Tag Archives: publishing

Why I love Mysteries [Guest Blog: Nancy Lynn Jarvis]

Posted on February 17, 2011 | 8 comments

I got hooked on mysteries at a tender age. Their logic and careful structure first began fascinating me when, sworn to secrecy by my grandmother who worried my mother wouldn’t approve of such a young girl reading mysteries other than Nancy Drew, I sat in Nana’s wicker rocking chair reading books by Agatha Christie.

I became quite good at figuring out who did it before Dame Agatha had Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot tell me, and I offered myself liberal congratulations for my cleverness. It wasn’t until I started writing mysteries myself that I realized the masterful Christie probably knew on which page I could know, not just guess, the villain’s identity before she even started writing her book.

Solving a mystery is like solving a logic puzzle—Sudoku on steroids— and if that isn’t fun enough, mysteries can give a reader, or me as a writer, an excuse to delve into a world of fascinating but unsettling things like decomposition, accidental mummification, and how ligature strangulation and death by hypothermia work. For me, researching those topics is akin to being a four-year-old playing with rubber dinosaurs: the game is enjoyable and I can control what might otherwise give me nightmares.

Mysteries, at least the kind I like and write, let me fill the sleuth’s shoes for a time and, from the safety of my favorite reading spot, live in a more daring world than my own and outwit the murderer within about three-hundred pages.

Nancy Lynn Jarvis has been a Santa Cruz, California, Realtor® for more than twenty years. She owns a real estate company with her husband, Craig.

After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz.

Nancy’s work history reflects her philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years. Writing is her newest adventure.

She invites you to take a peek into the real estate world through the stories that form the backdrop of her Regan McHenry mysteries. Details and ideas come from Nancy’s own experiences.

Buying Murder

Click Cover to Buy Now!

Murder gets personal when human remains are found in the beach cottage that realtors Regan McHenry and her husband, Tom Kiley, buy. The murder victim has been hidden away for sixteen years, and although the authorities quickly discover his identity, the trail to his killer is cold.

Regan has sworn off playing amateur detective, but when it becomes clear the police have to focus on more pressing crimes, she has to break her promise. As her policeman friend, Dave Everett, says, “Your house, Regan, your murder.”

Welcome back to Santa Cruz, the community whose unofficial motto is “Keep Santa Cruz Weird,” for the twists and turns of the third book in the Regan McHenry Mystery Series.

8 Comments

Posted in Blatherings, Guest Bloggers

Tagged books, Buying Murder, Echelon Press, mystery, mystery novels, Nancy Lynn Jarvis, publishing, readers, reading, real estate, Santa Cruz, writers, Writing

Accidents Happen (Guest: Robert P. Bennett)

Posted on February 8, 2011 | 4 comments

I’ve just signed a contract for my second novel, “Blind Traveler’s Blues.”

Wow, that feels good!

People ask me all the time. “How did you become a writer?” For me it wasn’t something I had always dreamed of being. It was an accident – literally !

Growing up I wanted to be a lawyer. Frankly, I always enjoyed arguing with people. My family would tell you that my ideas were not mainstream, and that I always find a different point of view than those around me. Alas, I was never a good student. I was not one of those kids for whom learning was easy. And, I was terrible at taking tests. I would study hard, feel I knew the material going in to test day, but then freeze up when the test paper sat before me on the desk. So, I never got the exceptional grades needed to get into a law school.

My saving grace was my mother. She convinced me that, since I always wanted to help people, and always argued the point of view of the disenfranchised, that I would make a good social worker ( her own calling by the way ). At the time I wasn’t sure I agreed. But, I finally decided, I could go to social work school for one year and reapply for law school ( with hopefully better grades ) if that was still what I wanted to do. I finished my studies, got my MSW, and went to work at a group home for mentally challenged men. And then I had a car accident!

Car accidents are great if you want to completely change the direction your life is going. Frankly, they serve no other useful purpose, and I don’t recommend them as a fun way to spend a few minutes. But, it was because of the accident I became a writer, again with my mother’s help (no, mom was not in the car when I had the accident).

At the time she was working at a mental health agency where someone, for some reason, had posted a notice for classes at a place called The New York Studio for Writers. As it turned out, the school was only a couple of minutes from our home. Well, Mom remembered that I had always been writing stories and little diddies growing up. She gave me the notice. I made a phone call. Soon after, I was sitting with a small group of wannabe writers learning the craft.

That was more than seventeen years ago. Since then I’ve devoted my life and my writing skills to what I call “issues of disability,” everything from sports to politics. I write about people who challenge societal views of what we commonly, and mistakenly, call ‘disabilities’ and ‘handicaps.’ I write about technology that helps people with disabilities lead better, easier, more productive lives. I write about social and physical barriers and how to circumnavigate them. You see, what I’ve learned over the years is that we’re all disabled in one way or another. Some disabilities, like my need for a wheelchair, are more obvious than others. Some, like glasses or hearing aides, are more socially accepted. In my worldview, it is society itself that is disabled because it consciously or unconsciously creates physical/intellectual/emotional barriers for people.

Some six years ago or so I wrote an article about a prototype device that would combine GPS and virtual reality technologies to allow blind people to navigate through their world. After the article was published, my brother and I thought, “what would happen if the device had a glitch, allowing the user to ‘see’ an event that was happening a few blocks away from where he currently was.” That became the impetus for Blind Traveler Down a Dark River, the first book in the Blind Traveler series. The second book, Blind Traveler’s Blues, is soon to be published, in ebook format, by Echelon Press.

If you have something to say, don’t wait for an accident – try writing.

Robert Bennett
Writer/Lecturer
Issues of Disability
Author: The Blind Traveler Series
http://www.EnablingWords.Com

4 Comments

Posted in Blatherings, Guest Bloggers, Just for Fun, Writing

Tagged author, authors, change, disability issues, ebooks, Echelon Press, family, handicap, publishing, readers, reading, writers, Writing

Ultimate Release (Guest Blog: Sean Hayden)

Posted on February 1, 2011 | 19 comments

Ya, I know what you’re thinking. “That sounds dirty.” Well it’s not. I’d heard the expression over the years, knew what it meant, but I can honestly tell you, “You’ve got it wrong!” The ultimate release is nothing of the sort. The ultimate release is knowing, within a few days or weeks, the book you wrote will finally, finally be available for people to read.

The release of Origins has been one HELLUVA ride. I don’t see it as being over, either. These long and winding months of waiting are drawing to a close, but that wasn’t the ride. That was the rollercoaster climbing the first incline after leaving the gate at the amusement park. The real ride is just beginning. When it’s available for purchase, the rollercoaster will just be cresting that first hill and the whole ride will be laid out and I’m expecting to yak over the side of the car at some point in time (the true sign of a great ride).

Many of you might not know, but I only started writing about a year and a half to two years ago. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The reason I started writing is very simple. I had read a lot of things out there that I couldn’t believe had been published. I bought them for their shiny covers (ya, I know I shouldn’t judge it from it, but I did. Sue me), brought them home, brewed some coffee, got through the first few chapters, and threw them down in disgust. “How the hell did that get published?” Ever have one of those moments? Ever have one of these? “I could write better than that!”

I said it, and I realized what I said as the words dribbled from my numb lips. Did I just say I was going to write a book? Could I? Would I? Should I? I did.

As the final words of Origins made their way from my imagination, through my fingertips, onto the keys of my laptop computer, and etched onto the screen and hard-drive of my computer, I SMILED. I had done it. Now I just needed to find somebody to publish it. That would be easy, right?

*Insert hysterical, maniacal laughter soundtrack here*

Okay. Let me tell you something. WRITING A BOOK IS EASY!

There, I said it.

Now let me tell you what’s not. FINDING A PUBLISHER!

The rollercoaster lap-bars had come down, the ride was starting to move slowly forward. GASP! There’s a hiccup in the rides internal circuitry. Now the car will sit for a few months while they repair the ride.

Uh, huh. That’s what happened to our brave adventurer. He had a completed manuscript, but because he knew nothing about being an author or finding an agent or finding a publisher, he relied on the greatest purveyor of ultimate truth. The internet. I mean, if it’s on Google, IT HAS TO BE TRUE? RIGHT?

Ya, not so much.

“You will never get you published if you ain’t got an agent, son,” said the carnival operator to our stranded hero.

“Gosh, I’m gonna have to get me one of those,” I said.

And so I wasted the next five months of my life looking for an agent. See, the problem was agents are busy. What I didn’t know at the time was that I wasn’t the only hombre who had hopped on the “I WROTE A BOOK” rollercoaster. I had a lot in common with those other folks too. Not only had they written about vampires, too, but they were also (forgive my use of foul language) unpublished authors! Duh, duh, duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. See, we are the LEPERS of the publishing industry. Because we had never had our work published in so much as a school newspaper (I’m kidding, don’t put that down on your resume), agents wouldn’t even take the time to read our stories. The bastards (yeah, I said it).

“Well, no problem,” I said when I realized that my rollercoaster wouldn’t get going if I kept vainly searching for someone from the Dewey, Screwum, and Howe Literary agency to take a gander at his magnificent manuscript. “I’ll just go right to the source and find me a PUBLISHER!” HEAD –>DESK

Have you ever heard the term SLUSHPILE? Sounds nummy, don’t it? Like a big SLURPEE just sittin there waitin for you and a straw. Hope it’s cherry. Hope somebody actually runs out of suggested manuscripts from reputable agents, skims through said pile, singles out your manuscript, gives it a read, likes it, makes you an offer, and publishes you. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? So would going to a local convenience store, picking up one of those little pencils, grabbing a lottery form, making little black squares with #2 lead, waiting until drawing night, watching the blond in the shiny dress pull little numbered balls out of an acrylic tube hooked up to a backwards ass vacuum, and watching your numbers come up.

Then, one cloudless summer’s day, a ray of light shone down from the heavens, lit up my keyboard, and a choir of angels sang out in joyous three-point harmony as I hit “ENTER” on my latest Google search. I had heard the term “INDI PUBLISHER” and decided to give it a whirl. Hmmmm, Echelon Press, that sound’s cool. Let me give them a shot. “BEST DAY EVER.”

Slowly, the ride crept forward on its rickety wooden frame and iron tracks. I could feel my manuscript and the ride of my new career being propelled slowly forward.

That was several months ago. The ride was filled with exciting things like getting my cover, and being assigned an editor, and then seeing the different edits as the book changed into something a little less raw and something more akin to the dreams I had of holding my book. Looking back, I can honestly say, there isn’t one thing I would change about the whole ride. It taught me so much, not only about publishing and writing, but about patience and perseverance as well. It made me not only a better author, but a better person as well. I just can’t believe I kept my sense of humor through the whole thing. What’s that? My sanity? HEHEHE. That’s a different story.

Origins

Ashlyn Thorn was born different. She was born with all the characteristics of a vampire, but in a world where vampires, elves, and werewolves work, play, and die side by side with normal humans, everyone knows vampires aren’t born, they’re made. The only thing she ever wanted is to know her true Origins. Ashlyn’s tale takes her on a quest to find out what makes her different and to find out the truth, but with every question she gets answered, she uncovers more uncertainties. To make things worse she makes enemies of the most powerful vampires of the city who consider her powers to dangerous to let go unchecked. She is saved by the government only to be trained and used to serve their purposes, and Ashlyn finds herself torn between two worlds. She can either be a monster, or help fight the monsters.

Born in the suburbs of Chicago, Sean Haydeen moved to the frigid arctic climes of southeast Florida as a small child. The son of a fireman and a proofreader (that’s what they had before spellcheck) he fell in love with reading at a young age. When he hit the age of 35 he wrote his first novel, an urban fantasy about vampires and demons entitled Origins. Unsatisfied with one novel, he penned the sequel Deceptions and both titles of the Demonkin Series will be available from Echelon Press soon.