The Hot Mess is here! Want a freebie?

The third book in the Peri Minneopa Mystery Series is available now, as an ebook. You can buy it on Amazon for a mere $2.99 - that's less than your pumpkin spice half-caff skinny latte and it will last longer, too. Here's the link to purchase it - http://www.amazon.com/Mess-Peri-Minneopa-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00AD94TDW/

But here's your chance to win a copy, either an ebook or a paperback. My blogger friends have agreed to help me out. I've posted excerpts from the book on five other blogs. The blogs are:

Andrew Kaufman, http://www.andrewekaufman.blogspot.com/2012/11/gayle-carline-hot-mess.html

Jenny Hilborne, http://jfhilborne.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/the-hot-mess/

 

Michele Scott, http://adventuresnwriting.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-hot-mess.html

 

Teresa Trent, http://teresatrent.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/the-hot-mess-read-gayle-carlines-latest-mystery/

 

I Love Dino Martin, http://ilovedinomartin.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-hot-mess-contest.html

Go read them. I'll wait here. (Cue theme from Jeopardy.)

Now then, here are five questions. Their answers are found within the five blogs. Get them right and win a free copy of THE HOT MESS.

1. Who does Peri see at the scene of the fire, who might let her past the barricade?

2. What does Skip take from the house for Peri to give to Benny?

3. What did Dylan call the mixture of drugs and alcohol?

4. What did Benny bring Peri as a gift?

5. Who is with Benny at his home after the fire?

 

I was going to have you answer in the comments, but if you email me the answers, then more than one of you might win. I'm loving this book so much, I might award multiple winners.

So send those answers to gaylecarline@sbcglobal.net - you could get something free!

Get ready. Get set... It's coming.

On Monday, two things will happen:

1. The Hot Mess will be available as an e-book.

2. Five other bloggers will be joining me in a contest for one lucky person to win a free copy, and by copy I mean an e-book or paperback.

The contest will be kind of a scavenger hunt. You visit five blogs and read excerpt from the book in each one. Then come back here. I will have five questions for you. Each answer is contained in one of the five other blogs. Answer the questions correctly in the comments and you win!

The five blogs are:

The mostly adorable Andrew Kaufman, http://www.andrewekaufman.blogspot.com/

 

The lovely and talented Jenny Hilborne, http://jfhilborne.wordpress.com/

 

The fierce but friendly Michele Scott, http://adventuresnwriting.blogspot.com/

 

A sweet cozy writer Teresa Trent, http://teresatrent.wordpress.com/

 

Mr. All-Things-Dean-Martin, http://ilovedinomartin.blogspot.com/

 

If this goes as planned it should be fun. Hopefully, we'll drive some traffic around to the other sites, as well as whetting everyone's appetite for The Hot Mess. If it goes badly, you'll be able to hear me weeping, weeping bitter tears.

In the meantime, here's the trailer for The Hot Mess.




See you on Monday!

Go to CFC today

Actually, go visit the Crime Fiction Collective (CFC) blog every day (Monday thru Friday) for interesting discussions on fascinating topics. But today is my every-other-Thursday post, so I'm not here. I'm over there, talking about the new book that will be out Monday and which you can win for freebies. Visit me on Monday, and I'll tell you how.

In the meantime, have a great Thanksgiving, and I'll see you on Monday!

Meet Teresa Trent

One of the fun things about being an author and being on the World-Wide-Web is that I meet people. Fun, interesting, intelligent, engaging people. (Okay, I'm not counting the trolls.) People who I may never meet in person but feel like I know.

I met Teresa Trent through Goodreads. She sent me a note, asking if I'd like to trade reviews with her, so we could both have a few more on the shelf.

I'm always a little wary of authors wanting to exchange reviews if I don't know them. Some authors simply assume that you'll each do a little back-slapping boffo review of each other's work,  sometimes without even reading it, and I'm not comfortable doing that. Like anyone curious about an author, I looked Teresa up on Amazon. Her first book, A Dash of Murder, had some good reviews, so I read the comments. One reviewer said it was a good story if you could look past all the typos and grammatical errors. Teresa commented back:

I took your advice and sent the book to an proofreader for revisions. A new and corrected version has been uploaded to Amazon.

That sealed the deal for me. Here was an author who was willing to take criticism, measure it, and change when she agreed with it.

I read both A Dash of Murder and her second book, Overdue for Murder. They are both sweet, gentle cozies set in Texas, featuring a single mom, Betsy Livingston, who is working hard to keep her life together. Teresa's work is only getting better.

She agreed to a little Q&A session with me, so let me introduce you.

1. How long have you been writing?
I have been writing since my twenties. I wrote about frugal living for many years until I decided I liked shopping way too much. I started writing mysteries in just the last few years. I also write curricula for preschoolers and have tried writing young adult fiction.

2. Was A Dash of Murder your first book, or do you have others hanging around on your computer and waiting for their chance at fame?
A Dash of Murder was my first book. I would like to write six books about my little town in Texas. I have published book one and two (Overdue For Murder) and I am now working on editing book three. Book four is in the first draft stage.
3.Your main character is a single mom who writes for the local newspaper. Was she always a character you wanted to write, or did you create her when you decided to write a mystery?
To be an amateur sleuth Betsy needed to have an eye for detail, so why not be the lady who tells you about the six million ways to use baking soda in a helpful hints column? Also, having many friends who became single moms over the years, I always admired their tenacity. These are some strong women who wouldn't let a little bit of gunfire scare them if their kid had a book report due the next day.
4.One of your recurring characters is Danny, who has Down Syndrome. Tell us a little bit about why you included him in Betsy's family. I have an adult son with Down Syndrome and autism and couldn't imagine any of my worlds, real or fictional without someone like him in it. Betsy's family consists of five people who pull together through all kinds of ups and downs. Danny's character is just a part of that, with strengths and weaknesses that help me tell the story. Danny is a composite of the many young people with Down Syndrome I've had the pleasure to get to know.
5.As a self-published author, what kind of tools and services do you use to ensure a high quality book? My favorite writing software is Scrivener. I tried demos of almost all of the novel writing software programs out there, but Scrivener helped to facilitate my visual style of writing. I'm a child of television, so I need to storyboard everything. I also run my chapters through two online services, Autocrit and Spellcheck Plus. Once the manuscript is complete, the best thing a writer can do is to send it a professional editor. They will fix all that grammar you've forgotten or didn't catch with the online services. Next get some beta readers. I have a friend who will honestly look at my books and tell me where she lost her way in the plot or if a scene seems flat. She is not a writer, but an avid reader and that's the perspective I need. There are so many books on the craft of writing out there and my advice is read, read, read. Writers need to think of themselves as perpetual students and read both novels (in and out of their genre) and also read nonfiction about how to write, plot, pace, and dialogue on a daily basis.
6. What's the best thing that's happened to you since you released your books? Reviews and getting to know all the other people who write and self-publish. We are no longer all alone in our houses watching our mailboxes.
7. What's the worst thing?
Reviews
8. If you could have any super power, what would it be?
It would be stretching time. More time for family, writing and even laundry.
9. If you could host a dinner party for ANY six people, living or dead, who would you invite? What a great question. Let's see, Agatha Christie the subplot queen, Ben Franklin just for the jokes, James Patterson so I can see if he even writes through dinner, Erma Bombeck because she was the first woman writer who inspired me as a teenager, Temple Grandin who helped me understand more about my son than twelve years of public schoolteachers and therapists, and my mother.
10. Flip-flops or cowboy boots?
Flip flops for sure.

So, Teresa had me at Erma Bombeck, although we'll have to agree to disagree about the flip flops. In the meantime, do check out her books if you're in the mood for a fun little romp. Here's the link to her Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Teresa-Trent/e/B005O7FIE2/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1 or visit her blog: http://teresatrent.wordpress.com.

Art meets history

I saw "Lincoln" this weekend. It was monumental, to say the least. The actors all hit their marks. The pacing was dead-on. If there's no Oscar nod for Daniel Day-Lewis, then I have no hope for the film industry.

From a writer's point of view, this may be a film I purchase so I can study the structure, specifically the passage of the 13th Amendment. I know a little of history, and possibly a little more about Lincoln than most because I was raised in Illinois, the "Land of Lincoln." I've been to his tomb in Springfield, taken tours of his home, been to New Salem, and even visited the newest addition, the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. So, trust me - I know that the amendment passed.

The Lincoln family at the Presidential Museum (with Marcus)

In Spielberg's hands (and screenwriter Tony Kushner's), the passage of this amendment was thrilling. It was tense. Would they get the votes? Just when you thought they might get enough, a rumor would break out (usually true) that jeopardized everything. Could they overcome it?

If a viewer can be riveted to a historic event knowing how it ends, that's entertainment worth studying, especially for a writer.

On a personal note, this film hit me in the heart. If you read this blog with any regularity, you know my husband is African American. His father's family are from Louisiana. They were slaves, and still own part of the forty acres they were given when they were freed. His story has become part of my story, even though I am white, because we are a couple and share a son.

Watching this movie brought so much home to me. Lincoln (in the film) explains why the Emancipation Proclamation is not enough, that it will not of itself end slavery and might not even be legal. He also discussed the effect of taking away the states' rights to determine whether they could have their own slavery laws. If the federal government stepped in here, where else would they meddle?

Would slavery have ended sooner or later? I'd like to believe yes, but I'm not so certain sometimes. Much of the South's economy depended upon essentially free labor. The South did not want to give up their slaves - it was initially a term of their surrender. It took humiliating, crushing, bloody defeat to make them give up at last. If the amendment had not been passed, what would have happened after the war? What would encourage plantation owners to give slavery up?

Even after slavery ended, it took one hundred years to force everyone to let black people vote (rights were dribbled to them beginning in 1870) as well as to allow blacks to go to school with whites. The Civil War was a horror of bloodshed and personal loss. Its aftermath, in the South, was a nightmare of economic loss. I wish we could have done it all without what so many endured.

But my husband was born in 1957. Who knows what opportunities he would have had, or would have been denied, if that amendment had been delayed. When I think of how blessed I am to be able to know him, to be married to him, to have our son - well, can you blame me for tearing up a little during the movie?

Go see it. Study it, both the art, and the history.