Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 75

Two Vancouver Writers to Watch

Let’s do a shout-out to the debut authors. What’s a wonderful book by a first time crime fiction author you’ve read in the last six months?

by Dietrich

I’ve had the privilege of reading a couple of debut novels recently. And they’re both really good, highly recommended, and both are written by a pair of local Vancouver authors that I’m sure we’re going to hear more from.   

Hero Haters by Ken MacQueen. The first thing that struck me about Ken’s debut novel is the quality of his writing — like he’s ...

Shoutout to Debut Authors by Terry Shames

 

Terry here, and here’s our subject this week: Let’s do a shout-out to the debut authors. What’s a wonderful book by a first time crime fiction author you’ve read in the last six months? 
 Is it just me, or are debut authors getting better? Some of the debut books I’ve read in the past couple of years have blown me away. When I read Please See Us, Caitlin Mullen’s 2021 debut, I noted in my reading list, “Absolutely brilliant. If this is a debut, I shudder to think what some of her future books w...

On the Reading List - A Life of Bliss

Let’s do a shout-out to the debut authors. What’s a wonderful book by a first time crime fiction author you’ve read in the last six months?

Brenda here.

I've read one debut novel during the past six months titled A Life of Bliss, written by retired award-winning journalist Don Butler, who spent 40 years at the Ottawa Citizen, including six years as executive director.

A Life of Bliss is something of an unusual mystery with a quirky protagonist named Bliss Browning. Bliss is a travel editor who hate...

Kill your writing bad habits before they kill your writing, by Josh Stallings

 

Q: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

A: My first drafts have more tics than a Swiss watch. As I learn to tame one, another rears up and bites me. An early bad habit was what editor Elizabeth White referred to as Yodaisms. I would flip the beginning and end of sentences. It took me a while to see this, and a while long...

Just A Few Wee Tics, by Catriona

CRAFT: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

Well, Susan talked about "just" on Monday, and Gabriel talked about "that" on Tuesday. Then Cathy talked about ... yesterday. And here I come today, one of "that"'s "just"'s and "..."'s most enthusisastic practitioners and loyal friends.

I do know the rule saying "just" and "that...

Here a tic, there a tic… by Cathy Ace

 CRAFT: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

Found another one!As a writer, I’m constantly trying to find the way to allow my true “voice” to come through on the page, without sending readers off on a rampage about how often I use a certain word/phrase. And, for me as a reader, that “voice” comes from the rhythms, vocabu...

Confessions of an Unrepentant Word Nerd by Gabriel Valjan

 

Hi, my name is Gabriel. I’m a word nerd, and a repeat offender with the words THATand HAD.

Criminal Minds [Chorus]: Hello, Gabriel.

Today, I’d like to talk about my dysfunctional relationship with these two words that (oops, did it already) so plague my work that (d’oh) if it were not for Microsoft’s Edit-Find, my manuscript would be infested with these two blights. Once upon a time I had (eeks) identified 700 instances of THAT in a manuscript. Edit Find Next ignited two...

But It's Just a Tic!

 Q: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

 

-from Susan

 

Yes, I do have a few. Let’s start with the infamous “just,” which pops up everywhere in the first draft. When it signals time it’s good as a placeholder but not as the final word of choice. When it means merely, I use it because merely sounds old fashioned, particularl...

Death of a Salesman

 

 by Abir

 

 

The latest wisdom is that trekking to bookstores with your new book isn’t the best use of time in today’s market. So, what do you think works to promote sales and get to the place where you’re receiving royalties?

 

 

Good question this week. As my fellow writers have said, if there was some magic formula we’d all be billionaires by now, and as far as I’m aware, only among us Jim Ziskin is able to outbid Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the art market.

 

But as Jim wrote yesterday, if you want ...

How Many Books Does My Mother Need to Buy to Make Me a Bestselling Author? from James W. Ziskin

The latest wisdom is that trekking to bookstores with your new book isn’t the best use of time in today’s market. So, what do you think works to promote sales and get to the place where  you’re receiving royalties?

For this week’s question, I’m going to go beyond simply earning royalties. I think most writers would rather make more than a couple of hundred dollars in royalties per year. We’d like to break out and make a real living with our books.

That said, let’s think about it.

Some Assumptions

Fir...