’d maintained his cardiovascular fitness. Now he’s been swimming for a while, and his shoulders are starting to broaden again.
Jamie was blond as a kid, and his hair has gradually darkened a bit – now it’s sandy to dark blond, with lighter blond streaks from the sun and pool. His eyes are hazel but sometimes look more green, and they have odd gold flecks in the irises. (I had a friend in high school with eyes like that – it was striking.) He has high cheekbones and freckles – 48, Pete counted them – sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. He looks younger than he is. His hair isn’t long, but it’s long enough that Pete can wind it around his fingers and make curls.
Pete is 6’4″, weighs about 210. He’s been lifting in the gym while Jamie swims, and has a fantastic body – although he doesn’t fully realize that. Dark brown – but not black – hair, eyes the color of milk chocolate. He tans easily (sneak peek ahead: his coloring is due to a Native American great-grandmother). In terms of facial structure, I see Pete as classically handsome. He could model if so inclined. His hair is longer than when he was a cop, but not much – maybe a couple of inches, definitely shorter than Jamie’s.
Both Pete and Jamie are clean-shaven. Pete was a cop for so long that it feels wrong to him to not shave; Jamie was raised by Marines and therefore also feels unkempt if he doesn’t shave. I hate mustaches, so none of my regular characters will ever have one. If I give someone a mustache, it’s because I don’t like them. They may end up dead. :D
I haven’t found an image that depicts either Pete or Jamie the way that I see them in my head. HOWEVER, meet Kevin Brodie:
I found this on http://ohbythewayblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/beauty-men_16.html.
Jamie looks a lot like Kevin, but doesn’t quite have those arms and shoulders. (Kevin’s a baseball catcher, remember.) Kevin’s hair is shorter because he’s a cop but I think he sports the stubble when he can get away with it.
What do you all think? What do you have pictured for Jamie, Pete, or any of the other characters?
June 2, 2014
MOOCs and writing
I work for a public state college in a state – Florida – with an anti-education governor. As a result our college has had its budget cut every year for the past three or four years, and one of the first things to go was funding for continuing education. At our college the librarians are faculty, and as such we’re expected to attend conferences in our field. To get promoted, we have to present at conferences and/or get papers published. And we do it on our own dime.
I’ve tried, as much as possible, to take continuing ed courses online. There are a lot of one-hour webinars available, and I’ve participated in several (and presented at one). A one-hour webinar isn’t substantial enough to count as my annual professional development goal, though, so I’ve turned to MOOCs.
A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course, and they are available in almost any 
subject you’d like to pursue. I’ve taken a couple for professional purposes – institutional disaster planning and evaluating consumer health information – and one for fun on plants. Right now I’m taking one on writing.
It’s called Start Writing Fiction, and it’s being given by an organization called FutureLearn which operates from the Open University, based in the UK. It’s an eight-week course and we’re beginning week six. I have mixed feelings about it so far. It was advertised as being for anyone who’s anywhere in the writing process, but in reality it’s best suited for people who are just beginning to write stories. I guess the “Start” in the title should have been a clue. :D
We’ve had short excerpts to read from other writers, and watched video of writers talking about how they do what they do. Most of it has focused on developing character, and developing our powers of observation to get ideas from the people we see around us.
That hasn’t been incredibly useful to me. As you know if you’ve read my books, I’ve got a pretty good handle on my characters. We’ve had to develop and turn in a couple of character sketches, and those exercises have been interesting, but they don’t actually help me develop new characters. And we haven’t discussed plot at all. The mantra that the instructors operate on is that plot flows from character. I agree to some extent, but in a murder mystery that’s not entirely true.
So it’s been enjoyable, but not incredibly useful for someone who’s already published six books. :D Two years ago, when I first started thinking about writing Cited to Death, I took an online course through the University of Central Florida on mystery writing. It wasn’t a MOOC – I had to pay $89 – but it was worth every penny. I learned a lot from that, both about plot and character.
The moral of the story, I suppose, is this: if you want to take a course on writing, try to take one that focuses on your genre. You’ll get more out of it. If you truly are just starting out and don’t even have a genre yet, then one of these nonspecific MOOCs might work just fine.
May 28, 2014
Psyched to Death is here!
It just went live. Here’s the link:
Who killed Matt Bendel? The police suspect his partner, Elliott Conklin, the assistant chair of the psychology department at Santa Monica College. Elliott was found with the body, covered in blood – and he doesn’t have an alibi. Elliott wants Pete Ferguson to help clear his name. But Pete doesn’t have time – he’s had to take over one of Elliott’s classes – and he thinks Elliott might be guilty.
Jamie Brodie isn’t so sure. Matt had a secret that may have gotten him killed. The investigation of that secret leads to someone from Jamie’s past – and another death that will change Jamie forever.
May 15, 2014
The cover for Psyched to Death
Here it is:
Who killed Matt Bendel? The police suspect his partner, Elliott Conklin, the assistant chair of the psychology department at Santa Monica College. Elliott was found with the body, covered in blood – and he doesn’t have an alibi. Elliott wants Pete Ferguson to help clear his name. But Pete doesn’t have time – he’s had to take over one of Elliott’s classes – and he thinks Elliott might be guilty.
Jamie Brodie isn’t so sure. Matt had a secret that may have gotten him killed. The investigation of that secret leads to someone from Jamie’s past – and another death that will change Jamie forever.
May 8, 2014
An excerpt from Psyched to Death
We’re still on track for a June 1 – ish release for Psyched to Death. Until then, here’s an excerpt. Enjoy!
When Ali and I were in third grade, a new kid came to town.
His name was Robbie Harrison. His dad was a colonel, and Robbie was an only child, which meant that Robbie’s dad made a lot more money than mine or Ali’s and Robbie had a lot more stuff than we did. But at recess, Robbie was one of us. He joined us on top of the jungle gym, adding color commentary to Ali’s descriptions of playground hijinks. After Mel moved to town the following year, there were four of us. We were a little too old to spend recess at the top of the jungle gym so we’d hang out under a tree and talk. We had other friends but the four of us were a team. Indivisible.
Robbie often asked me over, to play or hang out, and I always went. I had to share a room with Jeff and Kevin, and Robbie had a huge house almost to himself. His dad was always working, and his mom was either asleep, or sitting in the back yard smoking and reading romance novels. They had an enormous TV in the family room and we could watch anything without restriction. Robbie had his own TV in his bedroom, too. He had toys and video games and, eventually, computers. Sometimes Ali and Mel would come over, but often – and especially as we got older – it was just Robbie and me.
The first time that Robbie touched me was by mistake. He had a double bed and was accustomed to sleeping in it alone. One Saturday morning when we were nearly fourteen, I woke up with Robbie’s face buried in my neck, his hard-on pushing into my leg, and his hand on my groin. I jumped and pushed him away, and he woke up grumbling. “What?”
“Nothing.” But I started noticing things about Robbie. How his voice was growing deeper, and how long his eyelashes were. How good he looked with a towel wrapped around his waist. And it didn’t feel ridiculous at all.
The second time Robbie touched me, I touched him back. We were watching TV in his room, lying on his bed, when Robbie grabbed the remote and switched channels.
“Hey! I was watching that.” I grabbed for the remote.
He held it away from me. “Too bad. I wanna watch something else.”
“No way.” I went for the remote and we wrestled around a little, and wound up giggling in a heap in the middle of the bed. Robbie was on top of me, and as we lay there, we slowly stopped giggling and looked at each other – and Robbie got hard. And then, in response, so did I. Robbie softly said, “Whoa.”
“Um – yeah.”
Robbie rolled off of me, but reached out and took hold of me, and I took hold of him right back. And it was outstanding.
I was never in love with Robbie. I had crushes on other guys, but I could hide them because I was finding release with Robbie. He and I never talked about what we were doing, until the day I told him that Jeff and Kevin had figured out I was gay.
We’d just jerked each other off. Now Robbie looked at me, puzzled. “What are you talking about? You’re not gay.”
“Whaddya mean, I’m not gay? Yes, I am. I like guys. What do you think we’re doing here?”
Robbie was flabbergasted. “We’re just fooling around. We’re not gay. You’re not gay.”
“Robbie. C’mon. Guys who aren’t gay don’t get into sucking each other’s dicks.”
He was starting to get mad. “I’m not gay. I’m not into other guys. I just like doing it with you. ‘Cause we’re friends. We’re just friends.”
“Robbie, I don’t want to date you. We are just friends. But you’ve got lots of other friends. Don’t you want to do this with any of them?”
“N…no!” He had a wild expression in his eyes, and I knew he was lying. He’s crushing on other guys, too, I thought.
“Jamie…do Jeff and Kevin know about us?”
“I didn’t tell them.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“They guessed. But they’re not going to tell anybody.”
“They can’t!” Now Robbie was scared shitless. He was whipping through emotions so swiftly I couldn’t keep up. “If my dad finds out, he’ll kill me. I mean it. He’ll take me out on the boat and throw me overboard and say it was an accident. Or run over me with the car and say it was an accident. Or something. He’d completely kill me.”
“Robbie, calm down. No one will find out. Jeff and Kevin won’t tell anybody, because they’re gonna protect me, right?”
He started to settle down a little. “You’re sure.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Okay then.” He slid down the bed between my legs and looked back up at me. “But I’m not gay.” Then he took my dick in his mouth.
May 4, 2014
Creating a character bible
I’m writing the seventh Jamie Brodie Mystery now. Along the way I’ve collected quite a cast of characters – so many that I’ve started to lose track of them. Not the main characters, of course, but the ones who don’t appear that often. For instance – Neil Anderson’s husband, paralegal Mark Sivak. Have I described him at all? (No.) Jamie’s old boyfriend, paramedic Eric. Had I given him a last name? (No.) Jamie’s Uncle Dennis. How many kids did he have? (I haven’t found that line yet.) Carolina Arambula, who works at the library. What was her job? (Cataloging. I nearly assigned her to interlibrary loan in the latest book.) And so on.
I’d been keeping an Excel spreadsheet, one for each book, with names, occupations, and a few identifying characteristics. That’s useful in terms of keeping track of who’s been in each book. But I needed something with more detail, that I could sort by category, and that I could add to over time as some of these characters re-appear. And I wanted it to be portable, and not necessarily electronic. Something that I could search and rearrange pages in easily.
So I decided to get a small notebook with looseleaf pages, like one of the small Daytimer notebooks. I already had a couple of packs of looseleaf pages for one of those books, so I spent some time yesterday writing names on the pages.
I’m up to 160 people, and I’m not through the fifth book yet.
I had no idea.
There are 21 Brodies, counting aunts, uncles, cousins, Abby, and Jennifer Graham.
There are 7 ex-boyfriends, including the evil Luke.
There are 21 Fergusons, including cousins and ancestors (subjects of the eighth book).
There are 27 cops, from Kevin, Tim, Jon and the rest of the LAPD, to cops and federal agents in New Mexico, to detectives in Oxford, to UCLA cops, to several members of the Palo Alto PD.
Holy moly.
Once I get this set up, I think I might be able to duplicate it in Evernote. I can put people in several different folders there, I believe, and use it more like a database.
My advice, if you’re thinking of writing a sequel or series? Start your character bible NOW. Don’t wait until the seventh book. :D
Oh, yeah. Eric’s last name? Padilla.
April 30, 2014
Writing in sequence
It’s been a while! It sounds like a copout to say I’ve been so busy writing that I haven’t had time to blog…but it’s true. Mostly. :D I’ve also been super busy at work. Gotta pay the bills.
I’ve been writing Stacked to Death, book #7 in the Jamie Brodie mysteries. Book #6, Psyched to Death, is in edits and should be out by mid-June.
Stacked to Death is going to be the longest book yet and probably the first one over 60,000 words. If it’s not over, it’ll be close. It’s the most deadly – there are five murders. I don’t want to say more than that yet. :D
When I initially started Stacked to Death, I was working in chunks. I knew how I wanted it to end, and I knew pieces along the way, so I went ahead and wrote those pieces. I now think that was a mistake. It has been confusing to go back and try to sort out the chunks and link them together into something coherent. And I’d gotten the timeline wrong. Argh.
I finally had to print it out so I could read it and easily refer back to what had come before. That’s one thing I don’t like about working on a computer – moving back and forth between pages, especially if they’re fifty or so pages apart, is difficult for me. I hate to waste paper – I did print four pages per sheet – but I couldn’t fix it otherwise.
I think it’s finally fixed, although there are still a couple of gaps. And I have determined that from now on I am going to write in sequence! If a scene comes to me that’s farther down the line, I’ll write it separately and come back to it later rather than have it cluttering up my electronic manuscript.
The more I write, the more I learn about what works for me – and what doesn’t!
March 7, 2014
Encountered to Death is published!
And available for Kindle. Find it here: http://goo.gl/PsrXMZ
It seems Jamie Brodie can’t go anywhere any more without a body turning up. Jamie and his boyfriend Pete Ferguson are taking a week of vacation to visit Pete’s brother Steve in Alamogordo, New Mexico. They arrive to find that Alamogordo has been invaded – by fans of a TV show called Alien Visitors. The host of the show, Dixon Gill, was found dead in the lobby of Steve’s building. Gill’s fans believe he was killed by the FBI because he was about to reveal the truth about the government’s cover-up of alien visitations. Jamie and Pete know that’s not true. But who did kill Gill? The director of his show? A competitor on the same network? An angry commenter on Gill’s blog? A shadowy anti-government group? Or one of his ex-wives? The deeper Jamie probes into Gill’s past, the more potential suspects he finds.
The truth is out there – but can Jamie uncover it?
March 5, 2014
The cover for Encountered to Death
Encountered to Death, Jamie Brodie Mystery #5, will be published next week. Here’s the cover:
