Promoting a Great Writer's Conference

Public Safety Writers Association is a great conference for anyone writing about any of the public safety fields, fiction or non-fiction. As a mystery writer, I love this conference. Of course I have a vested interest because I'm the program chair.

This is a very different conference than most. The majority of the people who attend (and are members) are or were in some law enforcement field. Fortunately, they've embraced all the mystery writers who've joined and come to the conference.

Represented are police officers from all the corners of the US, FBI, Border Patrol, Airport police, police dispatchers, firemen, forensic and crime scene experts, a coroner, and no doubt I've forgotten someone.

Because it's a small conference--we try to keep it at 50 attendees, there is plenty of opportunity to get acquainted, ask questions, and make friends who will come in handy later on for research.

Yes, you can bring books for sale. The organization keeps 10% and takes care of the selling end.

You can take a peek at those who are speaking next July by going to http://www.policewriter.com though it's only a partial list.

And there are panels. We'll try to fit in anyone who'd like to be on a panel.

Three wonderful lunches (more like dinner) are included in the registration price--and of course, there is a break for those who register early.

I go to a lot of cons and conferences, and this is definitely my favorite, even if I am a bit prejudiced.

Marilyn

What Led up to Writing Invisible Path

Invisible Path is number 10 in my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series. With each book there are certain things I set out to accomplish:

1. Have Tempe solve a crime that others can't seem to.

2. Have the circumstances be different than in previous books.

3. Have interesting things happen in her private life so readers who have been following her through each book will learn what's going on with her relationship with Hutch, her preacher husband, and perhaps a little about her son--who is now in college.

4. Something about her Native American heritage, either something new she learns or discovers as she's working on a case.

5. Though the settings can be familiar since she's the resident deputy of a mountain community--something new about the settings or unusual.

6. That the book be written so it can stand alone. I want someone who is unfamiliar with the series, to be able to read each book and be satisfied with the mystery and the conclusion.

It is always a challenge to come up with some new idea, so I'm always paying attention to what interesting things happen in mountain communities and on Indian reservations.

Because I had a contest a few years back asking for ideas for a new plot for a Tempe book, I gathered quite a few. Of course I didn't use exactly what I was given, but it was enough to build on.

Also one of the people who entered the contest gave me a wonderful name for one of the main characters in the book, an Indian who is falsely accused of murder, Jesus Running Bear.

In Dispel the Mist, the Hairy Man (the reservation I use as a basis for the reservation in my books believes in a Big Foot like character they call the Hairy Man) had a major role and I really enjoyed writing about him. I wanted him to have a part in this story too.

For several years, I'd been noticing these truck and jeeps heading up into the mountains all decked out like a military convoy. I'd also seen these same vehicles, or some quite like them, gathered in the front yard of a large ranch. No one seemed to have any idea who or what they were about. I went on line and started reading about para-military groups and found that there were more in California than anywhere else.

Giant Sequoias grow in the mountains where I live and also in the mountains that are part of the reservation. I knew somehow I needed to include these huge trees in the story.

Tempe's son is in college now, but this tale was going to happen around Christmas so I brought him home for the holidays.

These are but a few of the ingredients I brought together for Invisible Path.

The book is schedule to be available from all the usual places sometime this month including from the publisher's website, http://www.mundania.com .

As usual, this is anxious time. It's like being pregnant and waiting for the baby to arrive. Needless to say, I'm anxious. I love the cover, but I know they always look even better when you get to hold the actual book in your hand. No matter how many books I have published, the excitement is always the same.

Marilyn

http://fictionforyou.com

Guest Blogging

I'm guest blogging here: http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/ tomorrow and will give away a prize to one lucky commenter.
cmr

Where Do Your Ideas Come From?

People often ask where I get my ideas. Some ask with interest; a few ask with a sense of alarm, as if they can't get over the idea of a church-going choir director dreaming up headless corpses and subtle poisons.
Most writers I know could answer with a question of their own: How do I get them to stop? Every day at least one idea floats through my head that might make a decent book. The problem is choosing one that I like well enough to flesh out the details and finish. In other words, the idea is the easy part.
An idea for an Arthur-and-Guinevere sleuthing team struck my fancy a while back, but I couldn't get interested enough to actually write it. I have several other started mysteries that got shoved onto the back burner. An abandoned idea might be due to other demands on my time (like edits), a plot knot that won't dissolve, or simple boredom: I don't like the story enough to finish it. I call these files "somedays", as in some day I might go back to them. (James Michener didn't write IBERIA for years after he took all the notes and outlined it. I'm no Michener, but still.)
If you are a storyteller, stories grow in your head of their own volition. The work part is writing a story down, toiling over it until it is no longer just a good idea, but a story that others can understand and enjoy.
So my answer to "Where do your ideas come from?" is that my brain is like a tree full of story blossoms. I have to pick the ones that seem promising and then work on them until they become fruit.

A Bit of A Problem

But rather a nice problem to have in a way. I am busy trying to finish the second book in my mystery series while doing early promoting on the first one. I feel like a juggler at times, and a poor one at that.

For a little while, I'm a writer, hacking away at the latest scene in Stalking Season. Then I get up, walk around my office chair and become my publicist. I contact places to send the ARCs for review. Work on the promo pieces that go out with ARCs. Write the cover letters that go out with ARCs. Did I mention I have a few ARCs on hand?

The first book, Open Season,  introduces Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson, homicide detectives who are unlikely and unwilling partners. When people start dying in area shopping malls, the detectives find themselves up against a killer who has his own race card to play. Some people have described it as "Lethal Weapon" in Dallas with female leads. 

Here is an excerpt from Open Season, which will be released in December from five Star Cengage/Gale. I will post another excerpt in a few weeks.


Sarah took a deep breath and faced Quinlin in the stuffy cubbyhole of an office. The room was hot and musty. Dust motes floated in the slivers of sunshine that had penetrated the haze of accumulated grime on the windows of the old building. The scent of his cologne hung heavily in the still air. Chaps. Rich, masculine, and too easily a distraction.
 
Dressed in a dark, somber suit, Quinlin didn’t speak. He watched her with the careful scrutiny of a snake considering a field mouse. A trickle of perspiration ran down Sarah’s back and dampened her white T-shirt. Shifting in the wooden chair, she contemplated the wisdom of taking off her jacket, then decided against it. He would interpret it as a sign of weakness.
 
She thought she was prepared for this. She’d rehearsed it a million times, remembering the images, nailing down the sequence, readying herself for his opener, “Detective Kingsly, tell me what happened that night.”
She recalled the moon playing tag with a few heavy clouds, casting weird, disorientating shadows on the crumbling buildings. She remembered wishing the clouds would give way to rain, anything to relieve the oppressive heat that had pounded the city relentlessly for weeks. She remembered thinking the heat made people do crazy things.
 
Maybe that’s why it had happened.
 
The rest of it flashed through her mind like a sequence of freeze frames.

Franco and the boy turn.
A glint of metal in the moonlight.
John pushes her away, reaching for the gun tucked in his waistband.
The clasp on her purse sticks.
A flash of gunfire.
The sharp report of return fire.
Struggling to get her gun.
Franco is down.
The kid swings his gun toward John.
She fires the same time the kid does.
The coppery smell of warm blood.
Hers?
No.
Goddam it, John, get up!
Why is everything so quiet?
Where is the kid?
There’s a big gaping hole in the cheap sequined evening bag.