And the nominees are . . .

cj Sez: So many books to read, so little time.

   “The Agatha Awards, named in honor of Agatha Christie, are nominated and voted on by Malice Domestic fans. The Agatha Awards honor the traditional mystery—books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex or excessive gore or violence; and usually (but not limited to) featuring an amateur detective, a confined setting, and characters who know one another. Agatha Awards are awarded in five categories for works first published in the United States by a living author during a calendar year. The winners for 2019 publications will be announced at the Agatha Awards Banquet on Saturday, May 2 in Bethesda, Maryland during Malice Domestic 32.”

   The Malice Domestic Agatha Award Nominees can be found here:  http://malicedomestic.org/agathas.html

   From the Mystery Writers of America press release on their website on January 22:

“Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce, as we celebrate the 211th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, the Nominees for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2019. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at our 74th Gala Banquet, April 30, 2020, in New York City.”

   Find out if your favorite author is a nominee here: https://mysterywriters.org/mwa-announces-the-2020-edgar-nominations/

///

   Mark your calendar! There’s a book signing coming up, and some of the authors whose stories are in these anthologies will be there to sign your copies. For sure, I'll be there, looking forward to meeting you!

   Plan to stop by The Mobile Bookseller on Friday, February 7th from 3 to 6 p.m.

   The Mobile Bookseller is located at 3990 Government Blvd., Mobile, AL, in the Skyland Shopping Center, at the intersection of Hwy. 90 and Azalea Road.

///

On the personal front…

   I have new and exciting covers and titles ready to re-issue my novels. I can hardly wait to reveal them, but I have to revise the front matter and tweak the stories before I’m ready to publish. Hopefully, that won’t take too long.

   I finished a short story Saturday afternoon (thanks, I’m sure, to your wishes for good luck), and it is now with a copy editor. The deadline for submission is looming, and I’m hoping for a fairly clean manuscript diagnosis so I don’t have to do a crash and burn to incorporate all the necessary edits in time to submit.

   I’ve also started an extensive revision of another short story to see if I can get it ready for submission to an anthology in two weeks.

   My granddaughter, Maggie Rose Johnston, made her debut on Friday as the "Good  Godly Woman" (which she really is in her daily life) in a country music YouTube video. Like author reviews, the more the video is seen and commented on, the better….so I’ve been sharing this information all over Facebook and thought you might enjoy it as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSQgU62j95o&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3cH2-UjfuMnTahwZT6BibUhbUoBuKMQ7bN8NLWHo1sYlY0RJjEbPFDfao

   That’s all for this week’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

Autographed print copies of CHOOSING CARTER, DEADLY STAR, and THE POSSE are still available at the Haunted Bookshop. TO ORDER (and support an indie bookstore) contact The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop  Angela Trigg, the awesome owner and an award-winning author in her own right (writing as Angela Quarles) will be happy to ship you the book(s) of your choice. If you’re in Mobile area, do stop in at the book store; it’s a neat place to browse. These friendly people make a point to shelve the books of local authors, and VALENTINE’S DAY PIECES anthology will be available there soon. If they don’t happen to have any copies of any book you want, they’ll order it for you.

➜ Follow me . . .

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A book signing and a C. Hope Clark essay

cj Sez: Mark your calendar! There’s a book signing coming up, and many of the authors whose stories are in these anthologies will be there to sign your copies.

Scheduled for a local indie bookshop, The Mobile Bookseller on Friday, February 7th from 3 to 6 p.m.  

   Plan to stop by for a meet and greet with local authors. The Mobile Bookseller is located at 3990 Government Blvd. Mobile, AL, in the Skyland Shopping Center, at the intersection of Hwy. 90 and Azalea Road.

///

   Because I am crashing to finish and submit a short story by February 1 (and I have two to three thousand more good words to go before I have to find a speedy beta reader), I’m going to re-post a guest piece by C. Hope Clark. I first posted her “You Are Not Alone” essay in 2016. There’s a lot of good information in it that bears repeating.

You Are Not Alone . . . and Shouldn’t Be

By C. Hope Clark

Writing is a profession of isolationism. If we didn’t have internet, we’d be recluses of the highest order. Or would we?

Writing takes considerable alone time, but without the internet we would be out amongst the masses, getting ideas, discussing concepts because, after all, we can’t know it all. Add to that connecting with agents, publishers, editors and the public in general. In years past, writers made a point of meeting other writers, and coming into New York to dine with editors. Agents were life-long friends. Hemingway often socialized with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Max Eastman, and he was acquainted with the painters Miro and Picasso. He appreciated rubbing elbows with other creators, even if in many circles he was considered their superior. Back in those days they propelled, endorsed, and gossiped about each other, making for great news . . . and sales.  Paris networking

Networking is critical in any profession. While we need the alone time to create, we need feedback on our quality. We need professionals in the other aspects of writing and publishing to guide us. We need to see how those ahead of us got there. Regardless of how independent we think we are in your publishing, which self-publishing has allowed us to be, we still find ourselves needing the knowledge of successful indie authors, graphic designers, formatters, and the people at CreateSpace, IngramSparks, Draft2Digital and other self-publishing resources.

We cannot know it all.

Then there’s the magic that happens in a face-to-face. Meeting people in person comes with its own rewards that are more unobtainable online. Professional organizations, Yahoogroups, critique groups, and conferences make you walk in as a writer and see how you measure up. While that scares introverted types, rarely do we walk away from those experiences without knowledge we would not have achieved otherwise.

Online, we learn what we query, but sometimes we aren’t certain which questions to ask. We search and search, hoping we are hitting the nail on the head, but then nobody is there to tell us whether we did.

In person, we can achieve so much more. For instance:

Sitting in a conference, we hear the best-of-the-best talk about how they achieved their success with anecdotes we might not find in a blog post or magazine interview.

Sitting in a conference class, we hear how-tos and examples, but then hands shoot up. We hear questions we hadn’t thought to ask, which makes us think of additional questions, and we find our own hand rising.

Seated in a room, we grow weary of the silence so we introduce ourselves to the people on either side of us, or across the table. The conversation leads to promotion tactics and publishing preferences, and soon you’re meeting them after class or following them to the lobby, excitedly sharing comparison.

We share business cards and email addresses in person, the eye contact visceral because they have connections . . . or you have connections they want, and in exchange they are willing to make introductions for you, barter editing each other’s book, or promote each other.

We sit next to a writer who has won awards, and we learn how that works. We enter a presentation of panel of authors who’ve made six figure incomes from their talent, and we are able to ask detailed questions as to how those journeys took place.

We sit in a class, hearing the lecture, but that’s not what’s important. The charisma, the passion, the excited enthusiasm of the speaker makes you listen keener and raises your own excitement. This person has done something with their writing, and they are who you’d like to be. You want that feeling. 

However, many authors avoid conferences because of the cost. There are ways to diminish that expense.

Share a motel room with someone.

Watch for conferences closer to home, or close to relatives you need to visit.

Volunteer to work the conference in exchange for the fee.

Apply for scholarships. Some conferences have them but do not advertise them.  Ask.

Apply to your state arts commission seeking financial assistance.

Ask your writing group to sponsor you, with you bringing back handouts and lesson plans that you in turn will teach them.

Or you could apply to writing retreats, many of which have scholarships and financial aid. They may not have speakers, but they often have other writers on site whom you can still share experiences and knowledge with.

Or you can join professional organizations like Romance Writers of America or Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators and learn from those local chapters or attend their one-day conferences held around the country. That cost is minimal.

Regardless how you network, find ways to step outside yourself and learn from others. If I had not attended a Sisters in Crime chapter one Saturday, I would not have heard about libraries needing writers to teach. From there I landed a contracted gig enabling me to get paid for speaking in three dozen appearances across my state. From there, I was chosen for the SC Humanities Speakers Roster, opening up more doors.

None of this was on my to-do list for the year, but I was willing to make the adjustment. The grant was not on the internet. The roster was on the web, but I didn’t know about it until getting involved with this grant.

Networking opens doors. Face-to-face exchanges can create ideas and connections found no other way. You cannot answer all your problems yourself. We do not operate in a vacuum. The maxim that it’s better to have more than one set of eyes carries merit.

                                 ****

C. Hope Clark is founder of FundsforWriters.com, a resource of grants, crowdfunding, agents, publishers, and markets with calls for submissions. Her newsletter reaches 35,000 writers.

Hope’s latest novel (Book 6) in her award-winning Edisto Island Mysteries is the five-star rated EDISTO TIDINGS. A click on the cover will take you to the Amazon site. 

///

That’s all for this week’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

   Autographed print copies of CHOOSING CARTER, DEADLY STAR, and THE POSSE are still available at the Haunted Bookshop. TO ORDER (and support an indie bookstore) contact The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop  Angela Trigg, the awesome owner and an award-winning author in her own right (writing as Angela Quarles) will be happy to ship you the book(s) of your choice. If you’re in Mobile area, do stop in at the book store; it’s a neat place to browse. These friendly people make a point to shelve the books of local authors, and VALENTINE’S DAY PIECES anthology will be available there soon. If they don’t happen to have any copies of the book you want, they’ll order it for you.

➜ Follow me . . .

➜         on Amazon: Amazon Central Author Page = https://amzn.to/2v6SrAj

➜         on Facebook at:   cjpetterson/author/facebook

➜         on BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson

Short stories and anthologies

cj Sez: Well, here I am typing on my blog when I should be writing. 

   I have immediate deadlines (less than two weeks for one and less than a month on another) for two short stories on which I have written about ten sentences. I blame that on trying to outline the stories. The attempts have blocked my creative juices.

   I’ve read that plotting is the way to go and have passed along verbiage about its virtues. I even took a course on it, thinking I could master the methodology, but my psyche says no dice.

   Ergo, I call myself a pathfinder…that’s a pantser who changes methodologies in the middle of the story. I know how I want the story to start and how I want it to end. Once I start writing and get past chapter one or two, I jot down a few possibilities then stair-step my way through the plot points, creating solutions to a character’s blocked path as I go along.

   With the deadlines for the stories so close, I wish I were like my author friend Carrie Dalby who regularly whips through three to five thousand words (sometimes more) a day. I’d be done in two days! Wonder if I can persuade her to do some ghost writing….nah. It’s my chore, and I’ll get at it as soon as the blog is done.

   So, tell me, how do you work best? Are you a plotter, a  pantser, or, like me, do you do some combination and create your own path?

///

   I have short stories in two of the anthologies pictured below: “Call me Jake” in VALENTINE’S DAY PIECES (releasing soon) and “Puppy Love” in the December release of FINALLY HOME. All three of these anthologies have lovely stories (and make thoughtful gifts) so here’s your chance to pick up hours of enjoyment for very little money.

FINALLY HOME is filled with year-round reads, feel-good short stories about animal rescues . . .

5.0 out of 5 stars Encourages Animal Lovers

   As a busy adult, I’ve not wanted the responsibility of a pet. These uplifting short stories have encouraged me to reconsider. I especially like CJ Petterson’s “Puppy Love”. Her main character, Frankie, is a foster mother for a pet rescue. As her romance with a military veteran turned civilian firefighter developed, I was educated on the ins and outs of animal fostering. This could be my year to visit a shelter.

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyed this read!!

   Finally Home is a holiday themed anthology loaded with 8 remarkably written stories. I was familiar with a couple of the authors, but most were new to me. Each of these stories stands well alone, but together they have created a warm holiday delight that any reader should take on over the holiday break. The writing flowed seamlessly. Overall, a great read!

                                        /// 

   That’s all for this week’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

   Autographed print copies of CHOOSING CARTER, DEADLY STAR, THE POSSE, and FINALLY HOME are still available at the Haunted Bookshop. TO ORDER (and support an indie bookstore) contact The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop  Angela Trigg, the awesome owner and an award-winning author in her own right (writing as Angela Quarles) will be happy to ship you the book(s) of your choice.

    If you’re in Mobile area, do stop in at the book store; it’s a neat place to browse. These friendly people make a point to shelve the books of local authors, and VALENTINE’S DAY PIECES anthology will be available there soon. If they don’t happen to have any copies of the book you want, they’ll order it for you.

➜ Follow me . . .

➜         on Amazon: Amazon Central Author Page = https://amzn.to/2v6SrAj

➜         on Facebook at:   cjpetterson/author/facebook

➜         on BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson

Resolutions for writers

cj Sez: Here we are starting a new year, a whole, new decade…awesome. I hope your holiday celebrations were everything you wanted them to be.

   I’ve never been someone who can keep a New Year’s resolution, but today I’m going to again propose some for 2020 that seem doable, at least for the first few weeks, because they all relate to writing.

   Anne Lamott, in her national best-selling, how-to book Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life wrote:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

   That’s some of the best advice ever for writers . . . take it one word at a time, one paragraph at a time, one chapter at a time, until you (surprise!) reach The End.

   You won’t always feel like writing, not every day, and there will be many days that what appears on the page will look like pure crap to you. The thing to remember is, you should expect that your first effort is ALWAYS a crappy draft. The goal is to write down the nuggets of your story—on blank paper or on a blank computer screen. Doesn’t make any difference if the spelling is correct, or the grammar, or the format. You can fix all that later. (I love editing, scratching through words or whole paragraphs with a red or purple pen...lets me take out all my frustrations on that crappy draft.)

   There are people who have a good idea for a story. They read a book and say, “I could do that. if I had the time.” I say, if you really, really (notice there are two “really’s” here) want to write, You. Will. Make. Time.

   Writing a novel takes dedication and discipline. Think of it as a commitment, a business, a job or a second job. If you don’t have children who rightfully own your time on-demand, maybe you could separate yourself and let the family know you don’t want to be disturbed when you’re creating. 

   Not a morning person? Write at night. Too pooped at night? Write before the rest of your family gets up. The important thing is to make a habit of writing. If you’re also working a full-time job, no problem. Before I retired, I always found that when I was super busy at work, I was more efficient with my time at home.

   Regarding research:  Do your story research one day and write the next. If you try to integrate the two, you’ll surely find yourself down one of those marvelously interesting but time-consuming rabbit holes, having not written one word on your novel. That also means No Facebook, No eMail, and No Twitter while you’re in your writing place—they’re for marketing your book or your personal time.

   Do set a realistic goal when you sit down to write. Maybe it’s five pages or one chapter or “x” number of words a day. Whatever it is, make sure it’s a goal you know you can reach.

   I don’t subscribe to the idea of “writer’s block.” I believe we get tired and frustrated trying to make that first crappy draft perfect. I suggest taking a break. Read a book, take a walk in the park, a trip to a coffee shop, a visit to a library or book store. Take time to re-energize and refresh your mind.

  Okay, enough preaching to the choir.

///

   My short story, "Call me Kate" is included in the Mobile Writers' Guild anthology, VALENTINE'S DAY PIECES. Be sure to watch for the release on Amazon. 

   And for your listening/viewing enjoyment, here’s a little Weird Al Yankovic ditty especially for writers:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

   That’s all for this week’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

P.S.   Autographed print copies of my books and short stories, including the 2019 FINALLY HOME anthology, are available at the Haunted Bookshop. TO ORDER (and support an indie bookstore) contact The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop  Angela Trigg, the awesome owner and an award-winning author in her own right (writing as Angela Quarles) will be happy to ship you the book(s) of your choice. 

   If you’re in Mobile area, do stop in at the book store; it’s a neat place to browse. These friendly people make a point to shelve the books of local authors, and my latest story in VALENTINE’S DAY PIECES anthology will be available there soon. 

➜ Follow me . . .

➜         on Amazon: Amazon Central Author Page = https://amzn.to/2v6SrAj

➜         on Facebook at:   cjpetterson/author/facebook

➜         on BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson