EASY STRESS RELIEF

S T R E S S  is a very popular term and topic of worry and conversation today, isn't it!  We stress about stress from morning waking to (maybe) illusive sleep at night.  I've read more than one poll that found people go on vacation hoping to be relieved from stress and return home more stressed than when they left. (An amazing 40 plus percent said this in one poll.)

I have a solution. Become a writer--even part time.

So, what is it about being a writer that can relieve stress?.  In my own experience, at least, gaining ideas to write about takes "downtime," and that down time is filled with what? Thinking.  Does thinking require physical activity?  Nope. One must sit back and clear the mind. Now I admit clearing the human mind takes discipline. Much of thinking can be buzz, comprised of past experiences, concerns about current and future experiences, grief-joy-chores-will he?-should I--. Well, you know the list inside your own head.

But, let's say you are a writer. Then, of course, you must write about something. (Well, duh!) You can, while leaving behind outside distractions, focus on ideas to write about. Non-fiction? What are you going to tell your readers? What do you know for sure?  Fiction? Even more stress relief. You begin to live with characters and story, creating them in your mind. These are not your problems, not your life. These are lives you are creating, and to do this, all the other garbage has to be swept away while you invent lives that may, indeed, have stress, but it is not your stress, and you are probably going to solve whatever causes stress for these people anyway. You have got to mentally let go of the outside world to create the world you are inside of and writing about. You are in control. 

Advice about stress relief often includes getting away from the daily work routine and taking time off in a new place (mountain cabin, ocean-side hotel, cruise) to do nothing, even when all kinds of activities tempt you. Walking, not talking or texting; sitting, looking, thinking.  Leave all the tech stuff behind. Can you divorce yourself temporarily from your smart phone?  And for goodness' sake, skip the computer games, and all hand-held "entertainment." One writer calls this digital detox. 

So, not all of us can get away like this. But hey, we can write! Sure, we aren't hiking a mountain or looking at sea waves in actuality, but we can do it in our minds.  Okay, it takes some bit of technology to record our ideas and stories, but skip all the rest. Turn off the cell phone. Tell all you are busy writing so need quiet time. Believe me, family and friends--who probably have a well-schooled notion of what being a writer is like--(a bit odd) will most likely accept this as typical of a writer. 

So, what do you think? Can you make this work for you? Do you dare try?  You know what I think, and now, I need to get back into Chapter 34 in my novel in progress. I have already spent quite a bit of time staring into space, thinking only about my story. Stress for the story people? You bet. But they are the "other" and I will now be sitting happily at my desk, telling about their problems, which certainly are not mine, and cause me no personal stress.

So, what's your story?  Dump the rest and write it.

Pet Peeves

I don’t usually blog about this topic. But something arose on Facebook this week that made me realize I have one that bugs the heck out of me.

I hate being called a “girl”. Some people who commented thought that it’s no big deal. I wonder if they’re younger than I am. I’m of the generation who fought hard to get equal rights (not that we have them yet) and am sensitive to anything that smacks of condescension and belittling. To me, that does it. I never, ever call a woman a girl in my writing, unless I want to portray a despicable male chauvinist character. I think it’s equivalent to being called “the little lady”. I have actually called the speaker of that term “little man” just to illustrate how ridiculous it is. (Especially since I'm neither short nor slight.) I haven’t gone as far as calling the “girl” speaker a “boy” because that term has such racial overtones.

There’s no need to comment if you disagree with me about my pet peeve word. But I would like to hear what your pet peeves are, and if you use them in your writing.

Pacing Suspense

Phyllis A. Whitney

by Jean Henry Mead

I once read an article by mystery novelist Phyllis Whitney concerning pacing and suspense. She said the best advice she received was from the editor of Weird Tales Magazine, a highly respected pulp magazine published before she began writing novels. 

The editor said that she shouldn't try to keep her stories at a constant high pitch, that readers grow as bored with continuous excitement as they do with nothing happening at all.

Pacing suspense is important because a reader needs time to relax between action scenes. Another important aspect of writing suspense novels, she said, is that your reader will find endless defeat and discouragement too unpleasant to read. Writers are, first and foremost, entertainers. And main characters’ lives should never be easy although small victories have to be paced strategically along the way to keep the plot interesting.

Much like mystery novelist Marlys Millhiser, Whitney started her novels with a setting. She said she wanted a place that gave her fresh and interesting material, even though it may be in her own backyard. In her first mystery novel, Red is for Murder, she went to Chicago’s loop to get behind-the-scenes background on the window decorating business. Because the book only sold 3,000 copies, she returned to writing for children, but years later, the book was reprinted in a number of paperback editions as The Red Carnelian.

Once she had her setting, Whitney searched for a protagonist driven to solve a life and death situation. The more serious and threatening the problem, the higher the reader’s interest. Whitney stressed that a writer needs to think about this powerful drive during the novel’s planning stages because it’s easier to build the plot around the problem in an action story than something much quieter. However, inner turmoil can be just as suspenseful as the threat of bodily harm if the writer remains aware of the character’s desperate need to reach a certain goal. Action doesn’t necessarily have to be violent. 

The protagonist doesn’t know from the beginning of the story how to solve his problem, but sooner or later, he decides something needs to be done. That’s when the story actually begins. The character may make the wrong decision but he needs to do something rather than just drift along through several chapters. 

Characters need purpose and a goal to reach by the end of the book. If your protagonist is unable to reach her goal or solve her problem, bring in another character who can help. This new character may have ulterior motives or a different goal, and therein lies suspense.

An eccentric character can also provide suspense by doing the unexpected, thus making the situation worse. Whitney advised against more than one strange character per novel because it suspends belief. But any character doing the unexpected can build suspense. If the reader knows what’s going to happen next, she soon becomes bored and may lay the book aside. So to prevent that from happening, surprise your reader with something unusual although logical. Whitney had one of her characters making her way down a long, dark, narrow passageway when she suddenly touches a human face.

That’s not only unexpected, it's suspenseful. 

Unintended Consequences

by Janis Patterson

Oh, I thought I was so smart. I would self-publish my backlist (which I did) and make a lot of money (no so much and nowhere near what I’m worth) and be in charge of my own destiny (talk about being a dreamer!). The idea of being head of my own publishing company was irresistible. I would choose covers, I would have the final say over my editors, I would control my publicity and advertising (at least to the extent of my budget). I would…

And all that came true, plus a lot more I didn’t anticipate, in spite of having been in the business community one way and another since I was very, very young.

Running a publishing house – even a teeny-tiny one-person, one-author house – is very different from running a lemonade stand. You just can’t take what money comes in and blithely put it in your pocket, darn it! Like it or not, we one-woman-show publishers are pretty much subject to the same rules and regs as the Big 5.

We all – or we should – take all the deductions for business-related expenses that we can, whether as author or as publisher. One benefit is that a clever author can make almost everything a deduction. For years when The Husband and I have taken a trip of some duration (not just a weekend) I come home, write three chapters and a synopsis set in wherever it was we went and send it off to some publisher or another. Thereby our trip becomes a research trip even if the book doesn’t sell. The only bad thing about this is that some of these books – which I never really intended to write – actually sold, so I had to finish the things. Unintended consequences.

Being a publisher is in a way just more of the same. Cover artists and editors and PR people are all legitimate tax deductions, but it gets complicated. Do you send them 1099s? What if they’re out of the country? Well, that depends on a lot of things, some of which my accountant and I are still wrangling about. I haven’t had to worry about capital gains yet – little enough capital and no gains to speak of – but that will come. Should I create an LLC or incorporate? It was about here that my accountant started to babble, so we will leave that for another time when the monies are sufficient enough that I feel they could justify such a discussion.

Though it sounds odd to say, thank goodness this year I didn’t earn enough as an author/publisher to have to worry about such things, but as I write more and more books and – hopefully – sell more and more books, these problems will become something with which I will have to deal.

Sigh.

Why do things have to be so complicated? And so extortionate? In a country developed by and made great by entrepreneurism and free enterprise, you would think that the government would be encouraging people to work and start businesses and keep the engine of the economy expanding instead of nit-picking and taxing and penalizing the system to death. It just doesn’t make sense. The unintended consequences of such freedom-hating anti-capitalism attitudes are almost too horrifying to contemplate.

My father once said that no matter how carefully we choose our actions, no matter which path we take, we can never be sure of the outcome because there will always be unintended consequences. How right he was!

Promotion, Pluses and Pitfalls

Because all the advice about promotion is to get it set up way ahead of time, of course I've done just that. I thought I had everything set to start far ahead enough that the book would be read to buy.

One of my first in-person promotions is set for March 28th, whre I'll be speaking to the Central Coast chapter of Sisters in Crime. (My topic: Creating and Sustaining a Mystery Series.)

The big reason I'd like for the books to be available for that event is the winner of my contest to have a characer named for him in this book will be a that meeting. If the book is available, I'm sure to have several sales.

The books are set to arrive in time--but anyone who is in the business knows that one can never count on that being the case.

My blog tour for Violent Departures begins on April 1. Once again I'm having a contest to have a character in the next book named for the person who comments on the most blog posts. Here's the first week of the tour: I'll post the next dates on my next regular blog post.

April 1  http://mmgornell.wordpress.com/

What’s Happening with Gordon Butler?

April 2  http://christanardi.blogspot.com/

            Introduction to the Rocky Bluff P.D. Mystery Series

April 3 http://gumbojustice.blogspot.com/

            My Writing Process

April 4 http://justthefactsmaam.blogspot.com/

            Research

April 5 http://jrlindermuth.blogspot.com/

 What’s Up Next?

April 6  http://marianallen.com/

The Importance of Place

April 7 http://cncbooksblog.wordpress.com

            Coming Up With New Ideas for an Ongoing Series

I'm using some blogs I've visited before and a few brand new ones.

A plus is I really like doing blog tours--a pitfall is they don't always go off as planned.

I do hope some of you will follow me along on this tour. I enjoying writing about all the different topics.

Violent Departures is available now on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Violent-Departures-Rocky-Bluff-P-D/dp/1610091817/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1426344244&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Violent+Departures+by+F.+M.+Meredith

Marilyn aka F.M. Meredith

Another Book, Another Publisher

Writing novels keeps my brain active and my thoughts flowing. Publishing them has me learning something new every day. Last week I received an offer to publish my YA horror, The Devil’s Pawn. The publisher is Booktrope, one I’d heard of because some of my romance-writing friends are publishing with them. While I write mysteries, romantic suspense, and novels for kids, writing horror is a genre new for me. I don’t know how I came to this story, except that it filled my head, insistent that I write it from beginning to end. The Devil’s Pawn is a tale of good overcoming evil. Horrible events occur but there are heartwarming elements as well. The book ends on a positive note, as all my books do.

The story: Fifteen-year-old Simon Porte's life is ripped apart when an accident kills his parents and sister. His father's brother, whom he's never met, brings Simon to live with him and his wife in upstate New York. Simon doesn't trust Uncle Raymond, and for good reason. Raymond is evil, as are many members of their family. A bizarre-looking old woman, who turns out to be his Great-Aunt Lucinda, tells Simon his parents left town to avoid the family curse. Raymond is dying and determined to take over Simon's body. To this end, he hypnotizes Simon repeatedly until Simon learns how to thwart his efforts.  With Lucinda, his sister Lucy whom he finds living with a relative, and  his new friends--a pair of odd twins--Simon forges war against his uncle and his evil cronies.

Bringing out a new book to readers is always an adventure. I’ve had books published traditionally with big houses, others with small publishing houses, and I’ve self-published a few. My experience with Booktrope is something completely different. Each author has a team that works together to produce the finished product. So far I’ve contracted an editor and a copy editor. I’ve yet to engage a book manager, a projects manager, and a designer. I am eager to start my new adventure.

Please stop by and share your publishing experiences.

Murder at the Mansion

My sixth Logan and Cafferty mystery/suspense novel was released this week in ebook form, with a print edition scheduled in a few days. 

My protagonists have become old friends that I enjoy tuning into each day to listen in on their conversations, no matter how scatterbrained they happen to be. 

I don't outline, unless it's a nonfiction book I'm writing, and I give my characters free rein, so they take me on some wild adventures. Murder at the Mansion is my wildest novel to date, with Dana and Sarah, my senior amateur sleuths, running for their lives from Wyoming to Texas, Alaska, Colorado, and back again. 

Writing a series can get boring--hopefully not for my readers--but the more I get to know my characters, the more I trust that they won't paint me into a corner or lead me on an adventure that I can't get them out of. This time some of the people they helped to place in prison return to get revenge, and Sarah decides to get out of a hasty marriage that she soon regrets. None of these things occurred to me when I sat down to write, so I blame the devious minds of my two protagonists, whom I dearly love. 

Mix in mystery, humor, romance, murder, a quirky character or two, and you have the Logan and Cafferty series, which I hope to continue writing for quite some time.