Chills, thrills, odds and ends

Why sit when you can stand?

2011-11-08T11:51:00.001-08:00

Every few weeks I read a study, like this one, that basically says that sitting at your job leads to premature death and disease.

So I got this stand up rolling desk. I use it every day. It's not perfect, because my laptop is below eye level, but I think it's still better for me. And it was cheap and I could push it back into a hiding place when I'm done with it.

And it's worked out better than FitDesk Fitness Space Saving Semi Recumbent X Bike for Laptops, which, sadly was not easy to write on at all.

In a perfect world, I would have a treadmill desk. But we live in a teeny tiny house and there really isn't any place I could put one. Plus I was kind of bummed when I figured out you needed a way to mount your screen at eye level.

Taking my own advice

2011-10-25T07:36:00.001-07:00

I'm holed up, writing, and wanted to make an on-screen to-do list. I probably haven't used my laptop's Stickies application (they look like virtual yellow Post-It notes) for a couple of years. When I opened it up, a sticky I used to keep hanging on the edge of my screen opened up too.

Here's my writing advice to myself:
- Slow it down
- Show!
- Emotion, emotion, emotion
- Be dialog happy
- Take the second right answer
- Surprise me now

I think I'm going to leave this open again...

Girl, Stolen chosen for One Book, One Community

2011-10-12T10:25:00.001-07:00

One Book, One Community is a community-wide reading program developed by the American Library Association and adopted by cities across America. And each year Olney, Illinois choses a book for adults to read alongside students.

In 2012 it will be Girl, Stolen!

I am so excited. The only times I’ve been to Illinois have been changing planes in O’Hare, which usually seems to involve running madly from one terminal to another. Hundreds of copies of the book will be distributed to adults as well as students at Richland Middle School. The theme of the program this year is "One Theme, One Community. Overcoming Adversity."

And in a very strange twist of fate, my great-grandparents, Fred Meeker and Myrl Chapman, were married in 1904 a few miles from Olney.

Ashes - you MUST read this book

2011-10-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

I had slogged through several so-so books last week, and then on Friday night, I picked up Ashes, intending to read for maybe an hour.

Four hours later, I was still reading. And on Saturday, instead of writing, I just gave in and finished the book. And now I feel sad and empty, because the next one (it’s a trilogy) isn’t due out until September of 2012.

Ashes begins when an electromagnetic pulse wipes out all electronics, killing most adults in the process. Only a few people under the age of 25 and over the age of 65 are left, and most of the younger ones have been turned into flesh-eating monsters (like zombies only the bite of another zombie doesn't create a new zombie). The main character is 17-year-old Alex who was hiking when the pulse hit. She had just met an eight year old named Ellie and her grandfather, who drops dead during the pulse. Later they meet Tom, a young solider on leave, and the three of them are left to figure out if it’s possible to stay alive in this new world.

One of the best things the author does is fantastic cliff-hanger chapter endings, ie:

- No, she thought. No, please, Go, I’m not seeing this.

- Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next.

- Something slammed against her back as a bright orange flash erupted out of the dark, and a shotgun boomed.

- Alex and Tom both looked at Ellie and then at each other, and burst into laughter.
That was the last good time.

- “Promise me that if I change,” Tom said, “you’ll kill me.”

- The woman was sallow and pinched with a frizz of gray hair. Maybe in another life and before this nightmare, she’d baked chocolate chip cookies for the grandkids, but not now.
She sighted her rifle on Alex’s chest. “Don’t.”

You can see why I couldn’t stop reading!

You can read more about the author and the book here.

Raise the stakes - I'm begging you!

2011-09-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

I just put down a big YA bestseller with only 100 pages to go. Why? Because I realized I no longer cared.

Oddly enough, the reason I no longer cared is that none of the characters I loved were in danger.

You would think that such a situation would be ideal. After all, I don’t enjoy it when characters are hurt or killed. I actually cried when one of the characters in The Hunger Games died. (Full on tears.)

And this book had plenty of scrapes. The main character is kidnapped. She’s forced to fight in a ring. (And if you lose three times, you are thrown to the crowd which rips you to pieces.) She falls into a river and nearly goes over a waterfall that would mean her certain death. She and her friends fight off giant clawed worms. (Those of you who have read this book will have guessed what it is by now.)

But you know what? Not one important character had died at the point I stopped reading. (Her father dies at the beginning, in the inciting incident, but you haven’t gotten to know him yet.) Not even an important animal. No character is even badly damaged. I started having a hard time paying attention to the latest adventure, because I knew they would find a way out a page or two later.

Life is precious because we know it is short. If we could all live forever, would we care about life as much? I think the very best books are willing to show us that it could all be on the line, and that sometimes the good guys lose (at least one battle, if not the war).

Takeaways on Life and Death

2011-05-31T06:41:00.001-07:00

When I worked in the corporate world, we used to talk about what the “takeaway” would be from a meeting or an ad campaign - the main message that a people “would take” with them.

Spelled with a space in between, we all know what “take away” means. To subtract. To snatch away.

Two of my lovely friends have been taken from me this year: Lisa Wolfson (LK Madigan) and Bridget Zinn. They died just three months and two days apart.

So what are the takeaways from their deaths?
- Save more emails. Email storage is pretty much free these days. When I heard the news about Bridget, I tried to find my most recent emails with her, where we had talked about the lovely cherry tree in her yard and how considering the structure of The Princess Bride might help her as she worked on final edits for Poison. I can find scattered emails back from the last two and a half years, but that’s it. Which was so stupid of me. It’s not like I didn’t know Bridget would not be around forever. I remember doing the same thing after Lisa had died, wishing I had had more of her emails.

-Take more photos. Barrett took a photo of me and Bridget at a signing, but I can’t find it on my own hard drive. I could only find it on her blog. I don’t have any other pictures of Bridget, not ones that I took anyway. The only photos I have of me and Lisa have other people in them. I always feel silly posing for photos or asking others to smile. Silliness be damned!

-Get together more. How many times have I turned down an invitation because I was on deadline? I’m sure I would have met my deadline. But those events have come and gone and can never been recreated. I need to honor life more than I honor my schedule.

- Talk about love. Lisa phoned a few days before her death. In the course of our conversation, I told her I loved her, and she said it back to me. I told her I didn’t often say that to people outside my family, but I did love her. I still didn’t know how to say goodbye, because I knew it would be the last time I talked to her. How do you end it? So I said "Talk to you later." And that was that. But I'm glad to have said “I love you” to her, even she already knew I did.

- Refocus. I will always remember a conversation I had with Bridget. She had been talking to someone who had been complaining about something small, but which she had let ruin her whole day. Bridget said she had to bite her tongue, that she wanted to say, “Well, did someone tell you today that you are dying from cancer? No? Then you are having a good day.”

- Don’t waste time. How much time do I waste? Conversely, how often do I put off doing something I enjoy (like reading) because I haven’t “earned it” yet?

And what are the takeaways from their lives?

- Bridget and Barrett found excuses for parties. I still remember the “Fatten Bridget Up for Chemo Party.” They also got married several times and celebrated what they called “The Summer of Love.”

- Lisa went to so many signings. If a YA author came to town, chances were good she was there and buying at least one book.

- Bridget and Barrett made even small things beautiful. Take this picnic they ate one of the last times she was hospitalized. If it were me, I would probably be staring at some bland institutional plate of food, not even considering how I could have something better.

- Lisa reached to other authors, especially new authors. She focused on them in her blog and spread her joy at finding a great new book. She even called bookstores in other states when her online friends were having their launch parties and ordered a signed copy or two to be shipped back to her.

I was driving through Eastern Oregon over Memorial Day weekend. And I saw the rolling hills and rocks formations through my friend’s eyes. How much more beautiful they would be if you knew your days were numbered? But I’m kidding myself. We are all dying. Our days are numbered, and we don’t know how long they will be.

Men's wingtips offer an iconic image - Dueling covers

2011-05-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

I love Tom Perrotta (probably more than he loves me, as we have never met and I'm pretty sure he's unaware of my existence.)

I'm looking forward to reading The Leftovers, which is described thusly: "What if the Rapture happened and you got left behind? Or what if it wasn’t the Rapture at all, but something murkier, a burst of mysterious, apparently random disappearances that shattered the world in a single moment, dividing history into Before and After, leaving no one unscathed? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event?"

I find it interesting that he's exploring a quasi-religious subject, as he did in the Abstinence Teacher. Or, in a way, the flip side of religion.

I loved the World to Come by Dana Horn - and reviewed it for the Oregonian.

The only one of the bunch I haven't read:

And again, really liked Dan Chaon's You Remind Me of Me and was glad to see all his success last year with Await Your Reply. I hung out with him at the green room at Wordstock, although I was probably too big a fan girl to be perceived as a peer.

One step at a time

2011-05-04T11:12:00.001-07:00

I have run the same route so many times that I can tell within the first 3 minutes how fast I'm going to run. Actually, the first 2 minutes 38 seconds. If I make it to the light on Multnomah at 2:37 or before, it's going to be a good run.

Today it was 2:37, so I decided to push myself. But it's hard to keep up a sprint for five miles. What I did today that worked really well was to pick something about 20 feet away - a leaf, a crack - and focus on running hard to that point. Then once I got there, I picked another point, again about 20 feet away, and just repeated the process. And I had the best time I had in months.

I'm approaching my writing like that today. Focusing on small goals, not being overwhelmed by my killer deadline, about how yesterday I worked for hours and only had a net 300 words to show for it. Sure, on paper I should be writing between 1,000-2,000 words every day to make my deadline, but what I need to focus on now is going through my outline, step by step, and making sure it makes sense and that it keeps the tension high. Today I need to concentrate on writing in 20-feet increments.

How NOT to get ready for your big day

2011-04-25T10:30:00.001-07:00

Okay, so this morning I was on a TV show called AM Northwest. And in the evening I am going to be speaking at the Oregon Book Awards. Anxious? Me? Why yes.

I spend most of my days in workout clothes. I wear makeup about twice a year. I never learned how to walk in heels. (I think it's too late.)

So I've been nervously anticipating these events. This weekend I started doing my prep work. Learn from my mistakes:

- on Saturday, at Kajukenbo class get paired with 13-year-old boy known [by me] as "Devil Child." When instructed to "harmonize" with gentle sparring, Devil Child windmills his arms, raining blows, and laughs at resulting wincing, cowering. Instructor yells, "Hit him!" to no avail.
- resulting bruises are going to make sleeveless dress problematic.

- realizing no one wears stockings any more, go to Target and purchase "shapewear" and self-tanner.
- go home and don shapewear. Styled like shorts (shorts made by Satan), they immediately roll up thighs and down belly, creating scary slabs of flash.
- discard idea of wearing shapewear and instead vow to suck in stomach (for hours on end if need be).
- test self-tanner on upper thigh. Nearly too late, note that long streak of self-tanner has run down to calf. Wipe up frantically with wad of wet toilet paper.
- on Sunday, wake up and note that self-tanner has made test spot on upper thigh a pale orange. Still better than normal, vampire-like skin tone.
- as an alternate plan, purchase Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs, which people on the internet claim miraculously covers up imperfections.
- try Sally Hansen at home. Legs are still scary and veiny and seem no darker.
- shower and shave. (Scant body hair means shaving is a rare occasion). Since self-tanner recommends exfoliating, scrub legs vigorously with loofah.
- spray on self-tanner.
- slip on floor on which self-tanner has drifted.
- after legs dry, try on four pairs of black pants. Four pairs! How is it possible to have four pairs of black pants (that are not athletic pants) and still not like any of them?
- one hour later, legs begin to burn and itch. And look bumpy. Can you say razor burn?
- hope that razor burned/orange legs will look sort of tan.

Wish me luck!

A frank message to Kotex (men - avert your eyes)

2011-04-19T14:15:00.001-07:00

I'm all for improvements in basic everyday products. Henry Ford's cars only came in one color - black - and now they are available in a rainbow of hues. Men can wear shirts that are other colors than white. Etc.

But I can guarantee you this: I have never looked at feminine hygiene pads and thought: "Damn, I wish they came with designs!"

It's like they've run through the basic additional features - leak-proof, scented, specially made for different kinds of panties - and they just couldn't think of anything else.

I mean, who needs a design in a spot that is never going to be seen by anyone but you? In a spot that will immediately be obscured? Even toilet paper with designs can be seen by anyone who walks into your bathroom, but this has an audience of one.

One who doesn't care.

Even designer Depends (new jeans style, perhaps, like Pampers) make more sense.

Win a copy of Julia Spencer Fleming's One Was a Soldier

2011-03-28T09:43:00.001-07:00

Back in the day my publisher asked me if I would blurb a book called In the Bleak Midwinterby Julia Spencer-Fleming. I thought it was fantastic - and I obviously wan't the only one. It went on to gather starred reviews and awards.

One character had lost a sibling to colon cancer at 25. Reading that gave me pause. So many of us write from life - and I knew that colon cancer that young probably had a genetic link. I got Julia's email address and sent her a note saying if that was based on herself, she should probably be screened.

It turned out to be wholly fictional - the suggestion of a nurse she knew - but Julia and I stayed in touch and hung out at Left Coast Crime and then Malice Domestic, two big fan conventions. She was a ton of fun - what redhead isn't?

Since then she has steadily built a following with: A Fountain Filled With Blood, Out of the Deep I Cry, To Darkness and to Death, All Mortal Flesh and I Shall Not Want. All feature the Rev. Clare Fergusson who has a tumultuous relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne.

Now comes One Was a Soldier

What it's about
On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one other and their small Adirondack town.

The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.

But coming home is harder than it looks. One vet will struggle with drugs and alcohol. One will lose his family and friends. One will die.

Since their first meeting, Russ and Clare's bond has been tried, torn, and forged by adversity. But when he rules the veteran's death a suicide, she violently rejects his verdict, drawing the surviving vets into an unorthodox investigation that threatens jobs, relationships, and her own future with Russ. As the days cool and the nights grow longer, they will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny town to the upper ranks of the U.S. Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.

Praise
“Spencer-Fleming's most ambitious book yet - think The Best Years of Our Lives with corpses....fans will continue to be impressed by her resourceful determination never to tell the same story twice.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Spencer-Fleming explores a serious societal issue - the reentry problems of soldiers home from combat... while concocting an an absolutely irresistible combination of crime fiction and romance...this is a surefire winner. This series, as intelligent as it is enthralling, just keeps getting better.”
—Booklist

You can win one of three ARCs!
Just leave a comment below as well as a way to get hold of you if you win.

Make me a star!

2011-03-08T13:59:00.001-08:00

A start-up nonprofit funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is developing materials (through videos and social media) for ninth graders who are bored or struggling in school. And they asked me to appear as an expert on writing and solving mysteries.

Me! I have no idea why they picked me, but I certainly wasn’t going to say no.

A film crew of four spent 10 hours at my house on Friday. It was an amazing - and exhausting - experience.

They interviewed me about my books, how I write, my high school years, how to plant clues and how to create suspense. They filmed me walking, running, practicing self defense and sparring with my Kajukenbo instructor, reading a challenge while wearing my sparring gear, opening various doors, and driving. (A lot of this was B-roll - the footage they run to make what you are hearing about interesting, so it’s not always just a talking head on screen.)

Do you know how hard it is to assume a normal expression when someone is holding a camera four inches from your face and you are supposed to be acting like you are alone in the car?

The running part nearly wore me out. Because we were running (little pun) low on time, I would jog to the end of the block, wait for the cameraman to give the signal, and then run toward the camera. Only once I looked at the camera. And once a car came by. And once I thought he meant I should go but he was telling me to wait. And they wanted a couple of good shots to choose from. And of course I wanted to look fast on camera, so I ran like a gazelle. And then when the camera was off, huffed and puffed back to the end of the block.

And then they filmed just my feet. For one shot, the cameraman crouched down and ran sideways without ever looking at the street. He was basically running blind. He also held his breath the whole way so it wouldn’t get picked up by the mike.

I changed clothes twice so it didn’t look like it was all done on the same day. When they asked me to change into a third outfit, I kind of drew a blank. What did I have that was clean, unwrinkled, attractive and ideally made me look thin and hip? (Answer: not a lot.)

I had to say some things numerous times, to clarify a point or to redo a segment when the rumble of a garbage truck intruded. At the end, when I issued the challenge to students, I probably read it 20 times (“Now try it a little more slowly.” “Now try it putting pauses between the three paragraphs.” “Now try to draw out the word ‘suspense.’”) before they were satisfied.

I just got an email from the director, and he asked me not to cut my hair in case they need to come back to town this week and film for a few more hours.

What’s amazing is that all this footage will be condensed to less than 15 minutes of finished product.

It's my Write-a-versary

2011-02-03T16:58:00.001-08:00

Three years ago was my very first day as a full-time writer. After many, many years of bosses (some great, some not-so-great, some pure evil), I struck out on my own. I knew I had a contract coming my way for a nice chunk of change, and I knew it was now or never.

So I gave notice and packed up my emergency makeup, my snacks, my photos, and the little cup where I kept spare change. I said goodbye to a lot of folks and tried not think to had about whether I was crazy to quit when the stock market had lost 40 percent of its value and I hadn't actually signed said contract.

It is so nice to be free of the crazy BS - reorgs, reviews, meetings with no purpose, people agreeing with a stupid idea because the person who presented it is their boss. No traffic, no pantyhose, no paying for coffee (unless I want to), no crazy bosses, no waiting for the elevator, no "metrics."

It's not all sunshine and lollipops. I've got health benefits from my husband, and everything else I pay for out of pocket (like retirement) or simply don't have. I net out less than I did when I worked full-time (but I was well-paid). There have times when I have done the math and wondered exactly how we were going to pay the mortgage.

But you know what? It has worked out. I've had a bunch of books out: Face of Betrayal, Hand of Fate, and Girl, Stolen. Heart of Ice and The Night She Disappeared are in the works. I've got contracts for four or five more.

And I am so much happier!! All day long I get to kill people (or at least make them worried they might be killed) and it is so much fun.

Did you get an ereader for Christmas?

2010-12-26T14:20:00.001-08:00

Did you get an e-reader for Christmas? Do you like it? [Full disclosure: I would love to have an i-Pad, but right now that falls under the category of "wants," not "needs."]

Anyway, if you are looking for some inexpensive books to load on your e-reader, I have an immodest suggestion: mine! All five that I've put up were originally traditionally published and got good reviews. Learning to Fly and Buried Diamonds originally came out from St. Martins. The other three came out from Harper Collins. I'm pricing them all at just $2.99.

Learning to Fly: A Novel has been optioned for film twice, translated into three languages (I actually made a ton of money in France), and went into four printings. It was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and the PNBA award, and got got two starred reviews. It's about a pregnant 19-year-old girl named Free who hates her life - and then she walks away from a multi-car accident with a dead woman's ID and a bag of cash that originally belonged to a drug dealer.

Circles of Confusionwas my first published book (the fourth I wrote, though). Claire Montrose inherits what might be a long-lost Vermeer painting. A Booksense pick, and a finalist for both the Agatha and the Anthony awards. I went to a lot of banquets the year after it came out, and let me tell you, it's impossible to eat while you wait for them to announce the awards.

Square in the Face was the second in Claire's adventures. Claire helps her friend track down the child she gave up to a secret adoption agency. Finding the girl is the only chance for a bone marrow match for a younger sibling. This was inspired by an experience that happened to my brother's friend.

In Heart-Shaped Box, Claire goes to her 20th high school reunion. At the beginning, a cheerleader is found strangled to death. In her hands is a hand carved wooden box with her photo in it. Claire and a number of other women at the reunion have also received boxes. Next to Circles of Confusion, this is probably the most popular book in the series.

Buried Diamonds explores a 50-year-old mystery - and reveals the hidden past of Claire's roommate. This was a darker book. It was a worthy end to the series.

Here's a link to all my books on the Kindle.

All these books should be available on any e-reader platform (I went through Amazon for the Kindle and Smashwords for everything else). Don't have any e-reader? There's a free Kindle app available for both Macs and PCs.

Cynthia Leitich-Smith gets me to spill the beans

2010-12-10T15:11:00.001-08:00

New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Leitich-Smith has what has to be the best-read blog in all of kids' lit. It was a dream come true when she asked me to write about how to turn up the tension in any kind of book.

Bad books!

2010-12-02T15:42:00.001-08:00

Have you read any of these bad books?

- The Joy Luck Club
- The Name of the Rose
- The Pillars of the Earth
- The Hot Zone
- The Giver
- The Things They Carried

Those are just few of the "bad books" listed by PABBIS.org - Parents Against Bad Books in Schools. [Full disclosure: I think of it as Pablum.org]. People have gone through books and looked for any instance of sex, sexual innuendo, violence, swear words, and mentions of God that aren't prayer. And then these books, with a handful of cherry-picked words or sentences, are labeled "bad."

In case you were wondering how The Hot Zone, a non-fiction book warning about exotic viruses, ended up on the naughty list, here's what's wrong with it, according to PABBIS: "Has graphic detailed descriptions of the effects of the Ebola virus on the body [really? in a book about viruses? How dare they!]; 4 uses of the f-word, 16 uses of the s-word, 4 SOB’s, 1 bastard, 2 Christ’s/Holy Christ’s, 1 GD; Brief mentions of pimps/prostitutes, how someone’s [testicles] swelled up “like a blue monkey’ and a statement of how a man infected his wife through sexual intercourse."

The whole idea makes my blood boil. Check it out here: http://pabbis.org

To learn more about book banning, click here.

What world are these folks living in? In my world, a girl who goes to my daughter's school was given a box of 300 condoms by her mother for her 14th birthday. An f word or an s word or GD is not going to ruin kid's ears (or eyes).

In the Bible, Lot had sex with his daughters. Or how about "Your breasts are like twin fawns of a gazelle"? And don't get me started on all the violence in the Bible.

Buy a gift (even for yourself) and help Bridget kick cancer!

2010-11-24T14:14:00.001-08:00

This is Bridgett Zinn and Barrett Dowell in February, 2009, the day they got married at Emanuel Hospital in Portland. It was at Emanuel that Bridget was diagnosed with Stage Four colon cancer. I had met Bridget and Barrett just a few months before, at an SCWBI meeting

After receiving treatment in Portland for 18 months, Bridget and Barrett are now traveling to Phoenix one week every month for innovative treatment at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Not all of their costs for this promising treatment are covered by insurance. Bridget and Barrett's friends and family are rallying to help them pay the bills so that they can focus on Bridget's health and kick cancer. Artists, authors, and other friends and acquaintances have donated items in the spirit of love and hope.

The Bridget Kicks Cancer: Season of Love and Hope Auction is off and running. Between now and December 4, you can place a bid on 114 items and services. Get a unique gift for a loved one (or even yourself) and do a good deed at the same time.

There's:
- Jewelry
- Portrait photography
- Tutoring
- Personalized animation
- A beach house rental
- Original artwork
- Professional manuscript critiques (including one by me!)
- and of course books, books, and more books, most signed by the authors!

We've already raised about $2,500 for Bridget. It's amazing what love can do.

To view and bid on items, visit the auction site at http://bit.ly/bridgetauction and follow the instructions for bidding.

The action ID is: bridgetkicks and the password is: cancer. (People will need this information if you send them a link to a specific item, or if they use any link other than the one above.)

Another reason to hate James Frey

2010-11-17T11:57:00.001-08:00

I already disliked James Frey for screwing up books being a regular feature of Oprah show. Now there’s a new reason to hate him: he’s got a work-for-hire fiction factory to churn out YA books - and it has to be read about to be believed.

In a story in New York Magazine, a MFA graduate who was considered for one of the projects Frey was offering explains the terms: “This is the essence of the terms being offered by Frey’s company Full Fathom Five: In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project, including television, film, and merchandise rights—30 percent if the idea was originally Frey’s, 40 percent if it was originally the writer’s. The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright. Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future. The writer was forbidden from signing contracts that would “conflict” with the project; what that might be wasn’t specified. The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials. There was a $50,000 penalty if the writer publicly admitted to working with Full Fathom Five without permission.”

This is a pretty raw deal.

Read more about Frey’s scheme here.

And YA author Maureen Johnson explains in more detail why this is so wrong.

Bridget still needs you!

2010-11-02T13:26:00.001-07:00

Remember Bridget, this beautiful young writer who lives in Portland? Three things happened to Bridget in 2009:
1. She got a two-book offer for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she has Stage Four colon cancer.

Here is the latest from Bridget:

“Everyone must be thinking, Bridget, come on, aren’t you done having cancer yet? I am totally with you. I'm ready to move on to something more fun. But cancer doesn't seem to be quite done with me yet.

“Over the past year and a half, I've had chemotherapy every two weeks, almost non-stop. There was that little "vacation" for surgery. I've been over a range of treatments. On some of the less harsh treatments (chemo is no joke-less harsh does NOT mean easy), we've had glorious little stretches of a few days, sometimes even a week at a time when we could almost pretend that things were normal. And there were some chemo regimes that didn't really give us much of that. But we found joy where we could and Barrett and I are talented at finding joy. The “Summer of Love” celebrations back in Wisconsin, all of the book signings, fifth Fridays and social gatherings we were able to attend back home in Portland were extraordinary high points.

“But we reached a stopping point with my treatments at OHSU--we had a setback but no real options left to turn to in Portland. So we decided to try Cancer Treatment Center of America in Phoenix, AZ. They showed us a good eight options to try and that was just the beginning. They are committed to providing options for their patients and their motto is "care that never quits" so they never give up on you. This, along with their survival rate for people with my type of cancer being statistically higher than the national average, really helped nudge us in this direction. This first treatment was a little rougher on me than they expected but they're going to help us continue to plan and move forward with something that works on the cancer and allows us as many of those glorious stretches of normalcy as possible.”

How can you help? It’s simple. In the spirit of Bridget and Barrett’s Summer of Love,” let’s keep it going with an online auction, “Bridget Kicks Cancer: Season of Love and Hope,” from November 22-December 4. Please consider donating an item to the auction (and bidding on items once the auction is underway). Items that have been popular and successful in previous auctions include:

· Author and writer services: critiques, help with social networking
· Autographed books
· Handcrafted jewelry
· Local services: wine tours, house rentals, wine packages
· Original Artwork: perhaps design an 8 x 10 -12 x 24 around the theme of “Season of Love” (paying homage to Bridget’s “Summer of Love”), offer to commission a piece of art, or donate an existing piece
· Handcrafted greeting cards

I am donating a manuscript critique that would be perfect for anyone who writes YA, mysteries, and/or thrillers.

If you would like to donate, go to http://bit.ly/bridgetkickscancer. Donations must be in by November 19, 2010.

Items will be listed in an online auction at http://32auctions.com/ beginning Monday, November 22, 2010. Donors will be responsible for shipping their item to the winning bidder. Since this is around the holidays, send items as soon as possible after we notify you that payment has been received. Thank you!

If you would like to follow Bridget's blog or just find out more about her, you can do so at http://www.bridgetzinn.com.

How long before someone stages an intervention?

2010-10-28T09:41:00.001-07:00

My Kajukenbo class is the most challenging - and yet fun - physical activity I have ever done. I grew up uncoordinated, the girl who pulled straight As except for Cs in PE. I could not dance to Winchester Cathedral. I nearly broke my knee on the pommel horse. I was so skinny that I sank rather than floated in swimming. I once managed to swing the bat in front of the softball I had just hit, so it bounced back and hit me in the eye.

One of things we do in class is practice getting out of all kinds of holds and grabs. I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before someone hands me a card for a women's shelter.

Last night the Kajukenbo instructor tried to get me over my fear of sparring by putting me in the bullring with every other person in class - one after another.

I actually landed a few punches and kicks. Probably wincing the whole time.

But watch out world, I'm learning. Better not mess with me.

Anyone can write a book! (with some help)

2010-10-13T09:51:00.001-07:00

New York Post's Page Six has an interview with the ever-articulate Hilary Duff.

"“I wrote a book, so it goes to show you that anyone can write a book if they have an idea,” says Hilary Duff, who’s not exactly “anyone.” The newlywed, 23-year-old pop singer, “Lizzie McGuire” star and fashion designer just came out with “Elixir” (Simon & Schuster), the young-adult novel she wrote with Elise Allen."

Yup! All she needed was an idea and someone to turn that idea into a book!

Of The Hunger Games, she says, "I’m going to do a terrible job of explaining it because, like my book, it’s very complicated."

About Eclipse, she says, "it’s so genius."

Click here to be inspired.

Dead parents in books for teens

2010-09-21T14:52:00.001-07:00

Editor - and author herself - Leila Sales takes issue with the number of dead parents in books for teens.

For the record, I’ve had written teen with parents (Shock Point), teen with older adoptive parents (Torched), and one dead mom (Girl, Stolen. The dead mom is barely mentioned - the step-mom gets more air time. And she’s nice) (although I guess another character has a mom who took off).

She thinks writers who create characters with dead parents are guilty of lazy writing - because they don’t have to show their relationships, because it creates instant empathy, and third because grownups are boring (although I don’t quite follow why that is lazy writing).

And I think she undermines her own argument when she says, “Adult characters put a damper on the kid-only adventures that make children's books fun. But there are solutions to this problem other than just killing them off. Set the book at boarding school, summer camp, or another parent-free zone. Create parents who are clueless or uninvolved, à la Harriet the Spy. Fade their role into the background.” This is the only part that bolsters her argument about laziness. “Write parents who actually have something to contribute to the story, who aren't just a barrier between the kids and fun.”

I think one reason there are so many dead parents is because the teens need to fix things on their own. No parent or parents means one less person to interfere.

You can read her article here.

What do you think about the issue of dead parents?

Why a brush with death triggers the slo-mo effect

2010-09-02T11:08:00.001-07:00

A scientist who had a brush with death as a child wondered why during such times time seems to slow down. He came up with a hypotheses - but first he had to figure out a way to test it.

NPR reports: ""We went on all of the scariest roller coasters, and we brought all of our equipment and our stopwatches, and had a great time," David says. "But it turns out nothing there was scary enough to induce this fear for your life that appears to be required for the slow-motion effect." But, after a little searching, David discovered something called SCAD diving. (SCAD stands for Suspended Catch Air Device.) It's like bungee jumping without the bungee."

Read “Why A Brush With Death Triggers The Slow-Mo Effect”.

I bet these two authors had a sinking feeling...

2010-08-18T11:04:00.001-07:00

It's every authors worst nightmare: you spend years writing a book with an unusual angle - only to find out that someone else is coming out with a book covering the exact same thing. Even though the two books will probably be quite different, is there space in people's limited attention spans to remember both?

What it you could taste something that is not normally associated with taste - like a word or an emotion? Two authors, both with books out this summer, explored the same unusual premise.

In Bitter in the Mouth: A Novel, 30-something Linda has the ability to taste the words she hears. This is "lexical-gustatory synesthesia," which according to Wikipedia "is one of the rarer forms of synesthesia, in which spoken or written words evoke vivid sensations of taste, sometimes including temperature and texture (e.g., for lexical-gustatory synesthete JIW, 'jail' tastes of cold, hard bacon)."Despite its starred review from Publisher's Weekly, I think the book is going to have a hard time finding traction because of:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel. PW says, "Bender's narrator is young, needy Rose Edelstein, who can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people's secret emotional lives—including her mother's, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction."

The cat who came in from the cold

2010-08-11T17:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday around 1 in the afternoon, I went out to get the mail. And who comes trotting up the driveway?

The cat.

The stray cat.

The stray cat I took to Multnomah County Animal Shelter on Friday.

The shelter is 30 miles away. It's not even in Multnomah County. And there's a river in between us and the shelter. Plus two freeways.

The cat did not look any worse for wear.

I grew up reading my parents' Readers Digest. So immediately I knew: I could parlay this into one of those "Amazing Animal" stories about pets who find their owners even after they move out of state! It was a miracle! A miracle that might earn me $2 per word!

I picked her up and called the shelter. While I waited on hold, I opened a can of tuna. Albacore tuna. Because I had given all the cat food we bought to the shelter. .

Me: I dropped off a cat there on Friday and now it's at my house again.
Shelter: What's your name? (Tap, tap, tap) No, the cat is still here.
Me: What? I'm holding her right now.
Shelter (somewhat patronizingly): Maybe it's a different cat that just looks like the cat we have.
Me (could the cat have a twin? Is there a whole litter of identical cats out there and I'll have to bring them one at a time to the shelter?): I grew up with cats and I'm pretty sure it's the same cat.
Shelter: Let me go back to the cattery. (long pause while I wonder if I am going crazy): Oh. It looks like the owner just picked it up.
Me: Owner? Then why is she so scrawny?
Shelter: Our records show that she is old, has broken teeth, and a heart murmur. Sometimes when a cat is old, it loses weight.
Me: But she's got fleas. And no collar.
Shelter: Hm.

The shelter also gave me the address for the owner, which is about a block away. Ever since the cat has been back, she's been living in my driveway again.

Okay, now if you loved your cat, would you:
- let her live outdoors?
- where the street is busy?
- and there are signs up warning about a mama coyote and her pup stalking cats in the area?
- without a collar or chip?

I guess I'll stop feeding her and I won't put back out the bed we made. She hasn't gotten the message though. She still thinks she belongs here.

I would let her live here, but there's the little matter of Spouse's inability to breath.

Super Sad True Love Story

2010-08-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

Gary Shteyngart third novel, Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel, is a black comedy set in a futuristic America. A future that is drawing ever nearer -- where books don't exist, the economy has collapsed, and the only two televisions stations are Fox Liberty-Prime and Fox Liberty-Ultra. I'm not sure I've ever seen another book get stars across the board - Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly.

I was lucky enough to see Gary at Powells on Wednesday. And even though I came 15 minutes early, it was already a standing room only crowd. He waited for his entrance right in front of me, so I got to hear the unconscious noises one makes when one is being talked about to a crowd.

His reading was incredibly funny, complete with gestures and accents. The question and answer period was even better - he so sharp that sometimes you didn't even realize he was joking. Like one guy said he had just been reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which talks about what the Internet is doing to our brains and our attention spans. As the man was still asking his question, Gary started a bit, pulled out his iPhone and began to say, "Uh huh, uh huh," as he tapped away on the tiny screen. We're so used to this kind of half-assed attention that it took a few seconds for everyone to begin laughing.

The line for getting a signed copy was long. Two people ahead of me, the guy had several books, with weird instructions for each: "Write something random in Russian, but don't tell me what it says." "In this one, draw a stick figure." Gary gamely complied. The guy ahead of me brought a Kindle and a special pen so Gary could sign the back. There was some debate as to how large he should make the signature (since it was the first of presumably many) and then some fumbling as Gary tried to take a picture with his iPhone while simultaneously signing.

Read and hear more about the author and the book here - including an interview with NPR's Terry Gross.

I take it all back - Kirkus rocks!!

2010-07-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

Did I ever say Kirkus could be kranky? Did I complain about the review in which I changed sex?

Well, I didn't mean it.

Not one word.

Not after this review from Kirkus for Girl, Stolen.

"This can't-put-it-down crime thriller unfolds through the viewpoints of both victim and criminal. Sixteen-year-old Cheyenne , blinded in an accident that killed her mother three years earlier, has pneumonia. As she sleeps in the back of her stepmother's car, Griffin steals it, inadvertently kidnapping her. Once Griffin 's car-thief father learns she's wealthy, he decides to demand ransom. When the hapless Griffin realizes his dad and cronies will kill the girl to protect their identities, he tries to protect her. Clearly, the author did extensive research on blindness and its challenges. Her realistic depiction of the coping strategies and the strengths developed by the blind greatly enhances the novel, lifting it above the level of a mere escapist thriller. Characterizations make an impact, with both Cheyenne and Griffin becoming quite appealing; much suspense revolves around Griffin 's divided loyalties. The slightly ambiguous ending highlights Cheyenne 's ambivalent feelings toward Griffin . Although Cheyenne 's multiple problems might feel overdone in less skilled hands, Henry handles them deftly and makes her choices work. Constantly interesting and suspenseful. (Thriller. 12 & up)"

All you authors out there know how much this means, how you wait and wait for reviews, feeling slightly sick to your stomach, knowing how much a bad one stings. This is so good I can't take it in!

Adopted girl finds out mother is murderer

2010-05-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

27 years ago this week, Diane Downs said a bushy-haired stranger shot her and her three kids, killing one of them. The shooting occurred about 90 minutes from here, and I still remember the terror that swept the state. Such a horror. I also remember looking at the composite drawing and thinking about the words "bushy-haired stranger" and feeling a little bit of doubt.

She was ultimately charged with the shootings. The motive was thought to be a new boyfriend who didn't want kids. At the trial, Christie Ann Downs, who was 8 at the time of the shooting, and who suffered injuries that affected one arm and her speech, testified that her mother shot her and her siblings. Cheryl Lynn Downs, 7, was killed. Three-year-old Stephen Downs was paralyzed from the waist down. In an odd twist, Christie Ann and Stephen were adopted by the prosecutor.

Ann Rule wrote a book about it called Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (Signet).

Downs was pregnant at the time of her sentencing, and gave birth to a girl a few days later. Now Glamour magazine has the story of the girl Downs was pregnant with - Rebecca Babcock. "Rebecca Babcock always knew she was adopted, but at 16 she was rocked by the discovery that her birth mother, Diane Downs, was a murderer, convicted of shooting her own children."

The story is co-written by Eric Mason. The article says he is now a PI, but used to be a TV reporter. Eric interviewed me - twice! - about my books. It's a small world.

Read more about Rebecca here. While she is seeking a co-writer for her life story, I think it would be a great starting point for a novel.

Look what I found!

2010-05-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

This past week, I have seen the strangest assortment of stuff while I've been running:
- a dead mole
- 2 dead rats (I'm starting to worry about bubonic plague)
- 2 pairs of women's panties (in different locations)
- in someone's garage, a Christmas stocking hanging next to a (presumably model) human skull
- amazingly beautiful flowers
- and this! an actual library checkout card! (for May Bird Among the Stars: Book Two)

I didn't know they still used library checkout cards. For me, they bring back so many memories. When I was a kid, you could only check out six books at one time, but the librarian wisely decided the rule didn't apply to me. And my first job was at a library, where I often typed out new cards, as well as filed them when books were checked out.

Making new cards was probably a kind of penance for another memory I have of library checkout cards, which used to be made of a thicker card stock than the one I found. When I was a kid, we were pretty poor.

How poor, you ask?

So poor that we got one pair of shoes per school year and knew we needed to make them last. Seeing as how we bought our shoes at Leeds or Kinneys (cheap chains that probably have long since bit the dust), they didn't. I would get holes in the sole of my shoes. And library checkout cards were the perfect thing to put in the bottom.

A commercial for Kinney Shoes:

Local Children's Author Pleads Guilty to Possessing Porn

2010-04-20T17:25:00.001-07:00

Luckily, I never met KP Bath, the author of two middle-grade books - The Secret of Castle Cant, and Escape From Castle Cant - even though he lives less than 10 miles from me. [In a rather creepy coincidence, the ad displayed on the Amazon page says I can find Portland-area babysitters. Trust me, this guy is not someone you would want watching your kids.]

Yesterday he pleaded guilty to possessing child porn. And not just any child porn. "Prosecutors have alleged that some of the images were of infants, toddlers and prepubescent children, some of whom were bound and appeared to be the victims of sadistic and violent behavior."

Little Brown dropped him after he was arrested. He was supposed to have a new book out last fall. It's possible I would have reviewed it for the Oregonian.

The full story.

I'm not a believer in the death penalty, but it's hard to think that a person like this could ever be rehabilitated.

Bribery works!

2010-04-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of years back, we did something that seemed kind of radical for Teen. We stopped giving her a flat allowance and started paying her to read and play musical instruments.

I always felt a bit defensive about it. But now comes some scientific proof that that sort of thing works. A researcher studied five different ways to improve student performance. For each method, there were matched control schools. Success was measured by performance on standardized tests.

The most successful method: “Paying second-graders to read books significantly boosted their reading-comprehension scores on standardized tests at the end of the year — and those kids seemed to continue to do better the next year, even after the rewards stopped.”

Other efforts had more mixed success. These including paying for better grades, better test scores and better behavior.

Adults are motivated by money. Would many of us work at our jobs if there was no pay? Why should kids be any different?
Read more about the study here.

The path to success

2010-03-29T10:41:00.001-07:00

I've been reading The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises, and really enjoying it.

One thing I especially liked was this:

It is, I believe, a diagram of a realistic path to success.

From the bottom up
At the bottom are people who "want to" write, maybe write a very little, but abandon it and don't move on to the next level.

Next up are people who are trying to learn something about writing, through books, conferences, classes, critique groups.

And some from that group will actually finish their novels.

And while they try to find a publisher for that finished novel, they start a new one (or ones), because most people don't have their first novels published. (For me, it was my fourth book. It sold in three days. It was like a seven-year, overnight success.)

If they persevere, if they keep learning, keep writing, then eventually they get published.

And if keep at it, they are multi-published. (Are there times when your career might seem dead, when you can't get anyone to bite, even after you are published? For me, yes, there have been times. But I always figured the only one who could take me out of the game was me.)

And James Bell's diagram shows that having a breakout hit is not something you can really control. Every now and then the Ferris wheel dips down and picks you up and carries you off. I had that happen last year when Lis Wiehl's and my first book together showed up on the NY Times bestseller list.

Want to read my next book - Girl, Stolen?

2010-03-22T09:14:00.001-07:00

Want to read my next book - Girl, Stolen?

Come on, you know you do. ;-)

Here’s the description: “In Girl, Stolen, 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is napping in the back of the car while her stepmom fills her prescription. Before Cheyenne realizes what’s happening, someone is stealing the car - with her inside. Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne; all he planned to do was take the car. But when Griffin’s dad finds out that Cheyenne’s dad is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes - now there’s a reason to keep her. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare? She’s not only sick - she’s blind.”

Girl, Stolen comes out in October. But I’ve been hearing from some enthusiastic readers/bloggers/reviewers who want to get their hands on an Advanced Readers Copy (which looks just like the real book, except done as a softcover, not a hardback). I feel terrible I can’t send ARCs to every one of you. But I do have two I can share, and I’d like to launch them on a whirlwind trip.

What I'm proposing is to send my ARCs off on a cross-country adventure. Each of my two ARCs will make stops at the homes of interested readers, who will then send it on in turn.

Would you like your home/office/school to be a pit stop on the road trip for Girl, Stolen? Then leave your email address in the comments.

That means you - yes, you! - will get to read Girl, Stolen months before it comes out. The only catch is that you’ll have to send it on to the next reader after you’re finished, which means you have to pay for postage. And since there will be more readers waiting after you, you have to swear on a stack of Bibles that you won’t let it lie around, gathering dust.

If this sounds like your kind of deal, just leave me your email.

Doing the Monster Mash (up)

2010-03-08T13:12:00.001-08:00

Time magazine looks at the latest mashup, from the guy who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He wrote that book in two months, it sold more than a million copies, and now it's being made into a movie starring Natalie Portman.

"The conceit of Abraham Lincoln is that Grahame-Smith — his very name is a mashup! — has come into possession of Lincoln's secret diaries detailing his life as a stalker of vampires. As a frontiersboy, Lincoln loses his mother to the undead and swears lifelong vengeance. A giant among men — he was 6 ft. 4 in. (1.9 m) tall — Lincoln adopts the ax, that most American of edged weapons, as the tool of his trade, hiding it inside his signature long black coat."

Read the rest of the Time article here.

And, in a rather unlikely mash up, you can listen to a radio program that featured:
- Seth Grahame-Smith, author of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,"
- Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, professor of English and teacher of a course called “The Uncanny,” which explores how the bizarre and unexpected feature in the art, music, literature and film of the last hundred years, and
- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Lincoln biographer.

You can hear the show here.

The Happiness Project

2010-02-25T13:14:00.001-08:00

I recently read and enjoyed The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.

The author, Gretchen Rubin, focused on a different area of her life each month. But she didn't forget her goals from the previous month - she rolled them forward so that by the end of the year she was trying to be happy in 12 different areas.

To begin with, she developed 12 personal commandments. They were:
1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act as I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out.
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.

She also came up with what she called the secrets of adulthood:
The days are long, but the years are short.
Someplace, keep an empty shelf.
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
It's okay to ask for help.
You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you LIKE to do.
Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.
You don't have to be good at everything.
Soap and water removes most stains.
It's important to be nice to EVERYONE.
You know as much as most people.
Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.
Eat better, eat less, exercise more.
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you -- and vice versa.
People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
No deposit, no return.

If I was going to add one for myself, it would be:
- If you have a nagging feeling that maybe you shouldn't send an email or post something or comment on something - then WAIT. (following this rule would have saved me a lot of grief over the years)

What would you add?

I've got a new website!

2010-02-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

http://aprilhenrymysteries.com

What do you think?

How to have a successful reading

2010-02-12T15:35:00.001-08:00

Over at Shelf Awareness, author Chuck Thompson lists six rules for better readings:
1. Don't Read for More Than Five Minutes at a Time. Ever!
2. Get the Crowd Involved [He has some really interesting ideas]
3. Easy on the Visuals [I have to say that after doing school visits, I've come to think Powerpoints are a good idea - he disagrees]
4. Hand Out Gift Certificates [I've never done gift certificates, but I've had drawings for other books]
5. Cut Off the Q&A Early [Not too early, but his point, when you read it in full, is a good one]
6. Don't Be Afraid to Say Something Stupid

Read the full post here.

And here's a cautionary post about what happens when you don't follow the rules.

The Things That Keep Us Here

2010-02-09T21:22:00.001-08:00

You know how I love my apocalyptic novels! There’s a new one for your list: The Things That Keep Us Here.

About the book
A couple on the brink of divorce struggles to keep their family alive as a deadly pandemic sweeps across the world, food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. Orion in the UK and Wunderlich in Germany pre-empted rights to The Things That Keep Us Here and Buckley's next book, and Random House has purchased audio rights.

What the critics are saying
"A very credible premise . . . operating both as a psychological profile of a family under duress and as a scary, gripping look at the effects of a pandemic."
—Booklist

"With crisp writing and taut pacing, Buckley spins a convincing apocalyptic vision that's both frightening and claustrophobic."
—Library Journal

"Utterly engrossing."
—New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner

"A brilliant debut."
—New York Times bestselling author James Rollins

About the author
Carla Buckley was born in Washington, D.C. and has worked in a variety of jobs, including a stint as an assistant press secretary for a U.S. senator, an analyst with the Smithsonian Institution, and a technical writer for a defense contractor. Carla is the Chair of the International Thriller Writers Debut Program and currently lives in Ohio with her husband and children.

I asked, Carla answered
A. What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? Bonus question: have you ever used it in a book?

C. When my youngest child was a toddler, she and I accompanied my older daughter to a pool party. One of the girls offered to take my little one into the pool, which was surrounded by a big iron fence, so that I could join the adults on the patio. I agreed. As I was standing there, chatting with the other mothers, I glanced toward the pool and saw the older girl in the deep end, playing with her friends. I didn’t see my daughter. I glanced toward the shallow end and there she was, fully immersed, her arms raised and just the tips of her fingers poking through the surface of the water. Seeing her frozen and helpless like that, and knowing I had to get around the fence in order to save her, was the most paralyzing moment of my life. She was easily rescued and has no lingering phobias, but I did not stop trembling for twenty-four hours.

I have not yet written about this event but the helplessness of a mother unable to save her child is a theme in my work.

A. Mystery writers often give their characters an unreasoning fear - and then make them face it. Do you have any phobias, like fear of spiders or enclosed spaces?
C. Although I’m not physically fearless, my biggest fear has more to do with being unable to take care of my children. I constantly dream about forgetting one of them somewhere, or letting one of them wander off into danger. My main character in The Things That Keep Us Here is driven by this fear, and forced to face it as society crumbles around her. Having lost a baby early in her marriage, she’s terrified she’ll lose one of her daughters, and that panic propels her through the story.

A. Do you have a favorite mystery book, author, or movie?
C. How many may I list? I began with Nancy Drew, progressed through Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie, moved on to Sue Grafton and Tony Hillerman when they were just starting out. I pore through awards nominations for new writers, which is how I discovered CJ Box and Marcus Sakey. I’m a huge fan of William Kent Krueger, and stalk Laura Lippman and Jan Burke, at conferences. Please don’t get me started on movies!

A. At its heart, every story is a mystery. It asks why someone acts the way they did - or maybe what will happen next. What question does your book ask?
C. My publisher summed it up this way: how far would you go to protect your family? As a pandemic rages around them, my characters are forced to confront their own humanity in order to save themselves. Really, the heart of my novel is about what a mother will do in order to keep her children safe.

A. Is there a mystery in life that you are still trying to figure out?
C. The one mystery that truly confounds and haunts me is how a parent can break the sacred trust they have with their child.

Is free really a good price?

2010-01-27T11:19:00.000-08:00

he New York Times says, “Earlier this week ... the No. 1 and 2 spots on Kindle’s best-seller list were taken by “Cape Refuge” and “Southern Storm,” both novels by Terri Blackstock, a writer of Christian thrillers. The Kindle price: $0. Until the end of the month, Ms. Blackstock’s publisher, Zondervan, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is offering readers the opportunity to download the books free to the Kindle or to the Kindle apps on their iPhone or in Windows.... Publishers including Harlequin, Random House and Scholastic are offering free versions of digital books to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other e-retailers, as well as on author Web sites, as a way of allowing readers to try out the work of unfamiliar writers. The hope is that customers who like what they read will go on to obtain another title for money.”

The thing is, I don’t think anyone knows if this is a good idea or not. A sample of a new corn chip in Costco may whet my appetite and encourage me to buy a whole bag [which I will later regret, but still]. But a whole book? Does it really encourage buyers? Or does it cause people to further mentally devalue ebooks, meaning they won’t want to pay much for them and see nothing wrong with pirating them?

In Blackstock's case, the two books cited were part of a series, so the corn chip analogy might apply.

I have downloaded free (and legal) versions of Beautiful Children: A Novel (still not read) and a Suze Orman book (read, mostly, although I felt chided). Neither download has caused me to buy the book or more books from the author.

You can read the whole NY Times article here.

Has Barbara really been gone three years?

2010-01-25T09:26:00.001-08:00

I can't believe my friend Barbara Seranella has been dead for three years. I still have some of the last emails she sent me, while she was waiting for a liver transplant. You know, the kind of email you keep because you have a bad feeling you might not get another one.

Barbara was one of a kind. She ran away from home at 14 and rode with The Heathens motorcycle gang. She learned how to fix cars when she lived in a hippie commune in Haight-Ashbury. She was also a heroin addict, and did the kind of things that people do to support their habit. By the time she was 21, she had been jailed 13 times. Somehow, though, she got sober, became a mechanic (she had great stories about some of the celebs she had helped, including Alan Alda), and then a best-selling author.

She was the most generous woman I've ever met. When I was first published, she introduced me to important people at Amazon and Borders. We toured Oregon and LA together. I gave her feedback on her last book.

But even though she had been clean for years, she had Hepatitis C from a dirty needle. I remember getting together with her in Portland. She was complaining that she had some kind of weird adult-onset acne. It was really broken capillaries from her failing liver. She fought back, and she fought hard, with Interferon and two transplants. She was waiting on a third when she died.

Barbara and I at the 2002 Left Coast Crime. Back when she was healthy. We both did stand up comedy. The picture does not show the very famous mystery writer to my left. Although we sat at the same table, she acted as if we weren't there at all. Of course Barbara, being Barbara, knew all the gossip about her and the pretty young man who was with her.

God, I miss her.

How putting my old books on the Kindle let me buy a new raincoat

2010-01-21T14:18:00.000-08:00

I thought I would report back on my Kindle experiment. About a month ago, I started putting some of my out-of-print adult books on the Kindle. YA and children's books tend to be given longer to prove themselves and to stay in print longer. With books for adults, if you don't continue to sell well, you're out.

It’s hard to think that a book you loved and labored over is now forgotten except for the occasional library reader.

Then I heard about how out-of-print books could have a second life on the Kindle. I started by putting my best-reviewed book to date, Learning to Fly, on the Kindle. Then I added four books of my series in order: Circles of Confusion, Square in the Face, Heart-Shaped Box, and finally, Buried Diamonds.

I priced them all at $1.99. For each one, Amazon gives me 70 cents. Amazon just announced a new plan that will go in effect June 30. If you list your book at a price that can be as low as $2.99, you'll get about 70% instead of 35%. So at that point, I will raise my prices and make about $2 a book.

To read more about how to do this yourself: http://aprilhenry.livejournal.com/660518.html

So far, I've made enough to buy this:

A book reading that looked painful

2010-01-13T12:54:00.001-08:00

A guy was in town the other night to read from his first novel. I’ve been seeing it praised everywhere, so I decided to go. There was a good turnout, probably 30 people. He had been written up in the paper that day. As far as I could tell, there was no big contingent of friends - just people who wanted to hear more about his book.

He began by saying, “I’m going to read from Chapter 12.” And that’s just what he did. He didn’t set the scene at all. You had no idea who the characters were. The chapter was made up of two scenes of two people talking. I thought the first two had once been in a relationship, but I think they might have been brother and sister. Sometimes there would be four or five exchanges with no dialog tags or “He set down his coffee,” and the author didn’t vary the pitch of his voice, so it was a little hard to follow who was speaking.

Still, it was well-written.

When he was done, he looked up and said, “Does anyone have any questions?” He let about a second go by and said, “Well, since no one does I guess I’ll...” Then someone raised a hand. He tried to call it good three or four more times. By this time the whole audience had realized he was intensely nervous. A few of his answers were fascinating, but I think he was so anxious he just had trouble letting his real self shine through.

I looked on his Web site and Portland was only his second reading. The first had been in his home town. Should you ever find yourself in similar situation:
- Tell the listeners what the book is about.
- Share some interesting stories about how you came to write it.
- Seriously consider reading the first chapter or part of the first chapter, which doesn't require any set-up.
- Although this guy didn't, I think reading for longer than five or ten minutes is probably too long.
- Think about starting the question and answer period - if no one has any initially - with “One question people have asked me is...” to prime the pump. Remember that it might take folks a minute to raise their hands.
- It might help just to begin by admitting that you are very nervous.

I still bought a book, and just today I saw another outpouring of praise for it.

Putting my out-of-print books on the Kindle

2010-01-07T16:52:00.000-08:00

I’ve been published since 1999. Which means that, like many authors, some of my books are out of print. You can buy them used on Amazon or half.com, or you could break into my basement and steal a remaindered copy or two.

It’s hard to think that a book you loved and labored over is now forgotten except for the occasional library reader.

But now out-of-print books can have a second life. I started by putting my best-reviewed book to date, Learning to Fly, on the Kindle. Today I added Circles of Confusion, which has yet to sync up with the print version (but it did eventually with Learning to Fly).

What you need
-An Amazon account, which you already have if you have bought something from Amazon.

-The words. With luck, you still have the Word file that you submitted to your publisher. And again, with luck, they had you make changes on the file and re-send, rather than someone at the publisher someplace making changes. I’ve been proofing my old Word files before I post them on the Kindle. Nothing like not looking at something for five plus years to see typos.

And if you don’t have the words? You can scan in the book or manuscript. Lee Goldberg told me he scanned some of his out-of-print books using Omnipage 17 software. For one book, I used blueleaf-book-scanning.com and because I didn’t ask for anything fancy and didn’t ask for my book back, it only cost $12.15, plus $4.75 to mail them the book. Then they emailed me a word file.

-A cover image. My husband made me some new ones, using photos from istock.com. The photos were inexpensive, and my husband worked for free.

-Proof that you own the copyright. I just held up my “reversion of rights” letter from St. Martins to my Web cam, snapped a photo, and emailed it to Amazon. (Wait until they ask you for proof to do this step.)

-The ISBN of one of the print editions. When you are filling out the form to put your book on the Kindle, use the ISBN of your printed book. This will link it up with all your old reviews, both from readers and from publications.

What you get
-Probably not a ton of money. At least I haven’t yet. I’ve heard from other authors that their lower-priced books sell more copies than when they had a higher price. So I priced mine at $1.99. I figured more folks would take a chance on me. Amazon and I split that, 65%/35%. So I get 70 cents, which is still 70 cents I wouldn’t have had otherwise. So far, I’ve made under $100.

-More readers. More readers for books I loved but no one could buy anymore, except for the occasional used copy changing hands. More readers who might be willing to pay more to read Kindle books my publisher holds rights to, or even my newer print books.

For more info
Here’s where you need to go on Amazon to get started. They have a lot of information about how to do it.

This is Lee Goldberg’s experience.

And while I doubt anyone else has had JA Konrath's success, here’s part of his story.

How about you?
Got more info than what I have, or know a blog that does? Know how to put books on a Sony E-reader or a Nook? Let me know.

More of the covers my talented husband designed for when I put the books on the Kindle

Is Accelerated Reader really a good idea?

2009-12-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Accelerated Reader says it “guide[s] students to the right books.” It is “a ‘reading management’ software system that helps teachers track student reading through computerized comprehension tests and awards students points for books they read based on length and difficulty, as measured by a scientifically researched readability rating.” Sounds good, right? But one author who is also a mom looked closer. The fifth installment of the Gossip Girl series, I Like It Like That is given 8 points - which means it’s worth more than Hamlet (7 points). The author’s daughter pointed out that if students really wanted to get a lot of points, they should read Harry Potter. The Order of the Phoenix was worth 44 points. Another daughter, in an Advanced Placement class, was reading Frankenstein (17 points), The Remains of the Day (13 points), Heart of Darkness (10 points). Notice how together they don’t add up to the Order of the Phoenix? Teacher says kids often won’t read books that aren’t on the list because they won’t get any points. And some say Accelerated Reader has increased reading among students, who like collecting points and getting prizes. You can read the whole article here. If you are a teacher, I would be really curious to hear what you think about Accelerated Reader. Curious after reading the article, I looked up Shock Point. 7 points. So not as that Gossip Girl (8 pts), but better than Hamlet (7).

Far North - a book for writers to savor

2009-12-14T10:20:00.001-08:00

[Top is the UK cover - I wonder why they are different?] Last night, I finished reading Far North: A Novel, a book writers should read just for its lovely use of language. It's a dystopian novel. The main character, Makepeace, is the only person left living in a city in the far north (Siberia). While there were certain approaches the author took that I didn't agree with (having a character from the past rather improbably turn up, letting a main character die and referring to it only in passing), all of that was made up for by the simply stunning use of language. Page 16: "There were a few last signs of human settlement along the riverside - a burned-out cabin, a wooden cross on a grave, some tumbledown walls..." [I admired how the author had the narrator describe them as signs of settlement, when they were really markers of death and absence.] Page 198: "I lay down to sleep thinking that as much as I missed what was gone, maybe this was the best thing: for the world to lie fallow for a couple hundred years or more, for the rain to wash her clean. We'd become another layer of her history, a little higher in the soil than the Romans and the people who built the pyramids. Yes, Makepeace, I thought, maybe one day your mandible will show up under glass in a museum. Female of European origin. Note the worn incisors and the evidence of mineral deficiency from a poor and unvaried diet. Warlike and savage. And beside it some potsherds." Page 224 [the narrator is in a long-deserted city, with no food or water, and has broken into what used to be a girl's bedroom]: "In the story of Goldilocks, the little girl sneaks into a bear den, eats the animal's food, and finds a place to sleep. That night I felt I was the story in reverse: a stinking, scarred bear, reeking of blood and gun smoke, turning up in a world of clean sheets and flowers."

Do you have a Kindle? Do you have $1.99?

2009-12-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

This week, I put one of my old books on Kindle, about eight months after all the cool kids figured out how to do it. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Fly-Novel-ebook/dp/B0030EG3BS/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_9 This isn't just any book. It was a Booksense Pick, an Otto Penzler Pick for Amazon and the recipient of starred reviews in Booklist and Library Journal. Library Journal also chose it as one of the best books of 2002. Foreign rights sold in the Netherlands, Japan and France. The book is about Free Meeker, a 19-year-old with a shaved head, a tattoo around her bicep, an unplanned pregnancy, and a jerk of a boyfriend. All she wants is a new life. And when she is involved in a multi-car accident and is mistakenly listed among the dead, and ends up with a dead drug dealer's bag of money - fate seems to be handing her her ticket out . Here's a selection of what some critics said: "Compulsive reading ... A classic tale of an innocent on the lam, Learning to Fly has the kind of plot that would have made Hitchcock smile in evil anticipation of its cinematic possibilities." - Penzler Pick, Amazon "The suspense becomes deliciously unbearable. With Learning to Fly, Henry soars straight into the big leagues." - Starred Review, Booklist "Features a most interesting plot, told with easy grace, choice characterization and mounting tension." - Starred Review, Library Journal "A sure-footed chase novel that starts with a bang and rarely slows down." - Seattle Times "A high tension thriller [with] an endearing heroine." - Denver Post "April Henry's debut, Circles of Confusion, garnered a lot of attention. This book proves that she's a talent tot watch, delivering solid characters, good plot, and a great sense of place." - Canada's Globe and Mail "Learning to Fly soars with suspense." - South Florida Sun-Sentinel "A carefully plotted look at what can happen when a person's dreams come true, she has all the money she can spend - but she can't shake off the ties of the past." - Dallas Morning News

Kirkus is no more.

2009-12-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Just saw this on PW: "As part of the sale of its business to business publications, Nielsen Business Media has announced that it is closing its book review publication Kirkus Reviews as well as Editor & Publisher. No details on the closing have been released yet. Nielsen is selling its major publications, including The Hollywood Reporter and Adweek to e5 Global Media Holdings."

The tone of Kirkus was often mean, but I still have mixed feelings about seeing a publication go down. And I took any book with a star from Kirkus extra seriously, given their normally crabby-pants reviews.

Their review of Shock Point ends with this: "Henry writes with a quick-moving, superficial style and often glosses over awkward plot points with quick explanatory paragraphs. He delivers some shocking moments while making no attempt to examine realistic adolescent problems. A potboiler that may appeal to a wide range of young readers and could be useful for reluctant readers. " A. I'm a girl. B. Talk about mixed messages.

Are you a budding author?

2009-12-07T10:07:00.001-08:00

Are you a budding writer? Then you might be interested in bidding on one of the following items in an online auction to benefit Bridget Zinn, a YA author. She has had a crazy year, one that including getting an agent, getting married, getting diagnosed with colon cancer, and make her first sale. The services that would appeal to authors include: * Chapter critique of your middle grade novel by author Jennifer Cervantes * Critique of the first 20 pages of your manuscript By New York Times bestselling author April Henry * Foot in the Door Critique Package Critique of your whole novel, synopsis, and query letter by Through The Tollbooth * One Critique of a QUERY plus FIRST 10 PAGES of your Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel By Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency * One critique of a QUERY plus the FIRST 10 PAGES of your middle grade or young adult novel By Jill Corcoran, Herman Agency * One Critique of a Query Plus the first Ten Pages of Your Middle-Grade or Young Adult Novel By Michael Stearns, Upstart Crow Literary, LLC * Picture Book Critique from Picture Book Author, Jean Reidy Detailed critique of a fiction picture book manuscript up to 1000 words * Proofreading services for one query letter and synopsis By Martha Brockenbrough, Punctuation Activist This is Bridget. Auction items can be viewed at http://www.32auctions.com/view_auction?id=bridget&pwd=rules - or just go to www.32auctions.com and use the Auction ID: bridget and Password: rules (as in: Bridget rules!!) to view the auction. In order to bid on auction items, you will need to create an account on the site in order to bid. (Creating an account simply requires your name, email address, and a password, and it is required so that you can be contacted if you win an item.) Bidding ends 9 p.m. Central time on Dec. 11.

Laini Taylor is a winner in our hearts

2009-12-03T09:55:00.001-08:00

If you haven’t read Lips Touch: Three Times, you should. It’s a wonderful book, playful, inventive, moving. The Oregonian featured a great story about its author and illustrator, National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor and her husband Jim. It begins, “She writes, he draws. Her hair is pink, and her laugh is infectious. His hair is red, and he laughs a lot, too. They live and work together in a little yellow house in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland with a new daughter named Clementine Pie.” Read the rest of the story about Laini and Jim here.

Author of Geek Love takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'

2009-11-30T13:20:00.001-08:00

Katherine Dunn is my hero First, she wrote Geek Love: A Novel. Second, at Wordstock, I got to meet her and she said she was an admirer of my work! I seriously thought I could die happy right then. And here’s a third reason to like Katherine Dunn - she’s a fighter. Literally. And I’m not talking about the essays she has written on boxing. On Tuesday, she was walking home from Trader Joes when she was attacked by a purse snatcher.   When a young woman grabbed her purse, she clamped down on it. The woman began to kick her in the shins and slap her in the face. Katherine said [according to media accounts] "That's what gave me permission to hit her in the face." Her only regret? She was wearing flip flops and kicking seemed futile. "Next time, Doc Martens," she said.  But they were in a stalemate. "She didn't let go. I didn't let go." Dunn started to call for help from passersby. She yelled "Help, fire." Just like a character of mine in Heart-Shaped Box (A Claire Montrose Mystery), she had heard that passersby are more willing to get involved if they think it’s a fire. When some people responded, Katherine yelled that she being robbed. But the robber yelled "please help me, she's trying to rob me." Katherine described that vocal countermove as "just brilliant. She was very sharp, I have to say."   The passersby were confused. But then a neighbor came by and saw what was happening. At that point, all three women were tussling. Two employees came out of Trader Joes and said the attacker had just tried to shoplift at the store.  Finally, cops arrived. Katherine told reporters said the attacker must have been in a "really really desperate" state to attack her. She also thought she was under the influence of drugs. “I had scratches from her fingernails, a bloody eye where she had thumbed me — it was a helter-skelter affair,” she told the Oregonian. “Getting a tetanus shot, it made me feel young again.” She said she was proud of herself for putting her years of fight training to use, staying relatively calm and hanging on to her purse. She was a little disappointed not to bloody her attacker’s nose, but pointed out she was fighting with her rear hand. “I would normally lead, as all good boxers do, with my left hand,” she said. “But my left hand was tied up in the purse.” Read a recent essay about Katherine here.

"Going down the stairs with a gun in his hands"-just found out great-grandfather was a murderer

2009-11-24T15:50:00.001-08:00

My grandmother didn’t marry until she was 32, in 1920. I just figured she was a late bloomer. This weekend, when I should have been working on my editor’s revision letter, I goofed off by Googling my grandmother’s name. “Effie Satterwhite.” Google has obviously been scanning more books since the last time I looked, including one published in 1907 that listed the opinions of the Arkansas Supreme Court. One of which involved Effie. When Effie was 18, her father shot her boyfriend for kissing her. I’ve got booklets of family history and this is mentioned NOWHERE. My mom didn’t know it. She is sure my dad, who died in 2003, didn’t know. According to the court records, when she was 17, Effie started seeing a man named Jim Wallis. One night they went to an “entertainment,” and returned at 11 pm. The court transcript states, “She started to go in the house, but was stopped by Wallis who reached out his hand and drew her to him and kissed her. She put her hands against him and pushed him away. They walked to the end of the porch, and stood there talking until the clock struck eleven. Wallis looked at his watch and then turned and kissed her again. He then left the house.” Effie went inside, heard a door open, and then saw her father “going down the steps with a gun in his hands.” She heard the shot, and tried to run to Jim. Her father grabbed her, and said it was all her fault for hugging and kissing Jim. Finally he let Effie go to her boyfriend, who lay bleeding in the street. Jim told her that he was sure he was dying. A neighbor carried him into a nearby house. Jim’s father came and said he should have known something like this would happen. At the trial, Effie’s brother testified that a year earlier he had seen Effie and Jim together “in a very suspicious attitude, conducting themselves in what he thought a very unbecoming manner on the front porch.” He ordered Effie inside, and told Jim to never come back. But Jim did, the next day, and told Effie’s brother that he loved her. They continued to see each other until the night he was gunned down. My great-grandfather’s defense was that he was sure Jim “was trying to seduce his daughter and relieve her of her virtue.” But the jury found that the two intended to marry. My great-grandfather was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and his appeal was denied. Jim died in a hospital four months after the shooting. And my grandmother did not marry for 14 more years. My grandmother in 1920, shortly before she married at 32 - and 14 years after her father shot and killed her boyfriend for kissing her - Did Effie feel it was her fault for kissing and touching Jim? - Her fault that her father spent two years in prison? - Did she regret not having sex with Jim? - Or had she? - Did they let Effie visit Jim in the hospital where he lingered until he died? - Did everyone in town know, and whisper about her? Was she branded a loose woman? - How did the murder affect her relationship with her father? My grandfather had pernicious anemia and wasn’t a prime catch. They were 36 and 43 when my dad was born. She was 72 when I was born, and 90 when she died. She was slender, with a sharp mind and sharp opinions. She was prim, severe, judgmental, fanatically religious. She could whistle really well. Our written family history has stories my great-grandfather shooting a puma and catching horse thieves. Nothing about him murdering his youngest child’s beau. One of the last coherent conversations I had with my dad was about his grandfather. The man who murdered his own daughter’s boyfriend.

"Dead, brutalized women sell books"

2009-11-19T09:22:00.001-08:00

One British author who is also a reviewer is speaking out about what she sees as the increasing violence against women in mysteries and thrillers. She says that an increasing number of books feature male villains hurting women. “"Each psychopath is more sadistic than the last and his victims' sufferings are described in detail that becomes ever more explicit, as young women are imprisoned, bound, gagged, strung up or tied down, raped, sliced, burned, blinded, beaten, eaten, starved, suffocated, stabbed, boiled or buried alive,” she said. “Natasha Cooper, former chair of the Crime Writers' Association, agreed with Mann. "There is a general feeling that women writers are less important than male writers and what can save and propel them on to the bestseller list is if they produce at least one novel with very graphic violence in it to establish their credibility and prove they are not girly," she said.” Full disclosure: I know a female writer who has enjoyed incredible success due in no small part to graphic, over-the-top violence. I'm thankful that the adult mysteries I'm writing with Lis Wiehl are pubbed by Thomas Nelson, where graphic depictions of violence are not part of the publisher's DNA. You can read the article about the reviewer by clicking here.

For this, Palin needed a co-author?

2009-11-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

From the first paragraph of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. "I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier”

"rugged splashes"??? It sounds like it would hurt.

and can you even start to imagine smelling that? What does "everything small town American" smell like? How about "Last Frontier"?

So much for appealing to the senses.

Somehow this seems like cheating

2009-11-04T16:37:00.001-08:00

Teen someone managed to persuade her lit teacher to let her choose Shock Point as a book for her "reading response journal." Of course, she has an advantage no one else does: she can ask me questions. The report begins: "This story is pretty good so far. I like the author’s (my mother) use of time." And beware how you dress your characters (the book was written when Teen was just Kid). Teen writes, "I don’t like the main character all too much though. I know it is kind of shallow of me to base it off the way she dresses, but really the way a person dresses can tell you a lot about them. For instance Cassie wears “[a] vintage black thrift store shirtdress, black fishnets, and pink Chuck Taylor All-Stars.” A person who dresses like this would generally be the kind of person who wants to be noticed but just doesn’t want to admit it. The kind of person who wants to seem all punk and tough but really isn’t. I asked April (my mother/the author) about it and she said she didn’t really think that much about, she just saw someone dressed like that on the bus and made Cassie dress like that. So I guess I shouldn’t read so far into the way she dresses." Ah, the language of clothes. I guess back then I wasn't speaking it very well.

Bad, bad blogger

2009-10-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

I spent the last few eight or ten weeks in deadline hell. Now I plan on being better about posting at least some of my posts from my livejournal, www.aprilhenry.livejournal.com, here.

Contemplating a mercy killing

2009-09-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I contemplated committing a mercy killing. I was running and could see something on the road up ahead. The crows were hopping around it, looking excited. It was a squirrel, lying on its chest. There was some blood on the road but no visible injuries. But it wasn’t moving, except every now and then its tail would lift. I stared at its unblinking black bead eyes and tried to believe it was dead and that only the wind was moving the tail. Then I saw the tiny thrum of its heart, very fast. Earlier this summer, I found a beetle in our driveway, lying on its back, legs waving in the air. I carefully turned it over. It flipped back. I carried it over to the grass and told myself it would recover. I found it there in the morning, dead. And knew I should have killed it earlier. Now here was this squirrel. And a non-native squirrel. Squirrels, alive and dead, are a dime a dozen in our neighborhood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Western squirrels that should be here, all pushed out by Eastern squirrels. So Audubon wouldn’t care. And it was too early for a vet’s office to be open. That left me and the dying squirrel and an empty street. I thought about hitting it in the head with a rock. I thought about trying to move it off the road. But then I realized it might be better if another car came along and finished it off. There seemed nothing I could do, so I ran on. If the squirrel was still there after I came back from my five-mile run I decided I would do something about it. We have an old bucket and a shovel. I would drown it. I know I couldn’t really speak for the squirrel, but it seemed better to die fast than to die slow. But it would be about 50 minutes until I returned. And that seemed too long. So I turned around after two blocks. I had only been gone for a few minutes, but the squirrel was just - gone. I don’t think it ran off. It hadn’t looked capable of running off. A minute earlier, the crows had been competing to pluck out its eyes. I think another neighbor took it in or dealt with it. I’ve since heard from a vet that you should pick up an injured squirrel (with a towel) and put it in a box. In a couple of hours, you’ll know whether it will get better or not. And if not - well, the vet had the same answer. Drown it. Commit a mercy killing. I’ve been thinking how loaded the word commit is. You commit sins. Crimes. And when you are committed to something, there is no turning back.

I'm teaching again this fall in Portland

2009-08-12T11:18:00.001-07:00

I'm going to be teaching mystery and thriller writing again this fall in Portland. With two books a year (one adult and one YA) for the foreseeable future, this will probably be the last time I do this for a while. I've got two spots left. The 10-week class will be begin Sunday, September 13, at Annie Blooms Books. Email me if you are interested in learning more. aprilhenrymysteries (at) yahoo (dot) com.

The mail I get

2009-08-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

This week I got an email with an offer. Stripping out the contact info, it says: === I have written an action-adventure novel (complete at 206,000 words). The work has been has been edited, and it has undergone extensive rewriting. It should be awfully close to publish-ready! Due to a recent financial disaster, I’m forced to sell the manuscript outright as quickly as I possibly can. My goal was to have it published, but that is no longer an option. I need whatever money I can get from this work as quickly as I can possibly get it. Call it an emergency, and you won’t be wrong by much. The book offers plenty of action, drama, and intrigue; a touch of romance, a few near-disasters, and a number of scenes that will touch your heart. I know you’re a busy professional. I also know the book has the potential to become a serious “hit” for someone with foresight who has the ability to do something with it. === A. 206,000 is too long. At least twice too long. B. Why would an author buy someone else's book, when she could write her own? C. And why would a publisher buy a book from someone who hasn't authored the book? Pretty much every publisher right now wants an author who has a platform, or failing that, someone who is willing to promote, part of which involves telling about your relationship to the book you wrote. D. Nothing right now is a sure thing in the publishing world. E. And who says authors have a lot of money - money that they want to throw at something that is definitely less than a sure thing? F. I hope you have a back up plan.

Spider on the Freeway

2009-07-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I had lunch with some folks I went to high school with. One woman I hadn't seen in more than 20 years turns out to be married to literary agent Chip Macgregor - which made for interesting lunch table conversation. For us, at least. As I was driving there, I noticed a large spider crawling near my door. I HATE spiders. Then it began to drop down on a web - heading straight for my thigh. I shrieked, rolled down the window, and tried to brush the web so that the spider would land outside the car. All while maintaining my lane and traffic flow. Instead, I just broke the web. The spider fell to the floor of my car. And promptly disappeared. I stomped around with my left foot while still staying at 65 with my right foot. I finally had to give up. I couldn't see it (it's actually really hard to see the footwell without moving your legs, which isn't a good idea when you're surrounded by cars). But the whole time, I kept feeling the tiniest of tickles on my sandaled feet and bare legs.

An open letter to folks at the gym

2009-07-10T12:54:00.001-07:00

Dear Anonymous: I know it's easy to drop your keys/water bottle/Blackberry/sweaty towels on the nearest piece of equipment, but what about those of us who actually want to use it, but don't want to violate the unspoken "don't touch my stuff' rule? Dear Middle-Aged Guy in the White Snake T-Shirt: Dude, I know it seemed like a genius idea to cut off the sleeves to give yourself more mobility. But what possessed you to cut out the sides as well? I could see way more of the reason you decided to start going to the gym than I really wanted to. Dear Guy with the I-Pod Who Did One-Million Rapid Sit-Ups with Rabid Intensity: Maybe you can't hear yourself over your music, but the rest of us can hear your loud pants and groans, as your breath gets faster and faster. It's like porno without the visuals. Just sayin'.

The end is in sight

2009-07-08T11:18:00.001-07:00

I can see the end in sight for the book I'm writing on spec. What will happen (mostly), how and why. Here's the end of one chapter of The Girl in the Mini Cooper: ===== The thing is, I think I might want Kayla to be dead. Because what’s the alternative? That someone took her. Either that Cody guy or someone else, someone worse. Someone took her and has her and can do whatever they want to her. I used to like movies with plots like that. Maybe not like them, but I watched the DVDs with my mom when she brought them home. After she got off work she would go over to the video store next to the Thriftway. Slasher movies. Hidden underground torture chambers. Handcuffs and gags and chains. Blood spattering on the walls, sometimes in slo-mo. The creative use of a nail gun or a rusty saw or a shiny scalpel. But when it’s not a movie? When it’s not fake? When you can’t push the power button and watch the light on the TV turn into a little white dot in the middle of the screen and then disappear? When it’s really Kayla’s pale skin, Kayla’s blood? Then maybe it would be better if she were dead and in the river.

One twin claimed her blood, the other her bladder

2009-07-02T06:39:00.001-07:00

I’m fascinated by the idea of chimeras, which happens when twins become one person in utero very early on in the pregnancy. According to Wikipedia, “For example, the chimera may have a liver composed of cells with one set of chromosomes and have a kidney composed of cells with a second set of chromosomes. This has occurred in humans, and at one time was thought to be extremely rare, though more recent evidence suggests that it is not as rare as previously believed. Most will go through life without realizing they are chimeras. The difference in phenotypes may be subtle (e.g., having a hitchhiker's thumb and a straight thumb, eyes of slightly different colors, differential hair growth on opposite sides of the body, etc) or completely undetectable .” Go here and start about 4.5 minutes in to hear about a woman who discovered she was a chimera when she was told DNA tests showed she was not related to her sons.

Horror in a Portland suburb

2009-06-11T09:43:00.001-07:00

Some poor girl just moved to Portland. 21 and pregnant. Looked for baby clothes on Craig’s List. She met a woman through a listing and went to her house – and never came out alive.

Instead the other woman killed her, cut the baby out, and tried to claim it was hers. But she had to call 911 because the baby wasn’t breathing. She and the baby got taken to the hospital, where they figured out she hadn’t had a baby recently – and the ambulance crew had noticed an awful lot of blood around the house.

The really creepy thing is she had been telling everyone, including her boyfriend, who they don't think knew what she was planning, that she was pregnant with TWINS. And the police are tracking down other women who may have had contact with the killer.

I only heard about this type of crime a few years back. Do you think if it hadn’t been in the media, then crazy women like this chick would think of it on their own?

You can read more here.

And similar cases are listed here. Notice that none of them is more than a decade old?

What will Kindle mean for books? Some eye-opening numbers

2009-06-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

Publishers Lunch says that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said "Kindle sales are now 35 percent of books where we have Kindle editions" and print editions of the same title. PL says this is “more than three times the ratio that Amazon had reported previously, first in October and then again in February when Kindle 2 was announced. The initial reception at numerous trade publishers, executives tell us, was deep skepticism. But as sales departments crunched numbers, in many cases the data has confirmed the general range of Amazon's report.”

The most interesting part of the article was this unanswered question:
“Do Kindle Sales Cannibalize?
The big unresolved question for many houses is whether this spike in Kindle sales is additive or cannibalistic. (Amazon did not update their contention from last year that Kindle customers "buy the same number of physical books going forward as they did before they owned a Kindle. And then incrementally, they buy about 1.6 to 1.7 electronic books.") One executive believes strongly that, while their house's total Amazon sale on big books is rising when you include Kindle and print editions, the Kindle spike is taking market share away from other retailers' print versions (though this point will be hard to confirm until after returns are taken on recent releases). Other houses are just beginning to analyze the extent to which these sales are additive or cannibalistic.”

The NYT had an interesting article on ebook pricing. One sentence caught my eye: "But publishers argue that those costs, which generally run about 12.5 percent of the average hardcover retail list price, do not entirely disappear with e-books."

So if my current hardcover sells for $24.99, then as an ebook version, it should cost $21.86.

But it doesn't. It costs $9.99.

So how does that work?

Here's the answer, according to the article "For the moment, say some publishers, Amazon is effectively subsidizing the $9.99 price tag for new book titles in digital form by paying publishers the same $13 it pays them for a new hardcover title with a list price of $26. It’s a classic “loss leader” situation. Although Amazon won’t comment on the arrangement, the online bookseller is using low-price e-books as a lure to persuade consumers to pay $359 to buy a Kindle, or $489 for the new, larger Kindle DX."

But if the Kindle establishes itself as the dominant player in the ebook market, how long will Amazon be willing to pay publishers less? And if they pay do pay publishers less, you know that the publisher is giong to turn around and ask the authors to take less.

Lots more food for thought here.

Welcome to the world of $1300 a piece nausea patches or $400 a piece pain killers

2009-05-27T05:50:00.001-07:00

Remember Bridget, this beautiful 31-year-old writer who lives in Portland? Three things happened to Bridget in February:
1. She got an agent for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she has Stage Four colon cancer.

You want to know the reality of health care in American today? Bridget just found out that her "insurance" doesn't cover $1300 a piece nausea patches or $400 a piece pain killers. What would you choose? Paying rent or vomiting so much you end up back in the hospital? Buying groceries or being in agony?

But you can help. To help defray some of the costs, authors and artists all over the US have banded together to offer their goods and services in an online auction. Check out the items at the Bridget Zinn Auction at http://bridgetzinnauction.wordpress.com. The auction closes May 30.

If you live in Portland, then go to the Lucky Lab Brew Pub, 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Friday, May 29, 6:30-9 p.m. You don't have to RSVP. Just show up! Why did we pick that day? Because the Portland area Kidlit Bloggers decided meeting for drinks and chat on a regular basis would be a great way to network. Bridget came up with the idea to meet on the fifth Friday of a month. May 29 is a fifth Friday.

And if you would like to follow Bridget blog or just find out more about her, you can do so at http://www.bridgetzinn.com/blog/.

The Costco Miracle!

2009-05-19T10:48:00.001-07:00

My agent is unfamiliar with Costco, and thought it might be similiar to Grocery Outlet, another of my favorite stores. But Costco isn't the last home for products that never sold. Instead it specializes in items, many high-end, at unbelievable prices. Seafood, meat, imported cheeses, clothes, bedding, cookware, office supplies - they might not have a lot in any one category, but the buys are incredible.

Costco stocks very little hardcover fiction. But now, thanks to being on the New York Times list, plus the hard work of our Thomas Nelson publicist, they have Face of Betrayalin stock on a trial basis in Seattle and Portland stores for only $11.99 (list is $25).

Shoot! That's even cheaper than I can authors' copies for. Yesterday I bought a couple and promptly gave them away to folks who wanted copies but for one reason or another couldn't get them.

While I was in the checkout line, I said to the checker, "See if you can figure out what's special about that book." They put your Costco card right in front of them. He looked back and forth and said in an amazed tone, "Wow! You have the same name as the author!"

Quite a coincidence!

If you live in Portland or Seattle and would like to meet Lis and I in person, see us at:
* Friday, May 29
6-8pm
Seattle Costco, Aurora Village, 1175 North 205th, Seattle

* Saturday, May 30
10am-1pm
Portland Costco (the busiest Costco in the country), Portland Warehouse, 4849 NE 138th Street, Portland

Can you help Bridget?

2009-05-13T15:32:00.001-07:00

This is Bridget. Three things happened to Bridget in February:
1. She got an agent for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she has Stage Four colon cancer.

I met Bridget a year ago at an Oregon SWCBI event. She had just moved to Portland from Wisconsin, where she was a teen librarian. She is a beautiful person, inside and out. When she found out she had an agent, she was just glowing. A few days later she went to a naturopath for headaches and vision problems. She ended up in the ER – and learned very quickly that she had cancer. Big, bad cancer.

Right now, Bridget is undergoing chemotherapy.

To help defray some of the costs, authors and artists all over the United States have banded together to offer their services in an online auction.

Are you a writer? Would you like the first pages of a manuscript critiqued? Are you ready to market a book,need a bookmark or advice on a query letter?

Are you a reader? There are dozens of signed books.

Do you like to travel? Want to get away to Torrey, Utah and take in the fabulous national parks in the area?

Are you looking for a handmade baby quilt, handmade book, jewelry and more?

Check out the items at Bridget Zinn Auction at http://bridgetzinnauction.wordpress.com. The money will help her with medical expenses.

If you could spread the word, I would be grateful.

And if you would like to follow Bridget blog or just find out more about her, you can do so at http://www.bridgetzinn.com/blog/.

I guess it wasn't a fluke

2009-05-12T14:04:00.001-07:00

I guess it wasn't a fluke. Because Face of Betrayal is still going to be on the New York Times bestseller list May 17!

And we moved up!

And we are ahead of a James Patterson book! (Okay, one that is two months older, but still!)

Does this make up for the two years it took me to get an agent?

The fact that I had to write four books before one sold?

Being dropped by one publisher because the sales of my second book were not double the sales of my first?

Writing more books that did not sell even after I was published?

Having a few other issues that would not be politic to mention in a public post?

Um, I'm not sure.

But it helps!

If you can't say anything nice...maybe you should be a book reviewer

2009-05-06T14:21:00.001-07:00

Or if not a book reviewer, at least post your thoughts on Amazon. An agent found some examples of negative reviews for famous books. My favorite was:

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K. The whole point of buying books for my grandkids was to give them a break from advertising, and here (throughout) are ads for this “Turkish Delight”! How much money is this Mr. Lewis getting from the Cadbury’s chocolate company anyway? This man must be laughing to the bank.”

Read more here.

Kicked off library board for “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives"?

2009-04-29T14:31:00.001-07:00

Teen read The Perks of Being a Wallflower when she was still Kid. I guess I should be glad it didn't make her gay, because four library board members in Wisconsin were fired for not “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives," by getting rid of books like Perks or Brent Hartinger's Geography Club.

Do they really think that reading about gay kids makes people gay? Read more here.

Don't give up

2009-04-24T09:26:00.001-07:00

Last Friday, I was at a fundraising event for affordable housing. I've done these for 10 years now. Affordable housing is just one piece of the puzzle of getting some people's lives on track. They had two authors speak, as well as a woman who a few years back was arrested for making meth and had her kids taken away. This spring she is getting her associate's degree and plans to get her bacehlor's. Her kids are back with her. The group that offered her a place to live also helped her learn how to be a parent. She is happy for the first time in her life.

Another story about not giving up is Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel, who was sitting next to me at the event. When I first got to know Garth, he was the author of two midlist books, one of which was out of print (and the other of which I loved, which led me to email him and started our frquaintanship). Then he wrote a book narrated by a dog and sent it off to his agent. The day before Thanksgiving, Garth was walking into the grocery store to buy a turkey when his agent called and said he liked it but there was no way he could sell a book narrated by a dog and Garth should write something different, something more typical.

Instead, he fired his agent.

And then he couldn't get one for a long time. He had an unexciting track record and a book about a dog.

Then he met another writer who had written a literary book narrated by a crow, and he suggested Garth contact his agent.

And that agent loved it, and there was an auction, and now it's selling in 25 countries, and they are making a movie with Patrick Dempsey, and Garth is going to Italy next month tour.

But none of that would have happened if he had given up.

Where Have I Seen that Bookcover Before?

2009-04-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

A crime echoes down through the years

2009-04-15T11:11:00.001-07:00

I was looking through some old journals at entries I had written around my birthday. In 1993, a man shot two Portland visitor guides, killing one, and then carjacked cars, shot more people, etc. The living guide, a 23 year old college studnet, came to our hospital. Everyone wanted to talk to her, but the cops said not to let her until they interviewed her again. My beeper and cell phone kept going off. Bryant Gumble sent her flowers. Someone else snuck into the hospital to try to get a photo of her.

This is what I wrote in 1993:
"The police didn't want her talking to anyone until they had had her positively ID the guy. They also wanted, as evidence, the bullets from her chest and right arm. And for some reason, they didn't want us to tell the media that was the reason they couldn't talk to her. I spent all day on the phone, hedging over and over, while journalists of every stripe begged for a family member to talk to, or a still photo, or something they could show their viewers/readers.

And in between I sat in the hospital room and talked to her and the woman she called her "other mother," watched as that woman brought her lipstick and rubbed oil on her skin so it wouldn't look ashy on the TV screen, ran a pomade through her hair. Her arm was in a cast, part of it was gone, and she told me about how she had wanted to be a surgeon. I use the past tense, but for her it was still in the present tense, that her arm still had the fine motor coordination she would need to perform surgery. Every three or four minutes my beeper would go off and I would leave the room and talk to one more cajolling reporter. Some of them called her room instead of me, in spite the code of cooperation that exists in this state, but were given away when they asked for her by her full name. She was nervous and excited and not hurting much at all. Later, after the detectives finally came and took away the flattened bullets in two baggies, she held her own at a news conference, eyes black and snapping. How had she felt? What had it been like to hear the TV sets in the pawn shop behind her exploding as he shot at her again and again? Was she planning on going back to her job? We escorted her in and out, gave her tips on what to say beforehand. It went well. We left shortly afterward, after congratulating ourselves and her.

Two days later, she called, asking if one of us needed to escort her to the funeral for her co-worker who was killed the same day she was shot. Nah, we really didn't need to do that. The feeding frenzy was over, but she didn't realize it. Now the attention was somewhere else, for a while on the grieving man's family, then later on the victims of some new tragedy. Her arm? I don't know what happened to it. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. It will make a good story for new people she meets, but the general public - guided by the media - will never be interested in it again. Too small a story for a "where are they now?" piece. Maybe a sentance in a summary paragraph in a story about the many people touched by crime.
===
So today I got curious and googled her. Here's what I learned about what happened next.
- Within the next 18 months, she had a baby. In the next ten years, she had two more.
- A single mom, she met some charming, charismatic guy. She didn't know about his past convictions for domestic assault.
- He moved in with her.
- He choked her.
- They broke up.
- They patched things up.
- They broke up again.
- Smiling, he came by to get his things. When she turned, he hit her dozens of times with a hammer.
- When the cops came, he said he would kill her if they came in.
- They tasered him twice.
- At his trial, he said she hit him first.
- Now he's in prison.

I wonder what would have happened to her if she hadn't been shot that day?

A giveaway to celebrate Face of Betrayal

2009-04-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

Face of Betrayal officially releases tomorrow!

Publishers Weekly says, “Wiehl, a Fox News commentator and legal analyst, teams with mystery veteran Henry (Buried Diamonds) on a sizzling political thriller. When 17-year-old Senate page Katie Converse goes missing on her Christmas break near her parents' white Victorian home in Portland, Ore., law enforcement and media personnel go into overdrive in a search for clues. Three friends at the pinnacle of their respective careers--Allison Pierce, a federal prosecutor; Cassidy Shaw, a crime reporter; and Nicole Hedges, an FBI special agent--soon discover that Katie wasn't the picture of innocence painted by her parents. It appears Katie was having an affair with a much older man, a senator whose political career could be derailed if the affair was publicized. The seamless plot offers a plethora of twists and turns.”

I say: it's time for a giveway!I'd love to give a couple of signed copies away!

It's so simple!
1. Comment on this post and let me know you're in. (If you're not on Blogger, give me your email or another way to get hold of you)
2. To get your name in twice, opy this post into your blog or Facebook or what have you.
3. Wait until April 19, when Teen will draw the winners.

Thanks for playing along!

See me, hear me (but no touch me, feel me) I’ll be on the Lars Larson show and at Powells April 7

2009-04-06T14:32:00.001-07:00

If you live in the Northwest, on Tuesday, April 7, I will be on the Lars Larson show at 12:30 PST. Can I just say I am freaking nervous! That same night, I’ll also be at Powells in Beaverton.

If you want to listen to the audio steam live, click here . And pray for me! This is live radio. No do overs. No copy edits.

Live in Portland?

2009-03-30T10:13:00.001-07:00

I will be at Powells Cedar Hills Tuesday, April 7 at 7 p.m., and I would love to see some friendly faces there. I’ll be talking about my new young adult novel, Torched. I’ll also talk about my new adult mystery, Face of Betrayal, which I co-wrote with FOX legal analyst Lis Wiehl.

Torched is about 16-year-old Ellie. When her hippie parents are arrested for growing marijuana, the FBI offers her a choice. Infiltrate the radical environmental group the Mother Earth Defenders, or her parents will go to jail. But when Ellie joins the group, her loyalties are compromised – and she also finds herself falling in love. Booklist says “The contemporary mix of politics and thrilling action will grab teens, not just environmentalists, as Ellie must decide how to save her parents and save the earth. … This suspenseful story will spark discussion about what it means to fight for right ‘by any means necessary.’”

Face of Betrayal begins when 17-year-old Senate page Katie Converse disappears from Northwest Portland while home on Christmas break. Three women take a special interest in her case: Allison Pierce is a federal prosecutor, Nicole Hedges is an FBI agent, and Cassidy Shaw is a TV crime reporter. Together the three women band together to find Katie. Their prime suspect: a senator who may have gotten a little too close to the girl. Publishers Weekly calls it a "sizzling political thriller" with a "seamless plot [that] offers a plethora of twists and turns."

I’ll also be teaching a class on mystery writing at Annie Bloom’s Books.
Commit the perfect crime: learn to write a mystery, thriller or suspense novel. Millions of people read mysteries – why not a mystery written by you? Currently, 6 of the top 10 New York Times hardcover bestsellers and 8 of the top 10 paperbacks are mysteries, thrillers, or suspense novels.

Whether you’re a beginning writer or already have a work in progress, you’ll benefit from this supportive, results-oriented workshop led by an author who just had her eighth book published. Through writing assignments, discussions on craft, and instructor and peer feedback, you’ll learn the fundamentals of crime writing. By the time class ends, you’ll know how to choose point-of-view, develop characters, write lively dialog, handle violence, increase tension, and plant clues, as well as critical techniques for self-editing. You’ll also learn practical tips for attracting the right agent. This is a highly interactive class – so be prepared to write, read, and talk!

Annie Bloom’s Books
7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland

Sundays, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Begins: April 26
$225 for 10 classes ($60 deposit)

Register by e-mailing:
aprilhenrymysteries@yahoo.com

A giveaway

2009-03-05T08:32:00.001-08:00

Torched releases today!
When Ellie’s parents are busted for growing pot, the FBI thinks they've finally found a way inside Mother Earth Defenders, a radical environmental group. They give her a choice: infiltrate MED or her parents will go to jail. At first Ellie is more than willing to entrap the MEDics, but the more time she spends undercover—particularly with Coyote, the green-eyed MEDic that she can’t stop thinking about—the more she starts to believe in their cause. When talk turns to murder, Coyote backs out, but Ellie is willing to risk everything to save her family—even if it means losing Coyote and putting her own life on the line.

Kirkus says "the thrills and action will keep readers interested." Booklist says, "The contemporary mix of politics and thrilling action will grab teens, not just environmentalists."

I say: it's time for a giveway! I'd love to give a couple of signed copies away!

It's so simple!
1. Comment on this post and let me know you're in.
2. To get your name in twice, copy this post into your blog (and let me know in the comments so that I give you credit)
3. Wait until March 15, when Teen will draw the winners.

Thanks for playing along!

Fun to think about

2009-03-02T12:51:00.001-08:00

My first book, Circles of Confusion, came out in 1999. There was a lot of "close but no cigar" movie interest. One producer got the book on Drew Barrymore's company's short list, even though at the time Drew was far younger than the character. (I was told Drew "has emotional baggage that makes her older than her years.")

Drew made Riding in Cars with Boys (another book to movie) and the producer went her way and I went mine.

So my phone just rang. It was the producer from nine or ten years ago. She has a meeting in a few weeks with someone in Hollywood and she is looking for a couple of ideas to pitch. And she thought of Circles of Confusion. She said it was a perfect book, with a little mystery, a little romance, etc. She's kept my phone number all these years (I couldn't even remember her name) and she wanted to know if rights were available.

I didn't know whether to be coy or not, so I just said the rights were available and she should talk to my agent.

It's a total long shot, but F-U-N to think about.

Cover, cover, who's got the cover?

2009-02-25T10:18:00.001-08:00

It's the rare book cover that is done entirely by a commissioned artist or has a photo shoot set up for it. Often the cover is made up of stock images, sometimes manipulated. Cases in point:

Gotta remember to ask my publishers to print my next cover in purple, because Evermore ended up on both the NY Times bestseller list and the USA Today bestseller list!

If you like cover art, check out http://jacketwhys.wordpress.com .

Best Vanity Plate Ever!

2009-02-24T15:02:00.001-08:00

And it's even from Oregon!

I wrote a whole series of books featuring a vanity licnese plate verifier (there actually are such people), starting with Circles of Confusion.

My own vanity plate is TUVWXY which no one ever, ever gets. Ever.

Get me redesign!

2009-02-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've got a new favorite book blog: Book Ninja. Back in October, they challenged readers to rebrand serious books with more sales-friendly covers.

The winner? Ingrid Olson redid The Road, the most depressing apocalyptic book you could imagine, as a parenting how-to.

Click here to see more.

Guess who's written a "sizzling political thriller"?

2009-02-18T12:42:00.000-08:00

Guess who's written a "sizzling political thriller" with a "seamless plot that offers a plethora of twists and turns"?

According to Publishers Weekly, Lis Wiehl and I have. [Full disclosure: I'm also referred to as a "mystery veteran," which makes me sound like I've gone to war.] The book in question, Face of Betrayal, publishes April 7.

For the past week, I've been dreaming of seeing the review. In my dreams, I would look on line, but I couldn't find it. Or I could find it, but the words would get blurry when I tried to read it. Reality was much better than my dreams - it was all praise without a single quibble!

Teens were sentenced to bootcamps so judges could get kickbacks!

2009-02-12T07:11:00.000-08:00

As anyone who has read Shock Point can tell you, I'm not a big fan of boot camps for teens.

But this is beyond belief. Two Pennsylvania judges who have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. One girl was "sentenced to a wilderness camp for building a spoof MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal." Another boy spent months in a boot camp because his FRIEND stole some DVDS.

Read more here.

Come celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday with me!

2009-02-11T13:38:00.000-08:00

Oregon turns 150 on Valentine's Day. To celebrate, the Central Library in Portland is having an event February 14, 2:30-4 p.m.! Light refreshments will be served.

Special guests will include:

April Henry, author [AKA - me!]
Barbara Drake, poet
Candy Bertelson, librarian
David Schmitke, reporter
Gabriel Boehmer, author
Helen Raptis, television host
Henk Pander, artist
Janet Irwin, librarian
Jose Holguin, radio/TV personality
Laura Foster, author
Manuel Arellano, library staff member
Martin Gonzalez, PPS schoolboard member
Rocio Rios, newspaper editor
Ross Huffman-Kerr, actor

The speakers are going in alphabetical order by first name - so it's good to start with A!

For more information, click here.

Good publishing news for so many friends!

2009-02-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

From Publishers Lunch:
Amanda Marrone's THE MAGIC REPAIR SHOP CHRONICLES three-book series in which a twelve-year old girl takes on an apprenticeship in a magic repair shop, to Kate Angelella at Aladdin, by Wendy Schmalz at Wendy Schmalz Agency (World).

Edgar Award winner Robin MacCready's SNAPSHOT, in which a girl discovers her father has a secret life, to Christy Ottaviano at Christy Ottaviano Books, by Wendy Schmalz at Wendy Schmalz Agency (World).

Author of the NYT bestseller WAKE Lisa McMann's next paranormal stand-alone, again to Jennifer Klonsky at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2011, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).

Adrienne Maria Vrettos's untitled NYC mystery, in which a teenage girl wakes up in a nearly empty subway car to find herself in an unfamiliar costume and makeup, with no memory of what's happened to her in the three days since Halloween; it will take her five days to figure out why she only has six days to live, to Lisa Cheng at Margaret K. McElderry Books, for publication in Spring 2011, by Tracey Adams at Adams Literary (US).

The Love that Dares Not be Put on a Shelf

2009-02-05T10:38:00.001-08:00

School Library Journal has an interesting article about self-censorship. School librarians only have so many dollars at their disposal. They can't buy every book. So how often does self-censorship factor in: librarians choosing not to buy a book that they feel might lead to parental challenges and protests?

"In the first survey of its kind, School Library Journal (SLJ) recently asked 655 media specialists about their collections and found that 70 percent of librarians say they won’t buy certain controversial titles simply because they’re terrified of how parents will respond. Other common reasons for avoiding possible troublemakers include potential backlash from the administration (29 percent), the community (29 percent), or students (25 percent), followed by 23 percent of librarians who say they won’t purchase a book due to personal objections."

Librarians "tend to be skittish about book purchases for obvious reasons. Sexual content ranks number one, with 87 percent of those surveyed by SLJ saying it’s the main reason they shy away from buying a book. Objectionable language (61 percent) comes in second, followed by violence (51 percent), homosexual themes (47 percent), racism (34 percent), and religion (16 percent)."

Read more here.

I chose to self-sensor a tiny bit with the paperback of Shock Point, after a middle school student in Texas raised his hand at a school visit and asked me why I used "the b word." When I thought about it, the word wasn't needed. The book was suspensful enough whether or not the bad guys said it. So I asked that it be taken out.

The series I'm writing with Lis Wiehl is for Thomas Nelson, so it is squeaky clean. Characters can't even say "Jeez," let alone "the f word." It's frankly more of a problem to think of how a bad guy would talk in those books and not swear.

Happy anniversary to me!

2009-02-02T09:38:00.001-08:00

Today marks one year of no nylons, no commute, no boring meetings, no creative briefs, no makeup, and no fixed schedule. No more trying to channel the latest CEO’s not-very-well-articulated thoughts. A year where my life has been my life. A year of trying to make a living as a writer

Sure on the flip side, it also marks a year with no company-provided benefits, no company adding to a pension, and watching our retirement and Teen’s college savings lose about 40 percent of their value.

But I’ve also signed contracts for five books, written three or four (if you add all the pieces up), started running four days a week (in the winter, when I was working, I could only run one or two), and discovered that I’m not lonely (which was one of my big fears).

Would I do it again, knowing the economy was going to tank?

Yes. Shaking and trembling, but yes. Because it was getting to the point that work was soul-crushing.

This pretty much describes my old job.

Naming Names

2009-01-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

I need a name for a main character, a female serial killer who looks and acts normal most of the time.

Got a first name you want to nominate? She's white, in her mid-30s, middle class, American.

I'll send you a book or two if I pick yours.

Our new cover is up!

2009-01-28T10:00:00.001-08:00

Face of Betrayal, the first in a new series co-written with Lis Wiehl, comes out a week before my birthday. I’m doing a reading at the Cedar Hills Powells the day it’s released, April 7. If you live in Portland, I would love to see you there.

My book reviews in the Sunday Oregonian

2009-01-26T08:41:00.001-08:00

When I picked up the paper on Sunday, I found myself avoiding the books page. Because it had my review in it. Not a review of my book - a review I had written. I always worry that I’ll figure out I made some big error and it will be too late and I can't take it back. Which is sort of related to my fears about reviews of my books.

Anyway, in the Sunday Oregonian, I reviewed two books by Portland authors: The Fetch and Far from You.

Read the reviews here.

[Full disclosure: and on a sidenote, as another blog pointed out, don’t the jackets for Graceling and The Fetch look alike? I guess there are only so many ideas in the world.]

Is anyone going to BEA? Have I got a deal for you!

2009-01-23T08:56:00.001-08:00

Is anyone going to Book Expo America in May? If you snag a copy of the Hunger Games trilogy, called Catching Fire, and are willing to loan it to me after you read it, I promise to:
* Donate $25 to the charity of your choice.
* Read it within three days.
* Not eat while reading or otherwise risk befouling it.
* Mail it back to you immediately after finishing it.
* Pay for postage both ways.

If the charity idea doesn't grab you, I’m willing to trade nearly anything, up to and possibly including Teen, so I don’t have to wait until September 8th to get my hands on a copy.

Signs and Portents

2009-01-22T10:43:00.001-08:00

* I bought this Tom Peterson clock at a bankruptcy sale. He was a fixture on late night TV for many years. He would rap on what appeared to be the inside of the TV screen and say something about waking up to savings. The clock, which was given out free with furniture purchases, was supposed to say "Wake up! Wake up and have a happy day!" for an alarm, but it never worked. When I came in from my run, Tom was talking.

* Last week, when I was running I saw a license plate lying in the blackberry bushes. It read 666 DAL. From my time writing a series with a main character who worked with license plates, including Circles of Confusion: A Claire Montrose Mystery, I thought the state automatically excluded numbers and letters series that might upset folks, like FAT. Guess not.

* Where some see hope and joy, others see darkness and fear. At first I thought this post on Verla Kay's blog was a joke, but sadly, it is not. She compares Obama to Hitler. [updated to add: and she later took out parts of her post] I never went to the Blue Boards (I didn't hear about them until long after I was published), but sometimes I send new writers there. Is this a mistake? Is there political stuff like this over there?

* I found this tape in the gutter where the remains of a windblown tree had been taken away. I'm sure it will come in handy someday.

* I always like to find money, and I look for it everyplace I go. First of all, it's rare, at least in my neighborhood. I walk and/or run every day, but sometimes months will go by where I don't see anything. Second of all, money says "In God We Trust," and it reminds me of my need to trust. Lately, it's been freaky. I found two pennies one day, three another, and then last week I was walking to the post office and found 20 pennies glinting under a pine tree. Trust, trust, trust.

Do I look like a cage fighter to you?

2009-01-20T10:24:00.001-08:00

Teen and I have been taking a kickboxing class taught by the only female certitied Muay Thai instructor in the Northwest. I really liked it - it's a true martial art. But the teacher could only teach one day a week (she has her own studio). So they got someone else in to each kickboxing who could do it twice a week.

He showed up tonight in workboots and a shaved head. He was in the Israeli special forces where he specialized in hand to hand combat and weapons work. He is also a mixed martial arts fighter, AKA cage fighter.

So there's Teen, and there's me - the lady in the pink top - plus a 16 yo guy who just shot up to six four and isn't used to it. And the instructor is talking about how we should get bags of concrete mix and kick them. "First your legs go purple from ankle to knee, but then they get tough, and you don't even feel a thing!" he explained approvingly. He wants us to grapple and clinch. He made us bear crawl the length of the room over and over for a certain length of time. When he caught me looking at the clock, he took it off the wall and hid it. (Thank God he never noticed my watch!)

When I finished high school PE, I said never again would someone yell at me and make me do things I hated. I mean, I take boot camp now, but there the instructor talks about having a fine-looking body. Not getting your hands so tough you don't even need gloves.

492 new words from The Girl in the Mini Cooper

2009-01-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

“Hi!” Gabie smiles up at him from under the brim of her baseball cap. “Let me guess. One slice of plain and one of the Roma special?” Her pen is poised over the printed order taking pad.

Last time the man who called himself John Roberts was here, he waited until her back was to him. Then he took the pen off the counter and slid it into his pocket. Later, he sat in his car in the darkened parking lot, and he slid the pen along his lips. Between them. Thinking of Gabie. And of Gabie’s fingers and lips.

“You know what I like,” he says, thinking that Gabie doesn’t know the half of it.

Her eyes have dark circles under them, as if she hasn’t been sleeping well. With any other girl - on Kayla, for instance - it would make her look less pretty. But with Gabie, the shadows just make her brown eyes look darker and more mysterious. He could lose himself in them. He could just look and look at her.

“Well, I know you’re a vegetarian,” she says. “And that you’ll probably want a root beer to go with them.”

“Right again.” Everyone knows that he doesn’t eat meat. It was one of the reasons he called in the order that he did the night he called himself John Roberts. Three large Meat Monsters meant the authorities were probably looking for more than one guy. Guys who liked lots of meat. They weren’t looking for one quiet vegetarian guy with round glasses.

“And to eat here?” she says, enjoying their game. Thinking that she’s winning it. But she doesn’t even know about the real game they are about to play.

Behind her, the cooler door opens, and one of the guys who works at Pete’s emerges carrying a stainless steel container full of pale grated cheese. Hearing him kick the door closed, Gabie turns with a smile.

It’s the sight of that smile - fuller and somehow realer than the smile she gave him - that makes the man who called himself John Roberts a little bit annoyed with her. He is the customer. She should be giving him her full attention. But instead she is nearly flirting with this boy, this, this lout, and right in front of him, and that makes him want to hurt her, if only a little bit.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he says. “Kayla Cutler. Have they found her body yet?”

Gabie’s face goes pale and she bites her lip. She looks even more pretty, if that’s possible.

“No.” She gives her head a shake, her bangs falling in her eyes. “No.”

He feels the grin welling up in him. She has no idea. She has no idea that Kayla is alive, at least as long as he allows her to be.

She has no idea that Kayla will have to die to make room for her.

Making movies

2009-01-15T07:11:00.001-08:00

Many authors dream not only of having their book optioned, but of actually being made into a movie. But many are called , and few are chosen. [Full disclosure: including, so far, me.]

""In 25 years in publishing, at Little, Brown and as a literary agent, I've found that most novels I've worked on ended up getting optioned by somebody," said Colleen Mohyde of the Boston-based Doe Coover Agency," but not one movie has been made." "

Read more here.

I'm a cruel, cruel woman

2009-01-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

I've put more than 500 miles on one pair of Brooks Addictions, so it's time to change to a new pair. I love these shoes, even though they are supposed to be for someone with low arches who overpronates and I have high arches and supinate. It feels kind of cruel, though, to take the new clean pair out into the dirty world.

Are you a YA librarian or a YA book blogger?

2009-01-13T11:59:00.001-08:00

Torched Book Cover

Are you a YA librarian or a YA book blogger? Would you like a free book?

I have a few ARCs left of Torched, which comes out in March. The publisher describes it like this: "When Ellie’s parents are busted for possession of marijuana, the FBI gives her a choice: infiltrate the Mother Earth Defenders (MED), a radical environmental group, or her parents will go to jail. At first Ellie is more than willing to entrap the MEDics, but the more time she spends undercover—particularly with Coyote, the green-eyed MEDic that she can’t stop thinking about—the more she starts to believe in their cause. When talk turns to murder, Coyote backs out, but Ellie is willing to risk everything to save her family—even if it means losing Coyote and putting her own life on the line."

If you would like a copy, send me an email with your name and address. Send it to aprilhenrymysteries at yahoo dot com. If more people have requests than I have copies, I'll have a drawing. Runners up will be eligible for an ARC of Face of Betrayal, my April adult mystery with Lis Wiehl.

Those who can't do, teach?

2009-01-12T10:55:00.001-08:00

Teen (who was only recently promoted from kid) is being taught to write stories and essays this year. But sometimes what teachers teach and what I actually do as a writer who makes her living writing is completely different.

For example, Teen asked me, “Does every paragraph in your books have a topic sentence and three supporting sentences?”

Her teacher’s approach feels like learning how to dance by looking at a diagram. Or watching a video that doesn’t show the dancers’ feet at all.

Teen is supposed to find a way to write a creative story about a past event. She chose the 1904 World’s Fair. It featured corn palaces, and she wanted to combine it with some elements of the Children of the Corn movie. She wrote it out and asked me to look to it over. Immediately, I became like all the critics I don’t like to listen to. “But why did X happen? There has to be a reason.” And then I got explain the concept of “plot holes” to her.

What Would Emma Do?

2009-01-05T06:51:00.001-08:00

What Would Emma Do
What Would Emma Do? by Eileen Cook, is a book about, of course, a high school senior named Emma. She has committed a few sins, but kissing her best friend’s boyfriend is the worse. And since she lives in a small town, everyone knows everything about everyone else. Now her best friend isn’t speaking to her, her best guy friend is making things totally weird, and Emma is running full speed toward certain social disaster.

Time to pray for a minor miracle. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s time for Emma to stop trying to please everyone around her, and figure out what she wants for herself.

I asked, Eileen answered
A. What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? Bonus question: have you used it, in any way,in a book?
Q. When I was young my younger brother was born with a terminal condition. I remember that I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I knew how upsetting it was for my parents. I understood that he was in fragile health and I was almost scared of him. Once my mother had stepped outside to get the mail and he began to cry. I remember thinking that he was going to die right there and then and I was terrified. I knew there was nothing I could do, but I felt totally useless. I’m not sure if it is connected, but I hate still hate situations where there are people in distress and I can’t help. This may explain why I went into counseling as a day job.

A. Mystery writers often give their characters an unreasoning fear - and then make them face it. Do you have any phobias, like fear of spiders or enclosed spaces?

E. I absolutely loathe spiders or any type of creepy crawly creature. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and wonder what I would do if a spider slowly lowered itself onto my face. Then I have to get up and turn on the light. Just because I told you my phobia- you aren’t going to make me face it are you?

A. Do you have a favorite mystery book, author, or movie?
E. I LOVE mysteries! Picking one favorite is hard so I’m going to cheat and list a couple. Minette Walters, PD James, Ruth Rendall/Barbara Vine (same author different name).

A. At its heart, every story is a mystery. It asks why someone acts the way they did - or maybe what will happen next. What question does your book ask?
E. Can you still have strong relationships with people when you don’t want the same things anymore? I am fascinated by how we change and how those around us deal with that change.

A. Is there a mystery in life that you are still trying to figure out?
E. How can I fit in everything I want to do/see/visit in this life?

Laurie Stolarz has the magic touch

2008-12-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has sold a half million books, been on bestseller lists, and been on the Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list, the Top Ten Teen Pick list, and YALSA's Popular Paperback list knows how to write great books.

Deadly Little Secret (A Touch Novel) is no exception. It's by Laurie Stolarz.

Description
Until three months ago, everything about sixteen-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades; an okay relationship with her parents; and a pretty cool part-time job at an art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes far from ordinary.

Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe he's trouble, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. Instead she's inexplicably drawn to Ben...and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help – but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something...but he's not the only one with a secret.

I asked, Laurie answered
A. What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? Bonus question: have you used it, in any way, in a book?
L. When I was doing the research for Project 17, I went to the abandoned mental institution on which the book is based. Growing up, the former mental hospital was rumored to be haunted (there are actually unmarked graves on the premises). Once I really started delving into the research, visiting the place took on a whole new meaning (knowledge really IS power). I was so horrified that I couldn’t sleep at night. So, yes, I have used this fear to write a book.

A. Mystery writers often give their characters an unreasoning fear - and then make them face it. Do you have any phobias, like fear of spiders or enclosed spaces?
L. I’m the biggest wuss ever, even though I write this scary stuff, too. You name it – bugs, critters, haunted houses, dark places, basements, attics, creaking noises at night, horror flicks, abandoned places, the list goes on and on. I use all of this in my writing.

A. Do you have a favorite mystery book, author, or movie?
L. I love Stephen King and Robert Cormier. I also love The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and Our Secret History by Donna Tartt. As for movies, I love the Scream trilogy, though I have to watch most of it with a pillow over my eyes. I also like I Know What You Did Last Summer (but again with the pillow). I’m not into the mega-horror stuff that’s out now. If I watched any of that, I’m not even joking when I say I wouldn’t be sleeping for days.

A. At its heart, every story is a mystery. It asks why someone acts the way they did - or maybe what will happen next. What question does your book ask?
L. What happens when you fall in love with someone who could possibly kill another, including you?

A. Is there a mystery in life that you are still trying to figure out?
L. I think there are so many mysteries in one’s life. Unraveling those mysteries and getting to the answers – and finding new mysteries along the way – is what we’re meant to do I believe.

What the critics say
"[L]ively first-person narrative," raves Kirkus [full disclosure: Kirkus never raves], "CW-worthy dialogue, quirky secondary characters, romance and suspense: a winning combination." KLIATT says, "An engaging, eerie tale about the darker side of relationships - when it becomes a matter of life and death to know who your friends are.". And Teens Read Too says, “The book was full of shocking surprises and revelations, earning the book five stars. This is a must-read for fans of romance, suspense, and mystery because it won't disappoint.”

About the author
Laurie Faria Stolarz is the bestselling author of the Blue is for Nightmares series: Blue is for Nightmares, White is for Magic, Silver is for Secrets, Red is for Remembrance, and the forthcoming Black is for Beginnings. She's also written Bleed and Project 17. Do you think that it's a coincidence that Laurie was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts?

Watch the trailer