Happy New Year, dear readers. It's been an amazing year for me as a writer.
My first mystery novel, Speaking of Murder, was published by Barking Rain Press in September. I did as much promotion as I could--dozens of guest blogs and a half-dozen speaking events--but haven't seen any earthshaking sales or important reviews.
I signed a deal with an agent, John Talbot, and then a three-book contract with Kensington Publishing. I wrote the first Local Foods mystery and sent it in, and have 30k written on the second one (a few thousand words more by tonight, I hope!).
I had a short story, "Stonecutter," accepted for publication in an anthology, and two other stories were published in the Burning Bridges anthology where all proceeds went to charity.
I decided to self e-publish two previously published short stories whose rights have reverted to me, because they are actually the backstory to two important characters in Speaking of Murder, and I have formatted them for Smashwords and gotten covers done (by StanzAloneDesign - aren't they cool?). They'll be available for all ereaders sometime in the next month.
I attended a dynamite Donald Maass writing workshop, the Writers' Police Academy, and New England Crime Bake and learned so much from each event. I even plunged into the world of smart phones and Kindles.
All this went on while I was working full time writing software manuals, exercising most days, selling and buying a house and moving, and sitting with my mother while she died in April. Whew!
I'd like to thank all of you who stopped by to see what was up all year long and especially to those who commented and who read my writing. It means so much to me.
May you have a happy, healthy, harmonious new year filled with lots and lots of reading!
I wrote a guest post for the fabulous Maine Crime Writers blog recently about a week I spent on an island in Maine thirty years ago. I hold very fond memories of that week on Great Gott's Island.
It got me thinking about other places I have traveled, which are many and international. Which got me thinking about having my protagonist in the Local Foods Mysteries do some traveling later in the series. But it's a cozy series and cozies typically keep the action confined to one town, one setting. There are exceptions to this rule, especially in long-running series. Katherine Hall Page, for example, has set books in Maine, in France, and elsewhere, but usually goes back to her protagonist's Massachusetts town in between other locales.
I could reasonably have farmer Cam Flaherty attend the Common Ground organic farming conference in Unity, Maine, and then head to an island for a week of vacation. But it would be tricky for her to, say, spend time in Mali or Japan or Brazil, places I have lived and know well.
So maybe I need to come up with a new series with a protagonist who has a reason to travel to some of the far-flung places I have experienced as a resident. Sheila Connolly has a new series set in Ireland (and reports that she just got back from two weeks of "research" there, which sounds to me like just an excuse for a cool vacation). I read about someone who created a travel-agent protagonist for just that reason, and Gigi Pandian has a new series featuring an historian who also has just cause to travel (her first book is set in San Francisco and then Scotland).
Come to think of it, I already HAVE a protagonist with a reason to travel. Lauren Rousseau, the linguistics professor in Speaking of Murder, could plausibly head to Japan for an Asian Linguistics conference. Or to Mali to do research on Bamanankan, the first language of a large portion of the population. Or to Brazil, France, Quebec, Puerto Rico, and so on.
So it looks like what I have to come up with is the TIME to write two series at once. Once I do that, I can also go on tax-deductible "research" trips - I look forward to that.
What exotic place would you like to see a mystery series set in? What's your favorite travel mystery? Or do you prefer that your cozy protagonist stays settled in one place?
I signed a deal with an agent, John Talbot, and then a three-book contract with Kensington Publishing. I wrote the first Local Foods mystery and sent it in, and have 30k written on the second one (a few thousand words more by tonight, I hope!). 
I decided to self e-publish two previously published short stories whose rights have reverted to me, because they are actually the backstory to two important characters in Speaking of Murder, and I have formatted them for Smashwords and gotten covers done (by StanzAloneDesign - aren't they cool?). They'll be available for all ereaders sometime in the next month.
