Real-Time Blogging

For me, reading a new mystery series is often as much about the people as the mystery... I like to follow them from book to book and learn about their lives as well as try to solve mysteries with them.

So, in light of that, I'm experimenting at Killer Characters over the next few months... follow Jaymie Leighton in real time as she lives her life in the months leading up to the launch of my first Vintage Kitchen Mysteries book, A Deadly Grind, in May of 2012.

My characters blog on the 21st of every month... find out what happens next on December 21st! I'm not sure if she'll be blogging, or if someone else will step in and blog for her.
Killer Characters: http://www.killercharacters.com/2011/11/winds-of-november.html

My Writing Heroes - Sara Paretsky



Hardball by Sara Paretsky



I love to write and read cozy mysteries, but there is another side to my reading taste. I love the steelier 'female private investigator' school of writing exemplified by Sara Paretsky's 'V. I. Warshawski' books and Sue Grafton's 'Kinsey Millhone' novels. Right now I'm reading 'Hardball', by Sara Paretsky and loving it. I love the way she works history and a powerful social agenda into her work.

So imagine my excitement today to find out that Sara Paretsky has a blog! In it, Ms. Paretsky shares portions of her new writing, chunks of the latest V.I. book. http://www.saraparetsky.com/blog/

And in other good news, Sara has been given the use of the handle @VIWarshaski on Twitter, a gracious thing indeed when you realize that the young lady who had been using it was tweeting about literature, pop culture and much more, from India. She had nothing to gain by giving Sara back the rights to her Twitter alter ego, but she did it anyway.

I'm off to 'follow' VI, and to finish reading Hardball.

Lady in Waiting

Every business has its share of 'hurry up and wait' times, when you have rushed to complete a project by deadline, only to wait in agony while the project is approved or reviewed. Time, compressed until hours feel like seconds in the first instance while frantically working, now elongates until days feel like years as the 'wait' is on.

Such is life as a novelist. While we can (and do, if we're smart) move on to work on other projects, there is still that nagging sense of looming agony or ecstasy. Will the editor like the book? Will they need massive changes, or none at all, or most likely, some changes, which they'll need by - of course - a tight deadline.

I've been in the game long enough to know how it works. But still... I'm so anxious to know if Book One of the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, 'Hoosier Dead Guy?' is to the editor's taste, if she thinks I'm on track. I've gone on to Book Two, 'Bowled Over', but I'd feel a whole lot better if I knew Book One was how the editor envisioned it.

Sigh.

And then I/we could get on to the fun stuff, like cover design and... sheesh... a publication date.

So, to distract myself from the agony of the wait, here is a list of random musings:

• Why do we always capitalize 'I', but not 'we' in writing; aren't 'we' more important than 'I'?
• Why does my desk always end up in the same disgraceful state no matter what resolutions I make to the contrary?
• How can someone as reasonably intelligent as I am (or pretend to be) love reality TV so much?
• If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

And so I wait... my publication date is the proverbial watched pot that never boils. When I fuggedaboutit and just write on, that's the moment I'll find out my fate/publication date.

Until then, picture me counting paperclips and wondering why I have so many when I use, maybe, five a year. At this point, I have enough paperclips to last me until 2075.

The photos for this entry are used courtesy of Photo 8, a site that offers marvelous photos free!

First Author Interview!!

This is amazing... I have just finished my first manuscript for the Vintage Kitchen Mystery series, which will be published by Berkley Prime Crime. My due date was November 30th, and I made it... yay! Now I can heave a huge sigh of relief, and start to get nervous for the editor reading it, (nail biting time) which she won't be able to do until the new year.

I can also begin some of the fun stuff, like working on this blog! I have been buying up vintage cookbooks lately, and am going to share some recipes from them, and I want to photogrpah some of my vintage cookware, as well as the infamous (or soon to be infamous!) Hoosier cabinet that inspired Hoosier Dead Guy?, the working title for the first book in the Vintage Kitchen Mystery series.

The most fun I've had lately is this wonderful author interview with Dorothy Dreyer of We Do Write, a great blog dedicated to interviews of aspiring and new writers. She made the interview so much fun, and the photo illustrations are wonderful. I collect teacups, too, as well as vintage cookware, and I swear she snuck in to my cupboards and got a few of the teacups out for the stack she has illustrating the blog! Drop in and learn more about me, Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, and Hoosier Dead Guy?.

http://we-do-write.blogspot.com/2010/12/interview-with-victoria-hamilton.html