I had a moment and I liked it



I can take credit card payments!



April 30th - May 1st: Where were you on the weekend in question?

I was at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held on the USC campus for the first time ever. The bad news is, I didn't see any of the festival. The good news is, it's because I was in a booth, selling my books.

I've been to the festival once, two years ago, when Karen Syed of Echelon Press called and said, "I've got 20 copies of your book handy. Want to come and sell them?" (See that post here.)


Last year's festival came and went without much fanfare in my household, mostly because I didn't have a new book out yet, and partly because I was buried in obligations to two booster clubs at my son's school, plus that whole, pesky, He's Graduating business.

Imagine this with one more author!

When Pam Ripling emailed me this year and asked, "How about a bunch of us renting a booth at the festival," I answered in a heartbeat: "I'm in."


There were supposed to be six of us: Pam (aka Anne Carter), Jen Hilborne, Tee Burrell, Joel Fox, Jeff Sherratt, and me. At the very last minute, Jeff had to cancel due to illness (we all hope you're on the mend, Jeff), which left five. This was probably a good thing, although I love Jeff's company and of course don't want him to be sick, but five authors in a booth is a little tight. Jeff's got a lot of books out there, and a big presence.


We might have had to put an author in the tree next to the booth.




L-R: Alyssa Montgomery, Sydney Fox, Pam Ripling

 When you're selling your books, you are constantly talking to everyone who comes by the booth. "Hi, how are you today? Do you like mysteries? What kind of books do you read? Weather's a little warm isn't it? Let me tell you about my books…"


Yadda yadda yadda blah blah.


You also learn to profile people. You somehow instantly recognize That Person Who Likes Mysteries, as well as That Person Who Wants You to Shut Up. And, sooner or later, you learn to recognize people who are just "different."


In my youth I thought of these people as "crazy", "clueless", "avoid-at-all-costs" folks. Now that I've been around the block a few times (mostly because I can't follow directions), and thanks to the world of behavioral analysis, I see these people as just being different than me, in terms of how they process and respond to the world around them.


A man wandered toward our booth. I hadn't paid much attention to his stops along the way, but he was coming toward me, so I greeted him. He was a pudgy man, dressed too warmly for the day, and although he was not odiferous, he had that look about him that said his hygiene was casual, at best. He wore thick glasses over slightly-crossed eyes, and had bad teeth. And when I say "bad teeth", I'm talking spectacularly, intriguingly, bad. Not only were they brown, every other tooth appeared to be missing (at least in the front), and they were skewed in his mouth, as if they were half-a-tooth off from where they should be located.


He spoke quickly, in a kind of thick-tongued way, all about his obsession with movies of the 30's in general and Republic Pictures in particular. He attended their 75th anniversary celebration and got to meet some of their stars, including Peggy Stewart. Within the space of ten minutes, he told me all this and more, about the movies he liked and the stars he recognized in other movies that are now doing bit parts in TV shows. I also learned he has a girlfriend who he likes to talk to using Red Ryder quotes and when she "gets out of line" he threatens to marry her.


Yeah, I'd straighten up and fly right, too.


His eyes had a way of focusing upward as he spoke, so that he never made eye contact for more than a wisp of a second. After about ten minutes, he kind of ran out of steam and moved down the booth to the next person, until he'd exhausted himself and all of us, before moving on.


In the old days, I would have labeled him "odd", or possibly even "crazy." Now I saw a man within the autism spectrum, and understood. No, I didn't want to stand for ten minutes and listen to his turbo-talk, especially when there were people coming up to the booth wanting to know about my books. But he's a human being, and he's socializing the only way he knows how, and I'm a Christian who believes in karma. Either that, or I'm a doormat.


Karma blessed me the very next day. I was driving to Palapas in Fullerton to have a drink with my hubby, thinking about my experiences at the festival, and all of a sudden, it dawned on me:


This weekend, I met Benny Needles.


No, I don't picture him physically like this man, but this is the awkwardly social man who is obsessed with something. Benny has actually been able to rein in his desire to tell everyone everything about Dean Martin. Unless something happened to him, something that caused him to retreat into the only thing that matters: Dino-world.


And in my third Peri Minneopa mystery, that's just what's gonna happen.


Life is good. As Will Varner said, "I feel so good, I might just live fo-EVAH."

Cranking things up a notch

“You know what I regret? I regret that my cell phone doesn’t make that slamming sound when I hang up on you.”

That's my main character, Peri, talking. She's having a fight with her boyfriend, Skip, in my short story, Cleaning Up at the Franks. If you want to read the whole story, you're going to have to buy MISSING from Echelon Press. I highly recommend the book for three reasons: 1. it's full of great stories by some really good writers; 2. all proceeds from the sale of the book go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; and 3. my story is in it. So it's all good, yes?

Any, Peri has a way of saying what she thinks, something that I'd like to do a little more often, but don't. You can think of her as my alter-ego. I know I do.


The other day, I was running errands, and was feeling a little cranky. Maybe it was my allergies, maybe it was the fact that the pharmacy was late re-filling my hormonal medication, but I wasn't my usual self. To keep this blog G-rated, I'll just say I was a bad witch. I noticed this when I entered a parking lot and had to stop while a woman walked in front of me. The car coming my way had already stopped, so I stopped too. As I watched her saunter across, talking on her cell phone and sort of parading her royal status as Pedestrian to us, I thought, "You pain in the ass, the only reason I stopped was because the other car was already stopped and I didn't want to look like a jerk."


This is not my normal thought process. I'm the nice person, the one who stops to let people by, who lets the woman with one item go in front of her in line, and who does it happily. So it surprised me to have that reaction to one harried woman, probably on her cell phone because her daughter called at the last minute to say they were also out of toilet paper.

See how I usually try to find an excuse for people?

But at that moment, I wanted to lean out of my window and yell, "Could ya walk a little slower? I have NOTHING on my schedule today." Or even better - I wanted to continue to drive past, making her stop and wait for me. But I did neither, not because I was feeling generous, but because I cared about what other people thought. This realization made me even crankier. Why should I care what the collective 'they' think? They don't seem to care what I think of them.

Part of me knows, begrudgingly, that as soon as I speed past some clueless pedestrian or mouth off to the man who waits until the cashier tells him the total before he starts fumbling for his checkbook, someone will find that moment to recognize me. "Aren't you the columnist for the Placentia newspaper? Wow, you're a real jerk." Of course, once Freezer Burn is published, it will be, "Aren't you the local author? Wow, you're a (bad witch)."

So Peri will have to be my alter-ego and say all the things I wish I could say when I'm feeling cranky.

As readers, or TV/movie viewers, is there any character you secretly wish you could be, but know you can't? As writers, have you ever created a character you'd like to be, but suspect you couldn't pull off? Tell me about them, why you want to identify with them and why you think you can't step into their shoes.

If it's fiction, does that mean it's not true?

They say the worst liars are the people who blend a lie in with the truth. You can assume, with people who lie all the time, that they are lying each time they open their mouths. But when they tell the truth most of the time, but mix one lie in every once in awhile, how do you know which statement was true and which one was false?

When I started writing Freezer Burn, I knew I wanted to set it in Placentia. Call me crazy (no, it's okay, I've been called worse), but I knew which house I wanted Benny to live in, knew Peri's neighborhood, knew where they'd have lunch and get takeout and get gas in their cars. I've lived in Placentia since 1984, albeit in three different houses. If you'd asked me five years ago why, I'd have told you it was purely accident. Nowadays, I call it an instinctual accident. Let's face it - Placentia is a teeny little 'burb in north Orange County, engulfed by other, bigger 'burbs. But every time I needed to move, I looked around at the neighboring cities, then my gut called me home to Placentia. It's where I belonged.

The good thing about setting a fictional story in a real place is, you know the place well. I can drive you down real streets and take you to real places without having to make up new names. The bad thing is, you're afraid people will take umbrage if you don't represent their town well.

Some towns are huge and can take the heat. I doubt if anyone in Chicago reads J.A. Konrath's books and thinks, "That hoser - the way he tells it, Chi-town's littered with the bodies left by all the serial killers." Even the Irvine and Newport Beach areas of south Orange County don't whine that Dean Koontz is making them sound like they're all in imminent danger of some supernatural evil. As a matter of fact, they kinda like Dean down south.

When I was dropping people and clues and bodies around Placentia, I confess to a small worry. What if the Placentia citizens don't want bank managers with gambling problems, or sociopathic day care workers living in their borders? (Note: these are just examples, not actual characters.)

So I mixed things up a bit. For example, I set quite a few scenes at the Homeless Intervention Shelter, or HIS House. I am proud of our community serving the homeless in this way, and the setting fit in with a character who is down on her luck. But I gave the home a big grassy backyard, and I completely made up the interiors. Benny's house is in an actual location, but I changed the name of the church next door, and I took the basic house and exaggerated the style.

Now, of course, I'm wondering if I should have stayed more true to life, or should have renamed Placentia, like Sue Grafton in her Kinsey Mulhone series. She renamed Santa Barbara to Santa Teresa, except that everyone who reads her books knows it's really Santa Barbara so what was the point?

Anyway, whether you are a reader or writer, which do you prefer? Can you take your reality with a teaspoon of fiction, or does it bother you to know a neighborhood and have the author change a restaurant's name? I'd really like to know.

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't mention a couple of things today:

1. I have a short story in the anthology series, Missing, from Echelon Press. Proceeds from the sale of this book will benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and it's ON SALE NOW. Buy it and read a bunch of cool stories by good authors, and earn some good karma by helping a worthy cause!

2. Has Karen Syed (publisher and queen of Echelon) got a deal for you! TODAY ONLY, buy ANY book/download for $3 or more from http://echelonpress.com/directory.htm and receive a FREE download of your choice! Don't wait!

3. This Friday (Feb. 6) is National Wear Red Day in recognition of women beating heart disease. So put on your red hat, or ruby slippers, or scarlet letter, and send a picture of yourself to Karen (echelonpress@comcast.net) for her wall of honor. C'mon, it'll be a fun way to call attention to an important health issue.

Writer's block

No, not that kind of block.

After writing 1,000 words today and feeling damned proud of myself, I went surfing and found some interesting sites for writers. So this post is a block of links for writers, get it?

First of all, I always recommend the Blood Red Pencil blog (http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/). It's full of editors telling us writers that they won't eat us alive and have our best interests (okay, our writing's best interests) at heart. Trust them, they don't bite... hard.

Alexandra Sokoloff also has a great blog for writers, or even non-writers who study how stories are told, no matter what the media. We frequently talk about movies in our attempts to dissect story arc, character development, and what makes a good hero-villain relationship. Visit the Dark Salon - I dare you.

And, of course, there's Joe (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/). The fun part about his discourses on writing is that he manages to engage so many differing opinions. One of these days, I'm going to witness a cyber-fist fight on his blog, I'm just certain of it.

Today, I had three new posts lobbed at me. One of them came via the Echelon Authors Group (my tail still wags when I realize I'm one of the Echelon authors). It's an e-article from ForeWord Publishing by Tom Christensen about the importance of blogs (visit article here). Basically, it says, you'll get more hits if you stop talking about yourself so much and turn your focus on your reader. The really funny part of the article for me was when Tom studied several blogs to prove his point - according to his research, Penguin Books UK actually got TWENTY-THREE comments on one of their blogs. Wow. Joe Konrath's last post is still going at 56 comments. Many of the posts I read get over 20 comments with almost every post. Maybe Tom needs to branch out on his blog studies.

Next, I read an interesting, albeit old (from September) post by E.E. Knight, a science fiction and fantasy writer, on famous writing blunders he has seen. Okay, most of these pits have been pointed out to me along the way, but there were a few faux pas I'd never seen before. Thankfully, I've also never committed them, either. If you're a writer, look here for one more list to tack on your wall.

Lastly, a magnificent letter from John Steinbeck, giving advice to new writers. In one of Joe's recent posts, he was arguing about whether published authors are the best equipped to teach writers. There are two schools of thought about this, but Steinbeck's letter seems to indicate that he would not have made a good teacher. After years of writing and being successful, he sounds as if he puts the words to paper and then "a miracle happens" to make them mean anything. Read it here.

So much for a block about writers. Read and learn, padawans.

The Butterfly effect, Part 2

Can we be frank? I've gotten a Butterfly Award and two Premio Dardos ("Prize Darts") Awards, and when I look around to see who to pass them on to, I see that everyone I read is getting multiple Butterflies and Darts. Are we supposed to be passing them around within the group to build interest in each other's blogs somehow, or are we supposed to be cross-pollinating, introducing ourselves to new people?

Seriously, I can't tell.

So here's what I'm going to do: First, I'm going to try to insert that pretty Butterfly picture into this post. Pray for me - here goes nothing -

See anything? Me neither. Damn.

Never mind, let's go to the next step. If I read every interesting blog out there, I'd never eat, sleep or write, and forget riding my horses. But here's who I read regularly: The Life of a Publisher, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, Alexandra Sokoloff, Morgan Mandel, Writely So, and Write First Clean Later. These lovely people have been showered with blog awards from myself and others. Please keep visiting them, and comment often. We all get lonely.

Here are some blogs I've recently discovered by looking at Blogger's "Blogs of Note". I don't know if they need any more followers, and they're not all about writing, BUT they are either pretty, or fascinating, or helpful in some way. Check them out if you've got the time and the inkling:

Book Flap (indy bookstore in Menlo Park, CA)

The One-Minute Writer (quick writing prompts to get your fingers and brain moving)

The Book Design Review (reviews/discussions about book covers - fascinating)

Editorial Anonymous (real-life lessons on what not to do)

Query Shark (same as E.A. for query letters)

Detectives Beyond Borders (international crime)

Poem of the Week (well, yea, what it sounds like)

Cheerful Scoop (good news when you need it)

Synch-ro-ni-zing (beautiful photos)

If It's Hip It's Here (cutting edge products - this was giving me story ideas)

I'll try to alert these folks to their Butterflies, but mostly I just want to spread the seeds of information around and keep us all from inbreeding ideas. Enjoy.

Now that I've spread my Butterfly's wings - have I had any effect on the atmosphere?>

Prize Darts, Part Deux

Just when I had completed basking in the glow of Helen Ginger's gift of the Premio Dardos, the lovely and talented Morgan Mandel also chose me for this auspicious award. One of the great things about getting Prize Darts is that I've found even more writers with wise and witty things to say out in the blogosphere. I found them all through my publisher's blogsite, The Life of a Publisher. I wish I could have them all over for a dinner party - what discussions we'd have!

Speaking of darts, being recognized sure came in handy this week. It was nice to have a cyber-hug to offset the ego-spanking I received.

Back in 1983, I received my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Cal State, Fullerton. For the next 20 years, I designed, coded, tested and fielded software systems from ghost radar, to military communications, to using GPS to land planes. And yet, I lived in fear that when I visited my family, they'd tell me since they got their Dells and can open an Excel spreadsheet, they do what I do for a living. Because that's the way my family is. Amazingly, no one did, mostly because they couldn't understand what the hell I even did for my paycheck.

Now that I've got a weekly newspaper column, a short story in the new anthology, MISSING, and a brand new book, FREEZER BURN, coming out, the chickens have come home to roost. Over the holidays, one of my relatives (let's keep him anonymous) told me he's writing a children's book. A man who never graduated from high school because (in his words) "school is for losers", who rarely spent more than five minutes with his children because he didn't know what to do with them, is writing a children's book. Yeah. Good luck with that.

Along with this relative's belief that anyone could do what I do, a writer-colleague absolutely stunned me when I told her of my deal with Echelon and she said, "What's the big deal? They're a vanity press, right?" (KAREN - PUT THE KNIFE DOWN, NOW!) I set her completely straight, to the point of squeezing an apology from her, but I was shocked. She had been nothing but complimentary about my work, congratulating any of my contest wins, but a book deal must have been too much for her to handle.

So, honestly, how do you handle these kinds of remarks without resorting to violence? Or heavy drinking?

Do you really draw more flies with honey than vinegar?

As I've probably mentioned before, I'm completely excited about my book coming out, and I'm on the verge of becoming that annoying author who wants to speed things along. If you can visualize it, picture a short redhead hopping around Karen Syed, asking, "Is it time yet? Should we release it yet? Can I do anything yet?" I fear that's what I'm doing, cyber-style.

In an attempt to stop myself, I'm trying to write other things, but my mind reserves a little corner for my book - constantly hinting that I'm falling behind whatever schedule I've imagined for promoting Freezer Burn. It drives me to sometimes play a little with some advertising - an excerpt on my website, a mention on other blogs, etc.

A couple of days ago, I built a slide show about Placentia, using this website called SlideShow (what else?). Even though I live there, I went to different places around the city and took pictures, to remind me of the look and feel of my town while I was describing it in the book. They served as inspiration for Peri's home and office, as well as where you could hide a body.

My question (and the key to the title of this post) is, does this strike you as a marketing tool? Or just a cool toy to play with? Before you answer, here's the slide show:

What should I write about?

Everyone knows about my book that's with Echelon Press and will be published whenever it's ready, whatever that means. All I know is that I've been through the editing rounds. Perhaps we're on to the swimsuit competition next. And if you've read even one of these blogs, you know about the accidental romance locked up in a folder on my laptop (yes, and on my backup drive).

But what you don't know is that there is a third book out there, and I don't mean the one I'm currently writing.

Every week, I write an essay for my very local newspaper, the Placentia News-Times. It's a mostly humorous look at my life in and around Orange County, and what my husband and son do to frustrate me. I've been doing this for almost four years now, and I enjoy it, which is why I still do it. I have a small, devoted following, some of whom ask why I don't put out a book of my columns.

Well, why don't I?

I haven't (yet) for a few reasons. The first is because I don't want a book of columns that looks like every other book of columns. The second reason is that there are lots of books of columns out there and I'm not certain I could be competitive enough. The third is that the traditional publishers I have approached with my idea of a book of columns have all said, "Um, no. No, thanks."

That being said, the idea still festers in my mind, so here is how I've been mitigating all of these obstacles:

1. Instead of tossing a bunch of columns together and calling it a book, I've written a sort of memoir that takes the reader through my journey as a columnist. It begins with why I wanted to do it in the first place, goes through how I landed the gig, and ends somewhere around my third editor. It's a chronological look at how I come up with ideas, how I deal with hate letters, etc. I've tentatively named it, "What Would Erma Do?" (Subtitle: Adventures of a First-time Humor Columnist)

2. I've considered self-publishing this book. Several experts, including Gordon Kirkland (humor essayist and author) and Michael Steven Gregory (director of Southern California Writers Conference) have encouraged me to look into this option, instead of trying to find a traditional publisher. The problem with this genre is that most publishers don't know how to market it, unless you are a FAMOUS essayist. So, Dave Barry shouldn't have any problem. I know that makes him feel better.

3. How do I make it competitive enough? Here's the really hard brick wall I've got to find a way around. I suppose I've got as strong a platform as someone like me can have, trying to claw my way out of the millions (billions?) of bloggers/websites/twitterers and make my voice heard. But a traditional publisher supplies that extra "oomph" that self-publishing does not. It's not just Gayle walking the aisles of the bookstore and handing out bookmarks. It's Gayle's publisher telling everyone, "Hey, read this! You'll like it!" Granted, I don't believe that it's the publisher's job to do all the publicity, but I do see it as being able to stand up to the neighborhood bully because your big brother is behind the door.

Lately, I've been throwing everything I've got into my novel, which is probably driving Karen Syed, my publisher, crazy (from 3,000 miles away, I can hear her thinking, "Gayle, relax, will ya?") but in February I'll go to the SCWC conference in San Diego. There will be some agents there who are looking for nonfiction works, so naturally, I'm tempted to submit my book of columns to them. Because at the end of the day, I'd like to get it published traditionally, by a reputable press.

Who thinks I'm insane? Can I see a show of hands?