Local Mystery Festivals

I like mystery festivals and conventions that are close to my home on the east coast. I've become a regular at the Malice Domestic Fan Convention in Crystal City, near D. C. This year it's in Bethesda, Md.
I don't like to fly, particularly now that seats are getting smaller and overhangs nearly touch my head. I'm claustrophobic that way, and passengers and flight attendants do not need to deal with the possibility of me running down the aisle screaming in panic. Used to be, you could drink your way to your destination and feel no fear. Not so today.
That means I didn't to San Francisco, a city I love, for Bouchercon in September. It's the grandest mystery writer/reader convention, but I'm sticking to the eastern part of the U. S.
So, I signed up to attend, and be part of, the Cape Fear Crime Festival as a panelist.
the Cape Fear Crime Festival returned to Wilmington, North Carolina. Murder and mayhem came to Northeast Branch of the New Hanover County Library, 1241 Military Cutoff Road, Wilmington, NC 28405. I got to meet new writers, librarians and readers.
I plan to attend another local event, but not sure which one. Maybe Nashville. Also, will go to Bouchercon in St. Louis in September.



THE END GAME
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

GETTING THE CALL FROM MY EDITOR, RUTH CAVIN

My editor at St. Martin's Minotaur passed away January 10, 2011 at the age of 92. She was 90 years of age when she chose my novel, THE END GAME, to win the St. Martin's/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery.

This essay is a reprint I wrote for Julie Lomoe's Blog.

I wrote my first novel before I began my newspaper career, right after I got out of college, while I was babysitting my two children. It was a war novel – hey, why not start with something you know everything about, right? It's a good thing I love to research.

I sent it off to an agent friend, a classmate in college. He told me it was hard to believe a woman wrote the book, and that if he sold it, I should use initials so buyers would think I was a man. Then he gave me friendly advice. He said I should write women's non-fiction like the stuff in "Cosmopolitan". Sex positions was going to propel me to the top of the Best Seller List.

I went to work for a newspaper instead. After twenty years as a writer, editor and columnist, I retired to write novels in earnest. Like most journalists, I had a few manuscript starts, but never finished them. My first effort was a mystery overlaid with romance. I didn't consider genre when writing the manuscript. I just wanted to tell a story, sell it to a publisher and have a large reading audience. I hired an agent and wrote four books in what she called the romantic suspense genre, before she told me romantic suspense wasn't selling well.

So okay, let's do something else. I created Moriah Dru, a former cop turned child finder. Already in love with a detective, Dru wouldn't be drifting into romance. My agent didn't like The End Game, because she didn't like the heroine. Dru had too much angst. After three years, my agent and I parted, and I sent The End Game to large independent publishers (of which there are few) and got requests for the "full" manuscript from all. I wrote the second book while waiting for offers that didn't come.

I entered The End Game into the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's Minotaur competition for Best First Traditional Mystery novel and started another mystery series. I'd forgotten about the Minotaur contest. Who wins contests anyway? Then my contest reader called to tell me she'd sent the novel on to St. Martin's. The process starts with readers who receive manuscripts from all over the country. They chooses the best in their estimation and send them to St. Martin's.

A couple months went by, and I "got the call" from Ruth Cavin. I was working on a straight romance and almost let the phone ring. Instead, I said "Hello".

I swear my heart stopped beating as I listened to her words that went something like: "This is Ruth Cavin with St. Martin's. I'm calling to tell you that your novel won the St. Martin's contest. Congratulations."

It couldn't be any of my joker friends. They didn't know I'd entered the contest. My husband didn't know.

My mouth was open and dried-out when I stuttered, "You're kidding?"

She laughed and said, "I had some wonderful manuscripts to choose from, but I thought yours was just the best." Just the best. Her wonderful voice still resounds in my head.

When I told my husband I was going to be published by a big New York house, he said, "At last!"

Thank you Julie for letting me relive that call on your wonderful blog.
Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.blogspot.com/
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

KEEP WRITING FUN

I got a call from a writer friend; a midlister who worries from contract to contract. She has three books with an intermediate indie publisher and worries if they'll buy her next book in the series.
Did I say worries twice? You already know my friend. Miss Anxiety.
I tell her to recover that feeling she had when she wrote her first book, or the first book the publisher bought.
"I used to think writing was fun," she said.
"It still can be," I said.
"I feel like an athlete. Over the hill and off the playing field - if I don't come up with a big plot and marvelous characters."
"You have a series; you've done that."
"What if they get stale?"
What if, what if? Miss Anxiety has become a stuck disc.
I'm a writer; and I suffer an occasional bout of the doubts, but I still think writing is fun. Not every manuscript I produce is going to be a winner with readers, editors, publishers… But I know when I wrote it, it was fun.
I wish I had more encouraging words for my friend, an elixir for writing-is-fun work. I've known her for years and I think her anxiety comes through in her work, which is a plus, because she writes edgy noir fiction.
Now, for me, it's back to the playing field.
Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME

ME, BETSY AND BOOK CLUBS

I can't stress enough the power of book clubs. I appeared at the Rivermont Women's Book Club in Atlanta this week. The members were so excited to have a "real live author" talk about her book. Brunch and mimosas over, we settled down to a white glove grilling. These women, after all, are southerners.

Afterward, I signed copies of my book. At other clubs, members share books or get them from libraries, which is fine. As authors we're really looking to build our brand by word of mouth. But these women bought their own copies. If they had ebooks, I signed bookmarks for them. Such a great time.

Next day, the secretary of the club got in touch with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (a newspaper from which I retired) and they ran an item about me and the book club. The hits on my website went out the roof, just like when the AJC reviewed my book.

Libraries and book clubs - do them.

Gerrie Ferris Finger THE END GAME

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

KEEPING THE FUN IN WRITING

I got a call from a writer friend; a midlister who worries from contract to contract. She has three books with an intermediate indie publisher and worries if they'll buy her next book in the series.

Did I say worries twice? You already know my friend. Miss Anxiety.

I tell her to recover that feeling she had when she wrote her first book, or the first book the publisher bought.

"I used to think writing was fun," she said.

"It still can be," I said.

"I feel like an athlete. Over the hill and off the playing field - if I don't come up with a big plot and marvelous characters."

"You have a series; you've done that."

"What if they get stale?"

What if, what if? Miss Anxiety has become a stuck disc.

I'm a writer; and I suffer an occasional bout of the doubts, but I still think writing is fun. Not every manuscript I produce is going to be a winner with readers, editors, publishers… But I know when I wrote it, it was fun.

I wish I had more encouraging words for my friend, an elixir for writing-is-fun work. I've known her for years and I think her anxiety comes through in her work, which is a plus, because she writes edgy noir fiction.

Now, for me, it's back to the playing field.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

THE END GAME

Coming in October: WAGON DOGS (Writing that hunting dog mystery was a lot of fun.)

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

AGATHA'S BIRTHDAY

Agatha May Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890 and from the 1920s until the 1970s she was the world's most popular mystery author, having sold more than two billion books worldwide, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Christie turned out cozy stories of murder and detection featuring her two most popular detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Poirot starred in 30 novels while Miss Marple solved mysteries in 12. Countless (to me at least) have been made into movies, most notably the star-studded 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express.

In 1971 Christie was made a Dame of the British Empire for her contributions to British literature and culture.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/
THE END GAME
HONORED DAUGHTERS
WHEN SERPENTS DIE
WAGON DOGS - COMING IN OCTOBER

RADIO GIG

I'll be talking about my two series, DRU and LAKE, and THE LAURA KATE PLANTATION SERIES on Red River Writers Blog Talk Radio on September 16 at 8:00 p.m. The show is the premier of "15 Minutes with Robins & Goodnow"

Tune in and listen while I "run my mouth", as we say in the South, for fifteen minutes. You take your fame where you can get it, and I'm looking forward to April Robins' fine show.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

PRINT DICTIONARIES GOING THE WAY OF THE DODO?

Papers Fight Over Whether Third Oxford English Dictionary Will Ever Be Printed

from Publishers Lunch

The original story in the Sunday Times this weekend was interesting, and reasonable enough. Oxford University Press ceo Nigel Portwood noted "the print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year."

Asked if the company would issue a print version of the third edition of the OED--said to be 28 percent complete, and estimated to be at least 10 years away from being finished and likely longer--Portwood made the mistake of being candid and stating the obvious: "I don't think so."

Thus a wave of the-OED-is-dead stories was unleashed. (The last printed version was issued in 1989, comprising 20 volumes.) Even though the first story contained a statement from an Oxford spokesperson saying that a print version had not been ruled "if there is sufficient demand at the time" a second wave of supposedly-rebuttal stories offers spokesperson Anna Baldwin stating more of the obvious: "No decision has yet been made on the format of the third edition."

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

THE END GAME

WHEN SERPENTS DIE

HONORED DAUGHTERS

coming soon: WAGON DOGS (Oct)

THE EVOLVING NOVELIST

If life's a journey, the writing life is a filled with detours.

When I retired from news writing and embarked on a career as a novelist, I took so many back roads, I can't count them. I was technique-challenged. I knew the basics and the differences between writing novels and newspaper copy. The longer form, whether genre or literary, involves conflict, plot structure, character building, setting, plot and theme. News editors reject all that to crowd as much information into as small a space as possible.

I spent nearly twenty years with The Atlanta-Journal Constitution writing inverted pyramid style hard news, and, sometimes crossing over into softer features and magazine pieces.

· The newspaper reporter lays out facts, the famous "when, where, who" with the climax in the lede. Then the why and the how get into the story, if they are facts. If an investigator gives an opinion on how the crime was accomplished, he is quoted. His words are facts because he said them. A news writer does not let his opinion seep into the story.

· A feature story lays out facts, too, but delves into the how and why, slowly drawing readers into the piece, often captivating them with clever or poignant phrases. Usually, if there is a punch line, it's at the bottom. In this sense, feature and magazine writing are good disciplines for a beginning novelist.

When I wrote my first "southern gothic", changing my writing style presented problems. Of the many precepts, experts insisted that we, "show, don't tell". My agent told me, "You need to describe the air and scenes around the characters while they talk. Give them looks on their faces, gestures, and don't tell me they looked shocked, tell me what shocked looks like." She was right. I had my protagonists speaking like dispassionate news subjects. My agent then slammed my optimism by saying news writers often don't make good novelists.

I went overboard. I had rambling sentences that surpassed purple prose. It was like, Oh boy, I got the green light to indulge in the fine art of beautiful language – something I couldn't do as a news writer. The results were sorry. I wrote flashbacks that confused, heavy-handed imagery, too many metaphors, too much repetition – how else was I going to get to eighty thousand words? - and that dreaded of all, detailed back story.

I had characters on top of characters – a sheriff, a city cop, a state bureau of investigation guy. My agent told me I was going to lose my readers if I didn't designate one investigator to represent them all. Heck, when I was writing copy for the paper, the more investigators I interviewed the better. But I was beginning to get it and wrote another book, this time a romantic suspense. Not that it was the genre's fault I overwrote.

As far back as I can remember, I read any type of book that came to hand, but by mid-teens I preferred crime fiction, I had a good idea of building conflict by writing individual scenes, and I knew the importance of ending a chapter with dramatic expectation of what lay ahead.

I had more to learn. After toning down and tightening the prose, I realized that Voice was key for me. Two books later, my voice was still newspaper flat. Agents and publishers are voice hounds; they hear it in the first couple of pages. So do readers. I worked on my voice and style by using the narrative to pace the story. I peopled my work with fewer characters which enhanced the conflicts. THE END GAME was the first novel where I deliberately changed my voice to that of my characters.

My heroine, Moriah Dru, a former policewoman, has a tough job as a child finder. I met tough women at the newspaper. The ones I liked had a soft side. Dru was going to have a iron-willed exterior but a soft middle. I heard her voice in my head before I wrote the first word of her story.

On the other hand, if I were to write a cozy mystery, I would have fun with it. I would hear the voice of my heroine and write her thoughts as fast as my fingers could get them out. One thing for sure, if I can't create an emotional connection with the reader, that reader is lost to me.

There is, however, a similarity between newspaper and book writing that includes journalism's "W's". Readers must be constantly curious. They can't be wondering, what's going on, where's the action? In newspapers, the action starts at the top, in novels the action must exist throughout. Fortunately for the novelist, the action doesn't have to be driven by factual events. We get to make them up. That's the best part.

Last, but not least, I do one or two revisions where I squeeze sentences like I did with my news copy. Active voice takes fewer words, and yanking most adverbs and adjectives make the story sing along quite smoothly.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

This essay first appeared on Cassy Pickard's blog

KNOWING NOIR

My novel, THE END GAME, has been called a traditional novel, a hard-boiled mystery and noir. Am I strawberry shortcake or what?

Otto Penzler writes in the Huffington Post:

"Noir fiction has attracted some of the best writers in the United States (mostly) and many of its aficionados are among the most sophisticated readers in the crime genre. Having said that, I am constantly baffled by the fact that a huge number of those readers don't seem to know what noir fiction is. When they begin to speak of their favorite titles in the category, they invariably include a preponderance of books and short stories that are about as noir as strawberry shortcake."

Read rest of story.

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

CROWDFUNDED PUBLISHING - HUH?

France pioneers 'crowdfunded' publishing
Éditions du Public seeks 'co-editors' who 'invest in what they want to read'

From the guardian.co.uk

July 2010

"From science fiction writers to poets and playwrights, would-be French authors are lining up to take part in France's first venture into crowdfunded literature.

Launched this spring by publisher Éditions du Public, the initiative – slogan: "I invest in what I want to read" – has already received 80 manuscripts. Sixteen have been merited good enough to make it onto the publisher's website, from Nathalie Tavignot's Croissant de lune (Crescent Moon), in which a series of murders occur in a village whose inhabitants have just woken from a long sleep and remember nothing, to Ghislain Hammer's poetry collection Les colosses nus (The Naked Colossi).

The publishers are now looking for co-editors to help fund publication of the books. Each co-editor must invest €11 in their chosen title, and will then be able to discuss the book with its author on Éditions du Public's forum, following each stage as it is written. Each title has six months to sign up 2,000 co-editors and some are already proving more popular than others: Tavignot's thriller has 45 subscribers, while Hammer has just two.

Once the 2,000 threshold has been reached, an editor at Éditions du Public will go over the text and layout with the author. The book will then be sold online and through bookshops, with each co-editor able to recoup "up to eight times the amount of their initial subscription" depending on sales, as well as receiving a free copy of the book they have edited.

"We want, thanks to crowdfunding, to give the chance to every author to be published," said Laurence Broussal at Éditions du Public. "Thanks to our website, authors have a real communication platform to make themselves known to internet users and to meet their public. But we want this to be without risk: the internet co-editor is refunded with 100% of their output, and the author gets back their manuscript, if the book is not published."

Broussal said that Éditions du Public was the first publisher to utilise crowdfunding in France, although the concept has already been experimented with in music and film. The publisher has already received around 1,000 subscriptions across all its titles after starting to recruit co-editors at the beginning of July, and hopes to publish its first book by the end of the year."

Happy Crowdfunded Reading.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

Author of THE END GAME, not crowdfunded published.

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

CHEERS FOR BOOK CLUBS

In our small community on the coast of Georgia, there are four book clubs. There used to be three. The members rotate holding the monthly meetings, and the size of the three clubs grew to the point where there wasn't enough room for members to sit, to say nothing of the food and wine bills for the gathering.

I had my first book club appearance last week. I've never belonged to a book club, although I've always had a bookmark in at least one fiction or nonfiction book since I was old enough to read.

My mother, a great reader and club woman, never belonged to a book club. We lived in the country. There were quilting clubs (I can still feel the little needle pricks at the tips of my fingers), garden clubs, theater and symphony-going clubs, bridge clubs – you name a time and place where women gather, and there was a club for it.

It seems to me there is a proliferation of book clubs today.

Is this Oprah's doing? If so, good for her.

When my neighbor, Tina, learned that my debut mystery, THE END GAME, would be released on April 27, she invited me to appear at her book club, one of the four. I've also been invited to the other three clubs.

There were almost twenty members in attendance. Fifteen members are area snowbirds, now back in Massachusetts or Maine for the summer, away from flying creatures and the sizzling atmosphere.

I had such fun getting to know these readers. I have to admit book club appearances have it all over signings. First, members have either bought, borrowed or checked the book out at the library, so there's no selling like at a signing. Second, they've read it, so we can talk about the entire book.

As I said, this was my first experience at discussing the novel except with my editor, Ruth Cavin, who chose THE END GAME as the Best First Traditional Mystery Novel in the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's competition.

So after introductions, Tina, my friend, asked me, "Is your heroine, Moriah Dru, you?"

I wasn't expecting that opening salvo and laughed. How could I say she wasn't me, at least in part, since I am her creator. But the truth is, if I had to re-create me ( being my own God), I'd create myself in Dru's image. But no, I'm not nearly as high-minded, brave and dedicated to justice as she is. I was a reporter so getting the facts in a story right is important, but I learned a long time ago that justice is elusive.

My book club readers were interested in all the things writers are queried about: Are the characters modeled after people you know? Some. Where did you get your plot idea? From the news. Did you choose your book cover? No. Did you do research? A lot. Do you write with music playing? Not usually. I'm easily distracted. Have you ever hopped a train? Long time ago, when I was young and stupid, and I didn't stay on it very long.

We discussed the ending of THE END GAME, which I can't do here because mystery readers like surprises. All but one member declared they hadn't guessed the villain before the person (s) was exposed. I never asked if they liked the book, but most volunteered liking it very much to having been unable to put it down.

I have several more book club bookings, and I'm looking forward to each and every one. Yes, you get the usual questions, but one member asked, "Do you drink when you write?"

Put off momentarily (while holding a glass of wine), I asked, "Like Hemingway or Fitzgerald?"

"I read where Hemingway said, 'Good writers are drinking writers.'"

I'm saying you're a good writer."

I'll take that as a compliment any day, and, no, I don't drink when I write, or play golf. Both require a focused brain, and, as I said before, I'm easily distracted.

Cheers!

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

COFFEE WITH A CANINE

And Not Just Any Canine


http://www.coffeecanine.blogspot.com/2010/05/gerrie-ferris-finger-bogey.html



http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

BLOG TOUR

I recently guest blogged on

The Stiletto Gang

Thoughts In Progress

My Father's Oldsmobile

I love this blogging thing.

See my website for my blogging and book tour appearances.

Gerrie

INTERVIEW WITH BETH GROUNDWATER

Good morning, it was my pleasure to be interviewed by the author of the Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery series. Her first novel, "A Real Basket Case" was nominated for an Agatha Award.


Read Beth's interview.

http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com/

JULIE MILLER WINS BOGEY'S ARC CONTEST

On March 23, I announced an ARC contest for THE END GAME on DorothyL. The rules were simple. On April 1 (Fool's Day) Bogey, the black standard poodle, and Ace tennis ball player, would draw a tennis ball from his toy box. Contestants are represented by a number to match names on the order of email entries.


Bogey's approach.



Digging around to find a winner.



And the winner is 8.



Julie Miller, Duluth, Minnesota.

YAY, JULIE!!

GENRE-ING THE END GAME

I guest blogged with Peg Brantley at her excellent blog, Suspense Novelist.

Read it.