Everybody Write!

I used to be an in-house attorney for Union Oil Company of California, aka Unocal.  Unfortunately, Unocal no longer exists.  Its assets were sold to other companies quite a few years ago, ending with a merger with one of them.  But some former employees still meet almost monthly for lunch, and I try to join them as often as possible. 

One of their meetings is today.  Guess who the speaker is.  Me!  And what will I be talking about?  What else--writing!

Sure, I’ll update them on my writing career.  But I’ll also be telling this group of how each of them, too, can write, for fun and maybe for some profit.   

Writing is a vocation or avocation that can be started at any time and can continue throughout a person’s life.  I’ll be encouraging people who haven’t yet started to give it a try, in whatever genre or venue they prefer--fiction or nonfiction, traditional publishing to any kind of online or other type, book-length or just short articles or blogs... anything!   

They can write about whatever they wish, preferably something they’re passionate about, as Chrystle encouraged earlier this week--as passionate as I am about pets, especially dogs.  They can write about themselves--who they are, what they’re doing, what they want to accomplish.   

Will they enjoy the talk?  That remains to be seen.  But I’ll definitely have fun--and I hope I inspire at least one of them to give it a try!

How about you--if you write, what was your inspiration to start?  If you don’t, what would be the best inspiration to get you started?

 

By the way, I’m having fun with my latest release, an e-novella in my Pet Rescue Mystery series: NONSTOP SPANIELS.  Like the cover?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nonstop Spaniels

I have a new book out as of yesterday.  Actually, it’s a novella.  And it’s the first of my mysteries to be e-published! 

It’s called Nonstop Spaniels, and its theme is NKLA--No Kill Los Angeles, which is an initiative of Best Friends Animal Society.  The idea behind NKLA is to get all shelters, even public ones, to stop killing healthy pets.  I enjoyed the research a lot, especially when I learned the amount of success they’ve achieved already--although they still have a long way to go.

The idea behind Nonstop Spaniels is that my protagonist Lauren Vancouver has to figure out why a veterinarian who also owns a pet shelter won’t join NKLA--and to prove that her good friend Dr. Carly Stellan isn’t the one who ultimately murders that vet. 

I sometimes wonder what my own dogs Lexie and Mystie would think if they understood the kinds of things I write about.  Pet rescue?  What’s that, mom?  I got both of my Cavaliers from reputable breeders.  That was before I started researching, and volunteering in, pet rescue.  My pups are also fur-kids of empty nesters, so they don’t even know what it’s like to have human children taking priority in our household.  I’m just as glad they don’t know.  I’d rather just spoil them and never have them know how hard it is for some other pets to find loving homes. 

I was delighted that two different people mentioned the release of Nonstop Spaniels on Facebook.  One of them also mentioned that my next full-length Pet Rescue Mystery Teacup Turbulence is now up on Amazon and will be a January 2014 release.  I wasn’t aware that Amazon had a page for it already, so I learned something fun!

I did, by the way, have a couple of novellas published in e-format by Harlequin as Nocturne Bites, part of my Alpha Force miniseries about a covert military force of shapeshifters.  One of them was subsequently included in a print anthology called Awakening the Beast.  These shifters weren’t canine, unlike most of my Alpha Force stories. 

Oh, and I received a complaint from a fan who only likes to read print books.  She was concerned she would miss something important in the series by not reading Nonstop Spaniels.  I assured her that each of my stories is a stand-alone and that anything a new reader needs to know is in whatever book in the series he or she starts with.

 

And that includes e-novellas. 

How about you--do you like to read novellas in a series?  Do you prefer print or e-format, or both?  And what’s your opinion of no-kill pet shelters?