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Showing posts with the label women's fiction

Here's Aunt Marge! Well, Almost

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 Aunt Marge has been one of my longest thought-to-production books ever. Life kept interrupting, for one thing, a broken leg and a local situation that makes me leave my writer hat off for days while I work to protect the community I love. Add to that a complicated plot. As my editor said, there's a lot going on in this book, and I had to be sure it all made sense and led to a believable ending. As the story begins, Gwen finds herself in crisis. She's overdosed on prescription painkillers, partly because she fears her husband Jeff is cheating. When her aunt offers to take her to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to recuperate, it seems perfect. She'll get back her strength and kick the drug habit. And with her gone, Jeff will realize what he's missing.  The problem is that Marge's place, called Giiwe , is full of secrets. Marge shares nothing of herself, and her ward/farmhand Charlie seems nice until Gwen learns about his violent past. When she finds out the wo

Book Clubs Take Note: Discussion Guide: Sister Saint, Sister Sinner

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  When I sent Sister Saint, Sister Sinner to my editor, she was (as usual) helpful about pointing out areas that needed more development, parts that repeated information already given, and places where the logic  temporarily failed. At the end, she made a comment that stuck with me: "People are going to be talking about the things you deal with in this book." To me, that meant the story was destined for book clubs. Having visited a few in my years of writing, I knew that they often begin with a list of discussion topics. Now, they often don't stay focused on them, and that's okay. Sometimes it's the wine. Sometimes it's a natural progression. But discussion leaders like having questions that can get the conversation back on track when it strays too far from the story. Every person who reads a book gets something out of it that no one else does. I had the experience once of visiting a book group where one reader didn't like the book and kept bringing up her

It's Getting Close!

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  You might think "Christmas!" when you read that headline, but for me it's the release of SISTER SAINT, SISTER SINNER on December 15th. The launch of a new book is both exciting and nerve-wracking. I dread some mistake that I and the many editors and beta readers missed. I drive myself crazy trying to come up with exactly the right categories and keywords to make Amazon and all the other search engines offer up my book when people go looking for something new to read. I'm excited to see what readers think. I'm afraid of what readers might think. It's complicated. "So what is this book?" you might ask (Oh, please ask.) It's not a mystery per se , though it has a murder that eventually is solved. It's more a family drama that spills onto the larger, national scene. But it's not one of those "Aren't these women sweet?" books. These women take matters into their own hands. For better or for worse, they're proactive. And if

At the Point Where I Can Tell You

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 I sent my next book to the copy editor a few days ago, which for me is a major turning point. It's a commitment of sorts; the book that for a looooonnnnngggg time has been only mine is close to being offered to others. I've certainly talked about it at length to friends and family, but no one has read it except my first-draft beta reader, my content editor, and me (many, many times). And yes, I do pay three different people to critique a manuscript before I inflict it on the public. Sending a book to the copy editor indicates that it's in its final narrative form, so now it's her job to find the silly stuff that would take away from readers' enjoyment: spelling errors, extra commas, etc. Once that's done, it will be formatted and prepared for print, e-book, and audio offerings. In other words, I'm saying I don't intend to make substantial changes anymore, and that's really hard for me. Any time I look at past work I think, "I could have done t

The Terrors of Publication

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Today I sent a newsletter to over two thousand readers, telling them about the book that will release on December 4, DECEIVING ELVERA. I also bought an ad on Facebook, letting readers there know how to pre-order the book. Terror. I'm gripped with terror, I tell you! Why? Because it's a little like navigating a minefield, this publishing thing.  *The print cover looks great on Amazon, but it's wonky on Draft 2 Digital (see spine above), and I haven't yet figured out why. *I have a FINAL final review copy on the way, so I might find a few leftover errors that will now have to be fixed on several sites before December 4th arrives (actually it's earlier than that, because they need time to get the files changed. More like November 30, then.) *Over the past week, I've slated ads with a half-dozen sites like Great Books, Great Deals and Kindle Daily Nation, so their readers will see the cover and read a bit about the book. Each one is different, and I dread that I mig