My friend Fen and his friend, Elmore Leonard

cj Sez: When I worked in Chrysler’s Employee Communications Department, I met an ad man who was an honest-to-gosh World War II American hero (served with General George S. Patton in France and Germany). Fen became a dear, dear friend, and we stayed in close touch until his death at age 97 this past January. It was Fenton Ludtke who introduced me to Elmore Leonard’s writing discipline.

(Out of Print)

   Fen had worked with Elmore Leonard at an ad agency for a time and had great admiration for his writing and his discipline, as I came to appreciate also. But I appreciated Fen most of all: a gentle man with great wit, sensitivity, and quiet earnestness who unflaggingly supported and encouraged my feeble first attempts at writing a novel.

   Back to Elmore Leonard: I wish I could have begged, borrowed, or stolen some of the man’s discipline for writing. What started as necessity for him (his job required it) turned into habit when he became an established writer.

“To support his family, he worked as a copywriter at an ad agency, where he developed his aversion to adverbs, and also his knack for brief, punched-up prose. He began a habit of waking at five a.m. and immediately starting to write -- not even putting the water on for coffee until he had something down on paper -- then going to work at the office, first in advertising and later writing educational films for the Encyclopedia Britannica.”

(Source: http://www.biographile.com/a-capital-crime-elmore-leonard-deserves-a-definitive-biography/22523/ ) 

   It used to be that I worked better when I had a short-term deadline, as was always the case in my job in Employee Communications. After I retired and began to write novels and short stories, I thought if I gave myself a deadline to meet, I’d knock out stories in no time flat.

  Found out that’s not true. I manage to bury any self-imposed deadline under weeks of procrastination that I call “research.” (Elmore Leonard paid others to do his research.) It seems that the more I research, the less creativity I have. I get lost among the fascinating facts in those research rabbit holes, and my story suffers. I am learning a lot of stuff, though.

 

   Unlike Mr. Leonard, I’m not usually such an early morning riser after I retired. Six-thirty is about all I can manage and still stay awake the whole day. However, occasionally, as was the case a couple of mornings ago, at four a.m., I will make a note about one of the WIPs I have in my computer and promptly crawl back into bed. I sometimes get good ideas just before I fall asleep or when I’m dreaming. That’s why I keep a pad of paper and a pencil on the table next to the bed. Some ideas I use, others don’t turn out to be the good idea I thought they were.

   I’m not a believer in writer’s block. When I get stuck, I think I just need to take a break from my WiP, and I will read some other author’s fine work. It doesn’t make a difference the genre. It might even be a book of poetry. 

   I find that an escape into someone else’s work almost always provides the nudge I need to send one of my characters up another proverbial tree so I can throw rocks at her in the middle of the manuscript.

   How about you? When do you get your best ideas? How do you conquer the blank page in front of you?

§§

Writerly/Readerly quote:

“My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” - Malcolm X

§§

And now a few words from my sponsor:

   Someone said, it’s never too soon to start your Christmas shopping. (I think it was one of my kids.) 

   These anthologies make wonderful gifts, filled with timeless stories that are wonderful reads all year long. Bonus points: Part of the proceeds of three of them benefits charities.

   THE DAWGSTAR is available as an eBook from the etailers listed here... https://books2read.com/u/3LRRG5

and as a paperback  Amazon Buy Now

   DEATH ON THE YAMPA is available as an eBook from multiple etailers...  https://books2read.com/u/bxe1AP

as a paperback  Buy Paperback Yampa

and as a #SCREAM, series phone app. There are a lot of authors and their mystery/suspense stories available on #SCREAM. All you do is load up the app and search for the author’s name.

§§

   Draft2Digital tells me that you can ask your local library to order my eBooks for you. You’ll need to give them the ISBN number of the title you want to borrow. I’ve listed mine below.

THE DAWGSTAR … ISBN 978-17369146-0-1

DEATH ON THE YAMPA … ISBN 978-1-7369146-1-8

§§

   That’s it for today’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

 

P.S. TO ORDER any book of your choice on-line and support an indie bookstore, contact The Haunted Bookshop here: https://www.thehauntedbookshopmobile.com/contact-us

   If you’d like me to autograph or personalize one of my books for you, be sure to tell them, and I’ll run by the shop.

   The Haunted Bookshop has re-opened to limited hours (and they have an awesome bookstore kitty, Mr. Bingley), so if you’re in the Mobile area, you can stop and shop, too.

 

➜ Follow me . . .     

➜ on Amazon:    Amazon Central Author Page

➜ on Facebook:  cjpettersonAuthor on Facebook

➜ on BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson

➜ on Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3fcN3h6

 

AGATHA AWARDS WINNERS

cj Sez: Applause and congratulations to the 2021 Malice Domestic* Agatha Awards Winners!

   When the pandemic necessitated cancelling the in-person Malice Domestic in 2020 and then again in 2021, the Malice Board of Directors decided the second cancellation gave the organization an opportunity to try something new . . . ergo, MORE THAN MALICE, a virtual Malice Domestic Festival, was born. The idea was to fill the in-person conference void “by allowing their community to gather in a virtual environment for a fun and informative weekend.”

   And it worked. This year’s winners were announced July 17 at “More than Malice,” the virtual Malice Domestic Festival.

   For your reading enjoyment, here’s a list of the winning stories and their award-winning authors (maybe your favorite is among the winners):

Best Contemporary Novel

   All the Devils are Here, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Best Historical Novel 

   The Last Mrs. Summers, by Rhys Bowen (Berkeley)

Best First Novel

   Murder at the Mena House, by Erica Ruth Neubauer (Kensington)

Best Short Story 

"Dear Emily Etiquette," by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Sep/Oct)

Best Non-Fiction

   Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock, by Christina Lane (Chicago Review Press)

Best Children's/YA

   Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, by Richard Narvaez (Piñata Books) 

 (*Established in 1989, Malice Domestic is a fan convention that takes place each year in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. Malice celebrates the Traditional Mystery, books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex, or excessive gore or violence.)

§§

Writerly/Readerly quote:

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.” - Louis L’Amour.

§§

   After you’ve read a book—whether mine or another author’s—please leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever you can. It shares your joy of reading with others and means the world to the author. Please and thank you.

§§

And now a few words from my sponsors:

   Someone said, it’s never too soon to start your Christmas shopping (I think it was one of my kids). These anthologies make wonderful gifts, filled with timeless stories that are wonderful reads all year long. 

   Bonus points: Part of the proceeds of three of them benefits charities.

And new for 2021...

   THE DAWGSTAR is available as an eBook 
https://books2read.com/u/3LRRG5

and as a paperback  Amazon Buy Now

   DEATH ON THE YAMPA is available as an eBook https://books2read.com/u/bxe1AP

as a paperback  Buy Paperback Yampa

and as a #SCREAM, series phone app. There are hundreds of authors and their mystery/suspense stories available on #SCREAM. All you have to do is load up the app and search for the author’s name.

§§

   Draft2Digital tells me that you can ask your local library to order my eBooks for you. You’ll need to give them the ISBN number of the title you want to borrow. I’ve listed mine below.

THE DAWGSTAR … ISBN 978-17369146-0-1

DEATH ON THE YAMPA … ISBN 978-1-7369146-1-8

§§

   That’s it for today’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

P.S. TO ORDER any book of your choice on-line and support an indie bookstore, contact The Haunted Bookshop here: https://www.thehauntedbookshopmobile.com/contact-us

If you’d like me to autograph or personalize one of my books for you, be sure to tell them, and I’ll run by the shop.

 

   The Haunted Bookshop has re-opened to limited hours (and they have an awesome bookstore kitty, Mr. Bingley), so if you’re in the Mobile area, you can stop and shop, too.

 

➜ Follow me . . .     

➜ on Amazon:    Amazon Central Author Page

➜ on Facebook:  cjpettersonAuthor on Facebook

➜ on BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson

➜ on Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3fcN3h6

 

Starting the second half of the year

cj Sez: July seven come eleven…do you realize half of 2021 is over and done with?

   I find that keeping on-track with remembering my appointments is getting harder and harder and results in conflicts. I could alibi that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in terms of volunteering in the midst of necessary stuff, but that’d be an untruth. The truth is my short little attention span is getting shorter, so I need to pay attention and keep a better appointment calendar—as in just one. 

   Right now, I have at least two and occasionally three. I’ll note an appointment or paperclip a card on the calendar by the kitchen telephone (yes, I still have a landline) and forget to write it in my planner or vice versa. That wouldn’t be much of a problem if I would just check both places every morning . . . which, of course, I don’t. The third “occasional calendar” I mentioned is simply the collection of all those little scraps of paper and back-of-business-card notes that I shove into the bottom of my purse. Who I’m supposed to meet when and where just disappears, as does my memory of them.

Out of sight, out of mind is the term.

Re my writing

   I’m a visual person (is that a right brain or a left brain thing?), and that shows up in my writing. Scenes are the least complicated for me to write. I enjoy creating the details that permit my readers to visualize where the characters are and what they are seeing. But I try to keep my details incorporated into the flow of the scene’s action. I don’t tell the reader the office is small and crowded. I’ll let the character do that by having her desk chair bump against the wall when she stands up and then walks the five or so steps it takes to open the door for a client to enter her office.

   I recently delved into “Darkwater” and “Ravenscroft” by Dorothy Eden…both are Gothic novels (not what I usually read) and rich in setting details. I think I must incorporate more of that into my stories but without sacrificing the more modern-day deep point of view, of course.

   Dealing with personal introspection / emotions / internal dialogue is more difficult for me since I “see” the action in my stories as movies in my head. Narrative doesn’t exist in movies unless there’s a voice-over, so I tend to use very little of it. I’ve been told and I do understand that I need more narrative in my novels, and I’m working on expanding my use of internal dialogue.

   All you thriller/suspense readers out there: How much internal dialogue do you like to read?

§§

Writerly/Readerly quote:

“Great readers (are) those who know early that there is never going to be time to read all there is to read, but do their darnedest anyway.”

― Larry McMurtry, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections on Sixty and Beyond

§§

   After you’ve read a book—whether mine or another author’s—please leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever you can. It shares your joy of reading with others and means the world to the author. Please and thank you.

§§

And now a few words from my sponsor:

THE DAWGSTAR is available as an eBook  https://books2read.com/u/3LRRG5

and as a paperback  Amazon Buy Now

DEATH ON THE YAMPA is available as an eBook https://books2read.com/u/bxe1AP

as a paperback  Buy Paperback Yampa

and as a #SCREAM, series phone app.

§§

   Draft2Digital tells me that you can ask your local library to order my eBooks for you. You’ll need to give them the ISBN number of the title you want to borrow. I’ve listed mine below.

THE DAWGSTAR … ISBN 978-17369146-0-1

DEATH ON THE YAMPA … ISBN 978-1-7369146-1-8

§§

   That’s it for today’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

P.S. TO ORDER any book of your choice on-line and support an indie bookstore, contact The Haunted Bookshop here: https://www.thehauntedbookshopmobile.com/contact-us

   If you’d like me to autograph or personalize one of my books for you, be sure to tell them, and I’ll run by the shop.

    

   The Haunted Bookshop has re-opened to limited hours (and they have an awesome bookstore kitty, Mr. Bingley), so if you’re in the Mobile area, you can stop and shop, too.

 

➜ Follow me . . .     

➜ on Amazon:    Amazon Central Author Page

➜ on Facebook:  cjpettersonAuthor on Facebook

➜ on BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson

➜ on Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3fcN3h6