A blog post with Marilyn Meredity

This weekend, Sunday, specifically, I'll be sashaying over to Marilyn Marilyn's blog at http://www.marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/ to tell all about my journey to publication. Check it out.

Friday, the 13th

Friday the 13th held no bad luck for me. After the article Carolyn Barbre wrote about me and my book in the Sun-Gazette, I spent most of Friday on the patio at the Wildflower Cafe in Exeter signing copies of my book, Lottie's Legacy. I had a chance to reconnect with folks I hadn't seen in a long time and catch up on the news in their lives. Made some new friends too. And several of my chums from our critique group came out in the mid-day sun to support me. I couldn't ask for more loyal friends. It was great day in spite of the fact that the ambient temperature reached 100°. There was a little breeze from the north, but by 2 pm I was ready for a shower.
Now I must get back to work on the next book.

Ray Bradbury and E-Books

My local newspaper featured an opinion piece by John Sweeney, editor of The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware. In it he revealed that Ray Bradbury warned about books ‘in the air,’ and that he never would have allowed a digital version of “Fahrenheit 451” to be released if Simon & Schuster hadn’t told him that unless he agreed to it, they would no longer keep the book in print.

A number of authors have expressed concern about the impermanence of digital books because e-books can be removed, revised, and reloaded. In fact, they can be endlessly revised and perhaps even subjected to censorship. It doesn’t take much to imagination to envision various scenarios along that line.

Remember the big flap over Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and how it was altered for young readers? In the years to come, if your child’s text books and library books are all digital, think how much easier it will be for a publisher from sanitize such classics for the schools. The picture of our real history, warts and all, will be lost if that happens.

At this point, I must say that I embrace digital books. I have over a dozen books loaded in my Kindle. Just last week I uploaded my own book, Lottie’s Legacy, to Kindle, and I hope many people will enjoy my offering.

But I also have several shelves of books made of paper, some very old. I have my mother’s nursing textbook from 1915, where I’m able to read about medical and nursing practices of that time. In the future, if as predicted, brick and mortar libraries disappear, current books like that would be lost in a digital haze. Historians and genealogists constantly comb the world’s archives for authentic source material. Without libraries, will our history be lost?

Each new advance of science, technology and art comes with a hazard, whether it’s genetic engineering or e-books. It’s my opinion that we must consider the issue of digitalizing all written material carefully. The truth is, we need both types of books. That’s my opinion. What do you think?

Useful ASCII Character Codes

Ever notice when you using Word to write a document and you need a special letter or symbol, like a tilde ( ˜ ), word doesn't have it. That’s when an ASCII character comes in handy. I’ve listed some of the more commonly used ones below. To achieve these characters press & hold down Alt + the number listed, and the desired character will appear on your page.

’ = 0146           This reversed apostrophe is generally used to abbreviate a year as in ’80.

¢ = 0162

° = 0176          As in, it’s 93° today

ñ = 0241

é = 0233

¿ = 0191

æ = 0230

™ = 0153

£ = 0163          I hope these will be useful to someone.

Murder at the Library of Congress

I confess this is the first book of Margaret Truman’s books that I have read. I picked it because the Mystery Readers group I belong to decided that this month we would read a mystery with a famous person as a character or one that was written by a famous person.

This book, published in 1999, opens with a break-in and theft of an oil painting from a museum in Miami. A security guard is shot and killed. Two of the three burglars are picked up right away, but the painting is not recovered. Within hours it is on its way to LA where it is exchanged for money.

The scene then switches to New York, where the main protagonist, Annabel Reed-Smith, receives an assignment to write an article for the magazine, Civilization, about the search for the diaries of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the friend and sailing companion of Christopher Columbus. The mysterious diaries, if ever found, would be very valuable, especially to the Library of Congress. She has two months to research and write the article.

Annabel takes the reader to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and we are introduced to the important characters and the workings of the Hispanic and Portuguese reading room. She soon learns that the leading expert on the subject she’s researching is a man who is despised by almost everyone who comes in contact with him. He is pompous, mean-spirited and vicious. The man, Michele Paul, is murdered (of course). That sets everyone in the department on edge because only a limited number of people have access to the reading room where he is found dead. It must be an inside job.

An aggressive TV reporter, Lucianne Huston, is sent from Miami to DC to cover the story and immediately unearths information about the disappearance eight years earlier of another Las Casas researcher. She keeps the pot stirred by hounding people with questions,  piecing the facts together and reporting what she learns on the TV news. Her boss tells her to follow the money and she does. She uncovers a tax evasion scheme of a very wealthy man who is connected to the Library of Congress.

The search for the truth takes the reader from Miami to Washington, DC to Los Angeles to Mexico City and back to DC. The murders are solved, corruption is uncovered and justice is served. I won’t reveal if the diaries are found, or if the painting in the original scene was important. You might want to check that out for yourself.

This book is a fast read, reasonably well written and interesting to anyone, like me, who doesn’t know much about the Library of Congress. I checked the reader reviews after I finished the book, and most gave the book three stars. Some of her other books got rave reviews, so I would read another.

Margaret Truman-Daniel was a prolific author. She began her writing career in the mid-fifties with a book about her father. Her mystery series began in 1980, and she wrote a book a year until she died in 2008 at the age of 83. Her last book was published in 2012, though probably not completed by her.

Tulare-Kings Writer’s Consortium

I ambled into the Tulare-Kings Writer’s meeting at the Café 210 in Visalia Saturday morning. It’s a happy group of writers hoping to become a bigger consortium and do great things for local writers.They meet the third Saturday of every month.

Steve Pastis, the moderator, brought us up to date regarding Visalia’s TASTE OF THE ARTS that will be held in September.

The speaker this month was my friend Marilyn Meredith. Marilyn has written over 30 books, and so she knows more about the publishing industry than she could tell us in the time allowed. She talked about e-book publishers and how to find one that is right for your book. One website she mentioned that might be helpful was epicorg.net and she stressed that legitimate e-publishers are not like the vanity presses, they do not charge the author. Some even produce a trade paperback as well.

Every writer needs a marketing plan, according to Marilyn, whichever way you choose to publish your book. That was the second topic she covered. It starts with a “brand,” meaning what type of book you are promoting: fiction or non-fiction, mystery, romance, erotica, adventure, whatever. In any case, your name comes first – on your website, your blog or on Facebook. Every possible means should be used to get your name out there, except robbing a bank. Some other ideas were: book trailers, book reviews, press releases, an author page on Amazon, and Kindle boards. All great places to promote a book. She mentioned that Vistaprint.com is a good place to buy business cards. It’s not too pricey and the results are very good.

Marilyn practices what she preaches, so of course, she brought along a few of her books just in case someone wanted to buy one. I went home with her latest: No Bells.

2012 Central California Writers’ Conference

The kickoff to the Central California Writers’ Conference was held at Willow Bridge Books in Oakhurst where Mary Benton and I had an opportunity to chat with many of the people who would be conducting workshops the next day on April 28th. It was also a good chance to choose a couple of books to buy. Not that I don’t already have more books at home than I’ll ever be able to read. Still, I couldn’t resist.

The two-day conference itself was held at Sierra Sky Ranch, a rustic 100-year-old converted ranch house just 10 miles from Yosemite's southern entrance. Set in a wooded area with a sloping lawn and a long veranda, the resort lends itself to relaxing. Among the lesser-known charming features of the ranch are the pet cats: John Wayne, Mo and a calico, who is an avid hunter. John Wayne, a fluffy, black and white fellow, is seriously overweight, so evidently he is on good terms with the cook.

Ghosts occasionally prowl the ranch house. I didn’t see any, but last year one of the attendees swore she caught a glimpse of one on the veranda. Over the years, the kitchen and the bunk house have had numerous visitations. I wonder if the owners have a high employee turnover rate because of it. Nothing like having a ghost peek over your shoulder to check on dinner.

The conference organizers limit attendance to 100, and that means the workshops are small enough for everyone to get acquainted, exchange ideas and e-mail addresses. I recognized several people I’d seen last year. As I listened to people talk about their projects, I was impressed with the many great stories that will soon become books that I want to read. In one of the sessions, a man talked about a real life work situation that he wanted to turn into fiction. The group brainstormed and gave him some great ideas of how to structure it to make his story come alive without getting sued.

Although all of the workshops were excellent, I gleaned the most from two. The first was Bonnie Hearn-Hill’s Focus on Character: Who’s Driving Your Story. Even though I’d heard much on the subject before, there was one particular point she drove home that gave me much to think about. And that is the “hole in the gut” that our protagonist must have to drive him or her to action in the story. She stressed that it should be the result of something that happened in the character’s childhood. And that the antagonist must have a “hole” of equal proportions to drive his or her action.

The second was Steve Mettee’s presentation was on The Hero’s Journey: Making Your StoryResonate with Readers at a Primal Level. Steve’s workshops are always relaxed and fun. He used The Hunger games and The Lord of the Rings to illustrate his points. At the end he reminded us that in essence all of us are on a hero’s journey in our own lives. There is much to overcome in a writer’s life.

The banquet Saturday evening was chance to relax and make new friends. The highlight was the short story awards. Best of all, my friend and fellow Sister in Crime, Mary Benton, won first place, including a check for $100, for Bernetta, The Not So Good Witch. It’s the first chapter of a book that will soon be in the hands of an agent as a result of the conference. Congratulations Mary!