Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 31

Creative Outlets

Hobbies - some people garden, others work on jigsaw puzzles, cartoon, or play music. What's your creative outlet when you're not writing?   

Brenda starting off the week.

My hobbies depend on the season.

In the late spring and summer, I spend a lot of time in my garden. Buying, planting, watering, weeding, dividing, putting to bed .... there's always something to be done. Then it's time to sit with a book and a cup of coffee or glass of wine and enjoy the hummingbird in the honeysuckle and the bees...

Some like it hot, some like it cold - On reader reviews, by Harini Nagendra

Some likeit hot, some like it cold. Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

What's your favourite positive review, and worst negative review, and how did they make you feel? Tell us, really.  

Reviews, especiallybook reviews, are the subjective opinions of readers. As writers, we lovehaving reviews. A book which generates thousands of reviews on Goodreads,Amazon and other platforms from readers, helps to spread the word to other readers.In today’s information age, reviews are the equivalent...

A Good Review Feels as Good as Scratching a Mosquito Bite from James W. Ziskin

What's your favourite positive review, and worst negative review, and how did they make you feel? Tell us, really.  

About four years ago, I posted in this space about negative reviews. Much of what I wrote then holds true today for this week’s question, except I didn’t mention positive reviews. Good reviews are amazing. But they’re like breaths of air. You take one in and it feels great. It sustains you. Energizes you. Lifts you. 

But then you exhale and need another one right away.

After a while,...

The ups and downs

What's your favourite positive review, and worst negative review, and how did they make you feel? Tell us, really. 

by Dietrich

My new novel Crooked comes out in September from ECW Press — it’s based on the real life and crimes of Alvin Karpis and the Barker Gang — and the first review is just in.

“Kalteis vividly evokes the spirit of the times, and paints multidimensional portraits of his central characters. Though readers well-versed in the era's history will know how the story ends, the acti...

It Was the Best, It was the Worst

 

Terry here talking about reviews: my favorite positive review, and worst negative review, and how they made me feel.
I’ve had so many reviews that I enjoyed, that it’s hard to choose one. But my favorite is still one of the first I got, for A Killing at Cotton Hill, courtesy of Lee Lofland, founder of the Writers Police Academy. He said he rarely reviewed books, but landed on mine. He praised it effusively, and said although he could usually tell when a woman was writing as a man, in my book he...

It's All in the Stars

What's your favourite positive review, and worst negative review, and how did they make you feel? Tell us, really. 

Brenda here.

Now I realize we authors shouldn't pay attention to reviews, good or bad. My books have received nearly 16,000 reviews or ratings on Goodreads (thank you each and every reader), and I confess that I used to check them quite religiously, especially in the early years of my writing career. I was fortunate to receive mainly good ones, and yet a negative review had the abili...

F*#k Genre (a Love Letter to Chris Whitaker) by Josh Stallings

 

Q: If you write in an alternate non-mystery genre, which one - and why? If you don't, which genre would you most like to write in, and what attracts you to it?

“If you think of your own life, there’s no one genre it fits into. I was a victim of crime but I wouldn’t shelve my life into crime fiction.” - Chris Whitaker, at Aspen Idea Festival.

https://youtu.be/v71dcIMQm0M?si=oEtUlSuYnjZQKOh4

“Fuck genre.” - Josh Stallings  

Yes, Chris Whitaker says it much more eloquently than me, but the sentiment s...

"In development", by Catriona

Q: If you write in an alternate non-mystery genre, which one - and why? If you don't, which genre would you most like to write in, and what attracts you to it?

There was this too, mind you
Details here 

I sort of do and I definitely have. Let me explain. 

In the late 1990s when I was groping my way towards the realisation that I didn't want to be an academic - hard to face after studying for nine years to get the job, right? - I entered a sitcom-script-writing competition run by BBC Scotland.
I did i...

Genre hopping by Eric Beetner

 If you write in an alternate non-mystery genre, which one - and why? If you don't, which genre would you most like to write in, and what attracts you to it?

I have written several Westerns, some with my name on them and others under pen names. I love a good western. Granted they get segregated as a separate genre, but really 99% of all westerns are just crime novels on horseback. 

I’ll admit to being under-read in Westerns, but I am very well versed in western films. The golden age of Westerns is...

Same Theme Different Lyrics

 

If you write in analternate non-mystery genre, which one —and why? If you don’t,which genre would you most like to write in, and what attracts you to it?

 

For readers unfamiliar with my writing, I am known for crimefiction, although I’ve written flash, historical, horror and literary fiction.What readers don’t know is I started out as a poet. My first publication was apoem entitled “Pagan’s Creed” in USC’s VanguardMagazine in 1989.

 

Since these genres mean differe...