Thursday Funnies

Rules of Writing

Everyone has their favorite writing rules, but nothing is quite like taking a look at a well known author's to see what makes the list from different sources.

A quick Google search turned up these four:

1. Janet Fitch
2. Elmore Leonard
3. Jonathan Franzen
4. George Orwell

I think my favorites are as follows:

• Torture your protagonist. (Janet Fitch)
• Keep your exclamation points under control. (Elmore Leonard)
  
• It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction. (Jonathan Franzen)
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. (George Orwell)

What is your favorite writing rule?

Spooky Tale Telling

This weekend, I got to visit Connor Prairie for their Headless Horseman program, complete with mildly haunted hayride in which the Horseman himself chases you.

But, the Horseman was not the best part. Not by a long shot.

Nope. It was the guy telling stories in the old cabin. I could have listened to him all night. In fact, we listened to him two different times in the evening and didn't hear any of the same stories twice.

He had a great way of keeping you right there with him -- through both "true" stories and his retelling of old legends.

I've been thinking about his delivery of the stories, trying to put my finger on what made them so good. Maybe the setting had something to do with it... the firelight and the flickering cabin. The second time we listened to him, the cabin was so dark that he was just an outline really against the fire that was mostly down to embers then.

In one of the "true" stories (I say "true" because could all these somewhat spooky things really have happened to one man?), he said he was from Mississippi, near the border with Tennessee. Maybe the draw was the slight lilt to his voice, that timbre that said you should believe everything I tell you. And maybe, it was something in the actual telling, a way of weaving together plot and descriptions that kept us on the edges of the hard wood benches.

In the spirit of Halloween, what story that you heard told out loud scared you the most?

E-Book for a Good Cause

Word Nerd doesn't often pass on this type of story, but she thought this one was interesting. As e-books become part of the literary culture, author Paul Levine is using the e-book of release of one of his novels in a good way -- to give back.

Rather than Word Nerd summing it all up, Levine explains it himself.

Jake Lassiter and the Four Diamonds Fund, by Paul Levine

In the United States today, one in 300 children will be diagnosed with some form of cancer. All of us have friends or family members who have fought that grueling battle. These days, with great advances in medicine, there's a increasing chance the fight has been successful.

Yet, progress seems excruciatingly slow for those on the front lines.

A few years ago, one of my dearest friends, the godfather of my son, lost his daughter Margaux to Ewing's sarcoma, a rare but vicious bone cancer. The survival rate for Ewing's sarcoma that metastasises is a disheartening 10 per cent.

Ten per cent!

In this age of medical miracles, how can that be?

After Margaux's death at age 14, I dedicated a book to her. Such a feeble gesture. I wanted to do more. Still do. Here's how.

Twenty years ago this month, my first novel, “To Speak for the Dead,” was published to a decent amount of fanfare. The legal thriller introduced the world to Jake Lassiter, a linebacker-turned-lawyer who seeks justice but seldom finds it. The book facilitated my career change from lawyer to novelist and has always held a special place in my heart. Now, good old Jake can help a cause that's also dear to me.

I will donate all proceeds of “To Speak for the Dead” to the Four Diamonds Fund, a charity that pays for treatment of pediatric cancer patients at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital. In addition to providing world-class medical care, the Fund supports research in immunotherapy, carcinogenesis, and several other fields I can barely spell, much less understand.

In basic terms, the Fund helps sick kids. I don't know a more worthy cause.

I'm hoping that the e-book will sell for years, bringing enjoyment to readers and support to a life-saving cause. Hoping, too, that others will be moved to directly contribute.

Here's a little background about the Fund. In 1972, a 14-year-old boy named Christopher Millard was an aspiring writer. Or rather, he was already a writer. He'd penned a mythic tale about “Sir Millard and The Four Diamonds,” in the tradition of Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot. What are those Four Diamonds? Wisdom. Courage. Honesty. Strength. All are needed in our daily lives, especially in children's battles with a dread disease.

You have probably figured out that Chris wrote the story while in the throes of cancer. The diamonds of his story were allegorical. The quest was for life itself. After a three-year battle, Chris died, but his memory lives in the name of the Fund established by his family.

Penn State students have contributed an astonishing $61 million to the Fund through their annual dance marathon. This year's event raised $7.8 million alone. The motto of “Thon” is “For the kids.” And that, too, is the dedication of “To Speak for the Dead.”

Even if you don't own an e-reader, you can download the book to your laptop or desktop. So, if you'd like a “breathlessly exciting” read (Cleveland Plain Dealer) or a “genuinely chilling” one (Washington Post), please give it a try. For a limited time, the book is only $2.99. Purchase information here: http://www.paul-levine.com/content/jake-lassiter.asp.

One last thing. If each of us can contribute - just a bit - of courage, wisdom, honesty, and strength, maybe we can reach the goal of Conquering Childhood Cancer.

For more information on the Four Diamonds Fund, click here.

Varied Voices: Susan Arnout Smith

This week's guest blogger is Susan Arnout Smith, whose new book Out at Night just recently hit shelves. In her column today, she talks about the genesis for this new book.

(Un)comforting Food by Susan Arnout Smith

When I was growing up, often eating dinner was an anxious affair.

It’s what we did as a family at the end of a long day being apart. It’s where tempers flared, wars were fought. There were snipings, direct attacks, curve balls. And then we lunged at the butter, scooped extra servings of mashed potatoes and hunkered down for round two.

The food, always, was excellent, (my mother was a home economics teacher), but because of the uncertainty, because safety was never a given, meals were eaten hurriedly, and under stress.

We never knew if this was the meal where everything would be relaxed and cheerful, or the meal where something unexpected and fearful would come for us out of a dark place, galloping toward us with metal hooves and snapping teeth.

I know this wasn’t my parents’ intention. But it was the truth of our lives.

The table is where I learned to lie well for my own protection, to cover my feelings, and yes, to eat, even if I’d stopped long ago tasting the food or feeling hunger. It’s where I learned to hang on until dessert.

Some days I was lucky. Some days I was supremely not.

When I was thinking about writing Out at Night, my second thriller, (after writing The Timer Game, Minotaur, 2008), I thought about food and how this source of comfort and nurturing—much like a family—can be twisted into something dark and anxiety-provoking.

Perfect country for bad things. Perfect metaphor for genetically modified crops. Once an element has been added, it’s impossible to ever take it back. Not completely.

Now hunger is a terrible thing with a terrible human cost and face. It’s true that good has come from genetically modified crops: in the lab, scientists have created seeds that are drought resistant, weed resistant and even some—like Golden Rice genetically modified to carry Vitamin A, (funded by Bill and Melinda Gates)—will significantly improve the lives of children in Third World countries and prevent blindness.

It’s also true that scientists are combining genes from different organisms (translation: taking genes from humans and adding them to plants), to produce crops that will produce vaccines for AIDs and Hep B, or create insulin or help clot blood or inhibit diarrhea.

But what if you don’t want to eat a plant that produces a human gene to help clot blood? What if your blood works just fine, thank you very much, and actually you need a little aspirin every once in awhile to thin things out. What then?

Michael Fernandez, in a PEW initiative on Food and Biotechnology, makes the point that there’s no worldwide uniform standard about what constitutes seed purity. In the US, producers are required only to reveal how much of something not-seed is mixed in with that labeled seed. I take that to mean they’re not required, from the sounds of it, to disclose what that not-seed actually is. In all fairness to the producers, they might not know.

In 2005 in the UK, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs released a study that GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to fifteen years after being harvested. The study examined five locations across England and Scotland, sites not currently growing GM oilseed rape. They found ‘significant amounts’ of GM crops still there, growing willy-nilly mixed in with the new non-GM crops.

And there’s wind drift. When I was signing Out at Night on the island of Kona, I met wonderful organic coffee growers worried about this very thing. The organic papaya crops recently had been contaminated with pollen from GM papaya crops.

And the entire organic papaya crop had to be destroyed. Can you imagine, if that was your family’s harvest, your family’s work and sweat in the sun and dreaming hope of a payday, what that seemingly innocuous GM pollen drift had cost?

Sometimes even hungry countries turn back our non GM food, (we’re the world’s leading producer of GM crops), fearing contamination. That happened in 2002 when Zimbabwe refused an aid shipment of grain from the US. From where I sit, things have to be pretty serious before a starving country turns back food because it fears what it holds.

And we haven’t even begun to talk about what happens when you eat it.

In 2008, the Austrian government released results of a 20-week study. Results that confirmed that GM corn directly affected reproductive health in mice. The results were so startling (things died), that now there’s a serious and vocal push in Austria to immediately ban all GM goods and crops to protect the fertility of women around the world.

The Russians just completed a similar study at the Russian Academy. With similar results. Over half the off-spring of lab rats fed GM crops died within the first three weeks of life. And all the GM off-spring in the preliminary results were sterile.

The UK’s been worried about the cost of GM to health ever since one of their leading scientists, Arpad Puztai, went on British television in 1998 with word that biotech food stunted the growth of rats.

There’s rats. And then there’s us.

Inventive, creative problem solvers, working to eliminate drought and poverty and famine. Hopeful. Anxious.

Hungry.

William Neuman, in The New York Times, writes in an article August 29th about a move in the US to test and label products to identify them as being mostly biotech free. They do this already in the UK and have for some time. In order to get a ‘butterfly checkmark’ of approval, processed foods here will have to contain no more than 0.9 percent genetically modified material.

And so we live with percentages. In our food. In our lives.

The question is and always has been, at every meal, every moment, what dark thing is waiting to come inside?

Varied Voices -- Simon Wood

Word Nerd had the opportunity to get to know Simon Wood during Bouchercon. He's quick-witted, and was one of the best moderators she saw during the convention. He was also gracious (after Word Nerd "lost" his first email in her inbox) to do a guest blog.

Scaredy Cat, by Simon Wood

People ask me what scares me, what my deepest fears are, and what sends me into a panic. Austin Powers says he fears only two things: nuclear weapons and carnies. I’m different. Pretty much everything frightens me. I think people are usually looking for a man-of-steel kind of an answer. But I have to disappoint. I’m scared of my own shadow. Literally. It’s always there, behind me, creeping up on me. There it is. Arrrrhh!!!

I’ll go into a cold sweat at a Starbucks. The choice dazzles me and I can’t make up my mind what I want. Suddenly that long line looks real short. Now the choice isn’t the scary thing, but what happens when the green aproned personage asks for what I want and my answer is er, I need some more time. I know the people behind me are going to start gnashing their teeth and all because I don’t know what fancy coffee I want. Eek!


Everyday things scare me. I lived in an apartment where the shower curtain had a habit of clinging to me when I got within a foot of it. The material had an odd texture that felt like skin when wet, which was a distinctly unpleasant sensation. I got to fear that damn shower curtain and avoided using it (and my wife got to hate that I didn’t shower). But that was enough to spur a story about a haunted shower curtain…


A while back, my Sisters in Crime chapter volunteered to man (or woman) the phones during the local PBS pledge drive. I feared my phone would ring, because I might get someone with a weird name I couldn’t spell. I thought, if I screw up the donation, PBS won’t get their money and Yanni won’t get his funding and he’ll hunt me down like a dog.


So yes, I can make anything scary. It’s a talent. Don’t applaud me all at once. You can’t all be like me.


I made author fears a topic at a World Horror Convention panel. It was a really interesting panel. A number of the authors discussed their darkest fears. Some were parents were frightened by the potential loss of their children. Several had had incidents that led them to write stories.

Fear makes for great storytelling. It’s a fossil fuel with an inexhaustible supply. It drives stories. It forces the reader, the writer and the characters to face what frightens them full on. Stories thrive on conflict and facing your fears is the greatest conflict. No one is fearless, so everyone can relate.


The best scary writing explores our archetypal “core” fears. People fear the unknown, the loss of a loved one, loss of liberty, loss of control, their position in the world. The point is that to write scary stories, you have to be fearful. The adage goes you write what you know and fears are very real and accessible. Horror stories just don’t explore someone’s fear of vampires, werewolves and Freddy Krueger. They explore a power stronger than the individual and that overwhelming power has the ability to rob you of what you hold most dear or thrust you into an environment you desire least. No one fears Freddy Krueger. Everyone fears what someone like that can do to them.

So my myriad of fears are good for my writing. They keep it real (scary). It’s easy to see what I, the writer, you, the reader, and they, the characters have to fear. For me it’s easy to slip into a fictional situation. My second thriller, Paying the Piper, was about child abduction. Now, I’m not a parent, but I can imagine myself in the parent’s position and the terrible state I would be in if my child was snatched from me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m next in line at Starbucks and I don’t know what I want.


Yours cowering under the bedclothes,
Simon Wood

Varied Voices -- Guest Bloggers Kas and Effie Valentine

Just because Bouchercon is over doesn't mean Word Nerd's giving guest bloggers the boot.

Nope, welcome to Varied Voices, a semi-regular feature of guest posts from a variety of authors and writers. This week, welcome Kas and Effie Valentine. Word Nerd has no idea who the Masked Fedora really is. (All she knows is it's not her...)

Recently, The Masked Fedora had a chance to sit down with writing duo and darlings of the crime fiction set, Kas and Effie Valentine. Many rumors surround these jazz musicians, turned PIs, turned authors––that they are a brother and sister team masquerading as husband and wife (or vice versa), or that they’re just some idle rich folks using hired guns to pen their tales, or that “The Valentines” is a pseudonym for a well-known script-doctor who pays out-of-work actors to “play” the pair at signings.
Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, Masked Fedora met the pair at their quaint park side apartment for coffee…bringing a half dozen Tim Hortons maple-dip donuts (as instructed).
Masked Fedora: Let’s start with the question on everybody’s mind. Are you two brother and sister or husband and wife?
Effie and Kas Valentine (in unison): Yes.
MF: Can you give our readers any insight into your process?
EV: Writing is the easy part—that is if you don’t count all the dishes thrown. It’s living the writer’s life that’s difficult. Especially adding in the music and the investigation.
MF: Is your work based on your actual cases?
KV: Heaven’s no. Too boring.
EV: Kas did have this actor friend who worked on one of those police shows. We had him over dinner one night, and I joked that he should try a real case. Rayelee Flynn, our crime-solving background actress was born on the spot.
KV: Yes, but that’s fiction. All real PI’s ever work are divorce cases.
EF: That’s how we met, in fact. Mr. Valentine’s services had been retained by a woman who suspected her husband of stepping out. And the husband thought the same, and hired me.
MF: Were they?
EF: You know, I can’t recall. I think––
KV: Are you sure that’s how we met? I could swear it was at the Slippery Noodle.
MF: The Slippery…
EF: Slippery Noodle. It’s a jazz and blues club in Indianapolis.
KV: Yes, I was playing string bass with the Sidney Zweibel trio and this lovely gal hops up on stage and demands that we let her sing “Lullaby of Birdland.” Which, of course, we did…she had the voice of a whiskey soaked angel. Which reminds me… (At this point Mr. Valentine produces a tumbler and a few martini glasses.) Care for a cocktail?
MF: Ummm…it’s nine AM.
KV: It’s okay, these are virgin.
EV: By that he means vodka instead of gin.
MF: So which it?
KV: It’s vodka.
MF: I mean which story. Which is true?
KV: I’m not sure. You pick.
EV: Honestly, darling. You can’t play jazz without being able to improv on the fly.
KV: Or tell if someone’s lying without being a liar yourself.
EV: Or hope to write good fiction unless you yourself are completely made up.
MF: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
KV: (after a pause) Yes…I’d like to add a little more ice to this glass.

Bouchercon Wisdom

Throughout the weekend at Bouchercon, Word Nerd wrote down the best little snippets of what authors had to say... from the setting of mysteries, to writing advice, to how to create characters and rip ideas from real life/real people.

Since wisdom is best when shared, here are some of things that caught Word Nerd's attention.

"Indianapolis is a very effective city to be murdered in." -- Brandt Dodson

"Writing is an act of great confusion and terror." -- Marcus Sakey

"Geography creates character." -- Larry Sweazy

"We have to make up enough stuff so when we can copy stuff, it's faster." -- Ken Isaacson

"Evil people never recognize themselves." -- Sarah Wisseman

"First person is a story about perception - they can be wrong." -- Hank Phillippi Ryan

"If you're an historical author, you have to know when to be vague." -- John Maddox Roberts

"Most writers do care about accuracy of any kind." -- Sharan Newman

"People take exception to being murdered." -- Jeanne M. Dams

"A good character has to do something. This is the fun of writing - letting your head go." -- Harlan Coben

"What you don't know in facts will kill you." -- David Levien

"The only way to write is to write. The only rule I know that works is discipline, consistency." -- Gary Phillips

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #15 -- Sean Chercover

Last but in no way least in the pre-Bouchercon guest blogger line-up is Sean Chercover. Sean's no stranger to Word Nerd (There are two past interviews, one after his first book and another around the release of the second) but this time, it's all him. Chercover is the author of the Ray Dudgeon series (Big City, Bad Blood and Trigger City) and takes a look today at how or why or why not to evolve a character across a series.


To Evolve, or Not to Evolve…by Sean Chercover

Bethany asked me to talk about my approach to evolving a series character. I think, if you’re working on a series, you first have to address the question of whether or not your protagonist should evolve.

There are many fine series featuring protags who stubbornly resist change. I’m a huge fan of Jack Reacher and Travis McGee and Lew Archer, none of whom evolved a whole lot over the years. Those characters are more than just characters – they are finely wrought points-of-view. Much of their power comes from their certainty.

Another consistent character, Spenser, began life as an evolving character but stopped after a number of books. Robert B. Parker has made no secret of why he stopped evolving Spenser. Many readers want to re-experience the emotional identification with the hero. The hero is like an old friend, and they want to pick up the next book knowing that the same friend will be there. As a result, static protagonists tend to sell more books than evolving protagonists.

There are exceptions, of course, and writing a non-changing (I hate to say “static”) hero is no guarantee of success. Very few writers are capable of creating a non-changing hero who remains interesting (and believable) over time. It requires a special skill.

For me, the choice to write Ray Dudgeon as an evolving character was easy. I find that I usually cleave more strongly to such characters, so I knew from the start that Ray would be an evolving character.

Ray is a troubled soul. The things in life of which Ray is unsure, far outnumber the things of which he is certain. He’s a good man, but doesn’t always act like the good man that he is. This, of course, gives him a lot of room to grow. But more than that, it demands that he grow.
I think that’s essential, if you’re writing an evolving series character. Not just giving your protagonist a few flaws (She’s a workaholic! He’s got a short temper!) but actually starting with a damaged character. Not just to give him “room to grow” but to make character growth necessary for his survival. Necessary, and difficult. The evolving character is (like all of us) a work-in-progress. If you start with a character who is comfortable in her own skin and in the world, then we really don’t need to follow her progress through life.

Ray is working hard at becoming a better man, one story at a time. Over time, his now-shaky skills as a friend and romantic partner may exceed his considerable skills as a private detective. And if that happens, the series may come to a natural end.

I’m rooting for him. But it’s a long and winding road.

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #15 -- Hank Phillippi Ryan

Today's guest blogger shares about the pitfalls of basing characters on people you know in real life. Her blog is a sneak peek at the topic she'll be discussing during a Bouchercon panel (Word Nerd is checking her schedule now so she doesn't miss that one...) Please welcome Hank Phillippi Ryan.


STRANGER THAN TRUTH by Hank Phillippi Ryan


My mother is so mad at me. She’s in the midst of reading FACE TIME, the second Charlotte McNally Mystery.

I expected Mom to like it. She was delighted when PRIME TIME won the Agatha, and delighted that AIR TIME is already hitting best-seller lists. And she’s my mom, after all. So I didn’t expect criticism. But Mom, after reading the first ten pages or so, told me she was “unhappy.” You have to imagine the "Mom" tone. Perhaps, you've heard it. Maybe you've used it a time or two yourself.

To be sure: Mom is terrific. She’s almost 80, and is absolutely beautiful. An artist, a reader, a wonderful intellect. (She doesn’t have a computer, so she’s not reading this.) I’m her oldest daughter, and any psychologist will tell you that can cause some friction.

So anyway. Why is Mom mad? She thinks I’ve “used her for art.”

It’s true: Charlie McNally’s mother is a bit—persnickety. She’s opinionated. She thinks, for instance, that Charlotte should give up her successful 20-year TV reporting career to marry some tycoon. No matter that Charlie’s happy with her personal life (pretty happy, at least, for a 46-year-old single woman who is married to her job) and with her professional life (pretty happy, at least, especially since she’s going undercover to investigate a truly diabolical scheme).
“Mom” also thinks Charlotte might want to join her at the plastic surgeon for some cosmetic face time.

Now Mrs. McNally is not, I repeat, not, my mother. But in these days of controversy over whether books purported to be memoirs are actually true—I’m fighting to convince her that my book is truly fiction.

It’s ALL MADE UP, I tell her. Yes, Charlie has a Mom, and I have a Mom. But I’m not Charlie and she’s not you. No one will think you had cosmetic surgery.

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“Of course they will, dear,” she finally says. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

And that’s why my Bouchercon panel “You Talking About ME?” (check local listings for time and station!) is going to be such a treat. It’s all about the pitfalls of using real life in your books—and how to balance fact and fiction. You think CJ Lyons MD uses the personas of any doctors she knows? That incredible athlete Twist Phelan just ignores her true-life competitors? Does Ken Isaacson (attorney at law) just pull his fictional lawyers out of thin air? (Molly MacRae will attempt to “moderate” us…good luck with that.)

And hey--if you’re a reader, do you assume fictional characters are real people just put on paper?

And as it turns out—as Mom will find out if she’ll just read the rest of the book—it’s not only a mystery but a love story between mothers and daughters. One reviewer told me she downright cried at the final scene. (Which is odd, you have to admit, in a murder mystery.)

Yes, as authors we take elements of reality. Then we polish, and tweak, and exaggerate, and accessorize. But the fun is making up something completely new. And it’s ALL MADE UP.

Okay, Mom?


Investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is currently on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate, where she's broken big stories for the past 22 years. Along with her 26 EMMYs, Hank’s won dozens of other journalism honors. Her first mysteries, Prime Time (which won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel) and Face Time (Book Sense Notable Book), were best sellers. They were both re-issued this summer from MIRA Books. The newest in the series is Air Time (MIRA Sept. 2009) (Sue Grafton says: "Sassy, fast-paced and appealing. This is first-class entertainment.") Drive Time is scheduled for February 2010 from MIRA. Her website is http://www.hankphillippiryan.com/

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #14 -- Kelli Stanley

Bouchercon is just a few weeks away the guest blog tour rolls on today with Kelli Stanley. Kelli shares about how attending Bouchercons in the past propelled her writing career forward.

Bouchercon Dreams by Kelli Stanley

It’s hard to believe my first Bouchercon was only two years ago in Anchorage, Alaska. It was my first time in Alaska and my first ever big mystery conference (my very first conference was No Crime Unpublished, put on by the wonderful Sisters in Crime Los Angeles every two years, and now known as The California Crime Writers Conference). The release of my debut novel, NOX DORMIENDA, was almost a year away.

That first Bouchercon changed my life. When I received my publishing news in January of 2007, I was a complete neophyte. I didn’t know the business, I didn’t belong to Sisters in Crime or any other organizations, and I literally didn’t know anyone (I’d just graduated with my MA, which had taken up a lot of time!).

In Anchorage, not only did I learn a lot about the business—not only did I forge friendships that I knew would endure throughout my life—but on the creative side, my Bouchercon and Alaskan experiences inspired me to plunge ahead and write the novel that had been percolating … a novel that became CITY OF DRAGONS.

My goal then—and my goal still—is to make writing my life. To make a living from my books, to be able to not split my time with a day job. And I knew that my chances of being able to do that would improve tremendously if I could move to a larger publisher with better distribution. Five Star is wonderful—I’m tremendously grateful to them for giving me my first chance, and for just being some of the nicest and most supportive folks in the industry. But with the logistics of the business side—I knew larger distribution was a must.

I also discovered—thanks to a quick education at Bouchercon—that it’s very difficult to approach another publisher about taking over a series. So—given the hard-headed pragmatism of wanting another saleable book—and the inspiration I received from listening to writers talk about writing (a highlight was Diana Gabaldon’s blessing)—I took a deep breath and wrote CITY OF DRAGONS while doing everything I could to get the word out about NOX DORMIENDA, which was published in July of 2008. Last October, I traveled to Baltimore, and enjoyed another Bouchercon—again, learning, connecting, being inspired.

By the time CITY OF DRAGONS was ready to be shopped by my wonderful agent, it was January of this year. That was an amazing month for me. I was blessed and honored beyond belief by a nomination and for the Bruce Alexander Award. And within three weeks, we sold CITY OF DRAGONS to Thomas Dunne/Minotaur Books and my incredible, fabulous editor, Marcia Markland.

Subsequent months went by in a blur. At Left Coast Crime—another conference that has meant so much to be, personally and professionally—I won the Bruce Alexander. I was nominated for a Macavity. I have a short story—a prequel to CITY OF DRAGONS—coming out in June, in an International Thriller Writers anthology called FIRST THRILLS, which teams best-sellers with up-and-comers.

And so, when it came time for me to write the dedication for CITY OF DRAGONS, in addition to my family, I dedicated the book to my “other” family … the community I first came to know at Bouchercon, Anchorage.

As of this writing, we’re also hoping to get my first series placed with a larger publisher. My dream is two series a year, with the occasional stand-alone … a graphic novel … and other projects, too. In just a few weeks, I’ll be heading back to the fountain of dreaming, the big, bold, wonderful and always different, but always amazing conference called … Bouchercon. I hope to see you there!

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #13 -- Denise Dietz

Nothing unlucky today -- we've got Denise Dietz with a conversation about the pitfalls of her next great idea. Denise (Deni) Dietz – http://www.denisedietz.com - is the author of the popular “diet club” mystery series. For people who will only read a series from the beginning, Deni is launching Wildside Press’s updated, reissued Trade paperbacks of THROW DARTS AT A CHEESECAKE, BEAT UP A COOKIE, and CHAIN A LAMB CHOP TO THE BED at Bouchercon. The fourth in the series, STRANGLE A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD, came out in hardcover last May. After waiting tables for 17 years, Deni finally got up the nerve to 86 a waitress. Deni’s Bouchercon panel is: “WHICH END IS UP? Plotting forward from a premise or backward from an ending. Where do we start?” It’s on Friday at 9:00 a.m. She didn’t plot the following, to which she says, “Oops, my bad.”

THE VAMPIRE WORE PRADA by Denise Dietz
Since vampires seem to be in vogue, I decided to write a crime fiction story starring a vampire. Having never met one face-to-face, I knew I had some intense research to do, and somehow I didn’t think Google would fly. Furthermore, no Facebook vampire wanted to be my friend. So I looked up Vampires in the Yellow Pages. It took 3 phone calls, after midnight, but I finally found one who was willing to talk to me.
Deni: Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me, Mr…what do I call you?
Vampire: Rice. My name is Rice.
Deni: Like, Anne Rice?
Vampire: Never heard of her. My name is Rex Rice, but most people just call me Rice.
Deni: Okay, um, Rice. Thanks again. I really do appreciate it.
Vampire: You’re velcome. I’m glad you’re a redhead. I love the color red.
Deni: Yes, well (glancing down at notes), where are you from?
Vamp: California. But I’m always looking for new locales. I visited Salem’s Lot once. Didn’t like it.
Deni: Whoa. Wait. You’re not from Transylvania?
Vamp: Never heard of the place.
Deni: I’ve read about vampires, of course, and seen movies, but I had no idea they … you … looked so … well, normal. You could be the bachelor on one of those bachelor TV shows, especially with that chest. Do you wax it?
Vamp: I do.
Deni: And your dimples are to die for. I mean, live for.
Vamp: Thank you. Out of curiosity, vhat do you write?
Deni: Historical romances as Mary Ellen Dennis and crime fiction as Denise Dietz. That’s DIET with a ‘Z.’ I was thinking about creating a vampire detective. Why are you shaking your head?
Vamp: It wouldn’t vork, unless he vorked the night shift. Or if he only vorked on cloudy days. Maybe if he lived in a Lincoln Continental. With tinted windows.
Deni: How about a vampire cop?
Vamp: Same problem.
Deni: I see your point. No offense. I mean, your fangs and all.
Vamp: Freudian slip. Happens all the time.
Deni: How about sunscreen? Maybe I could concoct a special, secret, government sunscreen, a la Dean Koontz.
Vamp: Sunscreen might vork, or maybe Mime makeup. If a Mime fell in the forest, would anyone know? (laughs) Do you have a title for your story?
Deni: I was thinking of calling it ‘The Vampire Wore Prada,’ but now I’m thinking ‘The Lincoln Vampire’ might fly.
Vamp: Yes.
Deni: Yes, vhat? I mean, what?
Vamp: I thought you were asking if I could fly. The answer is yes.
Deni: That’s good to know. It could be an important plot element. Do you change into a bat, first?
Vamp: You’ve been vatching too much TV. Or too many Bela Lugosi movies. Vy vould I vant to be a bat? All that guano. Ick.
Deni: Sorry. I don’t usually stereotype. So, no detective protagonist and no cop. What, exactly would you like to be?
Vamp: Your perp.
Deni: Perp? How do you know that word?
Vamp: Vhat? You think vampires can’t read? Some of my best friends are librarians.
Deni: If you were my perp, who … whom would you kill? I mean, who would you bite?
Vampire: Stephen King.
Anyone in the market for a story called THE VAMPIRE WORE SUNSCREEN?

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #12 -- Roberta Isleib

Today's guest blogger, Roberta Isleib, lets us in on how she got an idea for a novel, through a real-world experience. Isleib attended her first Bouchercon in 1999 (Milwaukee, WI), desperately seeking publication, she knew no one in the mystery business. Many Bouchercon conventions later, she has had eight books published in the advice column and golf lovers mystery series (Berkley Prime Crime.) Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She is looking forward to meeting old friends and new in Indianapolis! http://www.robertaisleib.com

AN IDEA IS BORN by Roberta Isleib

Sometimes a powerful personal experience percolates for years, lying in wait for the right moment to work its way into a book. I can trace one event quite directly in the first Rebecca Butterman advice column mystery, DEADLY ADVICE (Berkley, March 2007.)

My first marriage petered out twenty years ago during the last year of my graduate program in clinical psychology. I took the cats and moved from our cozy starter home, which had included a dog, a garden, and a wood stove, to a tiny apartment in a row of tiny apartments. No families here, just single folks, and not the kind who led swinging singles’ lives.

The separation didn’t have a dramatic “War of the Roses” kind of climax, but it felt plenty sad all the same. Questions circled: Was I doing the right thing? Would I always be alone? If I disappeared, would anyone notice I was missing?

Answers drifted in: Yes, I was making the right move. Someday I’d sort this out and find a relationship that fired on all its cylinders. And please, lose the melodrama! This was a period of pulling in, marshalling the interior troops, mustering energy for my dissertation and internship—I was not seeking new friends.

Every morning, my taciturn next-door neighbor left for work at 7:30, returning by six. She had no visitors and rarely went out. We never really talked, just nodded our polite hellos. She didn’t bring over a “welcome to the neighborhood” casserole. We never had coffee. Some nights she’d appear outside on the sidewalk between her car and her apartment and grill one hamburger. Medium well, I’d think, considering the time it sat on the coals. We might have exchanged a word or two about the weather. How sad, I’d think. Is that me? I’d wonder next.

I returned to my apartment from the library one evening and noticed a small U-Haul parked in front of my neighbor’s apartment. An older couple was loading the contents of her place into the van. I waved but didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t my business; we weren’t friends.

Over coffee the next morning, I skimmed the Gainesville Sun as usual. My attention was drawn to a small article near the bottom of an interior page. Based on the address listed in the paper, I realized that my neighbor had shot herself several days earlier. Her dead body had lain in the apartment next to mine for over forty-eight hours before someone found her.

I felt shocked and sad. What if I’d tried harder to connect with her? Could I have saved her? What private misery led her to take her life in such a violent way? Isn’t this every single woman’s worst nightmare—dead two days and no one even notices you’re gone?

Twenty years later, that’s where DEADLY ADVICE begins. When Dr. Rebecca Butterman returns home to find her neighbor an apparent suicide, she's wracked with guilt. As a psychologist and advice columnist, she should have been able to help the young woman. But the young woman’s mother suspects foul play, and soon persuades Rebecca to investigate. Before long, the newly single Rebecca wishes she had someone to advise her as she navigates her neighbor’s world of speed-dating and web-blogging, where no one is who they claim to be.

She doesn’t save her neighbor—as I didn’t save mine—but she resolves to unravel the story behind this woman’s tragic end. And that’s why I love reading and writing mysteries. A story that’s rife with loose threads in real life can be all tied up in a hopeful way in a book.

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #11 -- Chris Roerden

Not to short change the editors who work their magic to make the craft of us writers into something really amazing, we're visited by Chris Roerden. Chris is a career editor whose Don’t Murder Your Mystery won the Agatha Award and was nominated for the 2007 Anthony, Macavity, and ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year. Authors she’s edited have been published by St. Martin’s, Berkley Prime Crime, Midnight Ink, Viking, Oceanview, and Walker & Co., to name a few. Today she shares some secrets for how to make the most of the Bouchercon experience.

Who Knew? A Handful of Secrets
by Chris Roerden

More than any other venue, Bouchercon offers the opportunity to see more mystery authors in one weekend acting in ways more raucous, shy, modest, nerdy, down-to-earth, and funny than you never pictured while reading their fiction.

I know not to visualize characters as stand-ins for their creators, but I often do anyway (don’t you?) — at least until each year’s Bouchercon turns the fantasy to reality. If you, like me, had not seen Harlan Coben before last year in Baltimore, who knew he was twice my height? So is Hank Phillippi Ryan, who’s also twice as glamorous as I am, but that’s another story.

Despite my having admired the quick-wittedness of Laura Lippman’s P.I. Tess Monaghan on paper, I had not expected to be completely charmed by the author in person as she exchanged quick comebacks with panelists and fans. Who (among the general reading public, that is) knew?

On at Bcon
Because of Bcon, as many refer to it in our abbrevd ecom, we’re also introd (stop that) to more NEW writers whom we’ll want to read if for no other reason than the interesting and unexpected remarks we hear them make on panels and maybe after hours. Each year that I attend I learn more, meet more, network more, and go home energized more, er . . . more energized.

Speaking of funny and quick-witted authors, don’t miss Cathy Pickens as moderator of the panel “Southern Voices.” I’m proud of having proposed the topic last year and this. Cathy’s revelations of the secret meanings hiding behind familiar southernisms had last year’s audiences howling with laughter. This hit will replay in Indianapolis with my picks of Cathy Pickens (Can’t Never Tell, Hush My Mouth, Done Gone Wrong, and more); Vicki Lane (In a Dark Season in the Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian mysteries); T. Lynn Ocean (Southern Peril in the Jersey Barnes series); and Scott Pearson (whose first two medical mysteries, starting with Rupture, I had the privilege of editing). I look forward to meeting Deborah Sharp (Mama Rides Shotgun) who’s also on the panel, and I’d like to say “Bless Your Heart” except that I now know what the expression really means.

This year I was picked to moderate the panel “Guidance from Writing Guides,” where James Scott Bell, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Hallie Ephron, Nancy Pickard, and I discuss the elements of great fiction from the perspective of our having deconstructed mysteries, analyzed how they are put together, and revealed the secrets of writing fiction in our own nonfiction.

Who’s learning?
Another treat not to be missed is the first national Sisters in Crime writing workshop, SinC Into Great Writing. It’s being held the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, October 14, the day before Bouchercon officially begins, from 1:30 to 9 pm. Here’s where writers, published and not yet there, get to soak up 4 hours of instruction in “Writing the Breakout Novel” from Donald Maass, famed NY literary agent. After that you’ll be ready to chow down a great dinner, with Nancy Pickard telling “Tales of Survival in the Mystery Business," including what happened to her when her first editor got fired.

Next you’ll endure the agony of choosing between Hallie Ephron and me and our simultaneous 2-hour workshops on craft. Hallie deals expertly with plot and how to get secrets to fall into place along the way so readers keep turning the pages. The secrets I deal with are how the majority of manuscripts sabotage themselves, how they are actually handled when submitted, and how writers can develop the indefinable writer’s voice that agents and acquiring editors are genuinely looking for, even in a slow market.

My final secret, which I’m sharing absolutely free, is that nonmembers can save $60 by first joining this vibrant organization of sisters and brothers, thereby getting all its benefits for the extremely modest dues of $40, and not having to pay the nonmember fee for the workshop. But seating is limited and filling fast.

If a math-impaired editor like me could figure out what a good deal this 7.5-hour content-packed workshop is for only $50, including food, anyone could. So I can’t say who knew. The only mystery is why this bargain isn’t being shouted out in libraries and bookstores everywhere.
Say, when our paths cross in Indianapolis next month, as they will many times, please stop me to say hello and let me know if you met me here. If we miss each other, I answer questions about writing, revising, and getting published on my Amazon blog. Shortcut: http://snurl.com/editorsblog and my website is http://writersinfo.info/

Pre-Bouchercon Guest Blogger #10 -- Brandt Dodson

Move over, Fox Mulder. Today's pre-Bouchercon blogger -- Brandt Dodson -- knows a thing or two about the FBI (he used to work there) and now, his protagonist, Colton Parker, used to work there too. Here, Dodson explains how his past with the FBI has influenced his writing.

The FBI and Me
by Brandt Dodson – Author of the Indianapolis-based, Colton Parker series

I’m a man. That means I like the things that most men like. I shoot guns, follow boxing, lift weights, eat steak (rare), watch military /action /western movies (John Wayne is still tops with me), and read fiction that is testosterone-driven and that allows me to live vicariously through the male lead. I read Tom Clancy, Jack Higgins, Robert B. Parker, Vince Flynn, and Raymond Chandler along with a little Hemingway thrown in for good measure. Consequently, it was no surprise that when I began to write and publish I would choose a genre that attracts a strong male readership and that would feature a character with whom most men can identify – even if they don’t always admire him. And, like most writers, when it came to developing the right character, I found myself being heavily influenced by the life I’ve lived. In my case, that meant the FBI.

I was born into a family of police officers. My mother’s family (cousins, uncles, and aunts) were members of the Indianapolis Police Department going back as far as the early 1930’s. My father was a Marion County Deputy Sheriff (Marion is the county in which Indianapolis is located) for almost forty years, and I have a cousin who is the current Chief of Police in Mooresville, Indiana, the town which gave birth to John Dillinger. The result of all this influence was that when it came time to decide on a career, it was a foregone conclusion that I would choose law enforcement. That being the case, there is no better police agency than the FBI (which, by the way, is neither “police” nor “agency”. It’s a bureau of investigators. Hence the name.)

I began my career as a clerk just prior to my 19th birthday with the intention of finishing my degree and joining the ranks of the bureau’s Special Agents. It was a job I thoroughly loved.
During my employment with the FBI, I met and talked with foreign intelligence agents, bank robbers, serial killers, bombers, and would-be assassins. I had a high-level security clearance and was privy to information involving national security and domestic terrorism – and all of this prior to my twenty-first birthday.

But as time progressed, and I began to learn - truly learn – about myself, I knew that I would have to embark on another career track. This change in career lead me into medicine, so I left the FBI in 1981, but I left with a level of respect for the men and women who work there that was as high as it was before I started my employment. That level of respect is even higher today.

The FBI is comprised of people who take their job very seriously – recognizing that they are often the first (and sometimes, only) barrier between a calm and orderly society and the people who would tear that society apart. The Bureau (a term commonly used by FBI employees) functions as a team and by doing so, rises or sinks on the weakest link in that chain. It is no wonder, then, that “failures” such as Robert Hansen, the FBI agent who was brought down by an FBI clerk for spying on the U.S., stain the reputation of all the good men and women who do their job admirably. His arrest stained me, and I’ve been gone from the FBI for almost 28 years. (Gee, that’s along time. In fact, I just read where the Deputy Director of the FBI, who will be speaking at my alma mater, The University of Indianapolis, in October, began his career two years after I left.)

When I began my Colton Parker series, I initially envisioned a man who was as suave as Matt Helm, as debonair as Napoleon Solo, and as deadly as James Bond. Instead, what I ended up with was an ex-FBI agent who was fired because he couldn’t function as part of the team. And that weakness haunts him still. I also chose Indianapolis as my setting since it was the Indianapolis Field Office in which I was employed, and because I know the underbelly of that city in a way that most do not.

Colton is an amalgam of people I’ve known (yes, including me) and he is a solo-flyer; he is true loner whose only friend (and burgeoning love interest) is FBI Special Agent Mary Christopher.
When I created the series I knew that, despite my initial desire for a super-human character, I would need an average man. Someone who does right, but does it wrong. I wanted a man who has his heart in the right place (as most men do) and with whom most men could identify. So I chose to give him an FBI background, because the people who populate the Bureau are, first and foremost, people who care. But since I wanted a PI – a fictional PI – one who could work outside the law, I had to get him out of the FBI. No one who shares Colton’s proclivities could work there for long. As I’ve said, the FBI is a team in which no one person rises above the organization. (At least, not now. Although Hoover unquestionably promoted himself above the Bureau that is another discussion entirely).

So, twenty-five years after I left the FBI, the Bureau’s influence on me is still profound. Colton Parker was born out of that influence, and I’m glad that he was. He’s a better character for having served with the FBI, despite his failures, and I’m a better writer for it.

For more information on the Colton Parker series or the FBI:
http://www.brandtdodson.com/
http://www.fbi.gov/
http://indianapolis.fbi.gov/

Bouchercon Guest Blogger #9 -- Joanna Campbell Slan

Say hello to Guest Blogger #9 -- (sorry for any musical references that may drum up in your heads.) Joanna Campbell Slan is an author, but she's also a Hoosier and shares this week a great memory about growing up in Indiana.

Back Home Again to a Place I Love

By Joanna Campbell Slan

Every family has its traditions and fond memories. Most of mine go back to living in Indiana. We loved growing up there! In fact, whenever a road trip brought us back home, my sisters and I would be on the look out for the big “Welcome to INDIANA” state sign. The moment we crossed the state line, we’d break out into a chorus of “Back Home Again in Indiana.” (I still do this even today!)

I love Hoosiers. They are hard-scrabble, hard-working folks. They love speed (like at Indy), but they also understand the joy of taking one’s time. They are good neighbors and lifelong friends. They know how to take the simplest of things and create a good time. Hoosiers are good at understanding that complex does not necessarily equal better.

As a kid growing up in Vincennes, none of us had any money. But we never ran out of fun stuff to do. Especially in the summer. We would turn hollyhock blossoms upside down and pretend they were fairy princesses with frilly dresses. (Toothpicks made the arms, and we stuck on paper faces. We would suck the nectar out of honeysuckle flowers. We used wooden clothespins to clip playing cards to our bike spokes so we could pretend to be riding motorcycles. We would flatten heavy cardboard boxes and slide down the levee of the sluggish Wabash.

Best of all, we used to make “boxcars” and pull them behind us and our bicycles after dark. A boxcar is a pretend train car made out of a shoebox and lit from the inside out. On a hot summer night, a parade of “boxcars” moving along a city sidewalk is a moment of surreal beauty. Here’s how to make one:

1. Get a sturdy empty box you can seal shut. A shoe box is ideal, but a small cardstock box also will work. The box must be able to rest on the ground without tipping over, and a big flat bottom is best. (For the box! Not the crafter!)

2. Attach a string by running it through a small hole in one side (about middle of the way up). Tie it to a small stick or tape it down so it won’t pull out.

3. Cut decorative holes in the box. These will be “windows” and your light will shine out. (Think of Jack-O-Lanterns, but remember this is summer. We favored trying to turn our boxes into real train cars.) You can put colored cellophane behind the holes if you wish. That way your windows will be different colors.

4. Get a candle (the shorter the better, votives work well as do old birthday cake candles) and an empty tuna fish can. Adhere the candle to the can by letting the candle wax drip and pushing the unlit end into the gummy mess. Now using double-stick tape, you glue the can to the center bottom of your empty box.

5. SAFER and more modern way: Buy a cheap flashlight or any battery operated light. Even one of those glow sticks will do. Stick it in the box.

6. Close up your box.

7. Pull the string and drag it around behind you as you yell, “Choo! Choo!”

Now, you’re a happening Hoosier!

# # #

Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of Paper, Scissors, Death, an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. Visit her at http://www.joannaslan.com/ She will be attending Bouchercon, where she will be in charge of a session on scrapbooking.

Boucheron Guest Blogger #8 -- Rachel Brady

Please give a warm welcome to the 8th Bouchercon blogger, Rachel Brady. Today she's sharing about coming out from being a closet writer to being an author. For more info about Rachel you can check out her website or her blog.

Closet Writers: Not that there’s anything wrong with that, by Rachel Brady

I’m delighted to visit Word Nerd as part of Bethany’s Bouchercon Authors series. The upcoming Indianapolis event will be my first Bouchercon Convention and I’m wildly excited for the opportunity to go interact with so many other mystery-loving Word Nerds.

Another recent first for me was the release of Final Approach, my debut mystery. When Bethany and I exchanged ideas about this post, she suggested I might describe how I took the manuscript from idea, to draft, to publication. I nearly followed up with that, but then something interesting happened to change my mind. For those interested in the evolution of my book, you can read about the process in abbreviated form here. But today I’m curious to know whether there are any closet writers reading this?

I wrote in the closet for a very long time.

After reading mysteries for several years, it occurred to me that I never, ever, not a single time, figured out whodunit. This bothered me. How did the authors manage to trick me every time? I might simply have a slow wick, I knew, but it was easier on the ego to credit authors with a mastery of misdirection. I started to wonder if maybe I could do it too. I almost didn’t dare think it, and certainly never asked it aloud. But I decided to try. And I wrote in secret because I worried that telling people what I was doing would come across as either arrogant or pitiful. And worst of all, if I failed, everyone would know.

Before I signed the contract for Final Approach, only four people (outside my family and critique group) knew I’d been working on a book. Four! Even once it was assigned a cover and a release date, I remained tight-lipped. By then it felt like I’d been misleading the world. How do you tell somebody you see every day, who doesn’t even know that you like to write, that you have a new book out? I feared it would be perceived as a weird kind of betrayal. Spreading word about the book release in my personal sphere has been oddly uncomfortable although everyone has been totally supportive, excited, and encouraging in all ways I could have hoped and many I’d never imagined.

Another thing happened, the part that inspired the topic for this post. It seemed people everywhere began to confess to me that they, too, enjoy writing. Engineers and scientists at work, social friends, folks from the gym. What? We all write? And we’ve known each other how long and this hasn’t come up yet?

Why do we do this to ourselves? We write in a closet until it’s comfortable to peek out. For me it took publication. Looking back I find that borderline clinical. Certainly, few if any of the people I mentioned would have come forward to tell me about their secret writing lives had they not first known that I was guilty of this pleasure myself. This makes a girl wonder. It’s dark and lonely in the closet and now I ask myself why I stayed in there as long as I did.
So to the closet writers out there, I get you. I really do. Writers like us are scribbling in secret notebooks and opening hidden Word files everywhere. I hope that hearing this will make your private writing world a little bit brighter.

And if you’re a closet writer attending Bouchercon, let’s meet for drinks and talk shop. Your secret’s safe with me.

Bouchercon Guest Blogger #7 -- Austin Camacho

The pre-Boucheron guest blog tour rolls on this fine Tuesday with author Austin Camacho. Camacho is the author of five detective novels in the Hannibal Jones series - Blood and Bone, Collateral Damage, The Troubleshooter, Damaged Goods and Russian Roulette.

The Eternal Question – How Do I Get Published? – by Austin S. Camacho

I talk to a lot of authors who ask me to read a sample of their novels, which I almost always do. I see a lot of work that looks well written, heartfelt work by writers who have something important to say. But these days their most frequent question isn’t about craft or concept. More likely I’m asked, “How do I go from here to getting someone interested in perhaps publishing this thing? What’s the next step?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? Especially when often I don't think even the well-written books are particularly commercial. Of course, that's just one opinion. If I was an expert I’d already have that million-dollar advance.But even great manuscripts won't appeal to every publisher, so I strongly recommend they get their book in front of the right publisher as agented submissions. And if the writer is working in my genre, crime fiction, these are books that not every agent will know how to promote. Your novel might not be the kind of thing that would get my agent excited but I’m sure there are people out there who would love to represent it. That leads me to two major recommendations for getting started.First, invest in a copy of the Writer’s Market. That book lists all the best agents, their contact information and what they’re looking for. Go thru those listings and submit to those that are looking for the kind of thing you write. The Writer’s Market will tell you what each agent wants to see (sample chapters, outline, sometimes just a letter with a synopsis.) Second, Google “Writers convention” and “Writers Conference” to find these events in your area. You should attend any public event that offers a chance to speak with and network with authors, agents and editors. These connections make your manuscript more welcome when it turns up on someone’s desk. Sending a book to an agent or editor you’ve met in person is a million times better than sending to a stranger.

And if you’re a mystery writer, Bouchercon is the one writer’s event worth travelling cross country for. This is where you can chat with people writing in your genre to learn how they made it. You can also talk to people who read your genre. They can tell you what they’re looking for in a new novel. And you’ll find that just answering the obvious questions like "what's it about?" and "what makes your book different from all the others?" can help you make your manuscript better.

And in case you’re wondering – I met the editor who eventually published Blood and Bone at a writer’s conference. I didn’t meet my agent at a con, but I did meet the author who introduced me to her at Book Expo America. I hope I meet YOU at this year’s Bouchercon.

Bouchercon Guest Blogger #6 -- Vicki Lane

Bouchercon being a national event, draws attendees from all over. Today's author-- Vicki Lane -- will leave the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains in October to come to Indianapolis. And today she reflects on her earlier experiences with Bouchercon.

My First Bouchercon, by Vicki Lane

“You’ll want to sign up for Bouchercon . . .”

“What’s Bouchercon?”

I came to writing late – I was 62 when my first book was published. And though I’d read mysteries all my life, beginning, of course, with Nancy Drew, I’d never known about mystery conferences. But after being told by Those Who Knew that this was important, I signed up for Bouchercon 2005 – in Chicago.

A big city. Yikes. Taxis. Tall buildings. Maybe even gangsters. I am so very much not a big city sort of a person. Since 1975 I’ve lived on a farm in the mountains of North Carolina and the idea of Chicago kind of scared me. But I went and it was glorious.

The thriller writer John Ramsey Miller (whom I’d met earlier at a local book fair) and his wife– aware of how lost this country mouse was feeling – took me under their wing and whisked me off to the Bantam Dell cocktail party, to the Art Museum, out to dinner.

For the first time I met in person my editor, the redoubtable Kate Miciak who shaped the careers of legends like Sue Grafton and Elizabeth George . . . saw my first Blackberry . . . and at the Bantam Dell cocktail party goggled at biggies like Lee Child, Laurie King, Karin Slaughter . . .

I was on a panel of other newbies – it went by in a pleasant blur – and I went to as many other presentations as I could. I think the most memorable was watching Jonathon King interview Harlan Coben -- the funniest and best interview I’ve ever heard. I bought some Coben books, stood in line in the bookroom to get them signed . . . and lost my heart to him when he wrote in one “You rock!” (I know, I know, -- he says that to everyone. But just for the moment it felt . . . kind of special.)

Since then I’ve been to two more Bcons, feeling a little less uneasy each time, a little more as if I belong. And this time – oh this time – my fourth book, In a Dark Season, is an Anthony Nominee for Best Paperback Original! Maybe I really do belong.

That first Bouchercon changed my mind about big cities and opened up a whole new world to me. I’m getting better at talking to people I don’t know, introducing myself to strangers, walking up to authors I’ve admired for years and telling them so. It’s what these cons are for – readers and writers connecting with one another -- and I’m delighted I’ll be there, wearing both hats.

I’ll be wearing my Southern writer’s hat (a tractor cap?) for my panel assignment on Thursday, at 1:30. The panel is “SOUTHERN VOICES: What’s special about Southern mysteries? “ Our moderator, the always funny Cathy Pickens , will attempt to keep T. Lynn Ocean, A. Scott Pearson, Deborah Sharp, and me in line.

You all come say hi, okay?

For more about Vicki Lane, check out her website and her blog.

Bouchecon Guest Blogger #5 -- Mike Befeler

This week's guest blogger -- Mike Befeler -- shows us that murder and mysteries aren't just for the young...

I want to thank Bethany for inviting me to participate in this guest blog in preparation for the Bouchercon conference in October. I write the Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery series which includes two published novels, Retirement Homes Are Murder and Living With Your Kids Is Murder.

I write about older characters—what I refer to as POWs, not “prisoners of war” but “persons of wisdom.” This is the fastest growing part of our populations and rather than ignoring older people, I encourage everyone to find the wisdom that exists within the ranks of our older citizens.

My novels were inspired by people I met when my mom and stepfather lived in a retirement home. My main character, Paul Jacobson, is a crotchety gentleman in his mid-eighties who suffers from short-term memory loss. Even though he can’t remember yesterday, he becomes an amateur sleuth and has a romance with a young chick in her seventies.

Paul is a crime magnet as well as being an older-chick magnet and gets in all sorts of trouble with the law, first in Hawaii and then in Colorado. With the assistance of his granddaughter, Jennifer, he solves a number of mysteries, and after first being a suspect, helps the police bring the perpetrators to justice.

Under Paul’s gruff exterior beats a heart of gold. He overcomes the effects of his short-term memory loss and continues to lead a successful and exciting life.

After retiring from the computer data storage industry in 2007, I’m now writing full time and also volunteering in organizations helping seniors. In Boulder County, Colorado, where I live, I’m on a Countywide Leadership Council and on the Aging Advisory Council that reviews funding requests from organizations providing services to seniors. I also attended a citizens’ police academy and volunteer for police training role-playing exercises. I have been giving a presentation at retirement communities and service organizations titled, “Aging and Other Minor Inconveniences,” that promotes a positive image of aging through humor and examples from my writing.

Writing about older characters presents the challenge of overcoming typical stereotypes. I enjoy portraying quirky characters who provide models for what we all can become as we grow older—vital, involved, humorous, alive people.

As Paul says, he may have been dealt a crapola hand that includes a memory that resets like the clock on a microwave when the power goes out, but he still gets up every morning to live his life to the fullest.

Mike Befeler Author of Retirement Homes Are Murder and Living With Your Kids Is Murder "It's hard to beat a team that includes a wisecracking old fart and a straight-talking young sprout, and Befeler's second geezer-lit entry delivers"-Kirkus Review