Finding the perfect resource

I've taken a couple of false starts on the new book. Starting with a lot of boring detail and unnecessary backstory. That's usually the way. Then I cut the detail so the action would be more immediate, but even that wasn't working right. First chapters are always a challenge. As an author, I need to grab your attention from the get-go. But I still had research to do, and until I was able to get out and do that, I kept writing so at least I'd have something to fix.

And then I got out for research.

I went out to meet people last Friday, to find out how people in the occupation my main character works do their jobs. It took me three stops to find someone who is now my best friend. 

My first stop was a "market," an indoor venue with approximately 35 booths, and when I walked in, the ladies at the door seemed uncertain as to how they could help me. So they said to walk through and talk to the people at the booths that had merchandise I was researching. The only problem with that was there were very few vendors actually at their booths, and certainly none at the booths that were relevant to my story. Halfway through the market, I ran across another woman who was very pleasant and asked if I had planned a visit to a shop "downtown." When I told her yes, she told me that was a great idea and the woman in the shop would be very helpful. As opposed to the 35 booths that weren't. The stop did reinforce one thing. Narrow my focus. Instead of a very broad vendor, I'd be wiser to have my main character specialize in one area. 

My second stop was a shop "downtown." I walked in after visiting the Farmers' Market, mid-afternoon, and the proprietor was just having lunch. She had a consignor with her and they were in conversation. She greeted me, but I felt like I was intruding, so I told her I'd just look around and stop with questions after I'd seen what she had. The store was sprawling--unique and interesting--but there was also a store next door. After I'd looked at her inventory, probably fifteen minutes later, she was still eating and still had the consignor at the counter with her. I asked her a few general questions, then moved on to the next shop. Dear husband was with me and growing impatient that I hadn't said much. I pointed out she was clearly distracted and not forthcoming or interested in conversation at the moment. I steered DH to the next shop with the intention of circling back. Maybe the guy at the counter would be gone by then, at least.

In the next shop, Whatnots and Whimsies, I found a very friendly proprietor (shout out to Fran), and as we started to talk, the consignor from the previous shop walked in with a box of things to sell. I tried to excuse myself to give her time to deal with him and said I'd look around, and she said, "No, stay and talk to me! This is just a regular seller, blah blah blah." But I felt I was intruding, so I said I'd come back after I'd seen what she had. Again, she had a lot of interesting inventory, including some of the things that I'd targeted for my character. After we'd toured the store and neared the front, she stopped me and said, "Go ahead, pick my brain." With the consignor at the counter and customers in the store. I asked a few wide-ranging questions and she steered me back in and asked what the project is about. When I told her, her eyes brightened and she said, "Have I got stories for you." I spent the next hour talking to her, with customers stopping to join in the conversation and one of the employees as eager to chat as she was. 

I'm not a very pushy person (as you might have surmised), so this woman's willingness to draw me in despite her outside distractions appealed to me, as well as the stories she told me... Let me just say I found my new starting point in the manuscript. Am I using her stories? Not as a main theme, but perhaps I might incorporate one or two in the "work history" part of the book, as my character goes about her job. In talking, she helped me organize my own ideas into a more cohesive structure, taking what I have and weaving it into a more compelling start to the book - or so I hope. 

I have the perfect reference for my new series. This woman could well BE my main character, except, of course, the facts don't always fit the stories. There's quite a bit of "made it up along the way" to deal with. 

Sometimes doing the research is as much or more fun that writing. Can't wait to share the new series with you.

In the meantime, editor comments are back on BEING NEIGHBORLY, so need to knock that out to make sure it's on time for release day. (Don't forget, you can buy it at a discount, but only until July 13th).

Touring More Old Mansions

Last week, I took another tour for research purposes. DH and I headed out to the shores of Lake Michigan to tour the Charles Gates Dawes house. Who is Charles Gates Dawes? Among other things, he was vice president under Calvin Coolidge.

First and foremost, I'd like to give a shout out to the docents we have met along the way. Several of the tours I've wanted to take I couldn't because they didn't have the staff to provide them. The docents we did meet have ranged in age from relatively young to very old, but one thing stands out. They love what they do. 

A funny thing about these tours. I'm searching for inspiration for haunted houses, but once I step foot inside the mansions, I'm in awe of the architecture and the detailed woodwork and the decorated ceilings (which means I forget all about where the ghosts might be hiding). The Dawes house was no exception. Essentially, we were given a tour of the main floor of the mansion, and then given the option to visit the second floor, which had largely been remodeled into display rooms to highlight the past. No longer representative of the mansion itself. One room held a display of mannequins wearing the fashions of the time when the house was built. Another had boards showing the history of Evanston (where the house is located). The third floor was closed off to visitors, and the basement is a historical archive (and requires an appointment to visit). While I would have wished to see all of the house, I was impressed with what I did get to see.

Library Alcove

Library

This house had a minstrels' gallery! AND it had a hidden door to the butler's pantry that you don't notice until it's open. It blends into the paneling of the wall. DH said he noticed it because of the light around the edges, but I was delightedly surprised. Those were the highlights. Oh. And did I mention the library? GORGEOUS. It had coffered ceilings and walls of books and an alcove that made up the family's "living area." Imagine an alcove big enough to gather the family to listen to the radio or sit around the fireplace or just to hang out. An alcove! (Yes, it was spacious.) The great hall was dark, but well appointed. Portraits of the owners. Architectural corbels with the heads of the four apostles (the house was initially built for a man of the church). A massive fireplace with a motto engraved across the top of the hearth. Your standard suit of armor and grandfather clock. 

One of the saints

Minstrels' gallery

Hidden door to butlers' pantry

There are more houses on my list, but as tours are limited, this might be the last one for a little while. With plenty of inspiration to get me started, I've begun writing the first book in the new series! 

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Watch for BEING NEIGHBORLY - Coming July 12
Special preorder price $0.99

How Many Times Do You Have to Check Your Work?

My critique partner commented that I read through my finished work in progress more times than she reads through hers. But that’s my process. She combs through each of her chapters the night she finishes them. I don’t. I wait until my first draft is done. Oh, I do a cursory read for easy mistakes, but I miss a lot during the creative process. Granted, as I'm winging my way through the first draft, I will often start reading from the beginning so I know where I am in the story, or to find a detail that needs to be continued, but I don't count that as "reading through" it. Each pass I make has its own purpose.

Details and continuity

After the first draft, my first read of the whole is for details and continuity. Does it make sense? Are the locations consistent? Is there a time lapse? Does time flow consistently throughout the book? Are descriptions consistent? For that matter, I tend to skip over descriptions in the first draft. After all, I know what they look like! My readers, however, can't see into my brain, so they have no idea what I'm talking about in some places. This first pass is a place for me to fill in the missing details. What someone looks like. What the setting looks like. I do include some of these things, but in a first draft, the details are often only added where I don't "see" things clearly. 

Nuts and bolts

The second pass is for structure. Punctuation. Word usage. Overused and filler words. Repeated words in the same paragraph or in close proximity (echoes). I use SmartEdit to help me find my mistakes. Overused phrases. Mistyped homonyms that sneak in (peek vs. peak, discreet vs. discrete, as examples). Sentence fragments. Do they have a place or am I just being lazy? Sentence starters. Have I misspelled someone's name? Or called someone by the wrong name? I'm still kicking myself that I originally used the wrong spelling of my hero's name in the final EPITAPH book (THE GARDEN). Thank heavens for my editor who pointed it out!

Fine tuning

By this time, the book should be editor-ready. At least one would assume so. The problem with correcting mistakes is that you often create new mistakes. My third pass is for fine tuning. Did I "break" anything while I was fixing the nuts and bolts? The answer is usually yes. As an example, in BEING NEIGHBORLY, I inserted a scene late that talks about my main character going on a job interview. She's worried that her current boss will notice she's dressed differently, or that she might be late coming back from her lunch break. Originally, that boss was just "the manager." In the new scene, I gave the man a name. So now I have to check references to "the manager" to see where it makes sense to refer to him by name. It's easy to replace "manager" with "Bruce," but when I did a search, did I remember to take out "the" before manager? (the answer is yes, but only after I forgot on the first one and went back to check twice). 

That's three full reads before it goes to the editor, but each pass has a purpose. I'm laser-focused on one particular function. At this point, it should be ready for the editor. When she's finished with it, there's a good chance I'll read it two more times. Once after I've addressed her comments to, again, make sure I haven't broken anything in the process, and finally, I'll have Word read it back to me to "hear" any mistakes that my eyes might have tricked me into believing aren't there.

Is that a lot? Yes. But that's my process. Even then, I might have missed something, but at some point, you have to trust you've done your job. It's not a good feeling when a reader comes back to tell you you need an editor. Especially when you have one. Mistakes happen. I'm banking on five full reads (and, of course, my stellar critique partners) to catch the majority of them.

And speaking of BEING NEIGHBORLY, you can preorder the e-book at a discount! From now through release day (July 12), it is available for just $0.99. On July 13, it will revert to the regular price of $3.99, so grab your copy before the price goes up!

Cover Reveal!

I have a cover! 

The fifth installment in the Hoffman Grove series, BEING NEIGHBORLY, is expected to release 

July 12, but I couldn't wait to show you what the new cover looks like. What do you think? 

 

Sue Sheffield maintained a friendship with her alcoholic ex-husband, hoping he could find his way back to the man he used to be—until he fell off the wagon and wrapped his car around a tree.

When Heath Fitzgerald hears his new neighbor sobbing, he rushes to check on her. After his previous roommate’s unexpected suicide, Heath’s determined not to let anyone else suffer in silence. He tries to cheer her up—with dad jokes, his knee-jerk response to stress.

Despite his dumb jokes, Heath helps Sue through her grief. After he tells her he does voiceover work, including audiobooks, she Googles him and discovers he was a person of interest in his roommate’s death. When she asks what happened, Heath unravels. The death was ruled suicide, so why did they take Heath in for questioning? He asks her to help him find the truth, and they begin their own investigation into how Heath’s roommate died—and uncover things they don’t want to know. Solving crimes in real life isn’t as glamourous as it is in books. Rather than imagine Heath as a killer, Sue finds him a person of interest for entirely different reasons.

 

Why write when the world is on fire?

In a world when authors are struggling, when it feels like the world is on fire and one more thing gets thrown onto the conflagration, I found this article which speaks to authors about using their words as water to put the fire out. Fair warning, my post today isn’t a happy one.

Six years ago, I wrote a book that touched on gun violence in our schools. At the time, I couldn’t reconcile the senseless violence perpetrated on children, and the only way to deal with it for me was to write about it. I can’t fathom that six years later, this problem still has not been addressed. I hear a congressman saying “don’t make this political.” How else are we supposed to address it? Thoughts and prayers every stinking time it happens? No action to prevent it from happening? Failure to act says they don’t see a problem to act on, and for me, that’s a problem. If congress fails to do their job and act on it, then yes, it is political.

COOKIE THERAPY is a survivor’s story, one that shows “arming our teachers” has consequences, too. I could make all the citations to support my thoughts and beliefs, but I’d rather point out that taking a life, even to save your own or others, leaves deep emotional scars, even for those people who are trained for this possibility. Remember the phrase “battle fatigue?” Later, to be replaced by PTSD.

So what can I do? COOKIE THERAPY has consistently been my most popular book. For the month of June, I will donate the profits from sales of this book to LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs. Throwing money at politicians to effect change seems a waste of time after more than six years of inaction, and I’ve seen what the comfort dogs can do. Even to someone who isn’t your typical dog lover, they make a difference. If I can't stop the violence, at least I can offer comfort.

What can you do? Contact your congressman and make it clear that they work for you. They must act, or they will be voted out.