Celebrating New Beginnings

Last week I was telling one of my groups that I love every new year because it is like a new beginning. The chapters close on the last book and you get to start over – whether it be with exercising more, losing weight, being more careful with money, or with writing. One of the women in the group said she doesn’t think of the new year as a new beginning because she hadn’t accomplished enough. In fact she wasn’t certain she wanted to continue in the group because she wasn’t getting the results she wanted.

I felt bad for that and I can understand that we all have those down periods when we wish we could do more, or we are working and working but not getting anywhere. But I have trouble looking at just the negative side.  Maybe the results were not there – maybe I didn’t finish editing a book in the old year, but I got lots written on other books.

When I feel down, or negative as she was doing, I look in the opposite direction. I celebrate what I have done. And that’s how I end every year. I don’t just make new year’s resolutions or concentrate on the past resolutions that went by the wayside in the first month. I look back at what I accomplished and then I set my new goals. This might not work for everyone, but it certainly works for me.

Last year I got one book published and finished the edits on another. And that book will be coming out next week.  And now I am working on edits for another book. Hopefully that will come out next year.   As Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day.”

And that’s how I look at the years.  We are in a new year and I am celebrating it by looking back at what I got done last year –

1.      One book published  - Dead Man’s Rules

2.      One book edited – Blues at 11 (coming out next week)
3.      One book partially written during NaNoWriMo (Return to Redfern)
4.      More than 136,000 words written over the course of the year
5.      Blogged regularly
6.      Taught classes every month

I’m sure there where more  things I did accomplish and may some of those old resolutions didn’t get met, but today I am drinking my new year Mimosa and celebrating the end of last year and a blank slate for this new year that I can now begin to fill out.

 

Anticipation

Today I am singing the joys of anticipation on several fronts.  First of all I just received the release date for my first mystery novel, Blues at 11.  It will be released world wide by The Wild Rose Press on January 16, 2015. That’s less than two months away and I am eager to finally hold that book in my hands. It's a momentous moment in my writing career for several reasons. It signals my switch from writing romance to mystery.  Not that I will ever stop writing romance. I always like a good romance in my mystery novels, but this one follows the mystery pattern with lots of clues, plenty of action, and of course, several dead bodies discovered along the way.

Like so many of my books, it features someone from the world of television news, which I also can’t get away from, because I keep finding that it’s easier to write about a world you know than one that is totally unfamiliar. After 35 years bouncing from TV newsroom to TV newsroom, I learned a lot about the business and about newsroom personnel in general.

So what would happen if you were an anchorwoman who found yourself accused of murder and the media itself gets on the bandwagon to pin the rap on you? Suddenly you might find out you don’t have so many friends in the biz and not only that, but there are plenty of old rivals who will might come out of the woodwork now that there is the scent of blood. And I don’t mean the victim’s!  That’s the premise of Blues and it’s a book I spent years working on. Enjoyable years because it’s a humorous mystery. Here’s the blurb:

But my second level of anticipation has to do with this weekend, and it’s an event that my mystery heroine, Kimberly de la Garza would enjoy, I’m sure.  Brilliant, Cartier in the 20^th Century  just opened at the Denver Art Museum, and I have tickets for tomorrow morning. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this ever since it was announced, and I don’t think this will be the only time I go to see it.  According to the DAM, it’s a “world exclusive exhibition … featuring stunning jewelry, timepieces, and precious objects created between 1900 and 1975.” It highlights Cartier’s rise to pre eminence, and the pieces featured in the pictures are stunning. Jewelry designed for royalty and Hollywood stars like the Duchess of Windsor, Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Grace are among those that will be on display.  I will be doing a blog on this visit in the future, believe me. And hopefully that can include pictures. The museum will allow personal pictures, but it won’t allow big tote bags. I have a feeling the museum guards will be constantly pulling me back from standing too close as they had to do in the Picasso show a couple of years ago.

So today, I am drinking a champagne toast in a vintage glass as I anticipate a great weekend and a great event still to come in 2015. And the Brilliant show is not the only exciting event this weekend. My friends and I will also be paying another visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens to see the Chihuly glass show, which closes next week. We visited several weeks ago and enjoyed it during the day time and pledged to return after dark. The pictures I've seen of the show at night are amazing and we will be bundling up tomorrow night and making another trip through.  More to come on this too!

Cheers!

Celebrate Your Own Backyard

As a writer I am always looking for new ideas and sometimes I find them hiding in my own backyard. Of course I have a beautiful backyard to explore.  It's called the Rocky Mountains and they are mere minutes from my driveway.  Yes, it only takes 10 to 15 minutes to cross the first hump of mountains outside Denver and be in the foothill splendor of the Rockies.


One of the great joys of this area is driving up to the mountains to see the Aspen leaves turning gold in the fall, and this year was as spectacular as always.  I have to admit my favorite year was when I drove my Mustang convertible and made the trip with the top down. This year worked well, though, since my brother drove.

He took us along the Peak to Peak highway between Boulder and Estes Park, which has some amazing views of Long's Peak as well as the entire mountain range. I had driven it before, but the colors made this drive very special.

 But the big difference this year was that I got to take roads I had never been on before, even though they are right in my backyard. We drove into Rocky Mountain National Park, along Trail Ridge Road, which had me feeling like we were on top of the world. It's the highest continuous paved road in the United States, and it sure felt like it!

First as we neared the top, there was the odd view of trees clinging to survival as we neared timberline. I remember one of my California friends being amazed at the concept of timberline  and the whole idea that there were places in Colorado where trees can't grow because of the altitude and conditions. These trees actually reminded me of the Northwest along the western coast where they are so wind blown by the ocean that only half of them seems to be surviving. I think I felt as enthralled as my friend who was seeing this part of the country for the first time.

And then we reached the top...

 

 

We were driving along a road that made us feel like we were on top of the world as we crossed over the Continental Divide.  Actually at times as we drove near the edges, I felt like we might just slide off all the way down the 12000 feet to the bottom (okay, maybe not 12000 feet, but it sure felt like we could go a long way!)  This road is not open year round -- high snows close it in the fall and keep it closed until late spring.

This highway has been around in various unpaved and paved form since the 1920s, but the byway itself was once traveled by Native American tribes as they crossed the mountains between their homelands and hunting grounds.

And, of course, as we drove I concocted a story about a city woman unfamiliar with the territory getting lost up in this wilderness and everyone had a different idea about what might happen to her. By the time we got down from our trip to the top of the Continental Divide, we had come up with plenty of ideas. Of course, mine involved a romance between the woman and a sexy guy she runs across in those rugged Rockies. As so many of our trips do, this one also inspired us to come down and look for facts about the area, and gave us all a greater appreciation for living in Colorado.

So here's a toast (with champagne from the Brown Palace, another wonderful Colorado landmark) to those places in your backyard that you might want to visit and explore... and come up with new story ideas.  And do it before it's too late. Trail Ridge Road was closed this week -- due to high snow.

Promotion Blues

Promotion is often a dirty word for writers and I am one of those who has to admit that I constantly shirk my promotion duties. We don't like to advertise ourselves or our books, and somehow we hope readers find them anyway.

This week I a putting together a promotional giveaway for the Colorado Romance Writers annual Readers' Tea and that sort of promotion I love to do because I get to buy lots of fun little items to go in the gift bag - chocolate, wine, pens, pencils, books and other goodies.  Last year my sister and sister-in-law spent hours making plastic canvas bookmarks. They came out great, but then I realized the thickness of the plastic made it hard to actually use the marks in books. Ooops. No more of those.

Promotion has always been a problem for me, even when I was producing daily newscasts. In addition to putting together the newscast, producers often have to write those clever little teases that the anchors must read just before they go to commercial.  You know, the ones that end with, "stay tuned," or begin with, "coming up next." Some of our producers would start thinking of how they were going to tease a story from the moment they first knew it was going to be in the newscast. I was never very good at that and as a result I waited until the last minute to write those teases. Mine went something like, "Weather is next, will it rain tomorrow?" And then the little tag line under the visual would read something like  "Sunny Saturday?"

You get the picture.  Well, now I find that I have to promote or tease MYSELF as a writer. I need to promote my books. Luckily I don't have to come up with lots of daily clever little blurbs, but I do need to have a Facebook page, a web page, a Pinterest page, a blog, and so many other things I can't even count them all.  I'm not good at it, but I am trying.  And with Facebook, I not only should have a personal page, but a reader fan page I'm told. Oh, and that doesn't include having a Twitter account. So much promotion, so little time to write.

This week I finally spent some time trying to update my webpages and Facebook pages. And I find I enjoy Pinterest. I have more fun seeing what others are doing and how they organize their pages. And I found myself coming up with new ways to use some of the wonderful pictures I've run across or re-pinning from other people.

So here's a toast to today's promotion -- and the links to my various sites, just to show that I can do some promotion, even if it is very simple and done at the last minute... just like old times in the newsroom.

And I'm hearing we'll be having a sunny Saturday. I'll toast that too! The last weekend of September.

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A Toast to Fall

Fall has arrived in Colorado. It seems a bit early, but it is definitely here. We had a covering of snow on the patio this morning and this whole week has been cool with the promise of more to come.  I have to admit I've always loved Fall. It's my favorite time of the year.  Why? Well, I came up with a bunch of reasons I've always loved it:

Growing up:
   -- Going back to school with new clothes, and new shoes
   -- Getting fresh school supplies (I got to replace the ratty notebook I'd marked up the year before and I always managed to get me a new notebook for my writing) 
   -- The feeling of crispness in the air as I walked home from school
   -- jumping in the pile of leaves my dad and brother raked up (I didn't appreciate the piles when I got older and had to rake
 In college:
   -- meeting new classmates, new dorm mates and new roommates
   -- playing football on the lawn in front of the dorm
   -- going to football games (& sneaking in a little bottle of rum for those cold days -- we were the ones yelling for the guy selling cold sodas even though we were wearing gloves and it might be snowing)
    -- walks to the park where I could sit in the crisp afternoon air and write
   
Later years:
  -- going on vacation (I always took vacation in the fall because I liked to see the leaves change or visit the beach when no one was around
  --  sitting on the beach or in the park while on vacation and writing
  -- going to baseball playoff games and an occasional World Series
  -- football brunches on Sunday

While I write every season,  I always seem to come up with fresh ideas in the Fall.  So here is a toast to fall and to new ideas and new beginnings.

The final thing I love about Fall is that it is when my birthday hits so I have just finished one year and I have a whole new year ahead. So here is a double toast to Fall.

A Toast to a Great Cover

Today there is real cause for a pause for a taste of the bubbly!

Here’s why -- for a writer there is nothing quite like release day when you finally see your book, your baby, put out there for the whole world to see. Whether it is in a bookstore, or online at the Amazon and BN stores or your publisher’s online page, just seeing that book available widely for others to read always brings a tear of joy to my eyes and I’ve heard so many other authors say the same thing.

Before that wonderful date though, there are other great steps along the way – getting that call or email offering a contract, seeing the signed contract come back to you, seeing the manuscript sent back to you with edit marks for you to work on, then seeing the galleys where you actual work is placed into book form.

Then comes the “cover reveal.”  That is always a source of great pride because the cover is the first thing the public will see. It’s always been a source of great joy to me because I have been pretty lucky with my covers. Designing a cover starts with a great artist, even if there is a production team involved. This week I had that great moment.  I got the final cover back for my next book, BLUES AT 11.

The artist is Debbie Taylor from The Wild Rose Press and everyone who has seen it and read snippets of my book from my critique partner to my family say it’s spot on.  A toast to Debbie! And a toast to the entire production team at The Wild Rose Press for giving me another winning cover.

Here’s the blurb for Blues – 

Kimberly Delagarza is a familiar face in Los Angeles where she can be seen nightly on the evening news. She drives a fancy car, lives in a house on the beach, and wears designer clothes. But now the TV anchorwoman is being accused of murder.

No one believes she didn't kill her louse of an ex-boyfriend after he dumped her. Her next picture may be on a wanted poster, and her next home may be the Big House, with a wardrobe consisting of orange jumpsuits.

And the only man who can help her is someone she once wronged

This was a book I truly enjoyed writing because it allowed me to go back to my days in the crazy world of television news. While the people and situations are straight out of my head, it gave me a great opportunity to have my characters say and do all the things I always wanted to see said and done!

So here’s a toast to Blues, to talented folks at the Wild Rose Press and to the wonderful people in the TV news profession.

Tracking Down a New Story

To be a writer is to be constantly on the lookout--for new ideas to incorporate into stories, for new friends who might provide new insight, for old methods that you might decide to give a try in new ways.  As writers we should always be examining the world around us and looking for fresh ways to tell a story and learning about new trends. But we should also be looking for where that next great new idea might come from.  It might even come from strangers on a train!

No, I’m not talking about the Hitchcock thriller where a  meets a stranger on the train who developed a plot to trade murders. But recently a day long train trip out of Denver's newly remodeled Union Station introduced me to some new friends from all around the country. We exchanged stories, then sang along as we travelled and finally they helped me plot a murder mystery as we spent six long minutes in the near total darkness of Colorado’s Moffatt Tunnel. Talk about eerie, but yes, the idea was to come out of the tunnel with a body in our midst!
 

We didn't get to an end of the story -- just the idea for the first body and then lots of suspects that we kept meeting along the way, the tourist group who was travelling together, but didn't really know each other, the seasoned tour guide who was volunteer and worked many of these train rides, or perhaps the nasty family who left all their trash on our table--maybe as a payback for all the noise we'd been making? The whole process reminded me it’s a never ending process to be a writer.

There is always something new to discover, to use, to tell others about in a story. As a writer and teacher I find I am always learning. Whether it is taking new classes or teaching new classes the learning process always goes on, no matter what I’m doing. To keep that never ending process going, I suggest a few simple steps you can take at just about any time:
 

1. Take a free class on something you’ve always wanted to learn

2. Watch for writing seminars or talks given by local writing groups
3. Look online for blogs that specialize in writing methods or trends
4. Buy or check out from the library a new book on writing
5. Watch for local one day or two day writing conferences

Some of these seem like simple things, but how often do we discount them? However, free classes from your library or recreational center might include things like photography or knitting or even local history. Ever thought  of writing a Steam Punk story? The local history museum might be a good place to start. I found myself daydreaming about historical stories in a visit to the state history museum last week. A class on pottery at the local recreational center might give you some ideas for an amateur sleuth who works out a mystery based around pottery.
 

Writing seminars are always good for new inspiration. Even if you find the material something you already know you might find some new ideas for character building or it might spring loose something you’ve always wanted to try.

The same goes for blogs on writing. Have you ever considered a method, but worried about trying something new, whether it be digital publishing or how to use Twitter to promote your books? Maybe you can find a blog that details a writer’s experience and learn some new information you can put to use.

New books on writing come out all the time and can be very useful, but sometimes going back through those old books you read years ago can be helpful too. Remembering the old enthusiasm or trying something you experimented with years ago can provide fresh incentive on a story.

 And mostly I like to look for local writing conferences or day long sessions with local writing groups. Even if you don’t belong to the group, usually visitors are welcome and sometimes these groups will bring in people from out of town who can provide plenty of writing knowledge. Not to mention how much fun it can be just to socialize and talk to other writers about their projects. Going to a group with people you’ve never met can also be stimulating for your own writing. You can also learn some of the new trends in various genres you might want to consider trying. I attended an all day session given by Colorado Romance Writers last weekend and learned secrets of writing steamy scenes from a bestselling erotica writer. 

Why do I suggest the never ending learning process? Well, it’s simple. You never know where the next great idea will come from.  It might even come from new and old friends aboard a train ride through the Rocky Mountains! My friends have already decided to start planning a trip down the California coast on the train.

And of course, we ended our train trip in grand fashion with a tour of Grand Junction's wineries and a great champagne tasting that had us all ready for a new adventure and looking for new ways to come up with story ideas.