What Hooks a Reader — Blog Tour Day Ten

Though it is actually night here,  it’s still day ten of my Daughter Am I blog tour.

The reference to night and day reminds me of one of those standardized tests I took when I was in second grade. The question was, “How many hours are in a day?” I knew, of course, that there were twenty-four hours in a day’s span, but for some reason, I took the question to mean day as opposed to night. I knew that there were variable daylight hours — that was apparent from the way the sun set earlier each evening as it got nearer to winter. So, what was my answer? Twelve. I figured that on the average there had to be twelve hours of night and twelve hours of day. As you can see, I never did quite fit into a standardized world.

What does this way too revealing annecdote have to do with my blog tour? Absolutely nothing, except that it could be considered an example of a hook if, in fact, it did hook you! I am down in St. Augustine, Florida with Dave Ebright, and we’re cyberly talking about hooking a reader. I have a hunch Ebright doesn’t need any advice from me — his novel, Bad Latitude,  has hooks galore: surfing, fast boats, zombies, ghosts, and pirates. Stop by Ebright’s Blog, JaxPop: Haunted City Writer, and tell us about your hook, even if  it is only a fishing hook. You can find me and Dave here: That’s What Hooks a Reader.

If you haven’t yet stopped by the Second Wind Publishing haunted house (hey, there’s a theme here! Haunted City. Haunted House. Way cool!) you are missing the fun. You can find the house here:  Trick or Treat! Let the Game Begin!

DAIClick here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Daughter Am I Blog Tour 2009 Update

Day nine of the Daughter Am I blog tour, and I am still going strong. I actually went to bed before midnight last night, and I’m a bit more rested. Good thing — there is a lot going on today! First, check out “After the Writing Comes the Work.” Great discussion going on at that unscheduled tour stop, and a wonderful compliment about Daughter Am I.

Next, check out “How Best To Procrastinate” on Claire Collins’s blog. It was actually yesterday’s tour stop, but I kept finding other things to do and never got around to telling you about it. (Procrastination humor. Trite, but still amusing. I hope.)

Claire is a guest on my blog talking about “Welcome to the Business of Writing”, and the importance of a mission statement. Mine is: “It is my mission to become so well-known that a traditional publisher will offer me an obscenely large advance. I will turn down the advance because I’d like to show that there is value in being published by a small independent publisher, and because the resulting publicity could be worth more than the publishing contract.” Did you notice that it says nothing about writing? Hmmm.

One of these days I really do have to work on my poor stalled WIP. I’m thinking of doing WriMo — my own slimmed down version of NaNoWriMo. Instead of National Novel Writing Month, I might do simply a Writing Month. Perhaps try to write a sentence or two each day in November to get back into the habit of writing. I did sign up for NaBloWriMo (National Blog Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Since I’ve already contracted to do a blog post every day for the first three weeks in November because of my blog tour, all I need to do is to finish out the month and I win. Win what? you might ask. Nothing, of course. It’s the challenge that counts.

But I am digressing.

Today I am again visiting Joylene Nowell Butler in Cluculz, this time for an interview. I am at Untreed Reads talking about my Rites of Passage as an author. And I am trick-or-treating at the Second Wind blog.

This is turning into an international tour. I’m in Canada today and Wednesday, in Florida tomorrow, and in Australia on Thursday. In the middle of November, I’ll be in South Africa. You gotta love the Internet!

Today’s schedule recapped:

After the Writing Comes the Work
How Best to Procrastinate
Welcome to the Business of Writing
Interview at Cluculz
Rites of Passage
Trick or Treat! Let the Game Begin!

Have fun. I intend to.

DAIClick here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Welcome to the Business of Writing

To celebrate the eighth day of the Daughter Am I blog tour, I am treating myself to a guest here on Bertram’s Blog. That means one less post I have to write. Oh, joy! While Claire Collins is guesting here, I will be at her blog talking about How Best to Procrastinate. When you get a moment, please visit Claire’s Blog and join in the fun. 

Claire Collins  is the author of Images of Betrayal and Fate and Destiny, both published by Second Wind Publishing. Claire says:

Welcome to the Business of Writing! 

Wait! Don’t go anywhere. I’m not going to take your favorite hobby and turn it into work. Or maybe I am . . . 

It depends on what you want to do with your writing. Are you writing as an outlet? Do you write to relieve stress? Maybe you keep a personal journal and write to document your life. Perhaps you write to shut up the voices in your head that scream until you tell their story. Some of you may already be highly successful authors or journalists. 

No matter why you write, or where you are in your writing, at some point, you may want to adjust your mindset to look at writing as a business. When that first royalty check rolls in, you will be self-employed as a sole proprietor. To help you think of your writing as a business, I suggest you develop a mission statement for your writing. 

A mission statement is defined as: a formal short written statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a sense of direction, and guide decision-making. It provides “the framework or context within which the company’s strategies are formulated.” 

That’s pretty stiff. Simply put, a mission statement is a summary of how the company will conduct business and the purpose of the business. 

Create a mission statement for yourself as an author, for your works of writing, or for your type of writing. If you aren’t an author or writer, create a personal mission statement. I give you permission to use your creative ingenuity to draft your mission statement. 

I’ll even create one for myself to give you an idea. Oh, and don’t forget: Have fun! 

Claire Collins: author – Mission Statement 

“It is my mission as an author to weave tales that draw readers down an interesting path with twists and turns. I will entertain, educate, and create emotion with my words.” 

Stop by Second Wind Publishing for a free ebook sampler or two. One sampler includes the  first chapters of all Second Wind’s romances, the other sampler includes the first chapters of all Second Wind’s mystery, adventure, maitstream novels. The first chapter of A Spark of Heavenly, More Deaths Than One, and Daughter Am I are in the Mystery Sampler. The first chapter of Images of Betrayal and Fate and Destiny are in the Romance Sampler.

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Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies

Mary stared open-mouthed into the hole in the wall. Instead of the dining room, which should have been on the other side of the wall, there was a windowless room not much bigger than a walk-in-closet. 

“A secret room,” she breathed. “It’s like something out of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys.”

That brief excerpt from Daughter Am I has nothing to do with my blog today. It’s a clue for a Halloween contest at the Second Wind Blog starting on October 26. I hope you will play. It should be an interesting game.

What I really wanted to talk about today is time. Or rather the lack of it.

In August, when Second Wind Publishing celebrated its first birthday, Mike Simpson wrote an article called: Ten Lessons I Learned (The Hard Way): A Publisher’s Reflections on the First Year. Number five on the list was: “Everything takes longer than you think.”  He was referring to publishing, but that line has stuck with me the past two months because everything takes longer than you think. Or at least, in my case, it takes longer than I think it should. I had hoped to be further along in my preparations for the Daughter Am I blog tour, but  . . . yep, everything takes longer than the time I’ve allotted. I worked on an interview last night, which should have been easy. Ten questions about my books. That was it. Yet it took me three hours. (I’ll let you know when it’s posted. Try to stop me!)

Today’s guest post took almost that long, which completely mystified me. It’s simply a brief description of my characters — my seven old fogies. I didn’t go into depth about their character flaws, the dreams that drive them, the failures that created them. Nope — just a simple description. I’ve been spending most of my words talking about my hero Mary Stuart, lumping her traveling companions into a group: crew of feisty octogenarians — former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. They deserve better than that. So please click here to visit The Book Faery Reviews and meet Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies.

DAIClick here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Following the Quest in Daughter Am I

Again I will be at Malcom’s Round Table discussing Daughter Am I, but this time we will be focusing on the quest angle. The  hero’s path, the mythic journey, the quest — these are all different names for a particular form of  story, though the format is so infinitely changeable, that unless you search for all the elements, you might not see the similarities in such diverse stories as Star Wars, Tin Cup, and Daughter Am I. All, however, follow the hero’s path.

This virtual book tour is, perhaps, a mythic journey in itself.  I was called out of my ordinary world into the special world of blog touring by Malcolm R. Campbell (the herald) when he asked if I planned on doing a formal blog tour. My first inclination was to say no (refusal of the call) but then I decided it was worth  a try — I want to do whatever I can to let people know about Daughter Am I. So here I am (crossing the first threshold). There is much ahead of me in this cyber quest — tests, meeting allies and enemies (enemies don’t have to be human — they can be missed deadlines, lack of energy, blank mind, all the various ways life has of thwarting us). This quest in itself will be a supreme ordeal — 70 blog posts in 35 days? Yikes! But I’m sure there will be plenty of other ordeals before I can reap my reward. At the end, I will share what I learned with you, and this too is part of the journey. The hero never keeps the magic elixir of change for himself, but shares it with those back in the ordinary world. 

So, please keep me company while I embark on my quest — I can use all the allies I can get!

Our next stop is at Malcolm’s Round Table: Following the quest of ‘Daughter Am I.’ It will be painless, I promise.

DAIClick here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Pat Bertram, Gangsters, and ‘Daughter Am I’

Day Two of my Virtual Book Tour, and I am still going strong. This is like saying: I’ve just run the second block of a marathon and am still going strong. Most of the tour is still ahead of me, but I’m looking forward to seeing what happens, to meeting new people, and visiting new blogs.

Today I am at Malcolm’s Round Table for a discussion of gangsters and Daughter Am I. I’d hoped to include more of Malcolm’s book, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, in the discussion, but he was kind enough to focus the talk around me and my gangsters. And do I have gangsters! My hero, Mary Stuart finds her grandfather’s little black address book in a secret room of the farmhouse she inherited from him, and she goes on a whirlwind tour of Colorado, Arizona, and on into the midwest searching out the people who knew him. Though in their eighties, none of them are what you would call upstanding citizens, though they are all loveable in their own way. Even Iron Sam, aka Butcher Boy, seemed less lethal than I intended him to be. Of course, he is dying, so he is more concerned with his own death than others’.

See, I’m doing it, too — focusing on my book. So, let’s focus on Malcolm’s novel for a moment. If you are a fan of humorous mysteries with outrageous (though incredibly realistic) characters, you will love Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire by Malcolm R. Campbell. I’m on my second read through. The first time was for the story. This time it’s for Malcolm’s wordsmithery.

So, please join me at Malcolm’s Round Table for a discussion about: Pat Bertram, Gangsters, and Daughter Am I.

DAIClick here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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Blog Tour 2009

Today is the first day of the Daughter Am I blog tour, and frankly, I’m a bit nervous. Although I always intended to post to my own blog every day, I’ve only managed to average three or four times a week, yet here I have committed myself to thirty-five days of guest blogging, together with at least a brief post here to keep everyone up-to-date on my touring activities. That is a total of 70 bloggeries in 35 days! Do you think I can do it? Of course I can — I will have to.

Today I am honored to be a guest at Make Mine Mystery. I’ll be talking about cultivating humor and how it can enhance even the most suspenseful or terrifying story. I hope you disagree, that way we can have a lively discussion! So please click on this link to visit: Make Mine Mystery and be sure to leave a comment.

You can find the almost complete Daughter Am I tour here: Blog Tour 2009. I should already have the topics picked, the articles written, the promotion finished, but as you can see, it is still a work in progress.  

If you haven’t already participated in my DAUGHTER AM I HAS FINALLY BEEN PUBLISHED! LET’S PARTY!! party, then please come! I would enjoy your company.  You might enjoy it, too. There are puzzles, games, and a giveaway for everyone.

Odd to think that I am doing something I never thought I’d do — post a blog with no redeeming value, just announcements.  Can I say in my defense that I’ve been staying up till 2 or 3 a.m., first to put my party together, and then to work on my blog tour? No wonder I’m not writing.

DAIClick here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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DAUGHTER AM I HAS FINALLY BEEN PUBLISHED! LET’S PARTY!!

champagneI’m sitting here trying to come up with something witty or at least interesting to mark this momentous occasion of having one more of my novels released into the world, but all I can think of to say is, “Hallelujah! Let’s Party!”  Please help yourself to some  champagne. I promise it’s the best pretend champagne money can’t buy. The fun, however, is real.

For those of you who like action games, here is: Book Invasion.

For those of you who like more cerebral games, here is: Memory by the Book.

For those of you who like card games, here is: Daughter Am I Solitaire.

For those of you who like jigsaw puzzles, you will love these! Click on a cover to work a puzzle. They are  in order of complexity from the easiest to the I-dare-you-to-solve-it.

DAIDAIDAIDAIDAIDAI

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s not the end of the fun! There’s more!

Read the first chapter of Daughter Am I. Click here to find the chapter.

Giveaway! Download free samplers from Second Wind Publishing, which include the first chapters of all their published novels. The mystery sampler includes a chapter from Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Click here to find the free samplers. (If you have any problem, let me know and I will make sure you get the sampler of your choice.)

Read the first 30% of Daughter Am I free at Smashwords or buy in any ebook format, including Kindle. Click here to find Smashwords.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. 

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

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What’s in a Name?

020bI finally found out the name of a mountain that I see almost every day when I go out walking — Mount Lamborn. (I’d be able to see it from my house, but the view is blocked by a neighbor’s haystack and the haystack is blocked by the lilac bushes we planted to keep from having to look at the dang haystack.) I was excited to put a name to the peak until I realized that the name was bestowed by a human (probably by some guy named Lamborn) and was not at all what the mountain calls itself. Does knowing the name tell me anything about the mountain I cannot see during my daily walk? Does the name give me a clue to its origins, its character, its life?

Humans have a penchant for naming things, which I suppose is a good idea. A name is a shortcut to communication. Calling a mountain Mount Lamborn serves as a shortcut to communicate about the mountain, but it says nothing about the mountain itself.

Character names are the same. We give our characters names so that we can identify them. In fact, I have gone so far as to give some of my characters very pointed names for that reason. Bob Stark in More Deaths Than One was so named because he was supposed to seem an “everyman,” hence the common first name. He was also supposed to be stark of speech and action, and so the surname was a reminder to make sure he didn’t get too flowery. Despite his name, Bob Stark turned out to be rather wordy at times and not the silent, uncommunicative loner I had planned. Greg Pullman in A Spark of Heavenly Fire was named after Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping to remind me that Greg was good-looking and very nice. Did these characters become their names, or did I simply become so used to them that when the names outlived their usefulness, I found it impossible to change? I wonder what our characters call themselves. Even more, considering the hell we put the poor characters through, I wonder what they call us!

(This was supposed to be a post inviting you to my book launch party to be held on October 15 here on this blog, but finding out the name of the peak sidetracked me. With or without an invitation, you are still invited to my cyber party.) 

DAIDaughter Am I, my young woman/old gangsters coming of age adventure, will be available from Second Wind Publishing in two days!

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Your Cyber Sins Follow You Everywhere

Daughter Am I is going to be published in just a few days, and Amazon is in the process of getting it up on their site. There’s no cover image yet, no blurb, no “look inside”. Nor does the book show up on my Amazon author page. Imagine my surprise then, when I checked the Daughter Am I page and found two editorial reviews. What????

Two years ago I entered the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition and ended up as a semi-finalist. The “prizes” for having reached the new level were reviews by Publisher’s Weekly and two top Amazon reviewers. I only received one Amazon review, and it said simply: Mary didn’t know she had Grandparents till the lawyer called to tell her that she’d inherited everything from them. Turns out, the pair were murdered together. Her father won’t talk about his parents and the more she digs, the more she wants to find out what happened to her mysterious family.  That “review” is simply a rewording of the description I wrote for my submission, and to be honest, mine was better!

The PW review said: A group of spunky octogenarians joins a woman on a search to discover the truth about the grandparents she never knew she had. After inheriting the farm of her estranged, murdered grandparents, Mary Louise Stuart discovers photos and an address book in the Colorado farmhouse and becomes obsessed with finding out who her grandparents were and who would want them dead. With each question, another senior citizen joins the quest – former friends and gangsters with names like Crunchy, Iron Sam, Happy, Lila Lorraine. The mystery deepens with each stop in their whirlwind tour of the Midwest: who’s following them? A love interest ensues between Mary and Tim Olsen, whose grandpa was good friends with her great-grandfather. While the author certainly researched the history of the Mafia, too many of the numerous historical asides – and subplots – are tacked on under the guise of story time, making the story drag with detail abut Wyatt Earp, the JFK assassination and bootleggers. But underneath the relentless bouts of story time is a delightful treasure-hunting tale of finding one’s self in a most unlikely way

It’s not a bad review, all things considered, but the book that is now being published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC has been rewritten, edited, tightened up, and is  much better than the version  I entered in the contest.

That’s not the point, though. The point is that the reviews have been lurking in cyberspace all this time, and now they have found me again. Makes me what other of my youthful peccadilloes (writely speaking) will come back to haunt me.

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