Lia’s next adventure features a pair of retired greyhounds, a decrepit cemetery, and a crime spree that defies logic.
Meet Connie and Nati, two sweet girls subject to a custody dispute in the breakup from hell.
This is Wesleyan Cemetery.
As for the crime, You’ll have to wait to find out. But it all adds up to murder.
Coming in 2023
Never fear. You can find me (and Gypsy!) at http://canewsome.com
Julia has a fitting for her next signing for her book, Sneak Thief, at Animal Rescue Fund.
Follow me on Periscope @C_A_Newsome
I’m on vacation. That didn’t stop me from a bit ofego-surfing. This is one of my favorite interviews. I thought it deserved another go.
Minty Fresh Mysteries (MFM): There’s an old showbiz adage, “Never work with children or animals,” and yet you’ve chosen to base much of your writing career on dogs, namely your Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries. Any regrets? I suppose the clean up and care of imaginary dogs is probably easier
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“The failure to comprehend a problem is sometimes the best way to transcend it.”
—C. A. Newsome, June 2015
I spent some time talking to a literary genius recently. Someone who can write rings around me while juggling Mom’s china. I’ve known this person all my life, and he could do this before he went to two prestigious schools to obtain degrees in English lit. He’s devoted his life to books. Yet, as far as I know, he has never published anything except some brilliant reviews he wrote for his college newspaper. I expect the world will discover thousands of pages of priceless prose after his death. I am hoping he will leave them to me in his will.
“The problem is, you either have to have a one-in-a-million lucky stroke, or you have to spend years rigorously refining your writing until you’ve perfected your pandering.”
—literary genius on achieving success as an author
My literary genius is paralyzed by too much knowledge: too many stories about iconic books that were rejected dozens or even hundreds of times before they were printed, passed over again and again while the best seller lists teemed with barely-literate fluff; the DNA-deep understanding that it takes ten years or more of banging your head against the door before someone will let you in, and once they do, they will take the child of your heart and do with it what they will while tying you up with a contract that says they own you.
You would think the explosion in self publishing would have oppressed literary types like my genius at the forefront. Instead, they are suffering their own form of Stockholm syndrome, still seeking approval from the brutal and draconian system that rejected them all their lives.
There are many stories of first time hacks (like me) who said, “Writing a book would be fun. I can publish it myself? Cool!” who blundered into self-publishing and quickly turned it into a full-time business. My favorite example, Colleen Hoover, became a millionaire and hit the NYT bestseller list in six months.
Random House takes 18 months to turn a manuscript into a book. It took me five months to earn enough from my first book to quit my job. That’s why I penned the pithy and profound saying above. All us newcomers did not know that publishing was supposed to be a path to failure and humiliation. We didn’t see what the problem was, and for us, there wasn’t one.
So, take everything you’ve ever heard about succeeding at anything and scrap it. Here’s my philosophy:
Not everybody is going to like what you do. Some people will. Some people won’t. Your job is to be yourself, the best ‘you’ you can be, and create the most authentic, book, painting, or widget you can. Then go find those people who do like and want what you do.
That’s it. Seriously.
It’s not complicated, but It takes work, flexibility, and the willingness to get up off your ass when life knocks you down. You’ve got to get rid of your preconceived ideas of what help, opportunity and success look like. You need to be determined to learn what you need to know and able to look at your stuff with an unbiased, critical eye. You must do all this with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.
Or you can hang out in obscure little coffee houses, waiting for the Book Fairy to sprinkle stardust on you.
I did a signing Thursday at Westwood Library, which is featured in Sneak Thief. Cover-beagle Julia’s pawtographs were a big hit. I had to go sit next to her just to get my picture taken. You can see her to the left, mugging for the pup-erazzi. You’d never know it was her debut, she was such a diva.
Me, I had to spend 30 minutes talking about myself without looking like an egomaniac. I had to answer questions. Sound like I know what I’m doing.
Claudia, who is currently co-writing her first novel, asked me what the hardest thing was about writing. I said, “Plotting. Knowing what happens next.” I gave a little advice, signed some books, and went out for fish and shrimp tacos, satisfied with a job well done.
I woke up in the middle of the night with one thought in my head: “I left stuff out of my answer to Claudia.” I know Claudia’s book will be great without my help, but I feel compelled to flesh out my advice anyway.
This advice is not for outliners. Outliners are an alien life form, and nothing I say has any relevance for them, just like oxygen has no relevance to the natives of the methane planet Golgaranth. I’m what you call a semi-pantser. I start with a few key concepts and toss them like salad to see what happens. I have a couple of scenes that I know will take place. I keep a vague idea of the next few chapters and the end game in mind, then I dive in.
I discover the story through writing it.
It Starts With Concept:
Write the Book You Want to Read Think of all the books you love, then think of everything that’s wrong with each one of them. If you’re a true writer you love books, but always leave them with a “yeah, but . . .” or “If I wrote that I would’ve . . .” (Except Harper Lee. There is nothing you can do to improve To Kill A Mockingbird. The book lives to taunt the rest of us.) Take all your “would’ves” and “yeah buts” and “I wish someone woulds” and toss them together. What do you come up with?
Trash Your First Idea It’s almost always the most obvious one. If you thought of it so easily, then so did your readers. So twist it, make it do back flips, turn it inside out. Know your genre well enough that you can make your reader think you are being obvious, and use that to lead them merrily down a garden path. Deliver the goods when they are most complacent.
Do What Doesn’t Bore You If you’re not having fun, it’s likely that your readers won’t, either. Have a love/hate relationship with Mr. Darcy? Spice it up. Toss in zombies. Yes, That’s a real thing. Look it up. While you’re at it, look up Dinosaur Porn. One caveat: while having fun is essential, never do so in a way that demeans your readers.
When You Don’t Know What Happens Next:
Take Role Call Check in with all of your characters. What do they know and how are they reacting to events and revelations? Usually this is enough to shake things loose. Great books are character driven. While we want events to surprise our readers, they must make sense in relation to our characters.
Just Start Writing Some of us channel our stories more than invent them. The right brain (where all your great ideas hide) doesn’t communicate directly with the left brain, but it sometimes comes out of your fingers as you are typing. Start with what you know and keep going. See what happens. I discover some of my best plot twists this way.
Amp It Up If the logical course of events is falling flat for you, consider exaggerating the situation to make it funnier, scarier, sexier. A monkey scratching his butt at the local convenience store is enough to make you laugh IRL, but on paper it’s pretty ho-hum. What if it’s eight monkeys loose in a bridal shop? Take your experiences and juice them till they grab you.
Don’t Know What Happens Next? Write What You DO Know Skip ahead to that scene that you haven’t written because the story isn’t there yet. The one that’s half-fleshed out and teasing you with ideas. Go ahead. Just keep moving. You can always come back later.
If You Don’t Know How to Write it, Write it However You Can You know what happens, but you can’t get a handle on how to write it. Just get it down any way you can, and move on. This is where you give yourself permission to write badly. Let it go. The back of your brain will work on the issue with out you banging your head against the wall. Inspiration will occur when you least expect it and you can rewrite it.
Take A Break This one is dangerous, but sometimes necessary. I find that ideas flow more readily the more I write, and other authors I know feel the same way. Stopping when you are frustrated can lead to procrastination. So, take a break, but Make Sure You Come Back.
Must You Torture Your Characters? That’s the current advice. Torture them, then torture them more. Never give them a break. “Readers LOVE it.” This one doesn’t.
It might work for one novel, but today the market is in series and character identification. If you never give your characters a break, if they never have any fun times, then what’s the point?
I gave up one best-selling author last year. Every time his MC talked to someone, they died. After the fifth body, I was done. I gave up another the year before. In twenty books, you never saw her MC having a pleasant, loving, fun time with those closest to her. Instead, she opens book 21 with a rant about her main supporting character. Really? In twenty years, you haven’t figured out how to get along with this guy? You keep him around and bitch about him? Shoot me, NOW. Halfway through the second page, I was out of there.
If All Else Fails:
Ask Your Sister Or someone you love and trust like a sister. Bounce your ideas off someone who’s smart. They don’t have to be a writer. They just have to enjoy a good story.
I was going to title this post The Secret, until I realized that everyone would think I was going to talk about vision boards, affirmations, visualization, etc, etc. All of which I have somehow neglected to check off my to do list. This is not that Secret.
This is my Secret. It is both easier and harder than Rhonda Byrne’s metaphysics manifesto. Easier because you don’t have to make time for all the manifesting exercises. Harder because it demands that you surrender to life as it is.
I’m writing this post for Brandon, a friend who spent the last year in the worst Hell on Earth, literally wresting his life back from the colon cancer determined to take it in as painful a way as possible. Brandon finally underwent his last surgery and is now cancer free. It only took scooping out his entrails like an Egyptian mummy. Knowing Brandon, I bet he asked his nurses if they would pack the goods in canopic jars for him. I am too polite to ask him if his abdominal cavity is now stuffed full of linen.
Brandon is now cancer free. The war is over. The band has packed up and gone home. Now that the excitement is over, Brandon is left with a long recovery while he wonders what kind of life is left for him. Today he was mourning past summers and all the things he will no longer be able to do.
I can relate. I had my own life changing collision with a Ford Taurus in 2001. A guy named Fred was too busy trying to change lanes to look ahead and smashed into my bike. My head returned the favor by smashing into his windshield. Two seconds of inattention by the driver has left me with mild traumatic brain injury, so-called “mild” because there was no obvious head wound. I won’t bore you with all the ways it affects me, or the struggles I’ve endured to find a way to be “Me” in this new normal. I will just say this:
Today I am living a simple and satisfying life as an author and painter, and my head injury helped me get here. I still have my disability, and I’m happier than at any time in my life.
My Secret: Embrace your circumstances as a gift from the universe (or God, Allah, or even Moe at the neighborhood transmission shop) designed to give you what you need to get where you want. Dive into your circumstances as if there’s a pony buried in the manure—because there is. Master the challenges your circumstances present, whether it means learning how to ask for and accept help or finding a way to ask your neighbor to please not cut the grass at 6 am on Sunday. Become so good at being where you are that you never want it to change.
Practice gratitude for the challenges life presents you, then go out and tackle them. It will be a mental exercise at first, then it will become real. That’s when miracles will happen.
With the release of my fourth Dog Park Mystery, It has been past time to ramp up my game. I hired the inimitable and incomparable Elizabeth Mackey to take my portrait of Julia to the next level and redo my covers to create a series brand for me.
I’m a painter. I’m not a designer. I am especially not a book cover designer, a discipline which involves much more than arranging text and images.
I love how she’s taken my paintings and added a fun, sassy edge.
She has also updated my audiobook covers:
And then there’s the new logo for my imprint, Two Pup Press:
How many ways are there to say, “I LOVE it!”?
With limited avenues for exposure, indie authors must be creative if they want their book to gain traction. Unfortunately, not all creative ideas are good ones. Good friend and great author, Trish Marie Dawson shares a cautionary tale.
I love writing, even the publishing myself part. Yes, yes…I admit it’s hard to get your name out there and to share your stories with the world. But there’s a right and wrong way to promote, and guess what, I have a stellar example of what I consider one of many ‘wrong ways’ below.
But first, a quick explanation (and disclaimer), though this did just REALLY happen to me, I don’t want to list the name of the other person involved or the represented author’s book title, because that would be well…it would just be mean. And I don’t like to see myself as a mean person. So, as you read the exchange below, maybe you’ll laugh. I mean, shoot, I did.
The following messages took place on Facebook. The dates and exact words have not been changed, only the original sender’s name and one book title ‘she’ mentions. I’ll just call her ‘S’. This ‘conversation’…
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Today John (AKA Terry in my books) grabbed me when I entered the dog park and dragged me over to the water-pump where an attractive young lady not quite old enough to be my daughter stood.
“This is (insert name) she wants to publish. You two should talk.”
“Oh? What do you write?” I ask.
Whereupon this very nice young lady whose name I can’t remember (though her dog is Stella) tells me she’d like to write Dystopian Sci-Fi but doesn’t have a concept yet. “I’m at the word-vomit stage,” she confesses.
At this point she had to leave, so we could not continue talking. Meanwhile my brain started churning with all my thoughts about being a good writer and I had no one to pontificate to. Which is why I’m writing this post.
I’ve only been writing since 2010, self-published in 2011. I have watched dozens of others who started this enterprise the same time I did. Some have always wanted to write and even had old manuscripts they could drag out of their trunks. Some, like me, said “Hey, I’d like to write a book,” and went for it. Among my friends are writing newbies who are now making six figure incomes.
My income? Like I’d tell you. I will say sitting around in your sweats with a dog under your desk is a fine way to pay the rent.
I’m not all about money. Money equals sales, which equals readers, which is what we all want.
So here is my list of tips for anyone who wishes to succeed as a writer.
1. Write every day. Set an easily achievable goal and do it. You really do have time. Most people can knock out 500 words in the time they waste watching a Star Trek rerun. You don’t wait to exercise until you are inspired, you don’t go to work only when you’re in the mood. Treat your writing the same way you treat every other important thing in your life.
2. Create a structure for your writing habit. If you consistently write in the same place at the same time of day, your brain will be ready to write when you sit down at your desk. Just like my dogs are ready for their afternoon walk at the same time every day and will disrupt whatever I’m doing to make sure it happens.
Make sure the environment is pleasing to you and conducive to your productivity, and stay consistent. write with the same pen in the same chair or on the same computer and get ready with coffee in the same funky souvenir cup on the same coaster. Use the same word processing software.
These little details become signals that ready your writing neurons and get you salivating. It’s like AA in reverse. They tell you to get rid of that cool leather jacket you always wore bar-hopping and not to drive past your favorite bar on the way to church, even if it is shorter, for the same reason. We are all Pavlov’s dogs. Use it to your advantage.
3. If you don’t have a book going yet, start a blog. Blogs are great for getting your writing juices going and will provide an outlet for your word-vomit stage. There’s a side benefit. If you wind up with a big blog following, you will have a pre-made audience for your book when it comes out. Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal RVing blog readers put his first novel, Big Lake, on the NYT best seller list.
4. Pick a genre and concept and stick to it. In my writer’s group (80 + self-published authors), some folks wrote series and some folks wrote multiple books in multiple genres. The books that took off were all in a series. NONE of the stand-alone books has achieved any traction. Even successful writers lose traction when they take time out to write in another genre. Granted, it’s not all about the money. Remember, money equals readerage, and that’s a good thing.
5. Yes, you need to have an original hook. It’s not as hard as it sounds.
Pick your favorite genre, the one type of fiction that you’ll read and be entertained, even when the books are mediocre.
If you are truly ready to be an author, you will be vaguely unsatisfied with much of what you read. Some writing will be too violent, some not racy enough, and some will lack description or likeable characters. You’ll follow plots and think, “If I were writing this, I would (fill in the blank).” Your niggling complaints reveal what you want out of a book. Use that.
Next look around you. Places you’ve lived, careers you’ve had, disciplines you’ve studied. How can you add your experiences to your concept?
Write what you know. Veracity of detail makes for better books, and lack of knowledge will make you look like a buffoon. I recently read a romantic thriller by a best-selling author where the final confrontation took place in a natural ravine in Chicago. You ever been to Chicago? There’s not a natural ravine within fifty miles of the city. There were other details that made no sense in the context of the story and its location. I can only surmise that the author farmed out this book to a ghostwriter who didn’t bother with research.
Toss all the things you know and love into the blender and see what you come up with. Somebody had to invent Jane Austen with Zombies. Please yourself, and there are sure to be others who appreciate what you do. Try to play to the market, and chances are you will please nobody and be miserable doing it.
6. Respect structure. Don’t sneer at the basics. You want to be different? Great. The roof still goes on top of the house. You will never see a building with a roof in the basement.
You can go crazy reading all the how to books out there, but winging it without any knowledge will likely end up in an overblown mess. My favorite books are: Write your Novel From the Middle by James Scott Bell, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King and Hit Lit by James W. Hall. I also like Fiction Writing for Dummies by Peter Economy and Randy Ingermanson.
7. If you don’t have a good grasp of grammar and spelling, find a retired English teacher to proof-read for you. Spell-check alone is not enough. Nora Roberts may get away with a dozen spell check errors in one of her books. You will not.
8. Know your process. Some folks are avid out-liners and never write the first word until they’ve decided what happens in every chapter and where the postman’s nephew was born. Others are (seat of the) pantsers and begin their book with nothing more than a basic premise.
I’m in the middle-ish. I have my cast of characters and a few ingredients I’m going to throw in the pot, Like a kleptomaniac Beagle or a neighborhood Fourth of July parade. I know who’s going to die and I know Lia and Peter are going to catch a killer in the end. I know where they’re going to find the body. Beyond that, I honestly can’t figure out what happens next until I write it.
Figure out what works for you and don’t make yourself miserable trying to do the other way.
9. Understand your characters. Nothing turns readers off like characters who don’t act in line with their motivations. It’s the first thing beta readers will point out to me. Even if your story is a plot driven thriller, your characters still have to make sense.
A writer I know once wrote a billionaire going incognito to a ball game, driving a twenty year old station wagon and dressed in farm clothes. Then a vendor in the stands treats him rudely and said billionaire snarls, “Look at me, boy, Don’t you know WHO I AM?” Huh?
Someone recently told me about a book that got hundreds of bad reviews based on characters that acted inappropriately, starting with the romantic hero lusting after the hot babe he just met, with his best friend’s newly (and violently) deceased body lying nearby. Um, yeah, I’d sure be thinking about sex at a time like that.
You’re not four years old, and while Barbie might be a paleontologist one day and Supergirl the next, your characters may not.
The benefit of knowing your characters is that they can then tell you what happens next. When my mind goes blank, all I have to do is consider how each of my characters is reacting to what’s happening, based on who they are.
10. Have fun. I shouldn’t have to explain this, but the more fun you have writing, the more fun your readers are likely to have reading what you write.
Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries by C.A. Newsome 