Release Day for A BASKET OF TROUBLE!

Yippee!! Today is the official release day for A Basket of Trouble, the third book in my Claire Hanover gift basket designer series. It takes place in Colorado Springs, CO, and features horseback riding and hippotherapy. Follow the link for the book blurb, reviews, excerpts, discussion questions, and "buy me" links.

A Basket of Trouble has hit ALL FOUR of the big 4 review publications (Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly)!! Only one other release of mine has hit all four, and that was the first in a series, Deadly Currents. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the reception that A Basket of Trouble is receiving from reviewers so far. Just to whet your appetite, here's a pull quote from the latest review by Library Journal:

"Groundwater’s third series entry (after To Hell in a Handbasket) is an action-packed cozy that successfully weaves in her small business and disability awareness."
  -- Library Journal, November 1, 2013

A Basket of Trouble is widely available in bookstores (If it's not on the shelf, order it!), libraries (If it's not on the shelves, request it!), and from on-line retailers, including: Indie Bound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and direct from the publisher, Midnight Ink. Do you have any mystery readers on your holiday gift list? This book, and the first two in the series, A Real Basket Case and To Hell in a Handbasket, might be perfect for them. If you'd like signed bookplates or business cards to go with your gifts, contact me at my website, and I'll arrange to send them to you.

I'm visiting a number of blogs next week to promote the book, and I'll post links here to those guest articles as they go live.  In the meantime, here are a couple of recent interviews with me (the first one was posted yesterday) that were done for the release:

Lisa K's Book Reviews

The Big Thrill 

I'm also still visiting the Barnes and Noble mystery book club through Saturday and responding to reader questions there, and my Goodreads Giveaway contest is still running until the end of today.

I hope you'll celebrate this release with me by lifting a glass of your favorite beverage and wishing me luck. Buying a copy for yourself wouldn't hurt either! ;-)

Mysteristas Interview and a FATAL DESCENT Excerpt

Today I am visiting the Mysteristas blog, where I answered their intriguing interview questions, such as "If your latest book were chocolate, what kind would it be and why?" I hope you stop by, read the interview, and leave a comment for me there!

Also, Criminal Element.com has posted the first chapter of my Fatal Descent release on their website, where you'll meet some of the customers who will ride along with Mandy and Rob on their Cataract Canyon whitewater rafting and climbing trip on the Colorado River in the Utah Canyonlands. Read the excerpt HERE.

Laying the Groundwork for a Rough Draft

I've been working on laying the groundwork for a new mystery manuscript, the third book in the RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. The first book, Deadly Currents, was released by Midnight Ink in March this year. The second, Wicked Eddies, will be released in May of 2012, and this third one, that I'm calling Cataract Canyon for now, should be scheduled for May, 2013. I hope to finish the rough draft by Christmas.

Cataract Canyon will take place in Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River south of Moab, Utah. I envision it as a "locked room" style of mystery, but in this case, the room will be the canyon itself. Mandy and her boyfriend Rob Juarez will lead a 5-day whitewater rafting/climbing trip down the canyon in the fall, when very few outfitters lead trips down the canyon. Thus, they'll be isolated. Of course, one of their clients will be murdered, and the killer will sabotage their satellite phone at the same time, cutting the adventurers off from the outside world. Mandy and Rob will be locked into a race to find out who the killer is and to get all of their clients off the river as soon as possible, alive and safe. But the killer will have other ideas ...

To research the location, my husband and I will take our own 5-day whitewater rafting trip down Cataract Canyon in mid-September. I've been outfitting myself with the proper clothing and gear for such a trip and reading about the canyon geology, topography, flora & fauna, Native American ruins, and more. All of this is fodder for the book, stuffing the research file.

What I also do to lay the groundwork for the rough draft of a manuscript is to define the major characters, give them names, and fill out personality profiles for them. I already have personality profiles for Mandy and Rob, and two of their rafting guides who will come with them, Gonzo Gordon and Kendra Lee. However, everyone else, including the climbing guide they hire and the twelve clients that will ride the Colorado River with them, are new characters. So, I've been spending a lot of time getting to know them.

The third major task I take on in this pre-draft phase of a manuscript is to create a scene-by-scene outline. I usually have about 40 scenes in a book, about two to a chapter, for about 20 chapters in an approximately 75,000 word mystery. And by the time I start writing the rough draft, I've usually defined 34-37 of those 40 scenes. The outline is still flexible, allowing for scenes to be added, deleted, or changed, but most of the story is documented in the outline, which expands in length and detail as I write the rough draft. I currently have defined 27 scenes, so I'm about 3/4ths of the way there.

I usually know when it's time to start writing the rough draft. The groundwork has allowed my characters and the plot to become well-enough defined that the characters start talking to me and each other in my head, keeping me up at night. They clamor for their story to be told, and after reining them in for awhile while I nail down the story structure, I finally have to let go and let the story begin. The characters are already talking to me, so I'm thinking and hoping that I'll start writing the rough draft some time next week.

Hanging Out at the Left Coast Crime Conference

This weekend, I will be attending the 2011 Left Coast Crime Conference, subtitled "The Big Chili," in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It will be a gathering of around 400 mystery authors, librarians, booksellers, and readers to celebrate the mystery genre. If you plan to attend, here's where you can find me:

Today, Friday:

11:30 AM - 12:15 PM, “Murder in the Great Outdoors” panel with me, Sandi Ault, Twist Phelan, and Michael Norman, followed by a signing from 12:15 – 12:30 PM. We're bringing props and having a contest for free books!

5:30 - 7 PM, Opening Reception, where I'll be singing "Paperback Writer" with the Mass Market Murderers (members of the Rocky Mountain chapter of Mystery Writers of America). This is guaranteed to be a hoot and a half!

Saturday:

7:30 - 9 AM, Continental breakfast featuring Established Authors where I'll give my "elevator speech" about Deadly Currents

2:30 – 3:45 PM, I'll be a volunteer in the Hospitality Room, so I'll be looking for people to be hospitable to!

I'll also be attending panels and the conference banquet and award ceremony, and meeting various groups for meals: the Rocky Mountain chapter of MWA, the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, and the Mystery Babes.

On the drive home from the conference on Sunday, I'll stop at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Eagleridge Shopping Center in Pueblo, Colorado from 4 - 5 PM for a signing.

It will be a busy and fun weekend, I'm sure!

Tenth Stop on my Virtual Book Tour: LadyKillers

Today on the tenth day of my virtual book tour, I am at The LadyKillers blog. In honor of their "Best Friends Week," my guest article is an interview with Cynthia Abbott, the bartender best friend of Mandy Tanner, the whitewater river ranger protagonist of my new release, Deadly Currents.

Deadly Currents is the first book in my new RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series set in the upper Arkansas River valley of Colorado. It has received good reviews in Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly and from other reviewers.

Please stop by and ask Cynthia some questions of your own. Remember, if you post a comment at The LadyKillers you will be entered into a contest for a free copy of Deadly Currents.

You can find the schedule of my complete Virtual Book Tour HERE. I hope you'll read each day's post, and leave a comment on each one. And I hope you'll spread the word about my book and my VBT to your mystery-reading friends. Good luck in the contest!

Finishing a Rough Draft

I just finished writing the final chapter of the rough draft of the third book in my Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery series, and I'm celebrating! My goal was to finish it before the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year holiday season and all the traveling I'll be doing during that time. I just made it!

Signing up to participate in Pikes Peak Writers' NaNoTryMo program (a variation on NaNoWriMo, where the goal doesn't have to be 50,000 words) helped a lot. Being on the hook to report my progress to others kept me working toward that goal of finishing the rough draft. Staying focused on writing scenes was tough when I was also working with my publicist on planning promotion for Deadly Currents, keeping these blog posts going, going to events, and all the other activities that a published author engages in.

Am I happy with the rough draft? Heck no! I'm never happy with my first drafts, which is why no one sees them, not even my critique group. I'm always convinced when I start writing a rough draft that I don't have another book in me and I won't be able to do it. Then when I finish it, I'm always convinced that it's the worst book I've ever written and no one will ever want to read it. This is the sixth novel-length manuscript that I've finished, and I still feel that way. But, I've learned to trust the process, to trust that between my own editing and my critique group's feedback, the manuscript will get better. And, when I reread sections while editing them, I often find gems and think to myself, "Wow, woman, you really can write."

So, the next step is to let the rough draft sit for awhile, say 3-4 weeks, and get some distance from it. Then I'll plunge back in and start editing. Usually I spend about 3 months editing a manuscript to whip it into shape. In the process, I convert what usually starts out as a lean 60-65,000 words to 70-75,000 words. This one will be at the high end of that range, since I have over 65,000 words now.

How about you? Finished any projects lately you'd like to crow about? I'd love to crow with you!