Jessica Anderson K-9 Mystery Book 7 Underway

I keep being asked, so I’m posting a memo for you all.  Yes, right now I’m writing Book 7 of The Jessica Anderson K-9 Mysteries.  Most definitely. 😀 How many books will be in the JA series?  As many as it takes to tell it all.  Right now, it’s mapped through book 12.

For fans for The 1st Promise, The 2nd Promise is with beta readers.  Carole Hill and I hope to release it the end of September.

Troubled Pursuit-I’m Having an Awesome Time Writing It For You.

Jessica Anderson Book 6 cover. The book has been full of surprises for me as an author. The police procedural part got written straight through …except for the very tense ending which I tend to avoid doing until there’s no other choice …because it takes me hours to recover from the stress. (Authors, at least this author, live the scenes as they write them, so your body’s adrenaline rush gets to you.)

The book is already on pre-order and it says it has a release date of mid-August. I’m planning on a much sooner release, but we’ll see, won’t we?

Meanwhile, it’s been a real kick experiencing the ongoing SAR and HRD ops that Jessie and her wonder mutts execute, sometimes with the whole team involved. And Landon? People keep throwing wrenches into his attempt to keep an ordered life, especially his new house guest, Dr. Sol Preston!

This update happened because I just finished another scene that thrilled me!

Okay. Back to your regular activities, now, as I get back to writing. 🙂

On Dolts Offering Writing Advice

DigMarkQUOTETH: “50-75% of blog posts with ‘Tips’ for writing are really marketing posts. They have nothing to do with writing at all.”

I have a friend, who shall remain anonymous, who shared this with me. It’s totally right on. And, yet, this friend refuses to say this publicly…because of all the flack that comes back to bombard him/her/it.

Yet, it’s completely true, and one of the HUGE irritants that I find with authors, indie and trad pubbed, alike.

Most of these posers–yes, I said posers–ain’t gotta clue what makes good writing and good novels, and have absolutely NO business trying to share their under-educated, all but illiterate advisements with anyone. And the only reason they do is to try to game up their own books and ‘brand’.

There. I said it right out loud, because it’s true.

Want to know what’s sad? The real experts who DO have valid and valuable insights on writing now mostly stay mum. That’s because what they have to say isn’t going to be swallowed well by the striving ‘wanna-be’s–that writing well means years of learning how to do it right by reading, by doing, by being harshly critiqued by in-the-know, usually caustic-as-hell editors.

Sorry, Charlie. People Want Tuna That Flips Their Switch.

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Had a discussion tonight that wound up with an author I support and admire pulling his post. I blinked, and it was gone, just that fast. So, I private messaged the gentleman, asking where our discussion had gone. He told me he’d deleted it…because, he said, his opening statement needed to be edited…and he didn’t want to make other writers mad.

Really? You don’t want to make…other writers mad.  I’m another writer, and I wasn’t mad.   I actually THOUGHT we were pursuing a lively, intellectual discourse.

Wrong. His post wasn’t meant for discussion. It was a ‘call-out’, a change-order.

But it was a good discussion. And I made good counter arguments to his points. (Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a copy of my replies, so I can’t replicate them when he replicates his…if he does.)

In the private messaging, I came to understand his underlying motive.  it’s the basis for a common misery I recognize exhibited by a LOT of writers/authors–depression and a sense of overwhelming futility, coupled with dogged determination to continue, despite all odds stacked against one.  Namely: there are so many books being published (now that independent publishing is coming of age), that getting any book noticed by masses of people is nigh on impossible.

Well, yep. That’s too true.

  1. It requires a LOT of lucky breaks (also called serendipity);
  2. it requires one to be an extrovert, when writers–good writers–are, by overwhelming numbers, introverts; and
  3. it requires an army of “connector” friends and fans who are willing and capable of effectively spreading the word about your book being the greatest thing since [enter your favorite title] to other readers of whichever genre you write.

But here’s the problem, even if you have all those things. People who read books, especially those who read novels, are a less than overwhelming percentage of the population. About a quarter of Americans don’t even read one book a year.1 Instead, they:

  1. play video games,
  2. hang out online,
  3. watch sports,
  4. watch the news cycle/talking heads, high drama, vitriol-driven world of politics,
  5. watch movies, TV series, game shows, reality shows, and,
  6. generally, do everything and anything exCEPT read…books.

Reading for them is Twitter or Facebook, not cracking open some made-of-paper or made-of-bytes tome filled with tens of thousands of alpha-numeric characters. I mean, really. 144 characters is about their upper limit. Of those who do read fiction (as opposed to non-fiction), the numbers are even less. …And, of course, of those who read a specific genre of fiction, you guessed it, even less than that–a lot less.

Interestingly, young people are reading MORE.2 Which is good. But I’m afraid the kind of reading that holds the Millennials are books they can personally connect with…which doesn’t include what a lot of writers shopping their books are writing. That limits certain genre novelists to an even smaller pool of potential readers, and that pool of potential readers tends to avoid spending money on books, so if it isn’t found at their library, isn’t free, isn’t available and at hand for cheap–very cheap–somewhere, you’ve got a hefty job convincing them to spare their dollars for your book. They’d rather spend their money on their grandkids. Or on their next vacation. And, yes, in fact, unless they’re an avid reader of more than eleven books a year, up into the book a week category, chances are the books they buy won’t be those you’ve written. And, in fact, even those who read a book a week won’t be buying your book. Why should they? They can sift through the thousands upon thousands of free books out there to find their next read and not spend one thin dime.

So, how do you get your book to the point that a whole bunch of somebodies crave to read it so much that, yes, they’ll shell out their cash to actually buy a copy? Well, you either write what sells–gore, sex, perversion–or write what sells–romance–or write what sells–your book promoted well and appropriately, marketed at just the right moment to just the right people when those people happen to be looking for just that kind of book.

And an aside (something mentioned in the above-noted ‘disappeared’ post): Does your book have to be well-written and well-edited?

Let’s look at the stats on that: Fifty Shades of Grey.  Nope. Does NOT need to be well-written or well-edited. Nope. Not, at all.

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Be Still My Brain

Smoke&BrimstonewebVarious writer’s book excerpts daily fall into and out of my awareness. I give the first few paragraphs a glance, usually moving on. Today, several happened past that made old habits twitch. I moved on, anyway.

There’s a very unique problem, now, with writing. Only a non-writer may critique. Or, sometimes, maybe, if they’re very brave, the masters of the commercial writing world might venture their opinion and survive. Might. Stephen King and Neil Gaiman could, perhaps, but even they might feel the bite when truth rattles tender sensibilities and their ‘victim’s’ loyal hounds are loosed and set upon them.

When I began to write, I had editors blue pencil the hell out of my manuscripts. Sometimes they would leave acerbic remarks in margins. Some of these remarks were devastating, knocking me out of my chair and away from my keyboard for weeks, even months. Then, I’d pick myself up, examine my wounds, and adjust. In plain-speak, I learned. Those editors weren’t doing me harm. They were doing me huge, and, yes, I mean HUGE, favors just to take the time to show me how to improve my craft. I’ll never be able to repay them their kindness. But for them…(that’s ‘but’ used as ‘except’, if you are unfamiliar with the construct), I would not be the writer that I am.

Today, it’s best just to move on, saying nothing, or, if forced to, simply nod, applaud, and smile.

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