Way back in June, I announced that Red Coyote Press ( http://redcoyotepress.com/ ) accepted a short story of mine for an anthology. They just published that anthology yesterday! It is a collection of mystery short stories called MAP OF MURDER. My story, titled "Murder Cache," is about a man and his son hiking to a geocache with a murder theme in Colorado Springs that contains more than what they expected!
Here's praise from reviewers:
* "MAP OF MURDER is a fascinating and diverse collection of stories that takes you on a heart-pounding journey...From coast to coast and border to border, it's quite a trip."
- Donis Casey, author of THE OLD BUZZARD HAD IT COMING and HORNSWOGGLED: AN ALAFAIR TUCKER MYSTERY
* "Buckle up for a suspenseful road trip full of mystery and mayhem."
- Kit Ehrman, author of the Steve Cline mystery series
* "Wherever MAP OF MURDER takes the audience, one thing consistently occurs: readers will obtain immense pleasure from this well-written compilation."
- Harriet Klausner, reviewcentre.com
* "While each story occurs in a different location, each story features complex characters involved in complex cases that lead the reader through a delightful tale. The result is an excellent criss cross trail across America full of murder, deceit, and betrayal. Beth Groundwater weaves a twisting tale up into the Colorado Mountains in her tale 'The Murder Cache.' When you are a good parent, there isn't anything you won't do for your child."
- Kevin Tipple, kevinscorner.com
You can order the anthology from Red Coyote Press or at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Susan-Budavari-Editor-Suzanne/dp/0976673339/sr=1-1/qid=1171554148/ref=sr_1_1/102-6823696-3481752?ie=UTF8&s=books
Friday, February 16, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Happy Valentine's Day and Eighth Winner
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I hope you all have a sweetie to celebrate with. My hubby and I went on our Valentine's date early, last Friday, to avoid the crowds. We saw a late afternoon movie, then ate a Mediterranean meal at a local restaurant. This morning was the traditional exchange of chocolate treats. Then, we donned our coats to shovel snow off the driveway, what's becoming a very frequent chore these days!
Earlier this month, I awarded a gift basket to the eighth winner in my email newsletter contest. I realized I forgot to announce his name here. His name is Kevin, he's from Plano, Texas, and he chose the mystery lovers gift basket. I'll be awarding the ninth gift basket very soon. I'm very pleased with the number of folks who are registering for my newsletter. Very few have dropped off the list, so I hope to award one and maybe even two more gift baskets in March.
Earlier this month, I awarded a gift basket to the eighth winner in my email newsletter contest. I realized I forgot to announce his name here. His name is Kevin, he's from Plano, Texas, and he chose the mystery lovers gift basket. I'll be awarding the ninth gift basket very soon. I'm very pleased with the number of folks who are registering for my newsletter. Very few have dropped off the list, so I hope to award one and maybe even two more gift baskets in March.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Promotion Work
What have I been doing the past few weeks to prepare for the release of A Real Basket Case? I've created a tri-fold brochure to include with the next mailing of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers "bluebook" of information about books from their published authors to 400 bookstores in the Rocky Mountain region. I sent the file off to an Internet-based copy firm to get copied and folded. I received them a couple of days ago, and they look great.
I also wrote my February email newsletter and gave it to my hubby to send out. I also gave him a set of website changes that includes a number of booksignings that I've confirmed lately. My trip back east is almost set, with only one event still not firm. I'll be stuffing 7 events into 10 days, including the 3-day Malice Domestic conference. Whew! I also finished another email interview for the Mouth Full of Bullets ezine. And I wrote an article for Mystery Scene, but I haven't heard back from them as to whether or not they accepted it. More ARCs get mailed out today to reviewers. All that, and editing the manuscript I just finished is keeping me VERY busy.
I also wrote my February email newsletter and gave it to my hubby to send out. I also gave him a set of website changes that includes a number of booksignings that I've confirmed lately. My trip back east is almost set, with only one event still not firm. I'll be stuffing 7 events into 10 days, including the 3-day Malice Domestic conference. Whew! I also finished another email interview for the Mouth Full of Bullets ezine. And I wrote an article for Mystery Scene, but I haven't heard back from them as to whether or not they accepted it. More ARCs get mailed out today to reviewers. All that, and editing the manuscript I just finished is keeping me VERY busy.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Profitable Puzzles
How's that for a title? I am both a contest nut and a puzzle addict. I enter about a dozen Internet sweepstakes a few times a week, and I work either the sudoku or crossword puzzle in the newspaper every day over lunch. Makes sense for me to write mysteries, huh?
Anyway, I also subscribe to Conde Nast Traveler magazine and work their two puzzles, "Word Trips" and "Where Are You?" every month. Each time you get one right, you're entered into a yearly drawing for a grand prize of a trip. Well, Conde Nast just notified me that I was the 2006 Word Trips grand prize winner! I won airfare for two and two nights stay at one of the top-rated North American spa resorts profiled in their magazine last year. Wowzer! My hubby and I are drooling over the websites of these exotic resorts. Choosing one is going to be hard.
Anyway, I also subscribe to Conde Nast Traveler magazine and work their two puzzles, "Word Trips" and "Where Are You?" every month. Each time you get one right, you're entered into a yearly drawing for a grand prize of a trip. Well, Conde Nast just notified me that I was the 2006 Word Trips grand prize winner! I won airfare for two and two nights stay at one of the top-rated North American spa resorts profiled in their magazine last year. Wowzer! My hubby and I are drooling over the websites of these exotic resorts. Choosing one is going to be hard.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Crime Scene Investigation II Workshop
I'm just now recovering from planning and running this all-day workshop on Saturday with my friend, Barb Nickless, the Workshops Director for Pikes Peak Romance Writers. We had six presenters teaching an audience of almost forty writers about crime scene investigation. The presenters included a Deputy Coroner Investigator, a Private Investigator, a retired lawyer who talked about testifying about investigations, a Homicide Detective, a Crime Scene Reconstruction Specialist, and a Firearms Instructor, who brought about two dozen weapons.
During the lunch break, two of the presenters and four PPW crime fiction authors signed books. I signed copies of the Map of Murder anthology that includes my "Murder Cache" short story. The bookstore sold over $650 of books, including craft books about aspects of writing crime fiction. Everyone, presenters and audience members included, seemed to have a good time. I'm glad it went well and that we didn't loose money on the workshop, but boy, was it a lot of work to put together!
During the lunch break, two of the presenters and four PPW crime fiction authors signed books. I signed copies of the Map of Murder anthology that includes my "Murder Cache" short story. The bookstore sold over $650 of books, including craft books about aspects of writing crime fiction. Everyone, presenters and audience members included, seemed to have a good time. I'm glad it went well and that we didn't loose money on the workshop, but boy, was it a lot of work to put together!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
To pseudonym or to not pseudonym
That is the question...
When I first started telling friends that a publisher had accepted my book, after asking when it would come out and what it's title would be, many of them asked if I was publishing it under a pseudonym. The question surprised me. Did they think I would be ashamed to put my own name on the book? I later realized that they simply wanted to know how to ask for the book when they went to their local library or bookstore. Many thought that using a pseudonym was a much more common practice than it is.
In my case, I have some real advantages to using my own name. There are very few Beth Groundwaters in the world, because Groundwater is an uncommon surname, and the shortening of Elizabeth to Beth in an author's first name is also not that common. So, when I type my full name in quotes into google, almost every single hit is about me. This makes it easy for people to find my website and my blog. And when A Real Basket Case is readily available at online bookstores, searching for the book by my name will probably be even easier than searching for the title.
Finally, I'm PROUD of my published works. I want people to know that I wrote them. :)
When I first started telling friends that a publisher had accepted my book, after asking when it would come out and what it's title would be, many of them asked if I was publishing it under a pseudonym. The question surprised me. Did they think I would be ashamed to put my own name on the book? I later realized that they simply wanted to know how to ask for the book when they went to their local library or bookstore. Many thought that using a pseudonym was a much more common practice than it is.
In my case, I have some real advantages to using my own name. There are very few Beth Groundwaters in the world, because Groundwater is an uncommon surname, and the shortening of Elizabeth to Beth in an author's first name is also not that common. So, when I type my full name in quotes into google, almost every single hit is about me. This makes it easy for people to find my website and my blog. And when A Real Basket Case is readily available at online bookstores, searching for the book by my name will probably be even easier than searching for the title.
Finally, I'm PROUD of my published works. I want people to know that I wrote them. :)
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Finished Rough Draft of WIP!
Late last week I finished the rough draft of the mystery that I've been writing--slowly--since last summer. It's 21 chapters, 249 pages, and almost 70k words long. I would like the final manuscript to be about 75-80k words long, but I usually add about 10% to a manuscript during the editing process, so I'm confident I can get there.
Now comes the editing. I usually do a pass for each major character, to deepen the characterization and check for consistency. I'll also do a setting/description pass to make sure I've described all the locations, clothes, weather, etc. with enough detail for readers to develop a picture in their mind. As part of this, I check the five senses in each scene, to see if I'm appealing to all of them, if possible. Then I'll be checking my research, to see if I can weave any more in, and the plot, to make sure it keeps on moving at a good pace and that what each character (and the reader) knows at any given time is consistent with what they've known before and are learning in the current scene. And there's so much more.
Finishing the rough draft does not a polished book make, but it sure is easier to edit something that already exists than to create something from scratch. I'm excited about beginning the next phase of the process. Oh, and this mystery, tentatively titled Wicked Whitewater, has a whitewater river ranger as a protagonist. It was a lot of fun to research and write. Hopefully it will be just as much fun to read!
Now comes the editing. I usually do a pass for each major character, to deepen the characterization and check for consistency. I'll also do a setting/description pass to make sure I've described all the locations, clothes, weather, etc. with enough detail for readers to develop a picture in their mind. As part of this, I check the five senses in each scene, to see if I'm appealing to all of them, if possible. Then I'll be checking my research, to see if I can weave any more in, and the plot, to make sure it keeps on moving at a good pace and that what each character (and the reader) knows at any given time is consistent with what they've known before and are learning in the current scene. And there's so much more.
Finishing the rough draft does not a polished book make, but it sure is easier to edit something that already exists than to create something from scratch. I'm excited about beginning the next phase of the process. Oh, and this mystery, tentatively titled Wicked Whitewater, has a whitewater river ranger as a protagonist. It was a lot of fun to research and write. Hopefully it will be just as much fun to read!
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