Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up." —Nancy Kress


Someone commented recently that researching the dark things must be terrible. She was right. It is terrible when you consider that research is based on reality.

Red Tide's research taught me about Human Remains Detection dogs and the difficult but magnificent job they do every day. In The Missings I learned about the vast number of people waiting for an organ transplant, and the fact that many of those people are removed from the list not because they received an organ, but because they died while waiting.

In The Sacrifice I learned more about Santeria than I ever wanted to know and I certainly would never want to embrace it in my private life. The book I'm working on now, tentatively titled Trafficked, deals with the horror of human trafficking. While Santeria is a choice, being trafficked is most certainly not—which makes the research that much more oppressive, frustrating, thought-provoking, and infuriating.

But here's where fiction comes in: I can make the bad guys pay. I can create a satisfactory outcome that sadly, reality just can't achieve on a regular basis. I can help a character find his or her personal strength. They don't always have to be the victim.

In fiction, I can share information that might help open others eyes as it did mine, without making readers feel completely depressed and unequipped.

And no animals are ever killed.



Just sayin'.



It's all better with friends.

First Taste Newsletter Features THE SACRIFICE

I'm pleased to share the link to read the first chapter of THE SACRIFICE along with two other books. Check them out at First Taste Newsletter!


It's all better with friends.

Any Time Now I Will Love to Write

I love to write.

I hate to write.

Let's start over: I love to create. I love to edit. I love to tell a story.

I love to have written book.

The writing part? Well, I'm pretty much on the hate side. Except for the times I love it. Which becomes kind of like a drug addiction. I'll work through days of hating it because I know—I just know—that I will love writing if for even just a few hours any time now.

Dangling carrot. The cocaine-high of effortless brilliance. The part where I get to play a kind of writing god where I create the world (in seven days? ha!), and I create the people and their backstories and their fears, and decide what fate has in store for them.

That's a lot of responsibility.

And even more work.

Writing my first draft is wild. They often begin like silk. The words flow. I can't possibly type fast enough.

"This is gonna be the fastest first draft (and perfect, by the way) in the universe. It's magic!"

Yeah, right.

Then comes the first speed bump. And the second.

I've found I write best when I have a bit of a roadmap—an idea of where I want to get to next. That doesn't mean that little bits of flotsam won't work through whatever filter I have in place and make its way onto my page. The magic part is... (are you ready?) I don't immediately delete those things that feel, at the moment, like dust-bunnies. Pieces of lint I'm eventually going to have to vacuum up.

Trusting the process is one of the key elements for a writer. My process can include a lot of deleting, but it can also include a lot of surprises.

"Oh, yes! I see the connection now between that earlier dust-bunny and this trigger for murder!"

Or:

"That dust-bunny sure set up a great metaphor for the overall theme of this story (which I rarely know about ahead of time): global terrorism!"

Which is part of the whole addiction.

You get my point. In case you haven't, it's to trust the process. Sometimes you've just got to let it flow.

Thanks to my Sisters in Crime sister, and good friend, Sheila Lowe, for encouraging me to write this post. You can read hers by clicking on her name. She writes an awesome series featuring a handwriting analyst. Which works really well for her because she is one. (And waving to Dennis Palumbo, whose fabulous book, PHANTOM LIMB, I finished reading this morning even before turning on the news. Yes, it's that good. And who, by the way, provided a beautiful endorsement for my last book, THE SACRIFICE.)

Check out another Sisters In Crime blog (and yeah, she's really my sister): Lala Corriere.

Arson Dogs

I love doing research for my books.

For Red Tide, I learned about Human Remains Detection Dogs, sometimes referred to as Cadaver Dogs. I purchased a couple of reference books about training and techniques. 

I also learned about Karenia brevis, the name for saxitoxin, sometimes called harmful algal bloom (or HAB), but more commonly called red tide. Fascinating stuff.

With The Missings, I needed to know about organ donation: how it worked and why so many lives were at stake. It was a sad eye-opener.  I also needed to learn a little about undocumented people living in our country. Another sad eye-opener.

Learning more about police procedure was critical, and I will be forever grateful to the crime scene investigators and detectives who helped me make the details shine. And for the police chief of Aspen, Colorado, for helping me with a critical plot point.

In The Missings there's another possibility early in the book explaining deaths in the area, and I had to research cults. The little bit of information I obtained made me want to shut down. The normal presentation of some very dark material bothered me, and I was glad the story I was writing wouldn't be in that place very long. 

But because cults both fascinated and repelled me, I knew that The Sacrifice would have one front and center. I learned about Santeria. 

And I wanted to help bring depression out of the closet. To make depression both real and unashamed, my wonderful, strong, primary male character shows how he's living with it day in and day out without dwelling in it. To me, Mex Anderson and everyone who battles those demons, are heroes. I learned a lot.

And now, I'm writing Flame Game, with a wonderful new dog named Kaji, Japanese for fire.

Here's something I ran across this week. Check it out:

It's all better with friends.

Tattered Cover Bookstore & Me

It can be difficult for a self-published author (a/k/a indie author) to get their books into bookstores. Add the fact that my books are published by Amazon, which many booksellers believe is the sole cause of their struggles, and well... you see the challenge.

Tattered Cover Bookstore is one of the premier independent bookstores in the country. If they were in danger of closing, I would petition hard for Denver to do whatever it had to do to keep this gem open. They are so special and iconic that they intimidated me. I never asked them if they'd be interested in selling my books. Not in the two years since my first book was published.

Instead, I approached a newer and smaller (much smaller) bookstore. The owner advised me that she didn't have a crime fiction section in her store. What? A staff member later backed her up by saying that she didn't even have room for a cookbook section, and the owner loved cookbooks. I got the impression of a bookstore catering solely to non-fiction readers and fiction that would fit nowhere else other than solidly literary.

Imagine my sadness when I spotted some crime fiction in the store (big name, big publisher, and crime fiction) and even some lesser known CF authors holding book signings. Apparently she didn't think I'd notice. As much as I loved that little bookstore on my few visits to it, I won't be back unless she comes to me to sell my books. It's just not a wise use of my energy... physically, emotionally, or economically (it ain't close).

Fast-forward to my friend, Jenny Milchman, approaching me to do a joint presentation next month at Tattered Cover. Whoa! I'm pretty sure I didn't hesitate three seconds before responding with a huge yes. Jenny, working through her publicist, was setting up another cross-country tour promoting her newest book. She had the big connections and hoped I might have the smaller, local connections. (That's yet to be seen, but I'm trying.)

I put off contacting Tattered Cover (that intimidation thing) until a couple of weeks ago to see about selling a few of my books in their stores (they have three locations). Yes, one month before the presentation.

Imagine my surprise to be warmly hugged. That's the best description I can give you. It might have helped that I'm doing an "event", it might have helped that my latest book is a finalist for two literary awards in Colorado, but I suspect that this is SOP for the bookstore. They truly want to support local authors, regardless of how they're published.

For readers: my books are now available through one of the finest independent bookstores in the country. Here's the link: Peg's books at Tattered Cover If it's in your DNA to support one of the most respected independents in the country, this is where you ought to shop.

For writers: don't hesitate to contact that intimidating independent bookstore where you live. Yes, they might have a couple of requirements but they want you in their store. If they don't, move to Denver and contact Tattered Cover.

For everyone: If you or someone you know is in the Denver area on May 14th, let them know about this event. They can thank you later.


It's all better with friends.

2014 Colorado Book Award Finalists

Biography

Ernest L. Blumenschein: The Life of an American Artist by Robert W. Larson & Carole B. Larson (University of Oklahoma Press)

Joe Mills of Estes Park: A Colorado Life by James H. Pickering (Estes Park Museum Friends & Foundation, Inc. Press)

Miera y Pacheco: A Renaissance Spaniard in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico by John L. Kessell (University of Oklahoma Press)

Children’s Literature

Cowboy Up!: Ride the Navajo Rodeo by Nancy Bo Flood & Jan Sonnemair (Wordsong)

The Mystery of Darwin’s Frog by Marty Crump, Steve Jenkins, & Edel Rodriguez (Boyds Mill Press)

The Tumbleweed Came Back by Carmela LaVigna-Coyle & Kevin Rechin (Rio Chico)

Creative Nonfiction

Animal, Mineral, Radical: Essays on Wildlife, Family, and Food by BK Loren (Counterpoint Press)

Deeper into the Heart of the Rockies: Selected Columns from The Denver Post 1999–2012 by Ed Quillen (Sidewalk Press)

thickerthanpaint: A LIFEWORK by Sandra Wittow (Rose Markus Press)

This is not a dachshund by Craig Marshall Smith (Craig Marshall Smith)

General Nonfiction

Drink It In: Wine Guide of Western Colorado by Dave Buchanan (Grand Junction Media, Inc.)

My Dog Always Eats First: Homeless People and Their Animals by Leslie Irvine (Lynne Rienner Publishers)

Tasting Colorado: Favorite Recipes from the Centennial State by Michele Morris (Farcountry Press)

Genre Fiction

Changes by Pamela Nowak (Five Star)

Doctor Lovebeads by Gary Reilly (Running Meter Press)

The Mountain Between Us by Cindy Myers (Kensington Books)

Historical Fiction

The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire by Linda Lafferty (Lake Union Publishing)

Prairie Grace by Marilyn Bay Wentz (Koehler Books)

The Pursuit of Mary Bennet: A Pride and Prejudice Novel by Pamela Mingle (HarperCollins)

History

Deep Roots: AspenPointe and Colorado Springs—Together Since 1875 by Eileen Welsome (Aspenpointe)

Denver Mountain Parks: 100 Years of the Magnificent Dream by Erika D. Walker, Wendy Rex-Atzet, Sally L. White, Thomas J. Noel, & John Fielder (John Fielder Publishing)

The History of City Market: The Brothers Four and the Colorado Back Slope Empire by Anthony F. Prinster & Kate Ruland-Thorne (The History Press)

Juvenile Literature

Grave Images by Jenny Goebel (Scholastic)

The Miner’s Cap by Ann N. Black (CreateSpace)

A Summer of Sundays by Lindsay Eland (EgmontUSA)

Literary Fiction

An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky by Dan Beachy-Quick (Coffee House Press)

Little Raw Souls by Steven Schwartz (Autumn House Press)

Monument Road by Charlie Quimby (Torrey House Press)

Memoir

Funeral in a Feminine Dress: Depravity Reborn as Virtue by M.J. Burke Sr. (M.J. Burke Sr.)

I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail by Gail D. Storey (Mountaineers Books)

Kismet: From the Joy of Romance to the Agony of Alzheimer’s by Elizabeth Gibbons Van Ingen (Daniel & Daniel Publishers/Fithian Press)

Mystery

Desperado: A Mile High Noir by Manuel Ramos (Arte Publico Press)

Fallen Women by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin’s Press)

Missing by C.T. Jorgensen (Five Star Publishing)

Pictorial

Firmament: A Meditation on Place in Three Parts by Andrew Beckham (George F. Thompson Publishing)

The Peaks of Telluride: Labeled Images and Stories Behind the Names of the Mountains Surrounding Telluride, Colorado by Jeff Burch (Jeff Burch)

Poetry

Little Oblivion by Susan Allspaw (Elixir Press)

Natural Takeover of Small Things by Tim Z. Hernandez (The University of Arizona Press)

Seven by Sheryl Luna (3: A Taos Press)

Poetry/Chapbook

Finding Cassiopeia by Frank H. Coons (Lithic Press)

Hyacinth by Kyle Harvey (Lithic Press)

Ndewo, Colorado by Uche Ogbuji (Aldrich Press)

Thriller/Suspense

Cries in the Night: A Denver After Dark Suspense by Kathy Clark (CreateSpace)

Double Dare by Michael Madigan (Adventure Publications)

The Sacrifice by Peg Brantley (Bark Publishing, LLC)

Young Adult Literature

Ascendant by Rebecca Taylor (Crescent Moon Press)

Backwards by Todd Mitchell (Candlewick Press)

Colorado Authors' League 2014 Award Finalists

Three Top Award Finalists Named in CAL 2014 Award Categories



1.   Book Adult Fiction Mainstream  


Blood Feather by Don Bendell
Ursula’s Yahrtzeit Candle by Steven R. Berger
Not to be Forgiven by Nancy Mayborn Peterson

2.  Book Adult Fiction Genre

The Sacrifice by Peg Brantley
Double Dare by Michael Madigan
Rope Burn by Bruce W. Most

3.  Book Young Adult

Worthy of Trust and Confidence by Donald Brewer
North Mystic by M.J. Evans
Backwards by Todd Mitchell

4.  Book Children

Steppingstones to the Sun by Nawashani, illustrated by Pat Wiles.
The First Rainbow by Phyllis J. Perry, illustrated by Jeff West.
Bandit, The Chihuahua by Pat Postek, illustrated by Brad Davies.

5.  Short fiction: Adult/Children

The Widow of Loreto” by Page Lambert
The Well” by Claudia Cangilla McAdam.
“Footprints in Water” by Twist Phelan.

6.  Book Adult General Non-fiction

Author YOU by Dr. Judith Briles
Natural Childbirth Exercises by Rhondda Evans Hartman
Tasting Colorado by Michele Morris

7.  Book Adult Creative Non-fiction

The Boys from the Bushes by Lou Dean
I Promise Not to Suffer by Gail D. Storey
Sea Monsters by Joseph Nigg

8.  Feature articles/Essay      

The Hotel Jerome” by Kimberly Field.
“A Final Farewell” by Kara L. Stewart.
Alive and Aloft in the Aeolian Zone” by Gary Raham

9.  Poetry 

      We Leave the Safety of the Sea by Art Elser
      Schrodinger’s Cat by Dan Guenther 
      Marked Men by Joseph Hutchison

10.  Blogs

      Choose Happiness. Love all Life by Susan J. Tweit
      Culinary Colorado by Claire Walter.
      Traveling Trees and More by Sandy Whelchel

Join us to celebrate these winners and our first ever Lifetime Achievement Award
Recipient Poet Lois Beebe Hayna. Also, the Tattered Cover’s Joyce Meskis is
also being honored with the CAL Author Advocate Award. 

I want thank Jerrie Hurd ,VP  Membership  and Kim Field, Publicity Chair for
help in coordinating contest information. Also, heartfelt thanks to the South
West Writers for their energy and care in judging the 2014 contest.

Barb Lundy

My New Baby

Thanks for bearing with me for just a little more BSP for The Sacrifice. I share my two wonderful endorsements at Crime Fiction Collective.

What a ride.


It's all better with friends.

Reader Connection

First, I want to thank all of you for the tremendous reception you've shown for my new release. THE SACRIFICE scared me just a little because it was different from either of my earlier two books. Thank you for the warm reception.

To celebrate it going live, I put RED TIDE up for free for three days (ending Thursday, 10/24) and THE MISSINGS at a bargain price of only $1.99 which will end Friday.

And here's this odd little thing I'm working through… when I look at the numbers, the first thing that hits me is their scope. Through Amazon, my books are being read around the world. And then there's this: readers who I may never meet will read my words, and I will in some way be connected to them. Whether they like my books or not (and oh, I want them to like my books), I have connected to someone living in another country, another state, even down the street. It's a one-on-one, almost intimate connection. That's a little freaky.

It's a wonderful thing to work through.

And it's all good with friends.

Conception through Birth (for Books)

by Peg Brantley
Evocative Characters. Intriguing Crime. Compelling Stories.




Every author has his or her own process. This is mine. (At least for now.)

Idea. Mull. Mull some more. "What if" a little bit. Stream of consciousness plot concept. Research.

If it hasn't fallen apart by this point, I might have a book.

Then I'm on to character development. What makes him tick? Who is he? What life events have formed him? This applies to both the good guys and the bad guys. This step, for me, is extremely gratifying.

If my concept and my characters are strong enough to carry an entire novel, I set to work.

I'm not a pantster (someone who just sits down and lets their fingers fly without a thought ahead of time). I've tried "pantsing" it from time to time and although it's kind of fun and liberating, I end up with a manuscript that's more like a Rorschach test than an actual story. I'm also not a detailed plotter, although I sometimes think this would be the way to go, I just can't seem to get there. I write more like a bloodhound. I know what the general issue is. I know a few elements I need to track. I sense the trail and follow it, not always knowing where it's leading me, but trusting my abilities to sniff it out.

So then I'm done. I have a beginning, a middle and an end.

But does it work?

Then I do a quick read-through, looking for obvious issues. I hate when I find them, but the more books I write, the more issues I find. This is the first round of edits.

And then I do an audio edit. I employ my text to speech feature and try to pay attention to that mechanical voice as he points out my overuse of words and phrases and the occasional word that makes it past spellcheck but is absolutely not right.

I finished this phase this afternoon for THE SACRIFICE.

My next step are my beta readers. These are the readers that are almost, if not more, trusted than any member of my family or friend-circles. These guys are gonna read my manuscript in an almost raw state. It's far from polished. No editor has seen it. The bloodhound has made a report, but it doesn't always make sense.

Once my betas have had their say and I've evaluated their input, I revise for the third, fourth, seventh time. Then it's off to my editor.

(Did I tell you about my editor for THE SACRIFICE? I think I'll post about that very soon. I'm stoked.)

After my editor is finished (and I've made yet another round of revisions) it's time for my detail-oriented copyeditors/proofreaders to take a gander. A chapter that may have been without typo flaws before editing can undergo horrendous upheaval and end up with all kinds of issues. Editing can create its own subset of problems.

And then finally, it's time to let it go. Push my book out into the world.

Readers, are you interested in this process? Writers, how does yours differ?


It's all better with friends.

The Sacrifice by Peg Brantley

Where better to share my new cover and bit about the book? 

Mex Anderson is a former lawman from Mexico whose family was brutally gunned down by the local drug cartel when Mex refused their bribes. After chasing the two men directly responsible for the horrific murders to Honduras where the two ended up getting killed by their peers, Mex settles in Aspen Falls, Colorado where he tries to forget. 

But when Mex is approached by a man from the cartel responsible for the loss of his family asking for help to find his own missing daughter, Mex wonders what the man could possibly have to offer. As it turns out, it’s something as simple as more information on why his own family had to die. Who conspired to have them killed? Who gave the order? When Mex’s own sister—his last surviving family—is kidnapped for insurance, the stakes are even higher.

Now Mex must find a way to keep a cartel member’s family whole while his is gone; to save the life of an innocent little girl even as the depression resulting from the loss of his own family wants to claim him. To save his sister.

The Sacrifice is a novel of guilt and redemption, forgiveness and family, proving that with love, there is always hope for tomorrow even in the midst of evil. 

Coming Fall 2013

It's all better with friends.

THE END

I finished the first draft of my new story, The Sacrifice, Thursday night. Writing a satisfying ending is almost as fun as writing a great first scene.

There's a reason why it's important to let a recently completed manuscript sit for a few days before beginning the first round of revisions.

Interested?

Yes, part of it is to allow for enough time to revisit the story and characters with fresh eyes but it's also to take care of all of those little details of life you've let slide while writing.

So today, I'll be cleaning my house. Probably tomorrow and the next day too. The physical activity will feel good. Accomplishing a project in hours rather than the months it takes to create a manuscript.

With my house all sparkly, I'll sit down with the printed mansucript, a red pen, and a pile of sticky notes. Scissors and tape will be on hand for those scenes that need to be cut and spliced and moved around, and for the next few days the little details of life will once again be put on hold.



I love this process.



It's all better with friends.