Recent Great Reads

What I've been reading and enjoying lately ...

A Study in Sherlock, Edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger
This is a collection of short stories "inspired by the Holmes Canon" by authors who don't normally write of Holmes. And they're extremely entertaining! What was fun was the diversity of ideas, from stories of Holmes himself and Watson, to stories that told other points of view of famous Holmes cases, to stories of different characters acting Holmes-esque. Loads of fun for the Sherlock fan!

Northwest Angle, William Kent Krueger
The latest in his series featuring Cork O'Conner, a part Irish-American, part Ojibwe former county sheriff in Northern Minnesota. Cork's no superhero, but he's good and just, and you want him to be your friend and champion. Northwest Angle is a gripping story that starts with a natural disaster and ends with a man-made one. It'll have you short of breath and appreciating how Krueger makes you feel part of the action.


The Albuquerque Turkey, John Vorhaus
This is slapstick in book form. Radar Hoverlander has vowed to go straight from his life of cons, but his father reappears in his life and sends his plans and resolutions packing. The ending is grand, hilarious, over-the-top, and totally entertaining (as is the entire book). You'll laugh out loud, roll your eyes, and enjoy it immensely.

Ghost Hero, S.J. Rozan
The latest in her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith PI partnership, Ghost Hero is told from Lydia's perspective and concerns the world of Chinese art. As always, Rozan gives us an excellent mystery to (try to) solve and introduces us to a fascinating world we (probably) didn't know much about. I always learn something from reading her books, both about whatever topic she's covering and about how to tell a great story. Jack Lee, another PI who works with Lydia and Bill, provides a touch of the silly and absurd, while contributing to the resolution of the mystery. A great addition to the series!

10 Things I Learned Along the Way to Publication

I developed this list of tips and lessons for a session I led at the Avondale Writers Conference in Avondale, AZ, last weekend. The concepts aren't original; you'll hear them from other writers. But though I understood some of them intellectually, it took some doing to accept them in practice. I hope they help you learn some lessons and avoid some heartache and/or mistakes.

1. Take every opportunity to talk to people who know stuff. Whether it's stuff about writing, stuff about your special interests, or stuff about life. Talk to people.

2. Write what you want to write. Not only what you know already or what you think will sell.

3. Have an elevator pitch. You'll use it trying to find an agent, trying to get the book sold to a publisher, trying to spread the word about it, and trying to sell it one-on-one. It's indispensable. Practice it endlessly.

4. Find a support group. Online, in-person, whatever. Have a group of writers you can talk to who will eat chocolate or drink wine with you in sympathy and celebration. (A shout-out to Christine, Wendy, Tracy, and Cary, as well as the SinC Guppies!)

5. Get involved in any way you can. You never know what connections you make will help you write or sell a book later.

6. Cultivate patience. Make sure you have to be doing this.

7. The perfect haircut won't make your life unicorns and rainbows, and neither will publication ... but it's pretty great. Writing doesn't get easier, and now you have to learn to promote and spend lots of energy on that. But it's still a gift.

8. Plan your public persona as carefully as you plan your prose. You will be a living, breathing, speaking representative of your book.

9. Accept that you can't do it all. Do what you enjoy and don't bother with what you don't like.

10. Enjoy every step. It really is magic. Don't get so wrapped up in promotion that you don't stop and smell the new-book-smell.

Anyone in the Phoenix Area?

I'm headed to Phoenix this weekend for a couple neat events.

Saturday, October 29, I'll be presenting a session at the Avondale Writers Conference in Avondale, AZ. If there's a writer out there looking for inspiration, I hope you'll join us, because it looks like a fun day.

Sunday, October 30, I'm going to the mothership. That's right, I'm visiting The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, foundation of Poisoned Pen Press. I'll be talking with my editor, Barbara Peters, about writing and racing and more. The store even promises Halloween candy! What more could you ask for? Here's the info from their calendar.

And here's the guest blog post I wrote for the bookstore's site, about Books as Comfort Food. Check out the blog to see what chocolate and horse racing have in common.

A Heartbreaking Day in Racing

(cross-posted from Two For The Road)

I write fiction. Murder mysteries set in the racing world. Which means that I cheerfully plot how and why someone dies. Sometimes it's someone who deserved to die. Sometimes it's not. Typically, the bad guy who did it is caught, and always in mysteries, readers have the satisfaction of knowing why it happened.

We say truth is stranger than fiction. The racing world today knows it's significantly more heatbreaking than fiction, too. A very good racecar driver died Sunday in the opening minutes of the last IndyCar race of the season. He won this year's Indy 500 (his second win). He'd tested the new 2012 IndyCar chassis, and one tweet I saw said he was excited about its safety measures. He was 33 and leaves behind a wife and two children.

Racing's an extremely dangerous sport and business. And sometimes there are no reasons why, bad things just happen. One such happened Sunday.

Rest in peace, Dan Wheldon.

A Very Different Kind of Interview

Not long after the publication of Dead Man's Switch, I had the opportunity to talk with a friend of mine (thanks, Shane) who collects conversations with interesting people for the Web site Travels of John. No amount of protesting on my part that I couldn't compete with the likes of George Steinbrenner, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and other real notables would dissuade him. And I'm very grateful, because it was a fun interview and I'm honored to be part of a group of fascinating people featured.

Here are an excerpt and links to the post:

Whodunit? Danger, murder, paranoia and… race car driving?

Tammy Kaehler is hardly the first to divine career direction in a corporate hospitality suite. It’s near-certain that many a deal has been forged amid the celebratory clinking of complementary beer bottles, hands shaken only after proper removal of wing sauce via Wet-Nap. She may, however, be the first for whom the glad-handing and overwhelming noise of a professional auto race served as inspiration—for a version of the Great American Novel.

Was your writing career destiny or coincidence? 

The writing itself was destiny. The racing part of it as subject matter was coincidence. I mean, I can’t draw a thing, I can’t paint, I couldn’t design a birthday card for the life of me. I understand the value of visuals, but I don’t have that skill; I am intellectually formed by words. Words create the pictures; they create the shapes; they create, I don’t know, memorization for me. In college, my mother suggested I become a writer for TV or something, and I remember looking at her and wondering where in the world she would have come up with something like that. It just didn’t make any sense at the time, but I look back now and think, “Well, of course.”

Read more at http://travelsofjohn.com/interviews/general/tammy-kaehler/.

See Me Wednesday, October 19, in Signal Hill!

Anyone in the Long Beach or Signal Hill area? Join us at the Signal Hill Library for a "first-timers" (newbie authors) panel!

Elvis, Alien Babies, and Me

(aka, Where I've Been, Part 1)

It's been a while. But the particular madness known as book-promotion-plus-full-time-job is wearing off, and I can think again (I won't claim other madness won't set in). And what's clear is that I've neglected to post news, thoughts, and updates here. So I'll work on fixing that.

One of the silliest (and possibly farthest reaching!) places my book turned up last month was in a tabloid. Yes, I was in a TABLOID. How awesome is that?!?! And I didn't even have to have to have an alien baby or see Elvis in my moldy bread. It was the National Examiner, and I got a brief review in the lower right corner (photo taken by me at supermarket checkstand) that included "This amazing debut novel..." and "Pulse-pounding excitement...." I'll take it! In fact, I took three copies.