J. David Core's Blog, page 10
November 14, 2016
Author Interview: Carl Schmidt: Author of Dead Down East
Carl Schmidt graduated from Denver University with a degree in mathematics and physics. As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow he studied mathematics at Brown University.
Carl lived and traveled widely throughout Asia for seven years, including two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines and five years in Japan, where he taught English.
Carl has spent dozens of summers in Maine, on lakes and in the woods. He chose it as the setting for this novel because he loves its rugged natural beauty and the charming idiosyncrasies of Mainers. He has also written and recorded three musical albums. This, along with his formal education, proved invaluable when molding the persona and voice of Jesse Thorpe, the narrator of Dead Down East, and endowing him with both a creative eye for detail and a sense of humor.
Dead Down East is the first novel in the Jesse Thorpe Mystery Series, which includes A Priestly Affair and Redbone. In 2001, New Falcon Press published his non-fictional book, A Recipe for Bliss: Kriya Yoga for a New Millennium.
Currently, he is a freelance writer living in Sedona, Arizona with his lovely wife, Holly, and their faithful German shorthaired pointer, Alize.
●Who are your influences?Two novelists come to mind. First, Tim Cockey wrote five quirky mysteries (The Hearse Novels) before changing his name to Richard Hawke and writing more traditional, edgy ones. I much preferred the Cockey stories, which are laugh-out-loud funny…pure entertainment. They are smart, witty, and hard to put down. And second, David Guterson, who wrote Snow Falling on Cedars. This novel was spellbinding for me. Each paragraph is constructed with precision, texture and feeling.
Both of these two were snuggled somewhere in the back of my mind as I began writing fiction.
●When did you begin writing?I published a non-fiction book on Kriya Yoga in 1999. It is partly autobiographical. Putting that together helped me develop a writing voice, but it was many years later that I turned to fiction.
● How do you come up with your stories, characters, character names, POV, etc?I wait for a basic outline to take shape before I begin writing, but from the outset I had chosen Maine as the setting for my Jesse Thorpe Mystery Series. I have spent many summers in Maine and love its natural beauty and its eccentric personalities.
I use two tricks for developing characters. First, I search the Internet for photographs of people who might play well in the storyline. When I find one that seems just right, I put the photograph in a file and refer to it from time to time to help cement the personality in my mind.
And second, for the names, I go to lists of both first and last names that are commonly found in Maine for the age of each individual. I want the names to be authentic. Occasionally, I’ll let an outsider in, but for the most part, I want the Mainers to be Mainers in every respect.
●Do you work from an outline?Yes. But it’s an evolving outline, without a lot of detail. I trust that the story will tell itself, once it begins to roll.
●Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.Three different scenes come to mind, and it’s hard to pick my favorite.
1. The Prologue. In the novel, Dead Down East, Jesse Thorpe, the narrator/private detective of the story, has his first really dicey moment in the middle of chapter four, as he is trying to worm his way through an FBI roadblock. In my first draft, I had chosen that moment to insert a rather lengthy internal monologue, to expose the witty side of Jesse’s nature. I was having so much fun with it that by the time I was done, it was almost fifteen hundred words long. And while I liked the tension it created by suspending the dramatic moment in mid-air—for several pages—eventually I decided that it would be more effective as a prologue for the book. This way, on the very first page, the reader gets a preview of the inner workings of Jesse’s mind, a snapshot of his modus operandi and a quick peak at his girlfriend.(You can read this prologue by going to either my websiteor Amazon.)
2. The Frank Hayden scene. In each of my first three Jesse Thorpe Mysteries, I introduce one character who speaks with a strong down east accent. The intent is to fully immerse the reader in a “Maine” experience. If I had allowed this type of dialogue to run rampant in the book, it would be tedious both to write and to read. Just a touch, however, gives it local charm and color. Jesse discovers that the license plate on the car driven by the man who has assassinated the governor is “GOFURS.” He suspects the plate has been stolen and put on the car prior to the killing, but to double check, he runs a search to find the owner of that plate and calls him on the phone. Here is some of that dialogue:
“Mawnin’.”“Hello, is this Frank Hayden?” I asked.“Ah-yuh.”“Mr. Hayden, my name is Jesse Thorpe. I am sorry to call you this early in the morning, but I am investigating a minor automobile accident. A vehicle with the license plate, ‘GOFURS,’ was seen leaving the accident. That plate belongs to you. Is that plate on your 2008 Ford F-150?”“Ah-yuh, that it tis, but there’s been no accident.”“I see,” I said. “It’s possible someone misread the plate. Is your plate still on your truck?”“Hahd tellin’, without lookin’.”“Would you be kind enough to check?”“Shuwah,” he said. I heard his footsteps, so he must have carried his phone with him. About a half minute later he bemoaned, “By thundah, mah plate’s missin’. That’s damn wicked, it is. It didn’t fall off. Some pissant mustah stole it.”
3. The Dennis Jackson takes a baseball bat and smashes Jesse’s Subaru scene. Suffice it to say, Jesse gets even.
●Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?I work hard to bring together a number of somewhat diverse elements: humor, an intriguing story, interesting characters, scientific fact, lively dialogue, and suspense. I want the reader to try to solve the mystery as it develops, but my primary concern is that the reader enjoys himself…and laughs out loud.
●Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?As I mentioned above, my first book was a non-fiction work, published by New Falcon Press. The title is: A Recipe for Bliss.
●Do you have any interesting writing-related anecdotes to share?I’ll share just one. The first chapter of Dead Down East is set in Bear Spring Camps, on Great Pond, not far from Waterville, Maine. The photograph on the cover is of my son standing on the porch of cabin number 11, commonly referred to at Bear Spring as “The Sunshine Cabin.” According to my father, that happens to be the very place where I was conceived. (Not on the porch, mind you, but inside.)
Dead Down East is available on Amazon, and Carl Schmidt can be found on Facebook or his website.
Carl lived and traveled widely throughout Asia for seven years, including two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines and five years in Japan, where he taught English.Carl has spent dozens of summers in Maine, on lakes and in the woods. He chose it as the setting for this novel because he loves its rugged natural beauty and the charming idiosyncrasies of Mainers. He has also written and recorded three musical albums. This, along with his formal education, proved invaluable when molding the persona and voice of Jesse Thorpe, the narrator of Dead Down East, and endowing him with both a creative eye for detail and a sense of humor.
Dead Down East is the first novel in the Jesse Thorpe Mystery Series, which includes A Priestly Affair and Redbone. In 2001, New Falcon Press published his non-fictional book, A Recipe for Bliss: Kriya Yoga for a New Millennium.
Currently, he is a freelance writer living in Sedona, Arizona with his lovely wife, Holly, and their faithful German shorthaired pointer, Alize.
Dead Down East
Dead Down East, a fictional murder mystery, is both detective noir and smart screwball comedy rolled into one. Jesse Thorpe, a young private investigator operating out of Augusta, Maine, receives a mysterious phone call from a former client, Cynthia Dumais. She begs to be rescued from an island south of Brunswick, within a mile of where William Lavoilette, the governor of Maine, was assassinated the night before. She insists that her life is in danger, but is unwilling to provide any further information. Reluctantly, Jesse goes to fetch her.
Within a week, Jesse has three separate clients, each with his, or her, own desperate need to have the murder solved. He assembles a motley team of compadres, including rock band members, a tie-dye psychic and his rousing girlfriend, Angele Boucher, to help him with the case. While the FBI and the Maine State Police investigate political motives, Jesse looks for the woman—Cherchez la Femme—as the trail draws him through the lives, and DNA, of the governor’s former mistresses.
●Who are your influences?Two novelists come to mind. First, Tim Cockey wrote five quirky mysteries (The Hearse Novels) before changing his name to Richard Hawke and writing more traditional, edgy ones. I much preferred the Cockey stories, which are laugh-out-loud funny…pure entertainment. They are smart, witty, and hard to put down. And second, David Guterson, who wrote Snow Falling on Cedars. This novel was spellbinding for me. Each paragraph is constructed with precision, texture and feeling.
Both of these two were snuggled somewhere in the back of my mind as I began writing fiction.●When did you begin writing?I published a non-fiction book on Kriya Yoga in 1999. It is partly autobiographical. Putting that together helped me develop a writing voice, but it was many years later that I turned to fiction.
● How do you come up with your stories, characters, character names, POV, etc?I wait for a basic outline to take shape before I begin writing, but from the outset I had chosen Maine as the setting for my Jesse Thorpe Mystery Series. I have spent many summers in Maine and love its natural beauty and its eccentric personalities.
I use two tricks for developing characters. First, I search the Internet for photographs of people who might play well in the storyline. When I find one that seems just right, I put the photograph in a file and refer to it from time to time to help cement the personality in my mind.
And second, for the names, I go to lists of both first and last names that are commonly found in Maine for the age of each individual. I want the names to be authentic. Occasionally, I’ll let an outsider in, but for the most part, I want the Mainers to be Mainers in every respect.
●Do you work from an outline?Yes. But it’s an evolving outline, without a lot of detail. I trust that the story will tell itself, once it begins to roll.
●Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.Three different scenes come to mind, and it’s hard to pick my favorite.
1. The Prologue. In the novel, Dead Down East, Jesse Thorpe, the narrator/private detective of the story, has his first really dicey moment in the middle of chapter four, as he is trying to worm his way through an FBI roadblock. In my first draft, I had chosen that moment to insert a rather lengthy internal monologue, to expose the witty side of Jesse’s nature. I was having so much fun with it that by the time I was done, it was almost fifteen hundred words long. And while I liked the tension it created by suspending the dramatic moment in mid-air—for several pages—eventually I decided that it would be more effective as a prologue for the book. This way, on the very first page, the reader gets a preview of the inner workings of Jesse’s mind, a snapshot of his modus operandi and a quick peak at his girlfriend.(You can read this prologue by going to either my websiteor Amazon.)
2. The Frank Hayden scene. In each of my first three Jesse Thorpe Mysteries, I introduce one character who speaks with a strong down east accent. The intent is to fully immerse the reader in a “Maine” experience. If I had allowed this type of dialogue to run rampant in the book, it would be tedious both to write and to read. Just a touch, however, gives it local charm and color. Jesse discovers that the license plate on the car driven by the man who has assassinated the governor is “GOFURS.” He suspects the plate has been stolen and put on the car prior to the killing, but to double check, he runs a search to find the owner of that plate and calls him on the phone. Here is some of that dialogue:
“Mawnin’.”“Hello, is this Frank Hayden?” I asked.“Ah-yuh.”“Mr. Hayden, my name is Jesse Thorpe. I am sorry to call you this early in the morning, but I am investigating a minor automobile accident. A vehicle with the license plate, ‘GOFURS,’ was seen leaving the accident. That plate belongs to you. Is that plate on your 2008 Ford F-150?”“Ah-yuh, that it tis, but there’s been no accident.”“I see,” I said. “It’s possible someone misread the plate. Is your plate still on your truck?”“Hahd tellin’, without lookin’.”“Would you be kind enough to check?”“Shuwah,” he said. I heard his footsteps, so he must have carried his phone with him. About a half minute later he bemoaned, “By thundah, mah plate’s missin’. That’s damn wicked, it is. It didn’t fall off. Some pissant mustah stole it.”
3. The Dennis Jackson takes a baseball bat and smashes Jesse’s Subaru scene. Suffice it to say, Jesse gets even.
●Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?I work hard to bring together a number of somewhat diverse elements: humor, an intriguing story, interesting characters, scientific fact, lively dialogue, and suspense. I want the reader to try to solve the mystery as it develops, but my primary concern is that the reader enjoys himself…and laughs out loud.
●Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?As I mentioned above, my first book was a non-fiction work, published by New Falcon Press. The title is: A Recipe for Bliss.
●Do you have any interesting writing-related anecdotes to share?I’ll share just one. The first chapter of Dead Down East is set in Bear Spring Camps, on Great Pond, not far from Waterville, Maine. The photograph on the cover is of my son standing on the porch of cabin number 11, commonly referred to at Bear Spring as “The Sunshine Cabin.” According to my father, that happens to be the very place where I was conceived. (Not on the porch, mind you, but inside.)
Dead Down East is available on Amazon, and Carl Schmidt can be found on Facebook or his website.
November 7, 2016
Join Me After NaNo
It’s that time of year again, and I’m once again participating in National Novel Writing Month – aka NaNoWriMo. I skipped the last few years, but twice in the past I’ve used nano to complete two manuscripts. The idea behind the event is to encourage would-be writers to cheer on one another as participants attempt to complete an entire 50,000 word manuscript during the month of November. My first experience with the one month challenge was when I wrote the fourth novel in my mystery series. I kept a video blog of that experience, and it can still be found online here. Few people have actually bothered to watch it since I posted it in 2010, and I don’t expect many if any of you to go back and watch it now.My second time with nano was the following year when I rewrote the second novel in my mystery series, having lost the original first draft in a catastrophic PC hard drive failure. This time I’ll be using the opportunity to complete my entry in a new series several authors and I have been working to create. We developed a character and backstory together, and are working on a prequel novel which will act as a sort of pilot episode for the series. From there, each author has carte blanche to use the character in a novel of his or her own creation.
My novel will be tentatively titled On the Side of the Angel, and I’ve already created a cover concept. Each of the novels in the series will feature the badge seen on my cover indicating that it’s part of the Bartering Angel series. Once November is over, I will hopefully have a completed first draft, and I will then need other eyes to help me sort out any issues with grammar, punctuation, spelling, and even craft issues such as story arc and character development. Readers who take on these responsibilities are known as beta readers, and I’m here to ask you to join that part of my team. If you have any interest in being in on the ground floor of cleaning up a rough manuscript and bringing it to a fuller more realized state, just drop me a line. I’ll send you a copy and even include you in the acknowledgements of the completed book when it’s published. As a teaser, here’s the story description I tossed together for the book’s nano page:A woman with a "particular set of skills" has been forced to find a new life having faked her death and gone off grid. Finding herself in Pittsburgh with no friends, no job, and only the skeleton of a fictional identity, she must deal with some unsavory people if she hopes to bring the man who destroyed her family to some semblance of justice.October 30, 2016
Just in Time for Halloween!
Bonus!
There's a brand new anthology of flash fiction with a Halloween theme available for FREE and it contains two stories by yours truly. You can get a copy of Monster Maelstrom for your e-reader now from Amazon, GooglePlay, B&N, Smashwords, with more retailers coming soon. Pick up a copy and leave us a review.
There's a brand new anthology of flash fiction with a Halloween theme available for FREE and it contains two stories by yours truly. You can get a copy of Monster Maelstrom for your e-reader now from Amazon, GooglePlay, B&N, Smashwords, with more retailers coming soon. Pick up a copy and leave us a review.
October 27, 2016
Guest Post: Balancing Work, Writing, and a Social Life by Dane Cobain
Dane Cobain (High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK) is an independent poet, musician and storyteller with a passion for language and learning. When he’s not in front of a screen writing stories and poetry, he can be found working on his book review blog or developing his website, www.danecobain.com. His debut novella, No Rest for the Wicked, will be released by Booktrope in the Summer of 2015.No Rest for the Wicked
When the Angels attack, there’s NO REST FOR THE WICKED.
Father Montgomery, an elderly priest with a secret past, begins to investigate after his parishioners come under attack, and with the help of Jones, a young businessman with an estranged child, Montgomery begins to track down the origin of the Angels.
When Jones himself is attacked, Father Montgomery knows he has to act fast. He speaks to the Angels and organises a final showdown where he’s asked to make the ultimate sacrifice.
My name’s Dane Cobain and I’m a writer. I also have a full-time job in social media marketing, which means – like most indie authors – I have a terrible work/life balance. During the week, I work from 9 AM to 5:30 PM, then I come home and carry on working on my writing until midnight. Over the weekend, I often write for 14-16 hours. It can be difficult. The writer’s life is a sometimes lonely life, because they have to stay at home and tap away at their computers while their friends are going out and getting drunk. You have to learn to say ‘no’ when people ask you whether you want to do things, even if you’re sorely tempted.,
You have to figure out how to work as efficiently as possible. For me, that can be as simple as making notes on a new novel during my cigarette breaks at work, or as complicated as memorising poetry and listening to music while jogging or editing and answering e-mails simultaneously with a film on in the background. And then, when you do go out and start socialising, you have to make the most of that too. It helps to have an all-or-nothing personality type, because if you don’t then you’re probably not going to last. But the problem with that is that you can overdo it, and if you don’t take time to rest then you’re at risk of a meltdown. That happened to me a couple of years ago – I fell ill and spent two or three months needing to take a lot of time off work. Around that time, I was also diagnosed with anxiety disorder, and it’s the only time in my adult life that I couldn’t work. I hated it. But then, writers are a different breed – we’re not happy unless we’re busy. Honestly, I don’t really ‘relax’ – I hate sitting still and doing nothing, and I actually find it more relaxing to work than it is when I sit back and do nothing with the TV on. Everyone has a different way of working, and some writers are able to balance their writing with their family life, or to run a successful business at the same time. Writing is something that you can’t not do – if you’re meant to be a writer, you’ll be writing. The key is to balance writing with the rest of your life. You need to figure out what’s important to you and prioritise your time accordingly. If you realise you’re spending too much time doing something you don’t enjoy – or if you’re not spending enough time on something you love – reevaluate and reprioritise. In my opinion, that’s the key to achieving a healthy work/life balance. It’s not about balancing how much time and energy you put into work and life – it’s about making sure that you’re happy with your current ratio. In fact, Bloomberg has made the (audacious but accurate) claim that work/life balance is dead, thanks to almost half of people working more than 40 hours a week and millennials taking on increased responsibility both at home and at work. And that’s just for ‘normal’ people! Writers are effectively working a second job in the evenings, whether they’re cranking out a first draft or whether they’re editing and marketing their work. But that’s why writers are happy to skew the balance and to put more hours in than other people. They don’t do it because of the pay, because the pay isn’t great. They do it for the love of it, and that’s okay. After all, they say that if you choose a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Writing is a job, whether you do it for a living or not; but it’s a job that you can fall in love with.October 22, 2016
Instafreebie!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am including Five Secrets in an Instafreebie promo. The program is organized by writer Anne R. Tan and its sole purpose is to help the participants grow our newsletters. Newsletters like mine are the best tool authors like me have for connecting to our readers and becoming less dependent on the whims of the big retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. With Instafreebie, readers get a free copy of an eBook in exchange for giving the writer their contact info and being added to the list.So far, my list has grown entirely organically, but to be honest it's very small compared to many other writers, some of whom have been working on their careers far less time than I. So my hope is that by joining with other writers who work in similar genres, that they will steer some of their readers towards my list to help it grow. To that end, I would ask that you, my readers, would consider doing the same. Take a few minutes to check out the writers in the promo. Download any books you find there that seem appealing, and allow your email address to become a part of that writer's list so that he or she can remain in contact with you about future projects. Really, everybody comes out a winner that way. The three-day promo runs Oct 23, 24, and 25.
AnneRTan.com/FREE
October 15, 2016
October Surprise!
October Surprise!
By now you're used to me telling you about the monthly Renée Pawlish Mystery/Thriller eBook sale program. This month features FREE deals, and none of the featured books have ever been featured in this promo before. So from now through Sunday, you can get my book, Shared Disbelief, for your kindle or kindle app as part of this program for FREE.
This is also the first time I'm debuting my new cover design in a promo. I'm hoping that the updated look will inspire some updated sales. We'll see.
September 30, 2016
New Covers for the Series
In an effort to revive interest in the Lupa Schwartz mystery novel series, I am trying a few things. One is that I am placing book five, Five Secrets, into a promotion this month on Instafreebie, more on that later. I am also trying new eBook covers. As a reminder, this was the old cover for the first ebook in the series.
The cover on the left is the most recent iteration. On the right is the first cover featuring this basic design.
The new covers are again a variation on this theme. I've added an emphatic color element to the characters to make them interesting, and I've included a traditional mystery novel iconic avatar to the background of each novel that relates in some way to the story. I'm also eliminating the illumination source image from each of the current covers, except for the first. As they stand, book two features a glowing full moon, book three features a flashlight beam, on book four there is a bonfire, while the fifth book features distant headlight beams. I've decided these images do nothing to help compel a reader's eye beyond causing some confusion, so they are gone. One final addition is that I have decided to include the series number for each volume on the cover.
Here then are the five new covers for the series.
The cover on the left is the most recent iteration. On the right is the first cover featuring this basic design.
The new covers are again a variation on this theme. I've added an emphatic color element to the characters to make them interesting, and I've included a traditional mystery novel iconic avatar to the background of each novel that relates in some way to the story. I'm also eliminating the illumination source image from each of the current covers, except for the first. As they stand, book two features a glowing full moon, book three features a flashlight beam, on book four there is a bonfire, while the fifth book features distant headlight beams. I've decided these images do nothing to help compel a reader's eye beyond causing some confusion, so they are gone. One final addition is that I have decided to include the series number for each volume on the cover.
Here then are the five new covers for the series.
September 23, 2016
Team Mystery Thriller September Promo
On September 24 and 25, my collection of noir stories, 8 Tales of Noir, will be included in the monthly Team Mystery Thriller promo for just 99¢. It will be just one of dozens of such books available at ReneePawlish.com/PromoIn previous promos with the team I have included my first-in-series Lupa Schwartz mystery novel, Extreme Unction (which was free,) and my box set of the Lupa Schwartz series books two through five, Twice Told, for 99¢. Each time, the promo helped my book rise in it's respective category on Amazon, and - to this day - Extreme Unction remains in the top 300 free in the category "Women Sleuths" and is almost top 100 free in the "Private Investigators" category. Let's see how high we can push 8 Tales of Noir.
September 19, 2016
A New Anthology For You
A new anthology of flash fiction, which has just been released, includes a 1000-word complete Lupa Schwartz Mystery entitled FTS. The anthology, entitled Bite-Sized Stories, was compiled and edited by author, George Donnelley. The book is available for free from most online retailers, and will soon be free on Amazon, as soon as we can get them to price-match. In the meanwhile, it is available on Amazon for just 99 cents.OR, you can get a copy for free my signing up for my newsletter.
September 15, 2016
Testify on the Thrills and Mystery Podcast
Those of you who regularly listen to my podcast already know this, but I'm currently featuring my Lupa Schwartz novella, Testify, on my audiobook-style podcast, The Thrills and Mystery Podcast. Testify is available to read on this blog, and has been for over a year. It will eventually be removed from this site and published in a collection of Lupa Schwartz novellas to be entitled Hard Boiled. The first installment is currently available for download, and consecutive installments will be rolled out in three more parts each Monday. Jump on over to Thrills and Mystery's website to hear the first episode now. And enjoy!
