Category: Uncategorized

I noticed I’d gotten a really nice review of one of my books the other day.

Several books ago, good reviews really had a strong impact on me. Actually, the word ‘elation’ wouldn’t be far off the mark in terms of describing my feelings.

But the problem with putting stock in an unexpected good review is that they’re sure to be followed by negative reviews. If you’re on a high from the good ones, you’ll really crash after the bad reviews.

Plus, I realized, if I believed the good reviews, it meant I had to believe the bad ones. Otherwise, I’d really be biased.

After I came to that conclusion, I got a lot more clinical with my reviews. I appreciate them tremendously, I love that people care enough to read my books and offer feedback. But I can’t put a lot of stock in them. All I can do is take note of the ingredients of both the positive and negative reviews—did the reviewer list elements they especially appreciated or disliked? Is this a common theme in the reviews I’m reading?—and use them to help me with future books.

My approach:

I don’t read reviews when I’m writing something new. It’s just hardly ever good for a decent writing day. It tends to make me want to edit more instead of be creative.

I don’t respond to any reviews—positive or negative—on a bookselling site. If I see a nice review on a blog, I might thank the blogger in the comments or send them an email. Author intrusion on bookselling sites is almost always a bad thing.

I do like helpful negative reviews—reviewers who point to what they see as a particular problem with the book. It’s always interesting to see if the problem is something that can be addressed in future books in the series. Are other people giving feedback about the same thing?

As I mentioned above, I don’t believe my good reviews, either. I find them heartening and I appreciate them, but I try to look at them just as clinically. Did they say what they liked about the book? Is it something I can give more of in the next book?

With any review, I try to look at it as feedback. It’s a business and I’m trying to make readers happy as well as please my publishers and myself. I work hard to make sure I don’t take it personally. If I feel tempted to take it personally, I remind myself it’s a business. And it is.

So….basically, I don’t take much stock in either bad or good reviews, I just take from them whatever I can find useful, moving forward. And I remember it’s all part of the business of writing.

How do you get distance from your work in order to keep positive during either querying or reviews?

Below are the writing-related links I tweeted last week.

The Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine, designed by software engineer and writer Mike Fleming, makes all these links searchable. Sign up for the free monthly WKB newsletter for the web’s best links and interviews: http://bit.ly/gx7hg1 .

I recently released an ebook: Progressive Dinner Deadly is a Myrtle Clover mystery, available for $2.99 on Kindle and Nook. The 3rd book in the Memphis Barbeque series will release November 1—Hickory Smoked Barbeque (available now for preorder).

Hope everyone has a great week! Good luck with your writing.

Meditation for writers: http://bit.ly/nfHTRj @GrubWriters

Resist the urge to quit: http://bit.ly/ntalXk @JWhite

How 1 mother/writer/teacher fits writing into her schedule: http://bit.ly/q6czMO @AnneRiley

Writing character sketches the modern way: http://bit.ly/ogSEAv

AAP Figures for June Show Dramatic Print Slump, Continuing #Ebook Explosion: http://bit.ly/qTYMiq @DavidGaughran

Writing life–guilt & how 1 writer spent her summer vacation: http://bit.ly/mSQ2Ih

Playing to win: http://bit.ly/o7FHHn

Promoting: A Guerrilla Writer’s Approach: http://bit.ly/pcMo85 @bellastreet

10 ways for writers to network: http://bit.ly/n6onra

What’s The Best Genre To Write If You Want To Get Published? http://bit.ly/pWC9nd @bubblecow

9 Reasons To Use Video to Enhance Your Blog Posts: http://bit.ly/pUAsJt

How Writing Helped 1 Writer Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Public Speaking: http://bit.ly/mUIM1h @YAHighway

4 Ways To Get Reviews For Your Book: http://bit.ly/qXqG5y @woodwardkaren

Trunk Novels Are An Endangered Species: http://bit.ly/nIg9W2 @thecreativepenn

Talking about Talking–Thoughts on Dialogue: http://bit.ly/oJB30V @V_Rossibooks

5 Elements of a Riveting 1st Line: http://bit.ly/qd5Lpd @KMWeiland

Do you take yourself seriously as a writer? http://bit.ly/oGp7qr @CherylRWrites

1 writer’s thoughts on dialogue tags: http://bit.ly/qeQJ9p

10 proofreading tips to get distance from your work: http://bit.ly/pQhf07

20 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page: http://bit.ly/qrGKAH @smexaminer

Words count: http://bit.ly/naCm0X @BevVincent

Resources for online platform building: http://bit.ly/ntMCUv @nicolamorgan

Keeping track of characters when they’re offstage: http://bit.ly/odLT7b @kalayna

Tips for writing a good critique: http://bit.ly/oBfikW @FantasyFaction

On obscurity: http://bit.ly/pXAHkx

Why Chasing a Big 6 Contract is Like Crushing on a Bad Boyfriend: http://bit.ly/oDbqx9 @annerallen

Spoilers – missing the point; a story is more than an ending: http://bit.ly/nF5PaF @dirtywhitecandy

Which Crimes Do Most Superheroes Commit? http://bit.ly/pdVOAD

The Children’s Authors Who Broke the Rules (NY Times): http://nyti.ms/mQN6GM

Weaving elements through your plot: http://bit.ly/mUQVfY @author_sullivan

A Theory of the Hero: Agency, Voice, and Sincerity: http://bit.ly/oBxM9C @KgElfland2ndCuz

A Theory of the Hero: Story Archetypes for Heroic Characters: http://bit.ly/nh0FWw @KgElfland2ndCuz

What Serious Writers Can Learn from Genre Comrades in Arms: http://bit.ly/oA6ARA @ereads

The air of bleakness in some crime fiction: http://bit.ly/pP9AWr @mkinberg

Tips for finding an agent: http://bit.ly/pDopvO @bubblecow

3 Steps to Creative Endurance: A Writer’s Training Plan: http://bit.ly/qhZE93

10 reasons SFF writers should go to conventions: http://bit.ly/oH3khl @BryanThomasS

Controlling pace in our stories: http://bit.ly/q3CdSu @BookEmDonna

How to illustrate the theme of your novel: http://bit.ly/nkbwtV @TheCreativePenn

Basics of Book Marketing for the Beginning Self-Publisher: http://bit.ly/pwLAKt @jfbookman

The wrong and right way to promote our books: http://bit.ly/qDoCtO @romance_book

Romantic Nature and Sub-genres: http://bit.ly/nfIGZQ

Picture Book Revision Takes 25 Years: http://bit.ly/qNhiEJ

Last-minute conference tips: http://bit.ly/n6xayS

A Lexicon of Speculative Fiction: http://bit.ly/r2XjOX @Suzanne_Johnson @roniloren

“The blog ate my book.” http://bit.ly/o3QWxl @WriteAngleBlog

How to Avoid Over-Promoting & Under-Promoting Our Books: http://bit.ly/oqdLRq @JodyHedlund

Let go of high expectations & make attainable writing goals: http://bit.ly/njIMeS

An agent reminds writers of the importance of likeable characters: http://bit.ly/rqHnmW @greyhausagency

Italy’s 40K Books: No Paper, No Attention Span, No Problem: http://bit.ly/nSUGJH #publishing

How does a quiet book become known in a world dominated by the loud? http://bit.ly/oYzuEF

Handling editor interest: http://bit.ly/rhy7iB @BookEndsJessica

5 Ways to Optimize Your Facebook Page: http://bit.ly/pGoygX @smexaminer

Does Studying Rejection Letters Hinder Writers? http://bit.ly/pHJ1Mr @writeitsideways

On writers’ retreats: http://bit.ly/nTTEUT @donnacooner

Self-publishing: copy edits, tagging, & other odds and ends: http://bit.ly/qWeoOD @HowToWriteShop

When Self-Publishing A Book Is A Great Marketing Move: http://bit.ly/n2fsFj @PassiveVoiceBlg

6 story elements that can force your book to evolve: http://bit.ly/n0ab9H @JamiGold

Borders Employees Vent Frustrations in ‘Ode to a Bookstore Death’: http://bit.ly/qqt83s @GalleyCat

The Grammar Hokey Pokey (With Commas): http://bit.ly/rg5HlP

On Bosses from Hell, Making Crime Pay, and Walking Around Your Writer’s Block: http://goo.gl/gDSRa @cleocoyle

External and internal conflict: http://bit.ly/r3loFs @JulietteWade

Maintaining an Email List Without Pain (almost): http://bit.ly/nwe2RD @PassiveVoiceBlg

The Ultimate Writer’s Guide to Blogging: http://bit.ly/q3nkjs @SeanPlatt

How to avoid avoidance as a writer: http://bit.ly/r8cbXu @JulieMusil

The care & feeding of a good critique group: http://bit.ly/no0TW7 @sarahahoyt

Publicity Beyond Your Book Launch: http://bit.ly/qJJ69r @booksparkspr

Hiding tidbits for readers (& when readers think writers planted tidbits that they hadn’t): http://bit.ly/p2OpmG @janice_hardy

An agent on resending queries: http://bit.ly/nmrPQy @BookEndsJessica

One of Rowling’s techniques for planting clues: http://bit.ly/qhwRWP @HP4Writers

Don’t Write a Memoir to Get Revenge: http://bit.ly/pMZfmk @janefriedman

Creating a Long Distance Relationship With Your Manuscript: http://bit.ly/oPkr8W @YAHighway

Introducing backstory: http://bit.ly/oQhiL4 @BTMargins

Do You Suffer from “Not-Quite” Paralysis? http://bit.ly/r48hvr @on_creativity

Finding the Heart of Your Story: A Tip from Donald Maass: http://bit.ly/qkXRPo @4kidlit

Basics of Book Marketing for the Beginning Self-Publisher, Part 2: http://bit.ly/ptr5xb @jfbookman

What Startups Can Teach Publishers: http://bit.ly/nsKwxa #publishing

Flat Adverbs Are Flat-Out Useful: http://bit.ly/npaX8W

Avoiding Despair at a Writer’s Conference: http://bit.ly/oe9VQi @rachellegardner

When book promotion becomes spam: http://bit.ly/nw5QjV @rule17

Pacing the start of your novel: http://bit.ly/nxlUDz

Run an Awesome Blog Contest in 5 Steps: http://bit.ly/p7Jk0V @problogger

Setting–adding dimension to your fiction: http://bit.ly/r1TCp3 @KristenLambTX

Why Nouns Matter, part 1: Proper Names: http://bit.ly/r2HSAs @JulietteWade

6 reasons to conduct an interview–with insights from journalist @Porter_Anderson: http://bit.ly/oo6dUV @write_practice

10 More Lies You Tell Yourself While Editing: http://bit.ly/nGAQbm @elspethwrites

How small decisions in crime fiction add tension & realism & can foreshadow events: http://bit.ly/orKLLh @mkinberg

Self-editing checklist–setting and description: http://bit.ly/qUzKPf @SarahForgrave

A Theory of the Hero–Tragic and Anti-tragic Heroes: http://bit.ly/nWRtCs @KgElfland2ndCuz

Create Your Own Words (and Other Uses Of the Hyphen): http://bit.ly/qrY2iN @write_practice

Measuring results of marketing & the nuances of long-term book marketing: http://bit.ly/qUTHsP @jfbookman

A video from @TheCreativePenn shows how to publish your book: http://bit.ly/oJUju9

The Rulebreaker’s Guide to the Semicolon: http://bit.ly/qXYdPC @FantasyFaction

A Hidden Aspect of Creative Life That Underpins Great Work: http://bit.ly/numCTi @JaneFriedman

Time Management—Taking Stock of Your Most Precious Commodity: http://bit.ly/mTMMLi @workawesome

15 Frequently Confused Pairs of Adjectives: http://bit.ly/orGCZ5

How to Use the Power of Silence to Boost Your Writing Career: http://bit.ly/qjQgDj

An agent on the importance of character motivation: http://bit.ly/ntDyAG @greyhausagency

The Writer’s Diet Wasteline Test: http://bit.ly/oedxSE @manon_eileen

Writing Tough Subjects for Young Readers: http://bit.ly/n0M6L0 @iggiandgabi

The challenge of offering honest criticism: http://bit.ly/oWcvIQ @WriteAngleBlog

3 Keys to a Successful Author Platform: http://bit.ly/q7eTly @KristenLambTX

Is blogging dead? http://bit.ly/onTVOc @RoniLoren

Benefits of outlining: http://bit.ly/orCq1y @KMWeiland

An agent weighs in on prologues: http://bit.ly/oprTdn

Building A Sustainable Writing Career: How To Develop Multiple Income Streams: http://bit.ly/ndhCmH @DavidGaughran

Delaying the answers to our story’s questions: http://bit.ly/nABcgE

Advice for Family and Friends of Writers: http://bit.ly/nXwAbw via @DorteHJ

An agent with an observation on character development: http://bit.ly/qWHuBV

An editorial director with a crash course in book events (including…making sure there are books to sign): http://bit.ly/pZa5PQ

Getting started with ghostwriting: http://bit.ly/o0uzx8 @YAHighway

12 tips for naming characters: http://bit.ly/nVtVtE

Marketing Your Book: Swag & Bling: http://bit.ly/qRtjbk @CuriosityQuills

Should Authors Charge for School Visits? http://bit.ly/rpXoIU @Janice_Hardy

What *not* to do at a reading: http://bit.ly/peuzr8 @FantasyFaction

Academic Writing Makes You a Better Writer: http://bit.ly/oohhsR @jeffgoins

The legend of the movie option: http://bit.ly/nZjIx8 @martharandolph

How Our Relationship With Our Characters Is Like Dating a Vampire: http://bit.ly/nSFleN @lisagailgreen

Children’s book publishers–foregoing the inherent market advantages of the basic e-book is a big mistake: http://bit.ly/p5Kohn #publishing

These 3 Typography Websites Will Change How You Took at Type: http://bit.ly/pJsFDs @jfbookman

What Is The Point Of Writing A Book If You Have No Online Presence? http://bit.ly/r2NXJE @bubblecow

The truth about editing: http://bit.ly/nZbAQZ @msforster

PublishAmerica and CBA: Rowling Redux: http://bit.ly/nPEPeK @victoriastrauss

4 revisions 1 writer is making to her story: http://bit.ly/pDxuB8

Why Self-Publishing Is So Popular Right Now: http://bit.ly/ouOgny @GoblinWriter

The Most Powerful Learning Tool A Writer Could Ever Have: http://bit.ly/pTSsWZ @ollinmorales @

Quickly review industry news & views with this thoughtful digest via @Porter_Anderson for @JaneFriedman: http://bit.ly/neRh6R

Joe Konrath’s response to the argument that the #ebook market is glutted: http://bit.ly/rnhA01

Top 5 things to avoid telling agents and editors at conferences: http://bit.ly/qY3XMl

Publishers Eager for Amazon Tablet: http://bit.ly/rcGh2D @ThePassiveVoiceBlg #publishing

Kindle Books Now in Libraries via Overdrive: http://bit.ly/reRGBe @selfpubreview

Seeking an Agent Is Not Seeking a Job: http://bit.ly/n5ztnZ

An editor with a mini-lesson on exclamation points and question marks: http://bit.ly/nNfSbA @LynnetteLabelle

Tips for writing a great 2nd draft of your novel: http://bit.ly/r08iyD @bubblecow

Writing Integrated Love Scenes: http://bit.ly/nuCjqx

Become The Hero Of Your Own Publishing Story: http://bit.ly/pgC4pw @thecreativepenn

Advice to an aspiring writer: http://bit.ly/mZsfHd @CBR

Tips for dissecting your novel: http://bit.ly/rbvte8

Before the Royalty Statement: Finding Out How Many Books You Sold: http://bit.ly/oaUvsI @BTMargins

The Verbing of the English Language: http://bit.ly/pKLH4c

Using an Agent to Get on Kindle: http://bit.ly/pIYkB1 @JaneFriedman

How Self-Published Authors Get Their Covers Right: http://bit.ly/qmplMS

Writers, be who you are–a process of discovery: http://bit.ly/mQtzAI @BryanThomasS

Set yourself up to succeed: http://bit.ly/phjyDL @Mommy_Authors

You sure you want that movie deal? http://bit.ly/rf55gO @bbeaulieu

Superpowers Will Not Make a Boring Character Interesting: http://bit.ly/nRoRqj

6 Ways to Ask Better Questions in Interviews: http://bit.ly/oVDa4t @write_practice

Nanowrimo Prep: First, You Need an Idea: http://bit.ly/nVIvSS @AlexSokoloff

Wandering in Circles – How to Structure a Story: http://bit.ly/ncah2O @PassiveVoiceBlg

Why Amazon’s New Tablet May Pose A Greater Threat To NetFlix Than To Apple: http://bit.ly/nmpjTx @PassiveVoiceBlg #publishing

The power of suggestion – what can you leave the reader to fill in? http://bit.ly/ri3jtJ @dirtywhitecandy

Telling Your Own Author Bio Myth: http://bit.ly/pLX82O @HP4Writers

5 ways to get into the writing mindset when starting a new book: http://bit.ly/pbJqJb

Best Articles This Week for Writers 9/23/11: http://bit.ly/r5mnNk @4kidlit

Building Online Communities for Teen Readers: http://bit.ly/rePIWK

Does your main character get all the best lines? http://bit.ly/pSE7F3 @jeanniecampbell

Are your characters crying too much? http://bit.ly/o9kyHn @lydia_sharp

Avoiding Stop-Action Description: http://bit.ly/qgfxMA @artzicarol

10 Tips Writers can Learn from Bad Movies: http://bit.ly/oYOxmd @LyndaRYoung

What makes a novel a page-turner? http://bit.ly/ql7atc @jamesscottbell

Weeding or editing: http://bit.ly/qvSF3L @nicolamorgan

Write. Revise. Rest. Repeat. The 4 cycles of writing and links to help you master them: http://bit.ly/nIi3QY @bluemaven

Religion in Novels: Terrific or Taboo? http://bit.ly/nZ541p @JamiGold

Please join me in welcoming Glen Allison to Mystery Writing is Murder.

A review of The Informationist by Taylor Stevens 
Expectations are a funny thing. And by funny, I mean they are like that dog with the wagging tail that, soon as you look away, bites your ankle. Or, conversely, they can be like the mean-looking mongrel who merely wants a pat on the head.

Example: You read a novel about a woman who goes into dangerous situations throughout the world to gather information. In the process, she is forced to kill people. Not anyone who doesn’t need killing, mind you. When she does it, it happens so fast that she’s on to the next challenger with her knives before the blood from the first one spatters on the wall. And, even though the people deserve it, the slayings stir blood lust in the killer. She fights it, but it’s there.

You can’t help expecting the author of such a story to show signs of inner turmoil. To show it in her eyes, somewhere deep.

But, no. Taylor Stevens, author of The Informationist, is nothing but pleasant here at Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis. Fans drift to her table in the book signing room, each receiving a smile and kind words from the author. She takes time to encourage a young author who is suffering prepublication jitters. No sharp edges here. Her kindness is genuine.

Not so with her protagonist, Vanessa Michael Munroe, in The Informationist. Oh, Munroe might be smiling. But she is watchful for any preconceived notion on which she can prey. And her knives aren’t far away from her fingertips.

She’ll need them. And you won’t blame her for using them.

“Some people have said it’s gratuitous violence,” says Stevens, “but I say no. She doesn’t seek it out, but it’s always necessary.”

I agree. The story is more than the violence, however. Munroe, a young woman with a tortured past, usually travels the world on info-gathering missions for big business or other organizations. She uses her innate ability to learn languages rapidly to reveal choice nuggets of insight for her clients. In The Informationist, she is presented a different mission: Find out what happened to a missing American teen girl who disappeared while she traveled through Africa four years previously. Many have failed to find out what happened to the girl. Her father wants to know, to rest his mind.

Munroe rejects the offer, at first, shunning the millions in compensation. But that phrase plays in her mind. “Many have failed….” She is hooked. And so are we as readers. And thus begins a tale of one of the toughest – and most beguiling – protagonists I’ve run across in a while.

If you love thrillers featuring a character whose inner battles rival her external challenges, read The Informationist, which came out earlier this year. Her next Munroe novel, The Innocent, comes out at the end of 2011.

What I’ve intentionally left out, until now, is Taylor Stevens’s background: She was raised in a communal apocalyptic cult which took her to four continents, including Africa – where much of The Informationist is set. That experience, and her familiarity with the setting, give this novel an authentic feel and emotional depth that grips the reader.

I stand next to Taylor as we gaze down through the windows of the 22^nd floor of the conference hotel. A reception honoring another author swirls around us. She speaks of her past, neither embracing nor ignoring its reality. “It’s not who I am; it is merely what I experienced.” On one hand, she wishes her novel could receive recognition on its own merits (and it definitely is being recognized). On the other hand, she is practical about how the publicity machine rolls on.

Though I do not press her for the kind of details for which today’s inquiring minds lust, I sense there is much this woman endured as a child as she panhandled along dirty third-world streets. She has spoken of the closed-off nature of the cult, how it has left her, to this day, feeling like an outsider. Earlier in the day, while participating in one of the many author panels, she hushed the crowd by revealing that her education stopped at the sixth grade, and that she didn’t read novels as a teenager. It wasn’t allowed.

Her imagination, however, was not handcuffed. “I sometimes think of a time when I was 19. My privileges had been taken away for some minor offense. I had to go to bed at 8:30 p. m. with the younger children. I woke every morning at 5 a.m., which gave me two hours before reveille at 7. And every morning, for months, I’d walk around the compound for those two hours, just thinking. Just me and my imagination. Nobody could keep me from doing that. That time alone is my happiest memory in the cult, and perhaps paved the way for me to start writing this book over ten years later.”

That kind of persistence in the pursuit of a dream is inspiring for any would-be writer. It drives her protagonist, Munroe, in her mission to discover what happened to the lost girl. And, it has given us one of the best action/suspense novels of the year.

Glen C. Allison is the author of the Forte suspense series of New Orleans.

 

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Interested in writing reviews?  I’ll be running guest reviews for my Saturday Good Reads  series on Saturdays.  Contact me for details: elizabethspanncraig (at) gmail.com

I came across a fun post from Clarissa Draper yesterday. She mentioned that designing a cover for a WIP can put her in the mood to write it.

I think designing a cover would be an exercise in frustration for me, since I’m graphically-challenged (I picked the ‘minimalist’ blog theme for this blog, for example.) :)

But there are other ways I put myself in the mindset to start a new project:

Put a deadline on my calendar—I have an official deadline (publisher-set) and I have an unofficial one that I shoot for.

Write the back cover copy for the book. Can’t imagine why, but the copywriting department never seems to use my copy! I enjoy writing it, though, and it helps remind me where I’m headed with the plot.

Come up with a title for the book. Even if it’s changed later, it makes the project more real for me if it has a title.

Make an official home for the book on my laptop. I have a folder with the working title of the book. In that folder goes a cast of characters document, a document of brainstormed ideas, and the WIP itself.

Start thinking of it and referring to it as a real book. Even if I’ve only finished the first two paragraphs. Because it is…it’s a book in progress.

How do you make your WIP real? How you put yourself in the mindset to write it?

One interesting blog post that I’ve recently come across was on Cheryl’s Musings, writer Cheryl Reif’s blog.

In the post, Cheryl explains how she decided to start writing. Actually, her story is a lot like my own, which might be why I identified with it. We both enrolled our small children in preschool and started taking our writing seriously.

Cheryl lists some ideas for respecting yourself as a writer, including protecting your writing time and realizing that just because you’re unpublished, it doesn’t mean your writing is unimportant.

I tweeted a link to the post and quite a few people connected to the topic and retweeted it.

One person tweeted back, though, saying that she thought she took her writing too seriously.

I’ve done both, I think. I know the biggest gain in my writing career was when I decided to take my writing seriously. I set an attainable goal, and things started clicking into place.

But I’ve also taken my writing too seriously sometimes. I’ve let deadlines stress me out, I’ve concentrated too much on writing and let other things slide that needed attention in my life.

It looks like, as in so many things in life, that moderation or balance is key.

For me this means making sure I eke out writing time each day (lately it’s been in the 30 minutes in the carpool line outside the high school), but it also means that I put my laptop away when members of my family are trying to have a conversation with me.

I also make sure I plan time in my day for reading (which is both enjoyment and craft-building time for me) and time for connecting online with other writers….the network of writers on blogs and Twitter, etc., who provide so much information and encouragement. But then I make time to play a card game with my kids or talk about the news of the day with my husband.

And…it’s tough. Some days I’m not sure I’m handling the balance at all well. Occasionally I feel distracted, too, when I’m supposed to be focused on what I’m doing at the time. But I’m trying.

How do you balance your time? Do you take your writing seriously? Do you take it too seriously?