Lucky 7

Lucky 7 is a fun blog challenge passed on to me by my friend and fellow author Darcia Helle. The challenge is to blog 7 lines from unpublished works of fiction. Here are the instructions I received:

1. Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript (fiction or non-fiction)
2. Go to line 7
3. Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating
4. Tag 7 other authors to do the same

These 7 sentences are from page 7 of my current novel in progress, Fatal Fury (title subject to change):

…got muddled. Tonight, he’d kill again. If all went according to plan, Charles Dean would lose it all.

Charles Dean read the text message on his phone and the smile slipped from his lips. He glanced at his watch. Two-fifteen. Fingers twitched. His mind raced for an excuse. He punched in a short reply and pressed SEND. On his way out of the clubhouse, he bypassed the bar and made a call to a friend. Mark Wilson answered.

“Mark. I’ve got to go to the office.”

Fatal Fury is set in Oxfordshire, England, and should be complete around early 2013.

Now I need to pass this challenge on to 7 author friends. The lucky 7 are:

Jen Wylie

Sean Hayden

Reggie Ridgway

Donna Galanti

Gayle Carline

Joel Kirkpatrick

Doug DePew

I’m looking forward to reading all their teasers.

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Seasonal Books

Spirits, ghosts, graveyards and the dark. Pranks and scary stories. Halloween is a creepy time of year. The macabre element of the season intrigues me. A murder at this time of year seems darker, more chilling. I love a thriller or a horror (not the slasher blood and guts kind) at any time of year, not just Halloween.

In Hide and Seek, my characters hide behind costumes and masks, which increases the terror for the victim. Hide and Seek is a mystery that takes place over Halloween, but it’s not a Halloween story. A group of friends gather at a mansion to celebrate a birthday, and a guest goes missing. At the center of the murder investigation is the lingerie bar, where two victims once worked.

After I wrote Hide and Seek, I noticed an interesting detail. My 2nd mystery, No Alibi, also takes place in October/November. I’m sure this was unintentional, so I checked Madness and Murder, my first novel. Yep. November/December. I don’t associate murder with Autumn (Fall) or Winter, but I seem to be drawn to these dark, colder months. I wonder why. I held my breath and checked my current work in progress…ahhh, this one takes place in May. I’m cured.

How much does the weather or the season influence your reading?  Do you find a murder mystery more chilling, more foul if it takes place in the Winter rather than in the Summer, or does it make no difference?

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Points of View

I just read Bleed For Me by Michael Robotham, written in first person present tense, which means the main character is in pretty much all the scenes. The book carries a strong message about the vulnerability of underage girls and the adult predators they encounter.  I enjoyed the story and the first-person POV made it a lot more intimate.

The majority of the books I read are written in 3rd person, where the narrator is not known. I like the fact the unidentified narrator knows the whole story and can relate it from different points of view (providing they are not in the same scene). As a reader, I get to know all the characters and see their different dimensions, depending upon what is happening and whom they encounter. First person can be limiting because the main character drives the story and cannot know what is happening outside his own scenes.

I often weave several plots together in the books I write, and tell the story from different character’s points of view. In Madness and Murder, several chapters of the the story are told from opposite sides of the world. Sometimes I get into the killers head, and the victim’s. I find it more suspenseful to write and to read.

I’ve recently been criticized by readers who don’t like this, who find it confusing to switch into a new character’s POV in a new chapter. In the mystery genre, I like the idea that I can write from the POV of the character who is most affected by what is happening in the scene. If everything happens in one character’s POV, how can the reader fully understand the impact on the other character’s, the victim, or their families?

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way, and I’m interested to know your thoughts on the subject. Does your preference depend on genre? Do you like to get to know one main character or several? Or do you have no preference?

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Beating my bad attitude

Last week was one of the worst I’ve had in a while. On Tuesday, we lost of one of our beloved dogs and the place feels weird without her. 3 hassle-filled days followed. By Friday, I felt drained, lethargic, full of bad attitude and equally bad language.

I hate when things go wrong, especially when they all go wrong at once and culminate in a crap week like last week. Writing is usually my therapy for dealing with stress. Last week I did none. My energy was used up. The idiots wore me down. I had a press release to issue, blog interviews to write. Things that matter to me. I was too drained to do any of them. In short, I wasn’t pleasant to be around and I wasted a full week – time I’ll never get back.

All the bad and annoying things that happened last week were outside my control, except for my attitude and my decision to feel sorry for myself. My attitude probably made everything worse. Negativity breeds more negativity and we all know life is too short and the meter is ticking….

Someone once told me to ask myself this question whenever I feel stressed: “5 years from now, will any of this matter?” I forgot to ask myself the question last week, but I remembered this morning. Some of it will, most of it won’t.

I wrote today and I feel better. I tackled my overdue tasks, which improved my mood. Doing the things I love is what matters, what makes me feel good. How did I forget?

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Hide and Seek

It started with a game and ended with murder. A complex investigation follows, at the center of which is a lingerie bar………

Hide and Seek is the second in the Jackson mystery series, and can also be read as a stand-alone. Two years after I started writing this book, based on the childhood game, I’m thrilled (if you’ll pardon the pun) to announce it is finally available for Kindle. The paperback version will follow shortly.

I’m now taking a departure from the San Francisco settings I love so much to return to my homeland and spend time researching and writing my 4th suspense, Fatal Fury (title subject to change), which is set in the delightful city of Oxfordshire, England. Corporate execs are mysteriously dying……….

Here is a taster of Hide and Seek:

Halloween. A group of friends gather at a mansion and decide to play a game. When one of them disappears and a large pool of blood is found on the grounds, San Francisco homicide inspector, Mac Jackson, is called out to investigate. Two days later, the body is discovered.

As Jackson questions the guests, he uncovers old hostilities, secretive pasts, and the victim’s ties to another unusual death. At the center of it all is the lingerie bar, where the victim once worked. Are the girls in some sort of danger? Who is the thug with the scar? His best chance at solving the case hinges on an uncooperative source and Jackson must work fast, before it’s too late and his source disappears.

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