Do You Reread?

Since I quit my job earlier this year (yay for self-employment!), my book-buying habits have come to a screeching halt. I suppose it's proof that I wasn't actually addicted, since I was able to stop, but phew, it was tough!

But because I'm a fast reader, and because I've had a Kindle since day one (in defense of bookstores, I buy there, too!), I have LOTS AND LOTS of ebooks in my library. So this year, I started rereading instead of buying.

Fortunately, I'm one of those people who doesn't remember every single detail of every book I read two years ago—I remember very few, to be honest—so it's almost like buying new books! It's better, in a way, because I remember that I liked a series, but not precisely why, and then I know I have four, eight, or 17 books ahead of me that I'm going to love.

It's like Christmas. All year.

So here's what I want to know from you all...do you reread? do you remember everything you've read? and how many books do you buy each month?!

Red Flags—Updated!

That's right, we zazzed up the back-of-the-book copy a little bit (what? it's a word). Still the same great cover and release date (coming next April)!

And look, major links are up: Poisoned Pen Press, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
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When Kate Reilly arrives in Long Beach, California, a week ahead of the Grand Prix, she’s immediately plunged into a new social scene—as well as a murder investigation. Her cousin Billy is found dead, with Kate’s card in his pocket. The cops want to know why, and sponsors and race organizers—anxious to keep racing’s image clean—want Kate to investigate. Doubting she can solve another murder, especially that of a relative she despised, Kate reluctantly agrees.

At the same time, coaching a gorgeous and talented actress for a celebrity race brings Kate into the orbit of Hollywood’s hottest bachelor. And then a local FBI agent takes notice of more than her driving and sleuthing skills. She goes from Sony Studios to Venice Beach and from Rodeo Drive to the Hollywood Hills, attending parties, power-shopping, and dodging unwelcome paparazzi. Kate’s ballooning media exposure generates national commentary, testing her composure and forcing her to get ahead of the stories—whether critical or flattering.

Kate’s professional dreams are also coming true. The upcoming Grand Prix is her first race with a new sponsor that’s also funding an IndyCar test drive and a ride in next year’s Indy 500—along with future possibilities in NASCAR. The downside? New sponsor Frame Savings is owned by her family, and its management, outside of her long-estranged father, is unfriendly to her…even rivalrous.

Kate must stay on her toes as the Long Beach race weekend begins. She’s negotiating the next steps in her career, driving two racecars and coaching a third, discovering more about the disreputable members of her father’s family than she wanted to know, and juggling questions and suspects. On track, red flags fly to warn her of danger. Off track, Kate struggles to interpret warning signs and stay out of a killer’s grasp.

A Note About California

Dear retailers,
Dear the rest of the country,
Dear Mother Nature,

It's October 6. I realize Alaska and Austria have already had snow. I realize the East Coast is swimming down their streets. And I realize it's officially the Halloween season.

But it's still summer here.

I further realize no one feels sorry for us Californians when we talk about the monotony of dry, 86-degree weather day after day, month after month. I get it. We're fortunate in a lot of ways. But our seasons are as every bit as screwed up as yours.

You all know about our high average temperatures. But there's something else about the climate out here you don't understand ... and it causes a hell of a lot of problems.

Summer in the rest of the world is June, July, and August.

Summer in California starts in mid-July and goes to mid-October.

Of course, we residents are all pretty used to this. But the rest of you aren't, and that's what causes us so many problems. (I'm looking at you, retailers.)

I've got plenty of examples:

• Summer supplies and clothing are taken out of stores in mid-July—right as it gets hot here.
  Which means there are four air conditioning units for sale at Home Depot when hundreds of overheated California residents go looking for one on July 22.
• Winter supplies and clothing appear in August.
  Which means it's 95 degrees outside and Target's featuring wool coats.
• Social media fills with comments and delight over fall weather, first rainfalls, and pumpkin-spice everything. Christmas decorations appear. It's late September.
  It's 95 degrees here, and we haven't seen rain in three years.

I'm not asking for sympathy, I'm merely explaining the flip side of sunny California. Though I do admit to wishing some enterprising store managers would buck their corporate orders and keep appropriate stock on shelves for an extra month. 

And if anyone wants to stock up on air conditioning units next May, come September, you could make a killing selling them at two or three times face value. Something to consider...

Sincerely,

Still Roasting in Southern California

RED FLAGS Cover Reveal!

The book is done, the summary is written, and the cover is designed. Here are the details to tide you over until April 2016!

RED FLAGS

Professional racecar driver Kate Reilly arrives in Long Beach, California, to promote the upcoming Grand Prix, not expecting to identify a dead body or solve another murder—especially when the victim’s a relative she didn’t even like. Her new sponsor and the race organizers apply pressure, wanting to keep racing’s image clean, and Kate reluctantly agrees to investigate.

From Sony Studios to Venice Beach, from Rodeo Drive to the Hollywood Hills, Kate plunges into the Southern California scene. She parties with movie stars, “takes meetings,” and shops with rich housewives, all while trying to uncover a motive for murder. At the same time, she’s negotiating the next steps in her professional racing career, including testing a new racecar on an oval track.

In the flurry of excitement, neither Kate’s murder inquiries nor her personal life run smoothly. She discovers more about the disreputable members of her father’s family than she expected or wanted to know, and her temper frays. She publicly juggles two attractive men, drawing intense and unwanted attention from paparazzi. And worse, this ballooning media exposure generates national commentary about her career choices, talent, and femininity.

The Long Beach race weekend begins with Kate constantly on the go, fielding questions, involved in three separate racing series, and closing in on a killer. Red flags warn her of danger in the racecar, but off-track, Kate finds it hard to heed the signs and stay out of a killer’s grasp.

Interview and Gold Medal

A couple weeks ago, I had a really great conversation with Raceline Radio Network Toronto about my Kate Reilly Racing Mystery series and the recent awards I've won. That's right, me and Scott Dixon, newly crowned IndyCar Series champion, were on the show...sadly not hanging out together!

The Raceline Radio Network site has the interview (from 13:44-20:10).

I even spilled the beans about a recent award I hadn't mentioned yet, a Gold Medallion in the International Automotive Media Competition, which was awarded for receiving 97-100 points (out of 100) in the judging.

That award joins the two (two!) #1 Motorsports Book awards I've received from the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association (AARWBA), for each of the last two years (Braking Points in 2013 and Avoidable Contact in 2014).

It's an embarrassment of riches!

Saving Lives

The racing world lost a great talent, a good friend, and, by all accounts, an amazing human being this week. Justin Wilson will be profoundly missed by even those, like myself, who'd never met him. A race fan commented on social media that if there were any photos of him not smiling, they must have been Photoshopped, because it simply didn't happen.

I certainly have feelings about the danger of racing, the danger of racing open-cockpit cars in particular, and the weird state of being a fan of racing. But Doug Patterson (an excellent photographer and social media friend of mine) put it best: "I love this sport for the greatness and awesomeness it can bring out in competitors and fans. I hate this sport for the unbearable price it on occasion demands."

But I want to talk about what felt to me like the cherry on top of my sundae of regret that I'd never meet JW or see the further impact he had in the racing world. The capstone on the story of what a decent, generous human being he was. The fact that by donating his organs, which he'd chosen to do and his wife approved, he saved the lives of six other people.

That's generosity and decency in action.

So to Justin Wilson, to Natasha Richardson (Liam Neeson's late wife), and all of the other non-famous, generous departed souls out there who've allowed others to live when they could not ... thank you.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to honor the lives of those who gave so much is to commit to being an organ donor. I've been registered since I had the choice, and I urge you all to register also. Find out how to sign up for your state.

How Long Does It Take You?

One of the questions I'm certain every author is asked—in addition to "where do you get your ideas?—is "how long does it take you to write a book?"

The real answer is "an eternity," though I usually respond with the total elapsed time between starting and finishing, though I'll cut out any months of total inactivity that might (usually do, for me) occur in the middle.

So for the book I'm currently finishing (Red Flags, the fourth Kate Reilly Racing Mystery, due out in April 2016!), the answer will be an elapsed time of about eight or nine months. I started the book about a year ago, but didn't work on it at all for three months earlier this year (during the time of quitting-my-day-job).

Eight or nine months. Of course, everyone understands that doesn't mean continuous work.

But as I sit here, editing. (And editing and editing.) And as I'm reminded how long it takes to edit, then how long it takes to enter the edits into the computer file (I have to do some editing rounds by hand on paper), I start to think about counting up the actual hours.

It might be painful to see the result, and it'll involve plenty of guesswork, but let's try.

I'm calling it three categories of effort:

1. Research and planning: covering everything from character studies, to hashing out the clues and plot points, to writing a synopsis. 
2. Writing: banging out the first, ugly draft.
3. Editing: reading and rereading, over and over, to fix holes and tighten prose. And catch typos.

Research and planning is the most difficult to quantify, but I know that working out the synopsis alone took probably 20 hours. So I'm going to call that category 75 hours total, which may still be low, because I'm not counting all of the race watching, motorsports article reading, and video viewing.

Research and planning total: 75 hours

Writing is a little easier, because I write words over time. A conservative estimate is probably 500 words/hour. I think I usually write faster than that, but I've also go to account for the days when I sat for a couple hours and only produced 200. The draft manuscript this time was a whopping 110,000 words, which, divided by 500/hour, equals ...

Writing total: 220 hours

Editing always surprises me by how long it takes. I can do the editing at a rate of 20 pages/hour, and I can enter the edits into the computer at a rate of 40 pages/hour. Calling every draft an average of 360 pages, that means that each draft takes me 27 hours to edit. I've already done two drafts, and I expect to do three more, and to spend 20 hours proofreading the ARC down the line, which means ...

Editing total: 155 hours

For a grand total of 450 hours to create one Kate Reilly Racing Mystery. More or less. Probably more. If I put in 40 hour work weeks on it, I could, in theory, finish a book every three months. (I hear my husband saying, "what are you waiting for?!")

But of course, what this doesn't take into account is the gestation time required for ideas. The creative recovery and regeneration required. Sometimes, the need to work paying jobs. 

And let's not forget the bing eating, discouraged napping, and random internet surfing. Those take a really, really long time....