March 7th, 2010
I got snowed in again at the end of February, for a day and a half, but I was able to make some progress at home on the rewrite of ONE BLOOD and get started on HEX, DEATH & ROCK ‘N’ ROLL.
Last Friday I had a fun experience, doing a phone interview with a director and producer of rock and rap videos. In HD & RnR, I have a suspicious accident taking place during the shooting of a rock video in an old movie theater that’s under renovation, and I needed to make sure the details were believable. A friend put me in touch with Mario Cosatbile, a video producer based in Paramus, NJ, and he was kind enough to give me some inside information. I ran the whole scenario by him to make sure that, overall, it sounded realistic, and then we talked over some particulars about what the director, the band and the cameramen would be likely to be doing at various points.
I enjoy researching my books, because it brings them more to ife in my mind. When I need a certain kind of setting and find that just the right place exists, or I need a plot twist and an expert confirms that yes, it could happen that way, it feels like kismet. Or sometimes what I first envisioned won’t work, but I discover something reality-based that will work better! That’s even more of a rush.
I have a problem now, because I really want to polish ONE BLOOD to be “the best it can be,” but I’m also getting psyched over HD & RnR. Plus, I have to get my tax material together for my accountant before March 23! Way too much stuff to cram into my alleged “spare time”!
All day Saturday, I’ll be involved with the Liberty States Fiction Writers “Create Something Magical!” conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Iselin, NJ. In the morning I’m on a horror panel with Garden States Horror Writers colleague Gary Frank and best-selling author F. Paul Wilson–great company! In the afternoon I’m introducing a panel on “Working with a Publicist,” and in between I’ll be signing books. It promises to be a long but fun day. This is the first conference for LSFW, and they’lve already got 127 attendees committed.
That’s it for now. I just realized the Oscars are on and I’d like to catch a little of them before I have to turn in. I always miss the really good awards at the end…!
Tags: F. Paul Wilson, Gary Frank, Liberty States Ficiton Writers, paranormal mystery, rock video
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February 10th, 2010
I made it up to Scranton and back with no issues last Saturday, and spent a nice afternoon at Possibilities Books & Gifts. I sold and signed a few copies of DANU’S CHILDREN, and gave out a few more bookmarks, during the store’s annual open house. Meanwhile, owner Gina Pace did non-stop Tarot card readings in the next room, someone else did Reiki therapy, they sold discounted and used books, and at one point there was even a Middle Eastern Dance demo! A lot going on, all to a background of soothing New Age music. And I got back home without hitting any deer on the highway (my second biggest driving fear, next to being stuck in a snow bank).
Today I’m snowed in at home. It’s so bad here that even my boss isn’t going to the office, and he’s a trouper! My colleague Antoinette and I got a lot of work done ahead last night for the weekly section, so we should have no trouble finishing up tomorrow. But this being a newspaper, we definitely will have to get in there tomorrow!
Meanwhile, I plan to finish reading through my first draft of ONE BLOOD and making editing notes (almost done with that). I also want to work on another short scene for my next Quinn Matthews book, HEX, DEATH AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, so I have something to read to my critique group next week.
It’s a bit of a challenge to get my head out of the last book and into this one, because they’re so different. ONE BLOOD, though ultimately a romance, is pretty dark; it’s also multiple-viewpoint and a thriller. HD&RnR, though it’s a murder mystery and someone dies early on, will be a bit lighter with pop-cultural elements, and it’s almost all first-person from Quinn’s viewpoint. Through her job writing about architecture and interior design for her local paper, she witnesses a suspicious “accident” while a rock band is shooting a video in an old movie theater. Being psychic, Quinn’s the only one who thinks it might be the work of a ghost. When word of this gets back to the band’s singer, he asks her to do some investigating, because he believes he’s being stalked by someone who’s put a curse on him. So Quinn gets pulled into a unfamiliar world of rock’n'roll jealousies and business machinations, and discovers a lot of characters who have issues with the singer and the band. But could any of them throw a curse that resulted in someone being killed? (Since this is one of my books, you know the answer is, “Probably”!)
Sounds like I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. I’d better stop blogging and start writing! And to all my fellow Jerseyans, if you can, stay home today and don’t try to drive!
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January 30th, 2010
Weather permitting, I will be going back to Scranton, Pa., next Saturday (2/6) for an Open House at the New Age bookstore Possibilities. Apparently they hold this event for all their authors every year on Super Bowl weekend. Maybe the assumption is that people who like New Age stuff and like to read aren’t into football? Anyway, I expect to be there 1-5 p.m. Possibilites has been carrying DANU’S CHILDREN for a couple of months now, and I will be bringing up more copies to sell and sign.
The location is especially appropriate because my experiences visiting my mother’s relatives in Wilkes-Barre and going to college in Scranton inspired me to write DC. I always had a sense that people in that Lackawanna Valley region lived kind of in their own world. The coal boom and subsequent bust really left a mark on the place geographically and psychologically. At the time I attended college up there, Scranton was very blighted and many storefronts and other buildings downtown were empty. Meanwile, slag heaps left over from the mining days would smoke and burn in the night (spontaneous combustion of the gases), giving off sulphurous fumes…now and then a 7-11 would sink into the ground due to mine subsidence…and my friends from town would tell me about a huge Catholic church that once slid several feet downhill until the parishoners “miraculously” stopped it with a novena. Since I already had an interest in writing paranormal thrillers, I stored all that material away for future use!
On the other hand, living as I now do in a slightly more rural part of New Jersey, I also wanted to write something about the wonder and power of nature, and the need to respect the natural world…or else! I thought northeastern Pa. would be the perfect place to set a man-versus-nature story. And in this case (spoiler alert) nature wins!
Tags: nature, New Age, Pa., paranormal thriller, Scranton
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January 24th, 2010
I’m also starting a blog on Live Journal and I’m planning to link it with this one. Meanwhile, maybe you can help me with a little market research!
If you’ve been reading this blog, some of this background will be familiar–I just finished a draft of a paranormal romantic suspense novel, ONE BLOOD. It is a prequel to my first published book, DANCE WITH THE DRAGON, so the events in this book have to sync up with the start of that one. Unfortunately, that book was written around 2000, and certain details about current events and popular technology may seem out of date now. My publisher says re-issuing the book would be a problem, which I understand, so I’m thinking of setting the prequel a couple of years earlier, in the late 1990s.
My question to prospective readers: If you picked up a “thriller” novel and read on the flyleaf that it was deliberately set in the late 1990s–with a suggestion that the story arc would eventually take the characters into the post-9/11 era–would that intrigue you or turn you off? Would you think, “Why would I want to read a book set in the near-past that isn’t ‘historical’?” Or would you judge it strictly on the basis of the story, the writing, etc.?
I’d appreciate honest feedback! Thanks.
Tags: fiction, paranormal, writing
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January 16th, 2010
So far, I am thinking of setting ONE BLOOD in 1996-7. I’ve even printed out calendars of those years. 1996 syncs up especially well with the days on which I have things happening in the book–for example, I have Halloween falling on a Thursday, so that it’s followed by one work day. But those things aren’t crucial…
If I continue with this approach, the tricky thing will be to avoid anachronisms, and make sure I don’t have buildings in existence in Princeton that weren’t built yet (such as the big, new public library downtown, which only dates from 2004) or technology too advanced for the period. Just as it was hard for me to envision rampant cell phone and laptop use in 2000, it’s hard for me to remember NOT to include some of those things now.
One question I can throw out, to those who might have still been in college in 1996-7, or had kids in college then: Would some Ivy League students already be using laptops in the classroom, or would they still be taking notes mostly by hand? (Even if you didn’t go to that kind of school, you can probably guess whether wealthy kids would have had access to those things.) Thanks for any tips you can give me!
Tags: Princeton
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January 10th, 2010
So, I’m almost done with a solid first draft of ONE BLOOD, my prequel to DANCE WITH THE DRAGON (one chapter left to read to my critique group), and I decide to reread DD. Mind you, by the time one of my books comes out, I’ve committed a lot of it to memory. On the other hand, DD was the first book I had published, back in 2003, and it was submitted to Amber Quill a year before that.
Therein lie some of the challenges. A lot has happened in the world over the past seven years. I have had readers comment to me that DD is a bit behind the times in technology. The most glaring example is when a cassette tape falls out of a boom box! Street kids may still carry boom boxes (better for annoying the people around them than an iPod), but today it would have a CD, at least. Also, when a victim is kidnapped there’s no mention of whether she tries to use a cell phone.
I was aware of these glitches, but in rereading, I discovered some others. I mentioned PEAR, a psychic-research organization that existed at the time in Princeton but has since downsized and changed its name. In OB, I gave it a completely fictional name. And the explanation that my heroine gives to someone for how she ended up living and working with the hero is different from what I have done in ONE BLOOD.
Now you could say, why don’t you just make it exactly the same as in DD? Because the way I’m doing it in OB works a lot better!
A while back, I mentioned some of the glitches to my editor and publisher, and asked about revising DD for future editions. They told me it would be a lot of trouble, pretty much like publishing a whole new book. My editor suggested that I set OB in an earlier time period, too, so that both could be read as set around the Millenium.
At first I didn’t like that idea, but now I’m mulling some version of it. I thought of putting a disclaimer at the beginning of OB, saying that it is set two years before DD, around “the turn of the 21st century.” I will mention that readers who go on to DD will find some discrepencies between the name of the psychic institute and the explanation that the heroine gives for how she hooked up with the hero. Seems to me that would cause the least disruption.
Any thoughts? Alternate suggestions?
Tags: Dance with the Dragon, prequels
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December 28th, 2009
Although I celebrated Christmas a bit beforehand and a bit afterward, I spent Friday and Saturday on my own. This was not a bad thing for a couple of reasons: 1) I was nursing a cold, and I probably got over it more quickly because I didn’t have to do anything too strenuous, and 2) I had time to wrap up the first draft of ONE BLOOD and really think about what I was doing. The second-to-last scene, in particular, required some additional research and choices about where to set it, etc.
I’m happy to say that I think the ending hits the mark. This book has been a balancing act between paranormal thriller and romance, leaning toward the first most of the time. It does wind up on a more romantic note at the end, but I want to keep a sense of black humor.
On Jan. 6, I go back to my critique group with the second-to-last chapter. Before the end of the month, they’ll have let me know if I’m on the right track. Then, then rewriting…!
Tags: first draft, One Blood, paranormal thriller
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December 19th, 2009
I’ve been notified that I’ve won the 2009 Meager Puddle of Limelight Award for Best Opening Line, a competition administered by Jon Gibbs on his LiveJournal blog “An Englishman in New Jersey.” Only LiveJournal members could vote, and I’m gratified to have won because I know I don’t have that many friends on LiveJournal! It was by secret ballot, and anyhow I entered anonymously, which it turns out I didn’t even have to do. One of these days I’ll figure out how computer technology works…
My opening line was “Without meaning to, Camilla Torres had picked a good place to die.” That is, legitimately, the opening line of the book I’m currently writing, ONE BLOOD, the prequel to DANCE WITH THE DRAGON. Jon tells me there were 67 entries, 52 people voted and my entry got 23.1% of the vote. He said I win a “metaphorical trophy,” but I gather he’s also going to interview me on his blog, which is a really good prize.
Meanwhile, my first draft of ONE BLOOD is stalking toward completion. I’ve finished a climactic scene in which the hero and heroine finally see eye-to-eye (spoiler alert), and as I figure it I have three scenes to go, which I plan to divide into two chapters. Still haven’t completely figured out the second-to-last scene yet, because it will take a little more research, but I should have plenty of time over the holidays. I actually get some time off from work, though not a whole week.
I just finished THE LOST SYMBOL (Dan Brown, of course) and enjoyed it. Every author has his or her strengths, and Brown’s certainly is keeping you turning the pages. The symbol stuff can get to be a little much, his characters are pretty two-dimensional and seem to exist mostly to voice his ideas, and he uses so many italics that I now feel very restrained by comparison. But his villain was interesting, suitably scary, and some of the twists were very clever. Things move so fast in his books that you don’t spend a lot of time analyzing the flaws.
Tags: Dan Brown, Dance with the Dragon, Jon Gibbs, LiveJournal, opening line, The Lost Symbol
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December 6th, 2009
Yesterday I had my first “serious” psychic reading ever. I may or may not have had some quickie reading on a boardwalk when I was a kid–if so, I don’t really remember. Anyhow, I chose to do it at Practical Magick, the bookstore in Pompton Lakes (NJ) where I had my DANU’S CHILDREN signing in October. A friend had told me that the resident psychic, Annette, did a very accurate reading for her.
I’d chatted with Annette during my signing, so she knew something about me, but pretty general stuff. She told me during the reading that my “next book” (either the one that’s currently out to a new publisher or the one I’m working on now, not sure) would be more successful than any of the previous ones. Needless to say, I’m hoping that comes true! Also told me some things about a female friend going out of my life and a male friend becoming more important, problems to watch out for with my cats’ health, etc. All this in only half an hour. I took notes, so I’ll be checking back on the details as time goes on!
She read cards, which looks like an interesting process. (They didn’t look exactly like Tarot cards…I should have asked her the type.) Anyway, if I ever have a story with a character getting a reading–and with my story lines, that’s highly probable–now I’ll be able to write from experience.
Tags: Practical Magick, Psychic reading
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November 28th, 2009
Hope everyone had a great holiday. I spent mine in Scranton, Pa. Maybe it’s true that you always return to the scene of the crime…The drive into town hasn’t changed a bit from my college days, although parts of the downtown are much improved. I was visiting my friend Anne’s family for the holiday. Her sister JoEllen has read DANU’S CHILDREN, and fortunately for me she really liked it. That’s made me brave enough to contact a couple of bookstores in the town to see if they want to stock the book. Maybe it won’t provoke lawsuits, after all…
Hey, considering what Stephen King did to his home town in SALEM’S LOT, I should have nothing to worry about. My fictional “Carbonville” is smaller and has quite a few differences. JoEllen loved that fact that I used the church sliding downhill from mine subsidence, because she could see I based it on something that happened in Scranton in the early 1900s.
Now I have the weekend to myself, and I’m trying to decide among various options, including holiday shopping, putting up my porch lights or finally finishing the latest chapter of ONE BLOOD that I really ought to read at my critique group this week. All fairly demanding…maybe I’ll just watch the “What Not to Wear” marathon on TLC instead!
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