A Late SinC Blog Hop!

I’m delighted to be part of the Sisters in Crime Blog hop, even though I’m a few days late. I was tagged by the lovely Linda O Johnston and have tagged Shannon Baker in return.  Enjoy!

What books are on your nightstand right now?

For pleasure reading, I’ve been on a cozy mystery binge lately. I don’t have a night stand, but stacked on the windowsill next to my bed are the following novels:

·        Malled to Death by Laura DiSilverio

·        Pampered to Death by Laura Levine

·        Merry Market Murder by Paige Shelton

·        Death of a Crabby Cook by Penny Pike

·        How to Party with a Killer Vampire by Penny Warner

·        A Tiger’s Tale by Laura Morrigan

I just finished the sixth draft of my newest book, Karma Can Be Killer, and I have a few books that I used for research on that same windowsill:

·        Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph. D

·        The Language of Crows by Michael Westerfield

·        The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

And finally, my dog has been having some hip issues lately, so I’ve been reading a book on hip rehabilitation for dogs

·        Total Hip Replacement Home Rehabilitation Guide by Top Dog

What's the best part of the writing process for you? What's the most challenging?

The best part is hanging out with my characters and listening to the stories they tell me. I’m a visual person, so stories come to me in pictures of scenes with snippets of dialogue. I also love learning about my characters as they reveal themselves to me. I may not always agree with their choices, but I usually find something to love in each of them. Well most of them, anyway. ;-)

The hardest part is writing the first draft. It feels like a slugfest, in which I pound out word after word, hoping not to be knocked out by the next semicolon. Even worse, I usually don’t like those first words. I revise each manuscript at least a dozen times—usually more—before I hit “send” and let my first beta readers take a look. But even though I never like my first drafts, they are a necessary step on the path to publication.

If you were to mentor a new writer, what would you tell her about the writing business?

Writing is a business like any other, and only a small part of it is crafting your work. There are many options to get your work out in front of readers, and even more competition for those same readers’ time. Whether you go with a major publisher, a small press, or choose to self publish, you are ultimately responsible for building your own platform and marketing your work.

Writing, like yoga, is love work. Very few people are able to make a living at it. Even fewer get rich. Frankly, the odds are better if you buy a Lotto ticket. But if you love what you do, it will have been worth it in the long term. And isn’t that what’s most important?

Tracy Weber

          

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber’s author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  A KILLER RETREAT is available for preorder now from Whole Life Yoga. MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,  and book sellers everywhere! 

What Writers Inspired Me

Hi all!  Welcome Shannon Baker to Killer Hobbies today as part of the Sisters in Crime Blog Hop! Shannon is the author of the awesome Nora Abbot mystery series.  Check it out, or even better, buy it!

I credit Helen Hooven Santmyer for inspiring me to write novels. Way back in the early 80’s I read her sweeping novel, And Ladies of the Club.  I loved that book.

At the time, I just had my first baby and lived on a cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills. I felt lonely and completely out of my element. Despite having business career aspirations and sporting a shiny new college degree, I’d married a rancher and moved to rural isolation. In my youthful optimism, I figured I’d find some sort of business in which I’d excel. I hadn’t accounted for the absolute ruralness and my natural tendency toward laziness.

Still, I felt stunted intellectually and creatively (motherhood can have that affect) and toyed with the idea of writing books. I certainly read a lot. When I fell in love with And Ladies of the Club, I thought, “I’d love to write a book like that someday.” Then I read Santmyer published the book at age 88 and that it took her 50 years to write it. If it was going to take 50 years for me to write a book, I decided I’d better start right away.

I began with baby steps. I wrote articles, essays, short stories. I even covered sports for a local newspaper. I started selling a few things and gaining more confidence. I eventually wrote a super-bad novel. Then another one. Those led me to Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, a group dedicated to helping writers publish in commercial fiction. That group is the most amazing collection of writers in the universe. Through the yearly conference I learned the basics, then the business and after all the required hours and words written, I finally published a thriller in 2010 and then the Nora Abbott mystery series with Midnight Ink. (Tainted Mountain 2013, Broken Trust 2014, and Tattered Legacy 2015).

Along the way, I’ve gained inspiration from others, specifically Mari Sandoz. Sandoz grew up in the Nebraska Sandhills, in the early part of the 20^th century, when survival was a full-time job. Her abusive father thought writers were less than worthless. Yet Sandoz prevailed. She suffered more rejections than would stymie almost anyone else. At one point, she piled all of her manuscripts in her backyard in Lincoln, Nebraska and burned them. But she went on to become a bestseller, an award winner, and an icon. And she started out in the same harsh bit of the country where I’d placed myself.

Other writers come to mind when I think of inspiration. In A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley wrote about rural America. Barbara Kingsolver is a goddess. Any time I feel lost or like throwing in the towel, I reread Stephen King’s On Writing, and I’m back at the keyboard.

I probably will never write an epic like And Ladies of the Club. And I’ve read so many amazing books since then that make me wish I could write them. But Santmeyer’s long journey made me realize I had to start and set me on the road to creating my own stories. I don’t know whether to thank or curse her!

What stories have inspired your life?

 

Shannon Baker

 

 

Shannon Baker writes the Nora Abbott Mystery Series, a fast-paced mix of murder, environmental issues and Hopi Indians published by Midnight Ink. Tainted Mountain, the first in the series is set in Flagstaff, AZ and is a New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards finalist. Broken Trust, book two of the series, takes place in Boulder, CO and was released in March. She is 2014 RMFW Writer of the Year. She is a member of SinC and MWA. Visit Shannon at www.Shannon-Baker.com.

 

 

 

SinC Up For Bloggers

            I'm delighted to say that I was invited to participate in the September Sisters in Crime SinC Up for Bloggers, in which I was asked to respond to some or all of a bunch of questions that appear on the bloghop website. 

            Some of those questions, and my answers, are below. 

 

If someone said "Nothing against women writers, but all of my favorite crime fiction authors happen to be men," how would you respond?

            I'd say, "Hey, nothing against men writers but have you read any of my stories?"

            Okay, seriously?  Sex definitely matters in some things, but not so much in who's doing the writing.  There are excellent authors of both sexes in all genres and subgenres.  Backgrounds can matter, but these days there are both women and men in all aspects of law enforcement.  And all of us can do research!

            Sure, there are more female authors of cozy mysteries because cozies tend to have recurring themes that more women than men relate to, such as cooking and sewing--but there are some darned good male cozy writers, too, just as there are excellent female thriller authors.

            Everyone's entitled to his/her opinion, but mine is that if anyone actually said what's quoted above, they were attempting to generate controversy and probably would have succeeded! 

           

What's the best part of the writing process for you? What's the most challenging?

            The best part of the writing process for me is letting my mind go wild and create new ideas and characters and scenes.  My subconscious mind is one of my best friends!  It's always at work, and when I need to figure out what comes next in a story, for example, I relax and let it get busy, then take notes about what it tells me.  Often that happens at off-beat times, like in the bathtub at night, or waking me in the middle of the night, or slipping into my head while I'm driving.  (No, I don't take notes while driving but I concentrate so I can jot down what I need to when I'm able to.)  Sometimes, when I'm not certain about what comes next, I play games with my subconscious--literally.  I'll do an on-line crossword puzzle, and voila!  When I'm not forcing it to work, my mind comes through and I then know what to write.

            Most challenging is when that same mind gets distracted.  My dogs like to keep me busy figuring out how to deal with that situation.  A lot.  But somehow, we manage to work it out.

  

 

Do you listen to music while writing? What's on your playlist?

            Nope, the quieter it is, the easier it is for my mind to scheme and plot and write.  On the other hand, I'm very obedient when my dogs bark for attention or to go outside.

 

What books are on your nightstand right now?

            I've got quite a few books on superstitions sitting on my nightstand and elsewhere in my house.  Why?  My new Superstition Mystery Series starts in October with LOST UNDER A LADDER, and I'm working on the second book in the series.  I know quite a few superstitions and they're generally good to me (my fingers are crossed as I write this, which makes typing a bit difficult) but love researching more so I can mention them in my stories. 

 

If you were to mentor a new writer, what would you tell her about the writing business? 

                  The writing business is really different from when I started out a long time ago.  I did my homework then and started getting published by traditional publishers, and I still am, although I've been doing a little self-publishing, too.  The best advice I can offer is to do your homework.  Learn how people are getting published, both traditionally and self-publishing.  Join organizations that feature the genres you're most interested in and connect with people so you can learn not only how to write well but also what publishing avenue is likely to work best for you, including how to find the best agent for you.  And of course one of the best organizations I belong to is Sisters in Crime!

  

      Conclusion:

                  As part of the blog-hop, I'm also asked to tag someone else to respond, so I've asked Killer Hobbies' own Tracy Weber to respond to some or all of the questions as well.  Thanks, Tracy!

              By the way, you can find out more about Sisters in Crime at sistersincrime.org  

 

                  Meantime, blog reader, are you a member of SinC?  What's your opinion of blog-hops, especially this one?