Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare

Mangled E-Books

June 9, 2021 — Pat Bertram

A few years ago when Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare was first published, a local book club read the book and invited me to be a guest at their meeting. I really looked forward to the discussion because I thought the club would have enjoyed reading a book where one of their members was a character, and where their town itself played a part. If nothing else, I would have thought they would have been interested in what parts of the book were a true reflection of the dance class, and what parts of the book were pure fiction.

As it turned out, it was a miserable experience. Not one person had a question. Not one person had a good thing to say about the book. In fact, the meeting was dominated by a woman who grilled me about the editing. Who edited it? Did you edit it yourself? Did your publisher edit it? Did anyone else edit it?

Then she said she’d never seen so many typos in a single book. The truth is, I’m sure there are some errors, but considering all the people who proofed it for me before I turned it into my publisher, I have a hard time believing that the half-dozen proofers all missed the same myriad errors, though it is possible. It’s almost impossible for any book to be 100% accurate, especially this one considering that my then publisher had a penchant for making unauthorized changes to my books. I didn’t mind another set of eyes, of course, but I let him publish the book with the caveat that he was to inform me of any changes he made. Which he ignored. Foolishly, I did not do a word-by-word check of the book again when I got the proof copy, but I simply could not handle another argument if by chance I found something that needed to be changed. Nor did I ever see an electronic version of the book, so I have no idea what it would have looked like, though, as it turns out, it would probably have been a good idea to check it over.

But I’m getting off the point, which is that book club meeting.

After that woman grilled me about my editing skills, I asked her if she could tell me the pages she found errors so I could perhaps correct them on future editions. She said she’d read the ebook, which didn’t have page numbers, but that there were errors on every “page.” Then, almost as an aside, she asked if there were ever translation errors when a book was made into an ebook. I told her there were often such errors and mentioned a book I was reading at the time where the name of the love interest, Illyena, was consistently mistranslated as Hyena, which had turned a touching story into a farce.

But even that isn’t as egregious a mistranslation as the book I am currently reading. This current book is so badly mangled that way too many passages were almost impossible to understand, such as this one:

“They made a lovely pair, the two women wand honey-skinned, their laughter gay and slim and young ads ruffling in the sultry Puffs Of and sweet, their dark and he and air off the desert.”

Really? This was a passage in an ebook by an internationally acclaimed bestselling author that had been published by one of the biggest publishing houses. How did they ever let such a mess get through?

Still, I bet if he had been a guest at that book club meeting to discuss his book, no one would have thought to grill him about the mangling.

I do know that the typo discussion was a way of putting me down, though I have no idea what I could possibly have done to those unknown women to merit such disparagement. All I know is that I was glad when they went onto other business and I could gracefully make an exit.

***

Click here to buy: Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare.

Killing friends is a good way to lose friends, even if the murder is for play. When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Then the murders begin. Tapped by the cops as the star suspect, author Pat sets out to discover the truth curtained behind the benign faces of her fellow dancers. Does one of them have a secret she would kill to protect? Or is the writer’s investigation a danse macabre with Pat herself as the bringer of death?

Posted in books, life, writing. Tags: book club appearance, dance class mystery novel, ebooks with typos, editing, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare. 5 Comments »

Free Samples!

January 7, 2021 — Pat Bertram

If you’ve been wondering about my novels but have been afraid to take a chance on buying a book, below are the links to all the first chapters.

I hope you will take a peek.

Bob, The Right Hand of God (Absurdist, Urban fantasy)

Unfinished (Drama, mystery)

Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare (Mystery, Dance)

Light Bringer (Suspense, Science Fiction)

Daughter Am I (Mystery, Road Trip,)

A Spark of Heavenly Fire (Drama, Suspense)

More Deaths Than One (Thriller)

All books are available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Pat-Bertram/e/B002BLUHUY/

Posted in books, writing. Tags: A Spark of Heavenly Fire excerpt, Bob The Right Hand of God, Daughter Am I, Light Bringer, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, Unfinished. 2 Comments »

Too Many Days

December 20, 2020 — Pat Bertram

The past couple of years, I couldn’t find a calendar, not even one for sale in the stores I frequented, so I downloaded a calendar template and printed out my own calendar. It was a nice simple calendar with large enough blocks for writing notes. Since it was just plain paper, not glossy, I was able to use a pencil, which I prefer because of its erasability. (My spell check does not like that work and keeps changing it to eras ability, whatever that means.)

I went ahead and printed out a calendar this year, and then I got a couple of calendars in the mail. And then another. And yet another. I’ve lost track of how many calendars I have, but I feel the weight of all those days.

With a single calendar, each year has but 365 days. With a surfeit of calendars, it feels as all those days (365 per calendar) are stacked one on top the other. That’s way too many days for me to deal with!

I’m being a bit facetious here. I know that no matter how many calendars I have for 2021, there will still be only 365 days for the year, but I feel all those calendars reaching out to me, wanting to be filled.

But truly, one day per day is more than enough! Though that thought does lead to a story idea — some poor benighted character burdened with more than one day every day.

Luckily, I am not a character (except in my novel Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare — I was a character in that book), and once I get rid of all those extra calendars, I’ll do fine living but one day each twenty-four-hour period.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: eras ability, erasability, getting calendars in the mail, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, too many calendars. Leave a Comment »

Whose Story Is It?

January 20, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I woke this morning with the perfect plot for my next book, though I’m not sure I can write it because it’s not my story. In the writing, it will become my story, of course, taking the characters in directions they wouldn’t go in real life, but the people involved in this would-be plot are the starting point, and one person already told me he didn’t want me to put him in book. Or maybe he said he didn’t want to be the villain. Or the victim. One of those. Then he sort of backtracked and said it didn’t matter, so I don’t know where I stand.

Even without his permission, I could still write the book and see what happens. If none of the characters are recognizable in the end, then it wouldn’t matter whose story I started out with in the beginning.

Figuring out who the story is about is one of the first steps to putting a book together. And in this new book, as in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, the story would be mine and the main character me. Or not. Let’s just say a character named “Pat” with a penchant for hats, who might or might not be me, would be the narrator.

This fictional Pat would buy a house in a town where many people had lived their entire lives (some returning as older adults to the very house where they’d grown up). During renovations of the house and property, many small mysteries would arise. The house itself would be a character, the way it wraps itself around Pat and makes her feel at home, and conversely, the way a visitor was made to feel unwelcome by a ghost only the visitor could see. And the fellow who didn’t want to be in the book would be there in spirit if not in a fully-developed character because he’s the one who, in fixing the place, finds many of the puzzles.

It’s possible there would be enough with just the house and possible ghost to write a cozy mystery, leaving the harder-hitting story I thought of this morning for a later book, but I don’t have all the pieces to the ghost story yet.

And then there’s the additional matter of not having the push to write — getting the house and garage fixed, daily blogging, and attempting to get back into an exercise routine — takes up most of my available “push.” For now, I’ll let both stories stew in my brain pan and see if they coalesce into one cohesive whole or if they remain two different stories with many of the same characters.

The only books I’ve written since Jeff died were all grief infused, even the fiction. Some people thought the grief in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare misplaced because it overshadowed some of the lightheartedness, but that’s what the narrator “Pat” was feeling at the time. Besides, I do find it ludicrous that so many mysteries and thrillers are steeped in countless deaths, and no one gives even a passing thought to the emotional toll.

It would be worth writing another book just to see where that “Pat” is now, and if her new-found peace shows up in the story.

***

Posted in fiction, life, writing. Tags: a house as a character, cozy mystery vs hard-hitting story, figuring out whose story it is, ghost story, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, writing a book, writing a person's story without their permission. 14 Comments »

A Long Slow Conversation

November 2, 2019 — Pat Bertram

For the most part, despite writers’ groups and online discussions, writing is a solitary occupation. You spend years writing a book, months rewriting it, and perhaps a year or two editing it. (Unless you are participating in National Novel Writing Month as hundreds of thousands are doing this November, then you spend . . . gasp! . . . a whole month writing your book!)

During the time you are writing, you have only your vision to sustain you. You wonder if anyone will ever buy the book. You wonder if anyone will like it. You don’t need acclaim, because writing is an end in itself. Still, readers connect the circle between you and the culmination of your vision, and in an odd sort of way, they finish the book. They take your vision and make it their own.

Many writers don’t consider readers during the writing process. They write solely for themselves and are proud of that fact, but what they don’t realize is how often their story fails to reach beyond the confines of the cover to allow the reader to participate in the story.

I write for myself in that I can only write what I can write. Even though I know the kinds of books that sell in great numbers, I’ve never been able to make that leap. My mind simply rebels — it wants to write what it wants and when it wants. Currently, my mind doesn’t seem to want to write any story; it simply wants to steep in the story I am presently living: new house owner. One day, though, a new story will pop up that I want to write. (I’m already trying to figure out who in my new town will be the victim of my next “Nightmare” story, the sequel to Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare.)

Although I can only write what my mind will allow, I still take potential readers into consideration. I wonder what readers will think. Will they understand my references? Will they find the humor? Is my writing clear enough? I like thinking that perhaps someday a reader will share this as yet unwritten product of my mind.

Malcolm R. Campbell, author of Conjure Woman’s Cat, wrote: “Whether it’s a book, poem, post, review, article or news story, I always hope somebody will say something. One never knows. It’s a slow conversation, so much time having gone by between the moment when something was written and the moment when somebody tells you they found it.”

Such a wonderful description of writing/reading — a slow conversation. I know I’ve read many books where I felt the author and I were having a conversation, silent though it may be. I read and I think about what I read.

It’s quite a heady realization that now I am a writer with readers of my own. I hope they enjoy our long, slow conversation.

***

Posted in culture, fiction, life, writing. Tags: Conjure Woman's Cat, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, Michael R Campbell, National Novel Writing Month, writing and reading as conversation, writing what we can write. 2 Comments »

Audio Books

March 23, 2018 — Pat Bertram

People often ask me if my books are available as audio books. (Okay, one person asked.) It used to be that some Kindles would read a print version of a book to you, but apparently that option has disappeared, so the only other option is an audio book.

To make an audio book, you have to find a narrator, preferably a professional narrator so that the book isn’t full of ums and ers and throat clearing. Ideally, the narrator must make each voice distinctive. All that runs into money.

To give you an idea of how much money, I am including here an excerpt from a company that distributes ebooks:

To assist with your budgeting, here are some rough guidelines on cost: Each hour of recorded content comprises roughly 9,000 words, which means a 26,000-word novella might run about three hours and a 100,000-word book would run about 11 hours. Narrators typically charge between $150 and $400 per finished hour.

Going by this formula, a mediocre narrator for Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare would cost me about $2,300. Maybe someday I’ll make enough off my books that the cost will be worth it.

Meantime, I have a cheaper option. If you want an audio version of any of my books, call me, and I’ll read aloud to you.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in culture, writing. Tags: audio book cost, audio books, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, reading aloud. 5 Comments »

Prevailing

March 21, 2018 — Pat Bertram

A friend who follows astrology told me that March 20 (yesterday) begins a time of great change for me, and although no astrological prediction pertaining to my life has ever come true, this one almost did.

After yesterday’s dance class contretemps (hey! I spelled contretemps right without needing spellchecker to correct it for me, though I did need spellchecker to check the spelling of spellcheck), I’d had enough. I simply did not want to play in that sandbox anymore (and sometimes, it does feel as if we are in preschool rather than postschool), so I called my dance teacher and told her I was taking time off.

A long silence, then, “How much time are you taking off?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ten days. Ten years. I just can’t do it any more.”

She said I was too good a dancer, and she refused to accept my resignation. I’m sure part of her consideration was the performance we will be doing at the beginning of June, but also as a good friend and a lifelong dancer, she has some inkling of what dancing means to me, though it’s hard to explain.

It’s not for exercise — I get plenty of exercise on my own, and would do even more if I weren’t going to class. It’s not for camaraderie, because I’m reverting back to my hermitic ways, and being around people exhausts me. It’s not for fun or enjoyment, though the stress-free classes give me both. It’s more of a thing of energy, of nourishment for my spirit, and too often lately a black miasma hangs over the class that others sometime respond to, but apparently only I can feel.

Still she does know of a lot of the byplay between me and the other characters, and she told me not to let anyone take dance away from me.

I agreed to stay. For a while. So the big change — not taking dance classes anymore — did not happen. But I also firmed my decision to step up my training saunters with the backpack to allow for a different sort of change.

In the middle of all this, I realized something — no matter what happens, I will prevail.

Did you notice above where I called my classmates “characters’? I meant characters in a book, which they all are — characters in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare. It seems to me that a lot of what happened in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare is happening in a sort of parallel reality in class, with the Deb character playing out her solitary (and totally inexplicable) feud against Pat and pulling those who don’t know the truth in to her mind-set of “Oh, poor me. Look what Pat’s doing to me.”

It’s entirely possible I am the villain — writers don’t always recognize the truth of their characters. But I do know one thing — no matter what happened (happens) to any of the other characters in the story, at the end, Pat did prevail.

***

Posted in life, relationships, writing. Tags: characters coming alive, contretemps, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, nourishment for my spirit, parallel reality, spellchecker, why take dance classes. 9 Comments »

Free Samples!

March 16, 2018 — Pat Bertram

If you have not yet read any of my books, or if you haven’t yet decided which of them to read, here is an opportunity to sample all of them. Simply click on each of the titles below to read the first chapter free online.

- Unfinished — While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own…

- Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare — When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

- A Spark of Heavenly Fire — In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

- Daughter Am I — When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents — grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born — she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

- Light Bringer — Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

- More Deaths Than One — Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?

- Grief: The Great Yearning — Not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. “This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”

***

Posted in books. Tags: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, Daughter Am I, free samples, Grief: The Great Yearning, Light Bringer, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, More Deaths Than One, Pat Bertram's books, Unfinished. 2 Comments »

Una Tiers Interviews Madame ZeeZee

February 15, 2018 — Pat Bertram

Interview by Una Tiers, author of LETTUCE READ WILLS, DOROTHY DAISY, NOT SAFE FOR THE BANK(ER), JUDGE vs NUTS, and DIE JUDGE DIE, available at http://amzn.to/1cOxMz6

I want to introduce you to my fellow writer, Pat Bertram. She has authored several books and is a particularly generous person when it comes to helping authors. Today I’m interviewing one of her most recent characters, from her book, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare.

Welcome, Madame ZeeZee, and thank you for taking time to sit down with us. For those who aren’t familiar with you, you run a successful dance studio where there was a recent murder of one of your students. Since that time, inconsistent stories about you have surfaced. I’m certain you would like to set the record straight.

Inconsistent stories about me? I never heard any. Too busy with my studio, I guess.

We notice that you don’t advertise for new students. How do people find you?

At the beginning, it was word of mouth, but after the murder and all talk on Facebook and Twitter and the local newspaper, I got a lot of new people. Most left after a few classes. People today have no discipline. They think they can come to class and start dancing with the group without even learning the steps.

Madame, rumors are that the dance studio is owned by a reclusive retired movie star who values her privacy. Please give us a hint of who it is.

Retired movie star? No. Retired professional dancer? Yes. You want a hint of who owns the studio? It’s me. And I’m not reclusive. I just like being quiet when I go home after work.

While you’ve always denied being related to Shirley Maclaine, are you sticking to that story?

Of course I’m sticking to that story. It’s the truth. I’ve danced with Shirley, but I’ve danced with a lot of other people, too, like June Allyson and Dick Van Dyke.

You rarely dance with your classes. Do you practice alone or take classes elsewhere?

My dream is to go back to Hollywood and take classes when I retire from my studio, but it’s too long a commute from Peach Valley. I do dance with my classes, especially the more advanced ones. We perform at luaus in the summer and on various other occasions, so if you know anyone who’d like to hire us, let me know.

We understand you’ve been married several times, would you tell us the number or if it is indeed over twelve?

What? You must have me mixed up with another Madame ZeeZee. I’ve only been married twice.

Would you ever relocate for love?

No. I’m happily married. And even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t relocate for love. I’m too independent, I guess. Besides, my house is exactly the way I like it, and I intend to stay there until the end.

How many countries have you lived in as an adult?

As an adult? One. Maybe two depending on how you define “lived in.”

In the book, Pat seemed to blame herself for the deaths of your dancers. Do you blame her, too?

Pat thinks too much. She needs to learn to just let things go. If I blamed her, I’d have to blame myself and all the rest of us who talked about killing Grace, but it wasn’t any of our fault. Well, except for the murderer. She was totally at fault.

If you could choose one author, living or dead, to read about your story, who would it be?

Pat Bertram, of course, but she wouldn’t need to read about my story because she wrote it.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Yes. Never stop dancing.

Thank you, Madame Zee Zee.

And thank you all for visiting with Madame ZeeZee and Una Tiers. Be sure to check out Interview with Fiona Gavelle, a Character in “Judge vs Nuts” by Una Tiers.

***

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: dance murder, Judge vs Nuts, learn to let things go, Madame ZeeZee, Madame ZeeZee's Nightmare, murder mysteries, Una Tiers. 1 Comment »

Fabulous Review!

February 1, 2018 — Pat Bertram

Anyone who has read the comments on this blog will know the name Rami Ungar. An author and blogger in his own right, he has always been a great supporter of mine, so when he offered me the use of his name for Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, I did not hesitate to create a character in his name.

Rami recently read the book and posted reviews all over the internet, which adds an interesting dimension to an already multi-dimensional story. I mean, how many of your characters have ever posted a review of the book they were in?

Rami Ungar wrote:

I wanted to read this book for a number of reasons, including that I know the writer and I’m familiar with her work. I expected a good mystery, and my expectations were not only met, but exceeded.

Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare is a true slow-burner mystery, taking its time to build up the characters and the mystery. As you keep reading, you find yourself drawn in, intrigued by these people and how they could be connected to the death in the story.

I also enjoyed the meta-fictional, fourth wall-breaking aspect of the novel. Since the author wrote herself as the protagonist and based parts of the story on her real life, you can get a very insightful look into her life, as well as her views on life itself and on fiction writing. It’s at times funny, at other times sad, but always very poignant.

I can’t really think of anything that works against the story. It’s a good read if you want a mystery that isn’t rushed and full of action, but instead character and story focused. Pick it up, and enjoy a dance of death not usually seen in stories.

Such a wonderful review! And a perfect description of the story within a story. It truly does a writer’s heart good when a reader not only enjoys the story, but gets it.

If you haven’t yet read Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, I hope this review will entice you to take a look. And while you’re at it, check out Rami Ungar’s blog and books.