For Your Eyes Only--Not!

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm the type of person who likes to make a good first impression.

I know that a first--or even third--draft of a manuscript is supposed to be full of errors and sloppy writing. The important thing is to get the story down, even if the writer is the only person who understands what all that drivel is supposed to mean. "You can fix it later," is what writers are always told when they find themselves panicking about getting the story written right the first time. It's after two or three, or more, drafts that the story becomes cohesive and crisp and the writing is cleaner, more fluid, more ready for the eyes of someone other than the writer.

When my manuscript is ready to send to my beta readers and editors, however, I always hesitate. How good is it? How many typos are still floating around in it? Did I explain that plot twist in a way that makes sense? Did I get everyone's name right? Yes, of course, it still needs work, but...

It's then that I find myself in the position of the person who tries to tidy up the house before the cleaning service shows up.

Very often a writer needs a fresh pair of eyes and ears to find the problems that lurk in a "finished" manuscript. After reading one's own words over and over, and sometimes mentally fixing them along the way, it's easy to become blind to mistakes that are obvious to a fresh pair of eyes. Having someone read your dialogue out loud suddenly makes clunky passages--and extremely long ones!-- easy to spot.

No matter how much some writers want to believe that they are fully capable of editing their own work, it's in their best interest to let someone else, someone with a good grasp of language and literature, someone who is seeing the writer's words for the first time, read through the manuscript and find those errors that hide in plain sight; identify the dialogue that doesn't ring true; point out the inconsistencies that somehow made sense when the writer put it down on paper.

As much as writers would like to think that they have the ability to present to the world a finished book without the help of others, it comes down to having the humility to show a few people--people who really care about you and your writing career--your imperfect work (or the dust bunnies under the sofa, if you prefer) so that they can help you make it, if not perfect, good enough to show the rest of the world.

I'm always grateful for my beta readers, editors, and fellow writers who offer criticism, help, advice, and lots of encouragement. I wouldn't be where I am now without them!

My editor-in-law who has degrees in language and education... and loves to read!

My number one beta reader with an eye for detail and continuity!

Best writers group ever... helping me keep it real!

Novel Ideas--a guest post by Oak Tree Press author J. L. Greger

Today, I'm hosting fellow OTP author, Janet L. Greger, author of the Sara Almquist mysteries as she promotes her latest book, "I Saw You in Beirut". Welcome, Janet!

*****

What revs up authors’ imaginations? Pet peeves, news headlines, travel, and memories are all sources of novel ideas. The list is endless.

The initial ideas for I Saw You in Beirut, my latest international thriller, came from two main sources: my pet peeve that there are so few woman protagonists in thrillers and my love of exotic locations.

First, my pet peeve. The women who populate thrillers are generally young action heroines, like Lara Croft or Super Woman. Census data indicate the fastest growing population groups in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010 were those over forty-five years of age. Women outnumber men after forty. My conclusion is: women over forty are a big reading market.

Accordingly, the heroine in my thrillers is Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist (a professional medical busybody) who has passed her fortieth birthday. I like to imagine her being played on film by Helen Mirren, Sigourney Weaver, Salma Hayek, or Marcia Gaye Hardin. Now that’s a novel idea.

Next, my love of exotic locations. In the 1990s, I consulted on biological (medical and agricultural) issues at the United Arab Emirates University in El Ain and the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. I got chills as I watched ships lining up to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and gasped at the still visible shrapnel damage in Beirut, but I was also awed by the beauty and history of the region. Did you know Lebanon has Phoenician tombs that are contemporary with the Egyptian pyramids? Several major medical discoveries were made in Iran and Iraq in the 1960s. I knew several of the researchers involved in the Shiraz experiment, which identified zinc deficiency in villagers in Iran. I also smiled as I toured the laboratory and swimming pools, which one sheik in the Emirates built to help keep his racing camels in optimum form.

Thus, I included lots of tidbits on science, geography, and history of the Middle East in I Saw You in Beirut. Why not arm chair travel there with Sara Almquist? I think you’ll discover lots of novel ideas and plot twists in this book.

Blurb: In I Saw You in Beirut, a mysterious source of leaks on the Iranian nuclear industry, known only as F, sends an email from Tabriz: Help. Contact Almquist. Intelligence sources determine the message refers to Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist, and seek her help to extract F from Iran. As Sara tries to identify F by dredging up long-forgotten memories about her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her work in Lebanon and the Emirates, groups ostensibly wanting to prevent F’s escape attack her repeatedly. She begins to suspect her current friendship with Sanders, a secretive State Department official, is the real reason she’s being attacked.

I Saw You in Beirut (paperback and Kindle versions) is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201 and Barnes and Noble (Nook version): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-saw-you-in-beirut-jl-greger/1123184446?ean=2940158046957.

Bio: As a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I honed my story-telling skills as I lectured to bleary-eyed students at 8:30 in the morning. Students remember chemical reactions better when I attached stories to the processes.

My published thrillers include: Malignancy (winner of 2015 Public Safety Writers’ annual contest), Ignore the Pain, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, Coming Flu, and I Saw You in Beirut. My website is: www.jlgreger.com

*****

Thanks for joining us, Janet, and we look forward to more of Sara's stories!

Staying Busy

I think many people--especially newbie authors--believe that once the book is published, the work is done and it's time for the writer to kick back and relax and re-enter "the real world".

However, seasoned writers know that simply writing "The End" is far from the end.

Once the book is published, the all-important job of promoting it is what takes up much of an author's time. While most writers (I, for one) would like to jump right in to writing the next book, the truth is that it's important to strike while the iron is hot and start promoting the newly-published book and, by extension, any previous work that has been published.

So far, I've scheduled four events in the near future to promote my latest Black Horse Campground mystery, "At the Crossroad". Here they are, in order:

Sunday, February 28--Official launch party at Noisy Water Winery at 2342 Sudderth Drive in mid-town Ruidoso, New Mexico, home of Jo Mamma's White table wine. The party is from 2-4 p.m. and there will be special discounts and a drawing during the event.

Saturday and Sunday, March 12-13--Tucson Festival of Books at the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Oak Tree Press will have a booth for both days and some of our authors (including yours truly) and our publisher will be on hand to sell books and talk to book buyers. If you love books, this is an event to attend!

Saturday, March 19--Alamogordo Public Library in Alamogordo, New Mexico will be celebrating their birthday and I will be on hand to give a book talk and sign copies of my Black Horse Campground series. Details will be available as the event date gets closer

Sunday, May 1--Treasure House Books and Gifts in Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico will be celebrating Founder's Day weekend by hosting several authors (all New Mexican) at the bookstore. I will be there from 1-3 p.m. on Sunday. This is a great time to visit Albuquerque as it is the same weekend as the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, in which over 500 tribes from all over the United States and Canada, gather to participate in competitions of singing, dancing, and other categories including the Miss Indian World pageant. Even without all the other exciting things going on in the city, Treasure House and Old Town are reason enough to visit!

Other events will be announced as they are lined up. I hope some of you will get a chance to visit me at some of them. Thanks for your support!

And then it's back to the writing!

Family

Family is, and always has been, important to me. I'm blessed and privileged to belong to many families.

Of course, there is the biological and legal family to which I belong. They are my first friends, fans, and support group. Then there is the family which I chose or, in some cases, chose me. The friends, co-workers, friends and family of family and friends... you get the idea. Those are the people who, for whatever reason, met me and liked me enough to care about me and my life and chose to stay in it.

Then there is my family of writers and readers--people who don't know me, personally, but know me through my writing and my stories and with whom I've struck a chord. There is a connection between us, perhaps not a strong as the one between me and my "real-life" family and friends, but one that spans time and distance and reminds us that, in truth, we are all family.

Family, by whatever definition, is there when times are good and everyone is happy and healthy. Joy shared is joy multiplied, to be sure. But more importantly, family is there when the times are difficult and some of us need help. Maybe all we can do is pray for each other and offer support, but knowing that someone is aware of your pain and shares in it, however they can, is enough to make that connection real. Sadness shared is sadness divided and it helps to have others there to help carry the load, even if it's only a small part.

When I sit down to write my Black Horse Campground novels, the characters become another family. They tell me their stories, their sorrows, their joys, their problems, their fears, and their hopes and dreams. And I tell them to my readers, who become a part of their family as well. It's one of the reasons I decided to write a series; one book wouldn't be enough time to spend with the Black Horse Campground family. And I look forward to a lot more "family time" in the future!

Coming soon from Oak Tree Press: "At the Crossroad: A Black Horse Campground Mystery"

Countdown to Book Launch! Blog Tour Dates Announced!

The time is approaching!

In preparation for the release of "At the Crossroad", the fourth book in the Black Horse Campground mystery series, I'm starting a blog tour. The lineup is here, with links to each blog where you can follow along and meet new authors, and help me build up to the release date:

John M. Wills, author of "Healer" and "The Year Without Christmas"

Friday, January 22

http://jwillsbooks.com/blog-posts/

Oak Tree Press Blog

Sunday, January 24

http://otpblog.blogspot.com/

Marilyn Meredith, author of the Rocky Bluff P.D. and Tempe Crabtree mysteries

Wednesday, January 27

http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Stephen Brayton, author of "ALPHA: A Mallory Petersen mystery"

Friday, January 29

https://stephenbrayton.wordpress.com/

Janet  (J.L.) Greger, author of the Sara Almquist mysteries

Wednesday, February 3

http://jlgregerblog.blogspot.com/

Ilene Schneider, author of "Chanukah Guilt" and "Unleavened Dead"

Friday, February 5

http://rabbiauthor.com/

Erin McCole Cupp
Wednesday, February 10
http://erinmccolecupp.com/

Stop by each blog and leave a comment.  All those who do will be entered in a drawing to win a Black Horse Campground-themed prize and the opportunity to have a character in an upcoming Black Horse Campground mystery named after them!

Also, as a bonus, here is the cover reveal for "At the Crossroad"!

AND... I've updated my website, which contains the prologue to "At the Crossroad". Stop by and check it out, too!

Writer, Heal Thyself--the Agony and Ecstasy of Editing

With my latest Black Horse Campground novel, "At the Cross Road", scheduled to be released in the next few weeks, I'm at that point in the process that I love and loathe in almost equal amounts.

Final editing.

Any writer will tell you that editing is one of the least enjoyable aspects of the writing process... and one of the most enjoyable. Finishing the first draft is exhilarating, but then you begin to read it over and you cringe. What mad person wrote this mess? Once you get past the despairing feeling that your draft is beyond help, a spark of excitement suddenly flares. You can fix this. You have something to work with. Suddenly your draft acquires a name: Steve Austin. "We can rebuild him. We have the technology... Better than he was before. Better... stronger... faster." Not to mention coherent, cohesive, interesting, and entertaining. With fewer spelling and grammar errors!

So begins the first round of edits. First, spelling and grammar errors are tackled. Out comes the red pen. Then you ask a trusted reader to read the whole manuscript and point out other problems that the author might be too close to see for himself: "The story started on Tuesday. Four days later and it's Wednesday?" "Okay, so is this character's name Donald or David? It's changed three times in the first two chapters!" "It's chapter three and I already know who did it...."

After another round or two, in which the author adds some missing detail and takes out a lot of unnecessary detail (more is removed than is added, if the author does it right) and makes corrections in continuity and clarity, then off it goes to the publisher who sends it back in text block form. This means that it's set up just as it would look in the finished product. It's a heady thing to look at! It looks like a real book! And then....

Good Lord, how many ellipses did I use in one paragraph? Six chapters end with only ONE sentence on the last page? Am I really seeing the word "peculiar" four times on the same page? How many times DID I use the word "very" in the entire book??

And the editing begins again, with even more close scrutiny. Single-sentence pages require extensive pruning of the chapter they end (six sentences or fewer and I'm looking to see where I can make cuts!) My publisher was the one who noticed my affection for ellipses and kindly suggested that I could lower the page count (and price!) of my novel if learned to rein in the impulse to include an ellipse in almost every paragraph! And colored highlighters are a great way to find excessively used words (especially adverbs like "very" or "really".)

It might take a round or two of returning corrections (typos and errors get really good at hiding... you have to be sharp!) before you can finally say, "It is finished." You sign off on the finished, polished text block, your publisher signs off on it, and off it goes to the printer....

And panic sets in.

DID I get every last error in spelling, punctuation, and grammar corrected? Did I do my very best? Is the book the very best it can be?

And of course, there is always the possibility of a minor error slipping through (nothing like having your book printed and out there for public scrutiny for catching a glaring error... though it is rare!)

But you breathe a sigh of relief and offer a prayer of thanks that it's over.

And you start on the next book's first draft....

New Year, New Goals

Of course, with the ringing in of the new year comes the making of resolutions and setting goals for the next twelve months. Usually these goals have to do with improving oneself--losing weight, living a healthier lifestyle, going back to school. I always admire those that set such goals and actually achieve them. I'm not one of them. As much as I know I have to do some of those things (especially eating healthier), I will probably do them as deadlines loom closer (for instance, I'll start my diet AFTER the holiday foods are completely cleared out of my freezer... and before I see my doctor in March!)

Other goals are already in place. Not only do I have a Black Horse Campground novel set to be released this month, I have already committed to having the fifth book in the series ready to be released in July. Those are goals I relish and are ones that I know I have a lot of support to accomplish, but along with those goals come others. If I am to continue to have my books published, writing them isn't enough. I have to promote them and find ways to boost sales. That's not always fun or easy to do. It means making time in an already busy schedule to research venues for promotion and then doing the promo work.

I also want to open up more possibilities for networking with other authors and with others who are in the business of book promotion and marketing. This may mean having to take time away from other things I enjoy doing and may mean spending a little more money and time than I usually would on such things. Yet if it helps me get closer to the real goals I want to achieve, it can be seen as being no different than skipping dessert or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It can feel like a sacrifice or a pain in the neck, but the rewards are immense.

So my resolution for this year? It's to look at these things as new adventures or challenges on the way to achieving my goals; to not groan or complain if "I don't feel like" doing research on a promo possibility; to resist the temptation to beg off any speaking engagements or events that might clash with a "fun" (i.e. no work) vacation. I'm fortunate that I have a spouse who is willing to go with anything that I have to do to further my writing career. It makes the challenged less daunting and more adventurous.

Hope you all have a great new year with many adventures waiting for you!