New releases coming down the pike

cj Sez:  NEXT SATURDAY, February 7, 2015, my friend, Dean James, is having a book signing for the hardcover version of ARSENIC AND OLD BOOKS, one of the books in his cat in the stacks mystery series.

 

The signing is scheduled to take place at 5-6:30 p.m. at the White House Hotel in Biloxi, MS.

Everyone is welcome to stop by and chat with Dean (who writes as Miranda James) and have some fun. Check out the reviews on Amazon at http://amzn.to/1KgYjT0

Next comes Carolyn Haines’ BOOTY BONES, a Sarah Booth Delaney mystery that will be out in paperback on February 15. Carolyn plans to be at the White House Hotel for Dean James’s book signing and expects to join in the fun. She says she’s also going to go ghost hunting, because, and I quote, “I think this wonderful, historic old hotel will be an excellent setting for my next creepy book.” She writes her creepy stuff under the pen name of R. B. Chesterton.

Check out BOOTY BONES at http://amzn.to/1Adfq8j 

Dean and Carolyn's novels are enjoyable reads, and that kind of excellence doesn’t happen overnight. These two Gulf Coast authors have honed their craft over the years and continue to work hard at putting out their very best effort for their readers.

One of the blogs I follow is that of author/editor/chief-cook-and-bottle-washer, Hope Clark at   http://www.fundsforwriters.com  Her “Funds for Writers” blog has been on the Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers list every year since 2001. Anyway, Hope says: “Writing well takes time. It isn't an instinct. You are not born with it. You do not accidentally write a stupendous tale. You develop this talent with hard work and a crazy number of hours invested in making your craft better.”

That means all writers, but especially aspiring writers, need to participate in workshops, critique groups, conferences, and READ in the genre you write. Before a writer can develop his/her own writing voice, (s)he must read the good work of other published authors.

Now, to inspire you to look at your own WIP, here’s another famous first line: 

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. —Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985)

Be sure to check out the new “Meet The Author” widget on the right side of our page. Lyrical Pens will soon post info about more local authors' new books with a smidge of info about them or the book.

You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

Characters Need to Talk to You

 FRIDAY FORUM

Last weekend cj and I attended Carolyn Haines’s Daddy’s Girl Weekend for writers and readers. From pirate costumed participants, ghost tours, and treasure hunts to serious discussions of the art of writing, not a minute of the weekend was wasted. Carolyn's new cookbook to benefit Good Fortune Farm Refuge is jam-packed with wonderful recipes which we tasted throughout the weekend. Buy one and save an animal.

I made new friends and had the privilege of hanging out with some well-published authors, an agent, and several publishers. My head is still reeling with new ideas I want to incorporate into my writing.

I was especially thrilled when my belief that characters are the key to the story was supported repeatedly. While I know that is self-aggrandizement at its height, it’s what I believe and teach in my character development classes.

Holly McClure, well-known agent with Sullivan & Maxx Literary Agency, pointed out that characters need to talk to the author. We need to know our characters better than we know ourselves to bring them to life on the page.

Listening to the authors who have successful book series (proof positive they created good characters) and others with numerous publications under their belt — Carolyn Haines, Dean James, Sue Walker, Holly McClure, John Floyd, David Sheffield, Cynthia Walker—it was obvious that characters and a reader’s connection to them is pivotal to the success of a book.

The bottom line: take the time to develop your characters. Dig out those character sheets you got at a conference or read about in a book on character development and fill them out. That will get you started. Then bring them to life with psychological and sociological information.

I teach my creative writing students that a character is developed through profiling: physical, psychological, and sociological. We are all the sum of our experiences, our looks, our surroundings. Our personalities develop through our experiences/choices/ desires/decisions.

Think your characters are blah?

Create something they hate or love: people, place, or thing, then expose them to it.

Give them a tic. Who can forget Inspector Jacques Clouseau in Pink Panther movies? His clumsiness kept us laughing. Add to that the eye tic of the commissioner when Clouseau created  another disaster and you have memorable characters. Want to go to the dark side? Hannibal Lecter and his fetishes will take you there. Check out R. B. Chesterton’s The Darkling.

Make them vulnerable. How will your characters get what they want or need from where they are starting? Examples: True Grit (youth). Rocky (loser). Argo (impossible). Steel Magnolias (disease). Great Expectations (poor). The Language of Flowers (stranded).

The most fully developed, deeply motivated characters are always the most compelling, no matter how ordinary they might be. Think Mrs. Dalloway, Jane Eyre, A Gathering of Old Men.

Flesh them out now, and your readers will thank you later.

Kudos to cj who sat on the mystery writers panel!  Mahala