Release Day for FATAL DESCENT!!

Today is the official release day for FATAL DESCENT, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures series starring whitewater river ranger/rafting guide Mandy Tanner. Follow the link for the book blurb, reviews, an excerpt, discussion questions, and "buy me" links. I hope you'll celebrate the release with me by lifting a glass of your favorite beverage and wishing me luck. Buying a copy for yourself wouldn't hurt either! ;-)

One Month to Launch for FATAL DESCENT!

In one short month, Fatal Descent, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures series starring whitewater river ranger and rafting guide Mandy Tanner will be released by Midnight Ink. Here's the blurb:

"A fast-paced locked-room mystery in Utah’s awe-inspiring canyon lands

River guide Mandy Tanner and her fiancé Rob Juarez, owners of RM Outdoor Adventures, are leading an off-season rafting and climbing trip on the Colorado River. The unfamiliar topography and a lecherous local climbing guide have Mandy on edge — but that’s nothing compared to the trouble the clients bring. When a young man is found dead, everyone on the trip is a suspect. Since there’s no way out of the Colorado River’s steep canyons, it’s up to Mandy and Rob to solve the mystery before the murderer strikes again."

The book has already received some great reviews (see below), and both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have a special preorder price for the trade paperback of only $8.51 (save 43% off list)!

"The tension runs high in Groundwater’s absorbing third RM Outdoor Adventures mystery … Scenic descriptions and folklore add atmosphere to a suspenseful tale." -- Publishers Weekly (for full review, go HERE)

"Groundwater’s books keep getting better. The mystery is well written, but the scenery takes pride of place in this exciting story." -- Cayocosa72 - Book Reviews (for full review, go HERE)


I'm busy making plans to promote the launch, writing articles for mystery magazines and blogs, setting up signing events, organizing contests, etc. I hope some of my blog readers will be able to join in the fun! Stay tuned here and to my website and sign up for my email newsletter, if you aren't already, to be privvy to the plans!

Three Months to Launch for FATAL DESCENT!

In three short months, Fatal Descent, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures series starring whitewater river ranger and rafting guide Mandy Tanner will be released by Midnight Ink. Here's the blurb:

"A fast-paced locked-room mystery in Utah’s awe-inspiring canyon lands

River guide Mandy Tanner and her fiancé Rob Juarez, owners of RM Outdoor Adventures, are leading an off-season rafting and climbing trip on the Colorado River. The unfamiliar topography and a lecherous local climbing guide have Mandy on edge — but that’s nothing compared to the trouble the clients bring. When a young man is found dead, everyone on the trip is a suspect. Since there’s no way out of the Colorado River’s steep canyons, it’s up to Mandy and Rob to solve the mystery before the murderer strikes again."

I've already heard from one reviewer who received access to a NetGalley copy of the Advanced Reader Copy, and he's giving Fatal Descent 4 stars! And, both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have a special preorder price for the trade paperback of only $8.51 (save 43% off list)!

I'm busy making plans to promote the launch, writing articles for mystery magazines and blogs, setting up signing events, organizing contests, etc. I hope some of my blog readers will be able to join in the fun! Stay tuned here and to my website and sign up for my email newsletter, if you aren't already, to be privvy to the plans!

Celebrating the Delivery of a Manuscript

Hallelujah! I can back away from the keyboard that I've been bent over for months. On Sunday, April 1st, I delivered the manuscript for Cataract Canyon, the third book of my RM Outdoor Adventures series, to my acquisition editor at Midnight Ink. Yes, April 1st was the due date, and I was working on edits and prose polishing right up to minutes before I hit the Send button.

I'm proud of the book, and I feel that it unravels an interesting and intense mystery that stresses my characters. However, every time I read a chapter, I found something to improve or change, even though each of the chapters has gone through multiple edits.

And frankly, I'm going to continue to edit the manuscript after I turned it in. My critique group has yet to give me feedback on the last two chapters, and I'll incorporate their suggestions in the manuscript. After it rests for a couple of weeks, I'll read through it again, and I'm sure I'll find things to change. I'll fold these changes in with those that I will make as a result of my editor's feedback. In the meantime, I'm on pins & needles, hoping that she likes it and doesn't have too many changes for me. I'm sure she'll have some, though.


I just hope her feedback doesn't take the form of the above photo. Wish me luck, please!

The Next Phase: Full Manuscript Review

Like many writers I know, I belong to a writing critique group, where we periodically review and comment on each other's work. My group meets twice a month, and we can submit up to 20 pages or 5000 words for critique each time. That means it takes quite a few months to review a whole book-length manuscript. Like the pencil pusher above, I've been pushing chapters of my latest manuscript through my critique group for a long time and have been editing the chapters based on their feedback. They still have a few chapters to go, but it's time to move on to the next phase of soliciting feedback on my manuscript.

That phase is a full manuscript review, where I ask others to read the full book manuscript at once and give me overall comments on the whole thing. One of the main things that this can accomplish that is hard to do one chapter at a time is to discover pacing problems, where the story slows down too much and the reader loses interest. Another type of problem that a full manuscript review can often find is continuity or logic problems that span multiple chapters--or skip multiple chapters.

Yesterday, I sent off the full manuscript of my latest book project (Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series) to two trusted reviewers. The first is my literary agent. She reviews all of my manuscripts before I deliver them to my publisher. She has a good feel for the mystery market, for quality writing, and for what readers prefer and can tolerate, so I respect her judgement. The second reviewer is a fellow mystery author whose work I admire and who has traded critiques with me in the past. He doesn't have a full manuscript for me to review right now, but I am willing and ready to return the huge favor whenever he finishes his next book-length manuscript.

While I wait for their feedback, I'll continue to edit the manuscript myself, using critique group feedback and my own editing criteria and guidelines that I've developed for myself over the years. And, I'll hope that my two full manuscript reviewers don't find anything drastically wrong!

Book Research Trip to Moab, Utah: Part Three

On the last two days, I posted photos from the first two thirds of my book research trip to Moab, Utah. I'll finish up today with photos from the last day of my 3-day, 100-mile trip on the Colorado River through Meander Canyon and Cataract Canyon and on into Lake Powell. The last day of the river trip started with the three biggest rapids of the whole journey, Big Drop 1, 2, and 3. The photo below shows our boatman Dave powering upstream while scouting a rapid downstream over his shoulder to find the best path through it.


In the photos below, you'll see how wet we got (from head to toe--see the water pouring off the rafter in the first photo) and how carefully we're clutching on to the boat ropes and metal handholds to stay INSIDE the J-rig. We did not want to swim those rapids!




However, in a gentler class II rapid downstream, the guides said folks could try swimming a rapid, and my adventuresome hubby jumped in (see below).


After running the last eight rapids, we reached the placid waters of Lake Powell (first photo below) that had backed up into Cataract Canyon and flooded the remaining rapids. We beached at Dark Canyon to eat lunch and hike through a muddy stream bed back to a short waterfall (second and third photos below). Then it was my turn for a swim in Lake Powell (last photo below).




A great feature of the trip was a scenic ride in a six-seater airplane from Hite Marina on Lake Powell back to the Moab airport. We were able to see many of the places we'd been from the air, including Lake Powell (first photo), the Big Drop rapids (second photo), the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers (third photo) and the area where we hiked over the relatively lower spot in the canyon wall from one side of "The Loop" to the other. The last photo below shows the plane.






That night we took hot showers, soaked in the motel's hot tub, changed into clean clothes, ate a delicious Thai dinner in town, and fell into soft, comfy beds. Ah! The next day was a very full one. First we drove into the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National Park and visited all of the overlooks and the famous Mesa Arch (photo below).


Then we drove the dirt switchback Shafer Trail (first photo below) down to a remote overlook (second photo below). There were several EEK moments on that trail!



After that we visited Dead Horse Point State Park to look down on a river section that we had rafted days before. Then we rushed over to Arches National Park so my hubby could capture a couple of more iconic photos before the sun set. Balanced Rock is in the first photo and Delicate Arch is in the second. The last one shows the mass of photographers from all over the world who at the ready to take that sought-after sunset shot of Delicate Arch.




We made friends with some of the photographers who had flashlights (we'd rushed up the 1.5 mile trail without ours) and hiked back in the dark with them lighting the way. After a delicious Mexican dinner at 9 PM, we fell into bed. A jam-packed week in Moab, and we still want to go back!

Book Research Trip to Moab, Utah: Part Two

As I posted yesterday, my hubby and I recently traveled to Moab, Utah so I could conduct research for the third book in my Rocky Mountain Outdoor Adventures mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. In that book, Mandy and her lover and outfitter business partner, Rob Juarez, will lead a multi-day rafting trip down 100 miles of the Colorado River in Utah, through the stillwaters of Meander Canyon and the class III and IV whitewater rapids of Cataract Canyon, one of the most remote whitewater rafting canyons in the United States. So, of course, I had to take the same trip!

Here are some photos from that amazing journey. First are some petroglyphs, rock art carved by ancestral Puebloans into the desert patina of the cliffside that could be seen along the road to our put-in at the Potash Boat Ramp west of Moab on the Colorado River.


The photo below shows boatman Dave and me loading the J-rig, a configuration of two large pontoons with a metal platform slung between them that is powered by an outboard motor in the back. Beside the J-rig is a high-speed motorized launch from Tag-A-Long (the highly recommended outfitter we used for our trip) that drops and picks up canoes and paddlers from various places in Meander Canyon. The next photo shows an early stop in our journey at a petrified forest site below Dead Horse Point, with river guide Justin peering at one large, long log.



The photo below is of a party flotilla we encountered in Meander Canyon (heavy drinking involved, I'm sure!), and the one after that is of a ancient granary across the river from Lathrop Canyon. The third photo shows the "bathtub ring," a white layer of rock that is very striking in parts of the canyon.




The next two photos are from our hike over a short intersection between two loops in the Colorado River, while Dave and Justin took the boat four miles around the meander to meet us on the other side. The first photo shows me climbing up on one side and second shows the two of us overlooking the other side and the beach where we camped that evening. The third photo shows the kitchen set up at that camp and the last is of sunset bathing the rocks with beautiful orange light. A wonderful first day!




On the morning of the second day of our 3-day trip, we motored down to the confluence with the Green River, which swelled the volume of the Colorado River to about 12,000 cfs (cubic feet per second). For the Cataract Canyon section, this was a fairly low volume of water, which can rise to around 60,000 cfs in spring flood season. Below the confluence, we pulled in to register at the danger sign for our campsite that evening (see below).


The next stop was at a large flat beach area called Spanish Bottom, where we hiked to the Doll House formation at the top of the canyon rim after going through a field of moonflowers (see below). These plants are also called sacred datura or jimson weed and were used by the native Americans to induce hallucinations during ceremonies. The second photo shows part of the Doll House formation at the top and the third shows the view down to the river from there.




Now, on to the rapids! Cataract Canyon contains 28 major class III or class IV rapids within its 30 miles. We didn't get a whole lot of photos of the rapids because we were supposed to hold on with BOTH hands when we went through them. I told my dear hubby I'd rather he'd hold on than snap photos for me, so the ones he took were just before or just after running a rapid.


We pulled out for the night after rapid 20 and just before the next three rapids, which are called Big Drop 1, 2, and 3. We walked down the river bank to see what we had to look forward to the next day. Below is a photo of Big Drop 1, and here's a link to a video of it, with myself and one of my fellow rafters added for size: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTqh6OgR9rA


The last photo is of our campsite on Big Drop Beach the second night. I plan to post photos tomorrow from the last day of the rafting trip and of the next day we spent in Moab at Canyonlands National Park.

Getting Outdoors So I Can Be More Productive Indoors Later

Things have been quiet here on my blog because I've been busy getting outdoors the last two weeks. Last week was spent in the Moab, Utah area researching my third RM Outdoor Adventures mystery book, which will be titled Cataract Canyon. I spent 4 days rafting on the Colorado River, 1.5 in stillwater and 2.5 in whitewater, to research the river sections, including Cataract Canyon, that will appear in that book. I also had a heck of a lot of fun! I ate at a restaurant in Moab that will appear in the book, hiked in Horseshoe Canyon to view some native American rock art and learn more about it, and took lots and lots of notes on "local color" that will flavor the writing of the book.

And this week my husband and I have been vacationing in Rocky Mountain National Park, hiking every day to waterfalls, mountain lakes and awesome vistas. We timed our visit perfectly for the peak of the aspen fall colors and elk bugling season. My spirit is being refreshed, and I'm sucking in great lungfuls of cool, clean air while exercising my limbs. All this will prepare me to plop my butt in the chair come Monday and get back to work writing the manuscript for Cataract Canyon. I'll return to posting my weekly progress here--and I hope to share some great photos from my travels, too. So stay tuned!

Splashing Into Some Deadly Research

Over at Inkspot today, the blog for Midnight Ink authors, I'm talking about the remote whitewater rafting trip I'm taking this week to conduct research for the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. Please stop by and make a comment. As soon as I get back to dry land and someplace with wifi access, I'll respond.

If you're a writer, what is an interesting/dangerous research experience you've gone through to make your fiction realistic? If you're a reader, how much realism do you expect in a fictional mystery, and do you enjoy mysteries that take place in risky outdoor settings or activities?

Third Week's Word Count

Today I'm hanging my head low. After getting off to a roaring start for the first two weeks of writing the rough draft manuscript for Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure mystery series, my word count this week was a measly 1,000 words or so, for a total to-date of 12,000 words. My goal was to be at 14,000 words by now, so I'm behind. Groan!

What's the reason for the slippage? A multitude of real-life and writing-life conflicts reared their heads. I lost about two days to our once-a-month transfer from our Breckenridge home to our Colorado Springs one, a 50th anniversary celebration in Denver for family friends, a half-day hike with another friend, and packing up boxes to transfer to Breckenridge the next time we go up. I lost another two days to the RMMWA meeting where my editor spoke on a panel of two, to a long lunch (2.5 hrs!) with my agent and editor, and to the RMFW Colorado Gold conference book signing. I had volunteered to help set-up for the signing, then there was the signing itself, and the all-important gabbing and catching up with conference attendees before and after.

Finally, I lost about a day to hitting a research gap that affected the plot and trying to work through it. It was a question that will be answered when I take my Cataract Canyon whitewater rafting trip the week after next, but to continue to make writing progress, I needed to know the answer this week. I found enough information to start up again and added about 1,000 words, but the week was too far gone to do more.

Tracking my progress publicly also means tracking my lack-of-progress when I fail to meet my goals, so here it is. I hope my report at the end of next week will be better. It couldn't be much worse!

Second Week's Word Count

As I posted last Saturday, to keep myself accountable, I'm going to publish my weekly word count at the end of each week on my Work-in-Progress, Cataract Canyon, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure Mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. Last week, my total was almost 7000 words, and this week it was a little over 4000 words, for a total to date of about 11,000 words.

The estimate is hazy because I discovered that I had an old version of the file on my memory stick after driving from our Colorado Springs home to our Breckenridge home. I was missing a half day's work. I'm hoping that when I get back to Colorado Springs, the version with that work will still be there and I can do a merge of the current file and that one and move on. Otherwise, I'll have to rewrite it. In the meantime, I'm moving on in the file I have.

I wrote fewer words this week for a couple of good reasons, so I'm not unhappy with the count. First, my grown daughter and a friend visited for a few days while on a 3-week cross-country tour, and spending time with her was more important than writing. Second, in the book, I've gotten to the point where the whitewater rafters have launched their rafts and begun the trip. However, I won't be taking the trip myself for two more weeks. So, I got bogged down with having to do some online research. I learned enough to keep on making progress, with some holes that will get filled after I take my trip.

First Week's Word Count

To keep myself accountable, I'm going to publish my weekly word count at the end of each week on my Work-in-Progress, the third book in my RM Outdoor Adventure Mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. I usually get off to a good start on my rough draft manuscripts, because both I and the characters are raring to go once I stop work on my scene outline and character profiles and start writing. Where I tend to bog down is in the middle, and hopefully this public accounting will get me over that hump.

My goal for this week was 5000 words, and by working last night, I managed to write almost 7000 words, finishing chapters one and two. I'm very pleased with this progress, though I know the early chapters will need a lot of refining after I take my research trip to Cataract Canyon in Utah in September, which is the setting (and title) for the book.

Today, I'm teaching a workshop to a group of 35 middle-school-aged Girl Scouts at their CSI-themed campout near Woodland Park. Titled "Constructing a Mystery," I hope it gets their creative juices flowing, so they can brain-storm some potential mystery scenarios of their own.