Paper Management—by Elizabeth Spann Craig

Y’all have caught me at a bad time—I’m really feeling the need to do some spring cleaning (it’s very springy here now in North Carolina), but I’m smack dab up against a huge deadline. Actually, make that 2 deadlines.

So I have cleaning on the brain. :)

There are certain kinds of messes that drive me crazy. If the laundry or the dishes aren’t done, I’m not going to be able to focus on anything until I’ve started a load.

Paper? It can wait a little while. But when it becomes a smallish stack, it starts bothering me, too. Plus I won’t remember to take action on whatever is on the paper if I’ve got it covered up with something else.

So this, for what it’s worth, is my method for dealing with paper:

Act on paper as soon as it comes into the house: RSVP, write the date on the calendar, pay the bill, write the check for the school yearbook, etc.

Write down all the information off the paper onto the calendar or another central location and then throw the piece of paper away.

Open the mail over the recycling bin.

My reminders go in at least one place—sometimes two. I’ve been known to lose my day planner. :)

My writing papers are gathered up at the end of each day and transcribed onto the computer.

I go as paper-free as possible. I unsubscribed myself from the junk mail people, I’ve opted for electronic bills and statements when possible, etc.

I keep only a few back issues of magazines. I can usually find the articles that interest me out of the magazines online when I need them.

Do you have a good clutter-management solution? Please share them with me! :)

Promotion Madness by Joyce Lavene

Promotion Madness - it's here again.

Of course, every author promotes all year long. But there's that special time right before and right after a new book comes out that becomes like a crazed journey to see how, where and when you should advertise for that book.

Right now, it's Promotion Madness time for A TIMELY VISION, our May 2010 mystery. The book has been out for reviews since the end of last year - check, some reviews are back and on the website which was just changed - check. Contest in place for the book and a Duck, NC tote bag - check.

Setting up book signings and other events is underway. There will be the familiar and the not familiar places. The book launch party will be the day the book comes out - if Berkley can get copies to the bookstore in time.

There will be magazine ads, local ads in the newspaper. The trailer is progressing. Booksellers have cover flats. Friends and relatives in faraway places are poised to turn all the books face out when they appear on the shelves.

Have we forgotten anything?

Every few weeks there are articles in magazines like this one from the LA Times: www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-book-tour7-2010mar07,0,5647724.story about how books should be promoted and how they are promoted. There are no exact rules to follow, no real guidelines even to know what works and what doesn't. It's a crap shoot.

Does spending a lot of money work? It all depends on who you talk to. Will it help if you get a publicist? We've had a few of those and ended up doing more than they did for a lot less money. But many authors swear by them.

I've known authors who spent thousands of dollars on ads in big glossy magazines that should have produced results. They didn't.

What's an aspiring author to do?

All you can do is read everything you can and do what you can afford. Do what feels right and move on. Will your book be an instant bestseller? Who knows. But if you find what works for you (blogging, chats, radio spots, interviews, guest shots, etc.) keep doing it and hope for the best.

If someone ever finds a sure-fire way to promote a book that leads to a bestseller, we'll all find out about it on Facebook, Twitter and other resources. Until then, I have to get back to checking off my list.

Joyce Lavene
www.joyceandjimlavene.com
A Timely Vision
Berkley Prime Crime

What’s Unique about the Writer’s Lens—by Elizabeth Spann Craig

I’ve noticed that many people I know view life through a lens.

Some of them use a political lens—they look at everything in relation to politics.

Many use religious lenses.

There are some that use a financial lens: everything boils down in terms of money.

There are egocentric lenses…how everything in life affects them.

There’s even a motherhood lens—how life’s hardships and joys affect their children or the raising of them.

The big thing that seems to set writers apart, to me, is our lens—it’s an observational one.

It doesn’t seem to be a very analytical device… we’re not so much into the why people behave the way they do as watching it happen.

I do know many different kinds of writers and there are some extroverts in the bunch, but I’d say it’s probably 90% introvert to the 10% extrovert that I know.

Most of the writers I know are happy to sit on the edges of a group or gathering and watch the people. We’re less happy being the center of attention—you can’t observe life as well when all eyes are on you. We’re the perfect bystanders.

We don’t mind the quiet.

We can get so caught up in our writing that we don’t feel self-conscious about taking notes or writing in a public place.

This filter provides us with a little distance from other people. This can be a very welcome distance. I can come across a really annoying person, but through the writing lens they come through as complex and different.

And, yes, still a little annoying. But we need those kinds of people in our books, too.

But the biggest thing that stands out to me is the watching and recording that writers do. We’re listening and looking…jotting down names of people and places, unusual situations, people’s personal conflicts. We’re sorting through ideas.

And I think this note-taking is frequently done in a nonjudgmental way—we’re just relating these life observations to readers. We’re the middlemen…we polish up our notes to make them interesting or entertaining, but it’s truth, on paper.

Do you see yourself as an observer?

Book Covers by Joyce Lavene

Book Covers

Book covers are exciting or colorful or scary. Or something in between. They have a few seconds to catch a reader's attention before that person's eye moves to something else. Your poor little book can't jump off the shelf into a reader's hand. But a good book cover can make a reader pause, thumb through, and finally buy a book.


Berkley Prime Crime does an awesome job with their covers (which you can see from my book cover from A TIMELY VISION and Elizabeth Spann Craig (writing as Riley Adams) book cover from Delicious and Suspicious).

Readers have remarked many times about how beautiful the covers are for my Peggy Lee Garden Mysteries and that the covers of the Ren Faire Mysteries made them pick up the books because they looked like fun.

Writers don't have a lot to say about their covers. Editors ask what you think as the cover is being drawn up. They ask for suggestions about the art before the cover is started. After that, it's up to the artists who design and create the book covers. They are talented and fast workers. Like everyone else on the team that gets the book ready for stores, they're on a deadline and have to finish the product to keep up with production.

I think one thing that makes Berkley covers so good is that they tend to stay away from animals and people. I don't know why, but figures don't seem to translate well to this form. The people can be too big for their surroundings or their faces can be frightening. Animals are usually just plain weird looking.

People compliment me often on my book covers. I'm not sure what to say since I had nothing to do with it. I usually mutter politely and change the subject. I can only take credit for the writing inside.

So here's to Dan Craig (www.ba-reps.com/artists/dan-craig)
and Lesley Worrell (www.covercafe.com/contest/2005/AR-res05.html)
Ben Perini(www.123people.com/s/ben+perini)

and all the other Berkley cover artists and designers. You guys rock! You make it easy for writers to get compliments they don't deserve and to sell our books!

Joyce Lavene
PS - Just for the record, I have nothing to do with the change in cover style between large print and mass market paperback either.
A Timely Vision (and another fine cover)
May 2010 from Berkley Prime Crime

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

My husband’s sister and her husband live in Africa where they work as translators. My sister-in-law speaks French fluently and perfectly accented. Her husband speaks 5 or 6 languages, including Swahili.

For years they lived in Nairobi, Kenya. Life there; apart from election violence over a year ago, living in a guarded housing compound, and occasional run-ins with police (who aren’t like our police); was pretty tame compared to life in their current home in Bunia, Congo. Congo hasn’t historically been the calmest place on the globe to live.

Their day to day life is an adventure: for fresh water, reliable utilities, and even a safe place to live. Their country is exotic…the plants and wildlife are different, the language and customs are different.

In many ways, it’s the perfect place to write. But they’re not writers.

In contrast, I look at my life in suburban America. My adventures are pretty tame in comparison. Will I find my daughter’s missing library book before it becomes overdue? Will I make my deadline? Why is the washing machine making that strange noise?

Some of us write fantasy and sci-fi and the appeal there is completely clear—it’s the escape from reality for readers.

But what about those of us who write using everyday settings about everyday people? What’s the appeal there?

I think it must be that our readers can imagine themselves in the same circumstances. That we’ve made a connection with the ordinary reader. That we’ve either 1) created people like themselves who are suddenly facing extraordinary circumstances (they’re accused of murder, won the lottery, gotten lost in a snowstorm), or 2) we’ve created extraordinary people that our readers wish they could be, but aren’t.

My two protagonists both fall under the first category, I think…ordinary people who have been put in extraordinary situations.

What about you? Do your characters fall into either category? Both? Or do you write a genre where the extraordinary part is the escape from reality?

Do you know what I mean? by Joyce Lavene

Maybe you've noticed those signs in front of churches. They're kind of like spiritual billboards trying to point the way to heaven in the two seconds you have to see them as you pass.

I saw one this morning that said 'The sky shall like up with fire'

hmm . . .

No one said the signs had to be correct but the editor in me always cries out for them to make sense. There's a big difference between writing what we write and writing what we mean to write.

I noticed another sign a few miles down the road (not a church sign): The Greenwood Golf Curse will be open starting May 1.

I almost went back and looked at this one again.

As writers, it isn't always easy to spot mistakes in what we write. We seem to be born with an innate skill for words and don't really notice if they need polishing or rethinking. We write what's in our heads but the words don't always make it to the paper (or sign, in this case).

And before you ask, Spellcheck can only do so much for you on this. In fact, my Spellcheck doesn't know the difference between it's and its. If I paid attention to it, I'd always be wrong.

You have to read what you've written to see these glaring mistakes. It may not be exciting but at least you'll be able to spot stupid things that shouldn't be there. Wanting it to be perfect, like saying exactly what you mean, are two different things.

It must have been the day for it, because on the way home, I saw another church sign that read: 'Are you passing threw life without God?'

There is so much wrong with that, I don't know where to start.

But I have a sign of my own that could be helpful: SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO READ TO RIGHT!

Get it?

Joyce Lavene
www.joyceandjimlavene.com

Slips of the Tongue—by Elizabeth Spann Craig

I was in—as usual—the grocery store on Saturday afternoon. As soon as I walked in the door, I was greeted with a big smile by a couple of men at a table. I did a mental groan—they wanted me to do something. Sure enough, it was time to update that plastic discount card the grocery store assigns us.

I was at the deli counter getting some ham and trying to put the little loyalty card on my keychain. One of the deli workers said, “So you got your card updated?”

And I said. “Mm-hmm. Last time I came in I just pretended I didn’t see them.” Then I’m sure I looked really cross because I don’t say things like that, I think things like that. Some evil sprite possessed me and made me say something rude.

The counter guy just laughed. “Yeah, you were probably ignoring me. Because I’ve been working that table until tonight.”

Which made me even more cross at myself.

It also made me think that frequently we’re our own worst enemies.

Writing cozy mysteries, I really like to do things on a small scale. Because of the nature of the books, I’m not doing any Hollywoodesque car crashes, explosions, or chase scenes.

I don’t have cataclysmic events in my books—no natural disasters, terrorism, or ghastly epidemics. Although I really enjoy reading books like these, they just don’t fit my genre.

A horrific day in my books? Someone’s slip of the tongue results in their murder. They knew too much.

Think of all the uses faux pas can have. Because we’ve all said things that came out wrong or that people took the wrong way.

A slip of the tongue could result in someone really getting furious with an in-law or other family member. Maybe it represented the last straw for the person—the one that made them decide to end a relationship.

Faux pas can end friendships. Maybe a friend blabbed about the protagonist’s secret. Maybe the slip is viewed as a betrayal by another character.

A slip of the tongue could result in someone getting fired. Maybe someone leaked something that their office wanted to keep strictly confidential.

Military men and women who accidentally disclose too much information involving location during a war, you’re actually endangering lives.

Think of all the politicians who end up saying, “I misspoke.” So many have said thoughtless things, or uttered racially insensitive statements when “misspeaking.”

There are so many different ways to plot around someone sticking their foot in their mouth. And the reader? They won’t think the results are unbelievable at all. Because we all make our little faux pas.