Tag: writing

Lunch with a Book Blogger

I stopped in Georgia on my way to my writing retreat for a very special reason.

I REALLY wanted to meet Donna, who runs the fabulous GIRL WHO READS book blog.

Donna was one of the first reviewers to write a review of my first book, THE FIRST VICTIM back in 2011 and she’s reviewed every one of my books since.

Thankfully, considering there was a storm, including a tornado watch (gulp!) Donna was super flexible about meeting with me. We met at a park, so that I could bring my dog, Smudge along, after the storm broke.

Donna made us a delicious picnic lunch and we just had the best time, talking and walking and laughing for hours. She’s smart, charming and so much fun! image1-43

 

Writing retreat research

On my way to my North Carolina writing retreat I stopped off just outside of Athens, Georgia.

Since this was my first road trip with my dog, and I wasn’t sure how she’d do spending so much time in the car, I decided to spend two nights here to break up the trip.

But because I’m a bit on the quirky side, I decided to satisfy my long-standing curiosity about RV/Campers and stay in one. I really want to set a series based on an RV trip. I even planted the seeds for it in THE HITWOMAN TAKES A ROAD TRIP.

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I decided I could justify my stay as “research”.

Plus, I wanted to get a feel for whether I want to rent one next year and take myself on a cross-country adventure. I figured two nights of dealing with the small space would give me an idea how I felt about it.

This one was parked on a small farm.

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I’d like to say I loved the experience, but I had mixed feelings. It wasn’t the limited space that was a problem for me; it was the movement (even though it was parked the whole time).

Maybe it was because it was fairly windy (there was even a tornado watch for a few hours) but I ended up with motion sickness.

Then, because I was feeling so sick, I turned off the ROARING fan in the hopes I could get some sleep.  I did for a few hours until the carbon monoxide detector alarm went off at 3:18 a.m. waking me and scaring the dog, who then started barking her head off.

I guess that even with the windows cracked, you shouldn’t turn off the fan. Who knew?

 

 

Deciding to go on a writing retreat

I’m a full-time novelist so it may sound strange to say that I decided to go on a writing retreat. But I did and it was totally worth it. This month I’ll be talking all about it!

Why go on a writing retreat?

I wanted to do something different to shake up my writing routine.  I had a project to finish, another I wanted to get started, and a fun, passion project I wanted to play with.

Also, I miss Spring. While there’s a lot to love about living in southwest Florida, one of the things I miss, being a NJ transplant, is the change of seasons.

I also wanted a change of topography. It’s soooo flat around here. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that the average elevation in Sarasota is 16 feet. That’s not a typo, SIXTEEN!

So I decided to go to the Asheville, North Carolina area in mid-April. Spring! Mountains! No neighbors to get stuck talking to!

I made my plans in January, got the “business side” of my writing world squared away so I only had to focus on the creative end, packed my car, buckled in my dog, and took off.

But before we got to Asheville, we stopped in Georgia because there was something I wanted to try and someone I really wanted to meet!

I’ll tell you about those soon, but let me share the good omen that greeted me in Georgia.

When I was a kid, my favorite book was HORSE OF TWO COLORS so this scene made me happy.

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Z is or ZANY — A-Z Challenge

I have so much fun making the  CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN books zany.

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I love it so much that it says right in my business plan that I want to “write more zany misadventures for Maggie and the gang”.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this kind of zany month on the blog. I think I’ll focus on a different kind of shenanigans in May.

For more zaniness be sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook!

W is for Writing — A-Z Challenge

A reader recently asked how I became a writer so this is going to be my rambling attempt to answer that.

The short answer is: “I failed….a lot.”

And if anyone ever asked me advice on how to become a writer, that’s the advice I would give… “Fail….a lot.”

But that’s probably not the answer anyone wants to hear.

I wanted to be a writer from the time I was a young child. If the assignment in class was to draw a picture, I’d write a short story or poem instead. (Not surprisingly, this means I have no artistic talent. One of my goals for the year is to learn to draw. So far I’m failing. A lot.)

I kept on writing.

There were times when I thought my way “in” was through non-fiction, so I spent years writing magazine articles, essays and website content. Eventually I decided it was more fun to make things up. I tried my hand at short stories and flash fiction, but they weren’t the best fit for me.

(Do you see the line of failures I’d been racking up?)

I found a class at a local theater and tried my hand at screenwriting.  I really, really loved that because I could use my strengths of plotting and dialogue. I wrote a number of scripts.  I was part of a critique group. I placed well in some contests. I had an agent. I optioned a couple of screenplays. One of my works was workshopped.

But I wasn’t in the right place/situation in my life to break into Hollywood.

Another failure.

Eventually I turned to novel writing. While I was able to carry many lessons I’d learned forward, like everything else, it required learning a new skill set. I wrote books. I attended conferences. I had critique partners.

I sent more than one hundred queries before I landed my first agent.  Unfortunately she wasn’t able to sell that book.  (This failure REALLY hurt.)  So I pitched her, face-to-face, the idea for what would become CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN. To say that she looked appalled by my idea of a hitwoman with a heart of gold who can talk to animals, is an understatement.

Since I didn’t feel like she was invested in my vision, I left her. (And hey, because I’m stubborn and believed in myself, I eventually sold that first book on my own. So please know that failure isn’t fatal, sometimes it’s just a matter of timing and having the stars align. It also helps to have a flexible idea of what you consider “success” to be.)

It took another hundred queries or so to land my second agent, who sold both Confessions and Further Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman. (See the Q is for Query post.)

They basically failed too, in that they did not find an audience. (But see N is for Neurotic to see how THAT all panned out.)

So basically my advice for writers is to be willing to fail often. It’s painful, but it’s part of the process.

And don’t disregard the value of being stubborn and believing in your work. If I hadn’t been extremely passionate about Maggie and the gang, I wouldn’t have gone into self-publishing and I wouldn’t currently be working on the twentieth Confessions story.

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U is for UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT

I don’t ALWAYS write funny books. Every once in a while I indulge my dark side. That was the case with Until Proven Innocent.

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Seven years ago Kimberly Richard was convicted of a murder she didn’t commit.

Six years ago she escaped from prison and lived on the run ever since.

Now her conviction has been overturned and she’s returned home to try to rebuild her life.

When a storm washes a school van into a raging river, Kimberly and private investigator Cooper Washington jump in and save the kids and driver…but one child is missing. Was she ever even on the school bus? If not, who took her?

Kimberly’s chance at a “real life” is jeopardized by the ghosts of the past and the suspicions of the present.

Q is for Query — A-Z Challenge

When you’re trying to land an agent to sell your book, you have to send out what is called a “query letter”.

I looked up my original query for the Hitwoman series.  Here it is:

            I hope you’ll consider reading my 80,000 word novel Confessions of a Neurotic Hitwoman (think La Femme Nikita meets Bridget Jones Diary).
 
            Not long ago, remarkably unremarkable Maggie Lee had a soul-sucking job, a less than stellar family, and hadn’t had a date in over a year. Now she’s a hitwoman….but that’s okay, because her lizard approves.
 
            When she awakes in a hospital Emergency Room, Maggie learns that a drunk driver has killed her sister and brother-in-law, and seriously injured her three-year-old niece, Katie. Only Maggie seems to have escaped the horrific crash unharmed (except for the fact that she’s now able to converse with Katie’s pet gecko, Godzilla. “You can just call me God.”).
 
            Keeping Katie in a premiere medical facility costs big bucks. Maggie has no idea how she’ll continue to provide Katie with the best care available, until she’s offered a lucrative job opportunity — $100,000 to “off” someone. She politely refuses the offer until she’s informed that Katie is on the verge of being booted out of the rehab facility. Maggie’s all too familiar with the shortcomings of state run institutions. Her mother is a permanent resident of a state run psychiatric hospital and her father’s locked up for life. Maggie can’t let Katie end up in one of those places.
 
            Against her better judgment, she accepts the job and is paired up with a hitman mentor who teaches, “Life Lessons: How to Take a Life and How to Avoid a Life Sentence.” With some help from God (the lizard, not the deity) Maggie uses her newly developed skill set to become a contract killer. But the road sure isn’t easy….

 

And here’s the version that eventually landed me my agent

 

Maggie Lee is not your average hitwoman. For one thing, she’s never killed anyone before. For another, her sidekick is a talking gecko, a picky eater who is obsessed with Wheel of Fortune.

Desperate to help her hospitalized niece, Maggie finds herself accepting a mobster’s offer of a big payday in exchange for killing his even more monstrous son-in-law. Paired with Patrick, a charming murder mentor (who just happens to moonlight as a police detective) Maggie stumbles down her new career path, while contending with self-doubt, three meddling aunts, and a day job she hates.

And in case you’re interested, here’s the blurb the publisher ended up using for CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN.

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Maggie Lee is not your average hitwoman. For one thing, she’s never killed anyone. For another, after hitting her head in the car accident that killed her sister, her new best friend is a talking lizard—a picky eater, obsessed with Wheel of Fortune, that only Maggie can hear.

Maggie, who can barely take care of herself, is desperate to help her injured and orphaned niece get the best medical care possible, so she reluctantly accepts a mobster’s lucrative job offer: major cash to kill his monstrous son-in-law.

Paired with Patrick Mulligan, a charming murder mentor (who happens to moonlight as a police detective), Maggie stumbles down her new career path, contending with self-doubt, three meddling aunts, a semi-psychic friend predicting her doom, and a day job she hates. Oh, and let’s not forget about Paul Kowalski, the sexy beat cop who could throw her ass in jail if he finds out what she’s up to.

Training has never been so complicated! And, this time, Maggie has to get the job done. Because if she doesn’t . . . she’s the mob’s next target.

 

 

 

P is for Psychic — A-Z Challenge

If you’ve read the CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN or MATCHMAKER MYSTERIES series you’ve probably guessed that Armani Vasquez and her psychic abilities hold a special place in my heart.

(Learn more about her in A is for Armani post.)

I mean how can you not love a woman who reads Scrabble tiles and names her business PMS (Psychic Matchmaking Service)?

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may have seen me mention my secret PCM project. This is a brand new series I’m launching in the next few months. I’m so excited to share it with you.

I’ll tell you now that the P is for Psychic.

Not Armani.

Somebody else.

Intrigued???

O is for Opossum — A-Z Challenge

I admit that I was afraid of/repulsed by possums for a long time (anything that has FIFTY teeth is frightening to me) but then I educated myself about them (see the L is for Learning post) and realized they’re pretty cool.

Here’s why:

  1. They destroy ticks. A single opossum can eat 5,000 ticks a year!
  2. They kill venomous snakes.
  3. Unlike other mammals, they’re immune to rabies.
  4. They eat garden pests like slugs.

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Since I felt badly for maligning North America’s only marsupial for so long, I gave Matty, a possum who sounds like Lauren Bacall,  a heroic role in THE HITWOMAN AND THE GOLD DIGGER.