New Audio Book!

I want to let you know, if you didn’t see it on Facebook, that the audio book of SMOKE, the second Imogene Duckworthy mystery, is available now! It was read by Veronica Newton, the same artist who recorded CHOKE.

If you already belong to Audible, skip to the next paragraph. If you don’t and you’d like to, here’s how I think it works. When you sign up for Audible you get a free book. If you make CHOKE or SMOKE your first free one, it warms the cockles of my heart. Full disclosure: Veronica and I both earn a Bounty. C’mon, I’ve wanted to be a bounty hunter ever since I started to read Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books.

  

What are you waiting for? Hop over to sample a bit of CHOKE and/or a bit of SMOKE and see if you like them.

PS. Stay tuned. BROKE will be out before we know it.

What’s Your Slogan for 2015?

I used “Off to the Races” for 2014, since it was the Chinese Year of the Horse. This next one, from what I can tell, is the year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram. I’m not crazy about any slogans I’ve come up with for those. (Although the Chinese Zodiac doesn’t actually start until 2/19, so I have some time on that one.)

RAM INTO 2015. LET’S MUNCH THIS YEAR. LEAP WITH THE SHEEP.

I’ve used rhymes for my slogans in past years. KEEP ON REVVIN' IN 2011 was one. Maybe not a good one, but it worked for me. There was also DELVE INTO ’12. (These are used with an exclamation point, of course.) LUCKY 13 could probably only pertain to me, or to others who consider 13 their lucky number. I looked up a couple of even older ones, 2009 was TIME TO SHINE and 2010 was alternately GET ‘ER DONE and YOU CAN DO IT.

Here’s what I do with my slogans. I post them at the end of my daily pages every day as inspiration, motivation, and encouragement. Maybe, come to think of it, these shouldn’t properly be called slogans.

But, back to the problem. 2015? I found some rhymes at http://www.rhymer.com/RhymingDictionary/fifteen.html

How inspirational are the words spleen, teen, bean, mean. Maybe I could do something with keen. Obscene, gangrene? Submachine, kerosene. Libertine, nicotine.

KEEN ON ’15. I kind of like that.

As I left the allergy clinic where I get shots once a week, the receptionist remarked that she was glad to see this year go. I think I am, too, and I was glad to see last year go. So maybe 2015 WILL be keen. Let’s hope so!

Sometimes I just end my pages with ONWARD! That always works. You can’t go back!

My Morale Problem

In the face of the violence exploding all over the world, especially the deaths of so many children in Pakistan at the hands of sub-humans, I’m finding I have to gird myself to get up the gumption to write about death and murder.

I asked myself yesterday, How can I write about fictional murder when actual atrocities are occurring right now?

Not having an answer, I went ahead and got my quota for the day written. Actually, I exceeded it and had a good writing day. It’s nice to have an alternate world that I can retreat into. A world where order reigns supreme—after the disorder gets taken care of.

After quite a bit of thought, I realized that this is something I’ve told myself and others many times. What I do as a mystery writer is very different. I’m turning the tables, setting the crime on its head. In my fiction, the murderer gets caught and justice is done. In real life, that doesn’t always happen. Fiction gives me a chance to display good triumphing over evil. Fiction isn’t real life. It’s better.

Also, I never kill children.

This blog is cross posted on http://janetcantrell.blogspot.com/

Giving Tuesday and Roof Over Your Head plus cookies

I like this holiday! It’s a great way to kick off the holiday season—if you don’t count Thanksgiving as part of The Holidays.

This is a new holiday, created in 2012, to be a US holiday. However, by 2013, it had become international, spreading to Australia, Mexico, and Canada. Other countries, including the UK have signed on this year.

If you live in England, here are 10 ways to participate without spending any cash! I wish I could find a list like this for the US.

To extend the giving tradition, today is designated at National Roof Over Your Head Day. The idea is to be grateful for the roof you have over your own head, while also taking time to volunteer at a homeless shelter, or pick a name off a Christmas Angel Tree. 

Here’s an extra heads up. Tomorrow is National Cookie Day! Maybe the idea is to reward yourself for being kind on the two days before.

Only as Good As?

They say a writer is only as good as her last book. True, very true. If you’ve turned out a string of pearls and deliver a lump of coal, that’s what you’ll have to overcome in the next book.

I don’t think I’ve done that yet. Not to brag (OK, it’s bragging), but one reader says each Duckworthy book is better than the last one. I’m not examining that sentiment far enough to see what it says about the first two. Nope, not doing it.

But what occurred to me yesterday, as I completed a scene that I very much like, and one that popped up all on its own, as they are wont to do, is that maybe a writer is only as good as her last chapter. Her last paragraph? Her last sentence?

No wonder writers exist in a constant state of mild anxiety, broken up by periods of sheer terror, usually induced by deadlines.

Am I overthinking this? Maybe not. After all, you can’t stick awful sentences into your paragraphs and just continue on your blithe way. They all have to be crafted. They all have to hang together. Nothing must impede the reader, speeding through your deathless prose, turning the pages into the night—ideally.

When we do put in a stumbling block, we sure do depend on our beta readers to point those out to us so we can smooth the way.

This is very much on my mind as I finish up the second Fat Cat book and embark on the third. The first one was so well received, that I can’t believe the second one will measure up, let alone the third. All I can do is write the best book I can and fling it out there. Talk about a wing and a prayer!

I will add that I depend on my publishers’ editors to keep me on the straight and narrow to producing an entertaining book. However, it’s my name on the cover, right? One of my names, anyway.

This blog is duplicated at Janet's place,http://janetcantrell.blogspot.com/. 

Cover Reveal!

I'm so pleased to be able to show you the cover for FAT CAT SPREADS OUT, which will be published June of 2015 if everything goes well and I don't have to do lots of additional rewriting.

Here's the come-on:

Butterscotch tabby Quincy is back and hungrier than ever in this frisky follow-up to Fat Cat at Large…

A booth at the Bunyan County Harvest Fair seems like the perfect opportunity for Charity “Chase” Oliver and Anna Larson to promote their Bar None bakery business. Unfortunately, plus-sized pussycat Quincy has plans for their delicious dessert bars other than selling them to customers. After tearing through their inventory, Quincy goes roaming the fairgrounds in search of more delights.

But what he finds is murder. One of the top contenders in a butter-sculpting contest has been killed, and Chase is churning on the inside when she sees Quincy’s handsome veterinarian, Dr. Mike Ramos, being led away by the police. With a little help from a kitty with butter on his whiskers, Chase needs to find the real killer and clear the doctor’s good name….

AND the cover:

You can preorder it already, too. Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, or Amazon.  

Post Halloween Thoughts

Thought #1. The same one we usually have. We bought too much candy. This year was worse than

some because it started raining at 7. We got 5 trick or treaters, then, I figure, the fled to the nice warm, dry mall, where candy was also being handed out.

Thought #2. November 2nd was National Cookie Monster Day, but why isn’t it National Leftover Candy Day? That would make sense. Or maybe have that one on November 1st and then follow it with the lovable Monster’s day.

Thought #3. Thanksgiving is next, although it’s hard to discern, since the only commercial value is to the grocery stores. Should we try for a fresh turkey this year? They turn out well, no thawing required. And I have a handy new meat thermometer that I can read outside the oven.

Thought #4. I kind of miss the injected deep-fried turkeys our son

used to make when he was single. And the ones Hubby used to smoke all day on the driveway. Neither of these guys are inclined to do these any more. Things change.

Thought #5. Even though I lament the early advertising for Christmas, I need to get cracking on gifts. I have two packages that I sent overseas and they need to go out this month. Pretty soon, actually. That’s why I shop for Christmas all year long.