Tag Archive for: Evelyn David

The First Review

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It’s an in-between moment that’s hard to describe. It’s the time after you know a review of your new book is there for all the world to see and before you actually click the link or turn to the magazine page to read it. You hold your breath, torn between wanting to know what it says and wanting to avoid it at all costs. (I mean, after all, what writer worth their salt doesn’t believe they’re a fraud and that at any moment, someone is bound to discover it?)

The first review of Murder Takes the Cake was posted on line last Friday night. You can read it here at armchairinterviews.com. I got the email about it from the editor and then braced myself to look at the review. My pulse raced and my fingers fumbled on the keyboard as I clicked on the site and searched for the title of the book.

The actual review can be exhilarating or crushing. Logically, you know that no review can give you confidence if you don’t believe in your writing. But your heart yearns for other people’s approval of the fictional world you’ve created. You want the readers – and reviewers are readers, whether we want to believe that or not – to love your characters, understand your plot, and when they get to the words, “The End,” rush out to buy your next book.

Sometimes, even with a good review, the author spends way too much time searching for subtext and parsing words. A single word, the slightest turn of phrase, anything that could be construed in a negative way, will stand out like a neon light. And no matter how many flattering descriptions surround the one little criticism, that line will be the one the author can quote verbatim years later.

The worst review is not necessarily the one from someone who didn’t like your book. It’s the one where the reviewer not only didn’t like your book and said so, but he/she didn’t get the characters’ names correct. You’re left with the suspicion that the reviewer never read your book. And there is nothing you can do about it!

Or how about the review where the careless reviewer missed several vital clues and then claimed in print, or worse on-line for everyone to see forever, that the murderer’s identity “came out of the blue.” As the author there is nothing you want more than to post a scathing rebuttal, but you can’t. It just isn’t done. You have to let it go.

If I could ask only one thing from readers, it’s to not take a single negative review too seriously, especially if it isn’t representative of the other reviews of the same book.

And for authors, I’d advise the same. Not everyone will like your book – but that doesn’t mean you haven’t written a good book. Not every review will be good – learn from them if you can, if not clean the smelly goop from your shoes and move on. And for heavens sake, when the review is positive, enjoy it without “wallowing it around” and searching out potential bad spots.

So what about the review I mentioned in the beginning of this blog? It’s fantastic! “Evelyn David” is ecstatic.

I think I’m ecstatic. Probably.

I need to read it again, just to be sure.

And yes, despite the advice I just gave everyone, I’ll reread the review over and over until the next review is posted.

But I won’t focus on individual words.

I won’t.

Probably.

Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com

A Rose by Any Other Name

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The good news: Murder Takes the Cake by Evelyn David will be published in May.

The bad news: Murder Takes the Cake by somebody else was published in September 2008 and Death Takes the Cake by yet another author was published in February 2009. Oy!

Book titles can’t be copyrighted.

The collective Evelyn David chose the title of our second book before it was ever written. We submitted synopses and titles for two other Sullivan Investigation mysteries back in 2006. And in case anyone is interested, we’ve got dibs (which is about as much legal protection as we can get) on An Outlet for Murder.

But I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Maybe we ought to consider some already established titles for forthcoming books. Would it increase our readership? For example:

Gone With the Wind
After a tornado touches down in Washington, DC, Mac Sullivan and Rachel Brenner investigate the case of a missing corpse. Whiskey searches for a box of missing dog biscuits. Are the two mysteries related?

A Tale of Two Cities
Mac Sullivan is from Washington, DC, but doesn’t know the birthplace of his Irish wolfhound, Whiskey. Will a cross-country tour of kennels unearth the mystery of Whiskey’s humble beginnings? And who is the corpse in the doghouse?

The Catcher in the Rye
Mac Sullivan has been hired by the Washington Nationals to find the star catcher of the team who was last spotted at a deli ordering a ham on…

Charlotte’s Web
Rachel Brenner’s best friend Charlotte has spun a web of deceit that’s already left two people dead. Mac and Whiskey race to unravel a intricately woven network of lies, while battling an infestation of black widow spiders.

Other suggestions?

Evelyn David

P.S. Sniff. Barbie shouldn’t make me cry, but this story, told by the Southern half of Evelyn David, made me reach for the box of tissues. Check it out for yourself, http://www.woofersclub.blogspot.com

Common Business Courtesy?

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I like people who do what they say they will, when they say they’re going to do it. I like them a lot, especially since they seem to be an endangered species.

I must have missed the email that said it’s okay now to lie about what you can and can’t do.

I know I missed the message about deadlines being mere suggestions.

And when did returning business phone calls and responding to business emails become optional? I’m not talking about returning advertisers’ emails or calls from strangers soliciting donations. I’m referring to communicating with people who are currently working for or with you. When you don’t return my phone call or email within a few days, I get angry.

I seem to be angry a lot lately.

Everyone has a horror story about waiting for the cable guy who never shows. Who claims he was there and you were not – even though you’d stayed parked in a chair near the front door for twelve straight hours waiting for him.

Everyone knows that if you pick up your order through a drive-through window, you have to check the sack before you leave, because nine times out of ten, you are missing items you’ve paid for. Ever notice how extra items never land in your sack by accident?

If you buy new tires and have them installed, be sure to check to see if all the lug nuts have been tightened. I’ve probably purchased five sets of tires in my life and twice I’ve had problems because the lug nuts weren’t tightened.

Before I found my current hairdresser, I’d show up for appointments and the hairdresser would be absent. No one would have called to let me know not to come in.

It seems that business standards have disappeared from my world. Please, thank you, showing up on time, cleaning up after yourself, doing a good job, finishing the job on time – I guess those expectations are outdated.

What is the norm now? When did we become so accepting of bad behavior and substandard service, that we’ve lowered our expectations to almost zero?

Tell me what you expect from the people you do business with. Tell me about the companies or individuals who are exceeding your expectations. Anyone have any “service awards” they’d like to bestow?

Evelyn David

It’s Time to Leave the Attic

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I don’t know if it was the lengthy winter, the snow day we had yesterday, or just a general cabin fever that made me do something I never thought I’d do: sign up to go to two conferences. I admire my intrepid Stiletto co-bloggers; it seems that they are all headed somewhere all the time, while I sit in my attic week after week, content to work from dawn until dusk. But during the snow day yesterday, surrounded by husband, children, and canine companion, I decided that it was time to get out of the house and do something related to my mystery writing. (I do plenty related to my day job and those things seem to be eating up all of my time.) So, I consulted with the Northern half of Evelyn David and signed up for Deadly Ink in Parsippany, New Jersey, and Malice Domestic in Washington, D.C.

I used to travel a lot for the job I used to have, way back in the ‘90s. And I have traveled plenty for pleasure after leaving that job. But I haven’t traveled for “work” except to go to a presentation in Tennessee back in October—and that included one of my best friends as my travel companion. I used to attend at least four or five conventions when I worked outside of the house and when I say I knew everybody who attended those conventions, that’s only a bit of an exaggeration. Between all of my colleagues from work, and friends I had made at competing companies, and the authors I worked with, I knew just about everybody at a specific convention. What scares me about signing up for the two conventions is that I’ll only know one person (the Northern half of Evelyn David) out of everyone who’s attending. And that scares the bejesus out of me.

I’m not a shrinking violet by any stretch of the imagination but when I think about attending a convention where I only know one person (who has her own books to promote and won’t have time to hold my hand for 48 hours), I imagine that everyone knows everyone else and I’ll just be by myself the whole time. Intellectually, I know this won’t be the case. And as my husband always reminds me, “you can talk a dog off a meat wagon.” I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I think he’s telling me that I won’t lack for conversation or companionship. I also think he’s referring to my ability to find out the life story of everyone I come into contact with. That ought to help me, right?

So, dear readers: will you let me know if you’re going to be at either of these conventions? And, if so, can I charge one of you with making sure that I’m not holed up in my room with Pay-per-view and the room service menu?

Suspension of Disbelief

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I’m as eager as the next guy to suspend disbelief. In fact, I do so on a daily basis. My daughter is in college and I prefer to believe that she is in her room at 7:30 pm, diligently working on her term papers, then accept the alternative that she is blithely walking the streets of her inner city campus. Seems a reasonable leap of faith.

How about the time that my mother took me to see the opera, Samson and Delilah. I was so caught up in the soaring arias that I ignored the fact that Delilah, the Biblical siren, outweighed the puny baritone playing Samson by a good 125 pounds.

My willingness to put on hold my rational brain may explain why I’m the perfect person to write cozy mysteries. By definition, these traditional whodunnits demand that, at some level, you park your common sense at the door. Cozies celebrate Ms. Average Citizen, the only person in town, regardless of her profession, who can figure out the who, what, when, where, and how of a murder mystery that has confounded the police. One of the reasons we love these stories is we want to believe that in a pinch, each of us would step up to the plate and do what needs to be done, even if it means putting Sherlock Holmes to shame.

Murder Takes the Cake, the second in the Sullivan Investigations series, will be published in May and is now available for pre-order. When creating it, both halves of Evelyn David wanted to craft a mystery full of red herrings and clever clues, with enough humor to make you laugh out loud, while avoiding the Jessica Fletcher syndrome. Remember? Jessica, a mystery writer, lives in a small town in Maine where there is a murder a week. Amazing that housing values didn’t plummet when potential buyers looked at the crime rate.

My job as an author is to write a story with enough believable elements and characters that ring true that the reader is willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. When the aria – or the mystery – is thrilling enough, that’s not hard to do.

Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com

Endings

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At the Love Is Murder conference earlier this month I listened to Guest of Honor Jeffery Deaver talk about his dislike of writing the wrap-up chapter of his books. You know the chapter – the one that finishes everything off; fills in any gaps; and lets the hero or heroine, if not ride off into the sunset, at least saddle their horses.

I’ve been thinking about endings a lot lately. One of my favorite television shows, Battlestar Galactica, is ending. In an unusual move for Hollywood, the producers/writers have been given time to craft a real ending to the show that’s lasted four seasons. After tomorrow night’s episode, there will only be three episodes left to tell the tale.

Last week’s episode was disappointing to me. One of the supporting cast was lying (maybe dying) in a hospital bed. Besides the normal hand-wringing and emotional angst displayed by his ex-wife and comrades in arms, the dramatic scene was used to relay a great deal of backstory. Without going into a lot of explanation for you poor souls who’ve missed one of the best television series ever, here are the basics.

Caprica (an earth-like planet inhabited by humans) was destroyed by the Cylons. Cylons are an artificial lifeform created by humans to serve humans. The Cylons rebelled and fought a war with the humans, lost, and were banished to space for decades. The first episode of the show begins with the Cylons returning with a bang and killing off all the humans except for a small number of refugees who escaped the nuclear explosions. Among the refugees were; humans aboard a ragtag band of spaceships; retiring, Captain William Adama and his crew of Galactica – a aging combat ship that was being decommissioned and turned into a museum; and Laura Roslin, a midlevel official from the Department of Education. Ms. Roslin, a former school teacher, was on Galactica the day of the attack. She’d been sent to Galactica to give a speech at the museum dedication. She was also trying to deal with the news that she had advanced breast cancer. After the attack, a quick headcount of the government was conducted and guess what? Laura Roslin was next in line for the Presidency. For the next four seasons the survivors have been on the run from the Cylons, who’ve been determined to wipe out the last of the human race. Oh, and one more thing – the Cylons, except for the Centurions (a soldier subspecies called affectionately Toasters), have evolved into creatures that look, talk, and act like humans. So you can’t tell most Cylons from humans and a good number of them have infiltrated the fleet for more than a lifetime – kind of “sleeper” Cylons. But the humans eventually figure out that although Cylons look like humans, there are only a limited number of models. Once you can identify the models, you know the Cylons on sight. That is except for the Final Five Cylons that no one, including the other Cylons, can identify.

So back to my writing related point – you probably thought I didn’t have one – the guy in the hospital bed has recently discovered that he’s one of the Final Five Cylon models. Poor guy always thought he was human. As a result of his combat injury many suppressed memories are coming back; important memories about the Final Five and the history of the Cylon race. In between medical procedures and during brief periods of lucidity, he related these memories to the ones around his bedside and to the viewing audience. This moment was where I found myself losing interest in the episode. If the deathbed dialogue had been in a manuscript for a novel, my editor would have red-penned most of it with the note, “too much telling and not enough showing.” It was as if the writers decided to make up a huge, elaborate backstory at the last minute and dump it on the audience in exposition form. In my book, pun intended, that’s cheating. It might be easier for the writers and save oodles of time, but it invariably disappoints the viewers/readers. Just as my description of 80 some odd episodes of Battlestar Galactica were condensed to a paragraph or two above, telling instead of showing should always be the last resort. (i.e. You should watch the show! Rent or buy the dvds.)

When you write or read the last chapter of a book, do you want a full recap? Should one be necessary if the rest of the book is well-written? I absolutely know that very little “new” information should be revealed in the last chapter. As with the Battlestar Galactica episode, too much new information at the end of the story makes the reader feel cheated. Why pay attention to all the details throughout the story, if at the end, none of it gave you an opportunity to figure out the mystery for yourself?

So to recap – yes, I’m smiling here but note that I’m not going to give you any new information – your final chapter should be one that ties up the loose strings, makes sense of the clues, and gives the reader a view to the future lives of the characters. Build the backstory into middle of the book – don’t “tell” it in the reveal at the end. In fact try to “tell” very little of it at all. “Show” it!

Evelyn
http:www.evelyndavid.com

Missing

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During 2007, 814,967 missing person records were entered into the National Crime Information Center’s Database.

In 2009, a mysterious gathering of authors present MISSING.

Proceeds from all sales of this book to benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (Missing, Echelon Press LLC, 2009)

A little over a year ago Karen Syed of Echelon Press LLC asked if the collective Evelyn David would consider writing a short story for an anthology – the proceeds to benefit the search for missing children. Of course we agreed. This month Missing debuted at the Love Is Murder conference in Chicago.

17 mystery writers contributed to the book, edited by Amy Alessio, and published by Echelon Press LLC.

The role call of short stories and their authors include:

Missing Andy by Amy Alessio
Gemini by Barbara Annino
Dream Works by Regan Black
Harry’s Fall from Grace by Luisa Buehler
Coffee by Rebecca Cantrell
Cleaning up at the Franks by Gayle Carline
Mis-adventures of Guy by Norm Cowie
Riley Come Home by Evelyn David
Signature Required by Susan Gibberman
A Call from Rockford by Robert Goldsborough
An Art Fair in Chicago by Margot Justes
Floaters by J.A. Konrath and Henry Perez
The Cotton Candy Man by Susan Muira
The Right Choice by Tom Schreck
Dog Gone Dog by Michele Scott
Knight Child by J.R. Turner
Caroline Rhodes and the Case of the Fugitive Farmer by Mary Welk

From Riley Come Home by Evelyn David –

“You’re too big to get on my lap!”

Mac Sullivan, retired D.C. police detective and newly-minted private eye, pushed the 125-pound female away from him. “It’s just thunder.”

Big brown eyes gave him an accusing stare. He was getting used to disappointing the women in his life, but he wouldn’t put up with any whining from his partner.

“It’s just thunder! Go take a nap. Rachel is going to be here any minute and I’ve still got to finish up the paperwork on the Steele case.”

Thunder boomed again, causing Whiskey, his Irish wolfhound, to make another try for his lap, this time settling for a spot on his feet under his desk.

“Oh, for …Will you get out from under there?”

He tried to move his feet without much success. “I told you Rachel was going to be here any minute. We’re going out to dinner and I don’t want you getting drool all over my slacks.”

“Excuse me. Have we come at a bad time?” A woman and man stood in his office doorway. The woman did the speaking. “We’re sorry to interrupt ….” She looked pointedly at his desk, “But it’s a matter of life and death.”

Please consider purchasing this book for your personal library. In addition to supporting an excellent charity, it’s an opportunity to get to know unfamiliar writers and find new favorites.

If you’d like an autographed copy from Evelyn David, contact us by email.

Title: Missing
Author: Anthology
ISBN: 978-1-59080-611-1
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 344
Price: $16.99 US, $22.99 CA
Distribution:
Echelon Press Direct 410-878-7113
Ingram Book Company
Partners Book Dist. 800-336-3137
Follett Corp. 800-435-6170
Amazon
Fictionwise
Kindle

Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com

A Dark Comedy

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It’s Tuesday night and I’m starting to feel the pressure of not having a blog written for Thursday. Thursdays are my responsibility! The Northern Half of Evelyn David has Mondays.

I got back from the Love Is Murder conference on Monday afternoon – it’s a long drive from Chicago to Oklahoma. I’m still a little punchy from staring at a highway for 13 hours. But the conference was wonderful and I enjoyed my time there. Picked up a few advance copies of Murder Takes the Cake. My co-author and I are using 90% of them to send out to reviewers. The official publication date is May, so even my mom is having to wait for a copy.

I had originally scheduled Tuesday off from my day job – you know, the job that pays the bills and allows me to write in the evenings and weekends? But since I’d been out of the office for a full week, lots of little annoying things were piling up. I’d received a half dozen calls from co-workers on Monday during my drive back. Nothing really critical, but all considered urgent by the callers. I decided that my week would be much smoother if I went to the office on Tuesday and got started weeding out my in-box.

I work for the Oklahoma Department of Mines running the Coal Mining division. We issue mining permits, enforce environmental regulations, and ensure that mined areas are reclaimed. With my biology degree in hand, I started as an inspector over twenty years ago. I think, as with most people, some days I love my job – others not so much. Today was one of those “not so much” days. A dear friend and co-worker is very ill. Except for a couple of scattered days, he’s been in one hospital or another since January 1. No one seems to know what’s wrong with him – all tests are negative but he’s experiencing severe lower back and abdominal pain. I’ve been picking up some of his supervisory duties while he’s been out, but we all miss him terribly.

The other major thing I’m dealing with concerns an upcoming office move. We have to vacate our current office by June 30 and, as of today, we haven’t nailed down new office space. Just in case the general public is unaware, there is almost nothing in the world harder and more unnecessarily complicated than moving an Oklahoma state agency office from one location to another. The only thing harder is closing an office. I spent at least three hours today discussing with a contractor, my immediate supervisor, my office manager, and the agency director the technical space requirements for state office building bathrooms, whether or not the square footage in bathrooms count towards our allowed office space, and how many bathrooms we were entitled to have. It was suggested … not by me … that we have one unisex bathroom in the new building and use the extra square footage for another private office. I don’t know how other people feel about unisex bathrooms in offices – but I’ll vote no every time. In fact I might have shouted to my direct supervisor over the telephone (a male whose office is in a large office building some 150 miles away from my small field office, a building that has multiple sets of male and female bathrooms on all floors) something like, “I’d give up every private office in the space before I’d give up having separate male and female bathrooms.” There was this stunned silence on the other end of the line after my outburst – I don’t think it ever crossed his mind that a unisex bathroom would be a problem.

Oh well … maybe Murder Takes the Cake will be a hit and I can give up my glamorous day job. My co-author suggested that I should try for a humorous blog this week, but I just don’t have it in me to be funny right now. Can you tell?

I’m in my living room writing this blog, surrounded by unpacked suitcases, tornado alerts blaring on the television (it’s a little early in Oklahoma for tornado season – but hey, it’s been one of those days), and I need to clean the leftovers out of my refrigerator. I also need to buy a fresh copy of Turbo Tax and do my taxes this weekend. Yea! Something to look forward to!

Funny – I need to think of something funny. I saw Rachel Getting Married on pay-per-view at the hotel in Chicago. It was billed as a dark comedy. That was half right. It was dark – very, very dark. I didn’t laugh even once, so I don’t count it as a comedy. Do you remember the movie Ordinary People? Rachel Getting Married was as much a comedy as that movie was!

So let’s see – I’ve covered travel, illness, tornados, taxes, unisex bathrooms, government bureaucracy, and bad movies.

I definitely need to find my way out of this week and get back to something cheerful – writing murder mysteries!

Evelyn David

Love Is Murder – Saturday Events

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My second day at Love Is Murder is almost over. Only thing left is the “mother of all” booksignings and the awards banquet. The booksigning starts in 30 minutes and then the banquet follows.

I attended three panels today – Humor in Mysteries, Screenwriting, and a question and answer session with some police detectives. Listening to cops talk about their cases is always very interesting. They had the audience hanging on their every word. Several had been involved in serial killer cases and they talked fairly freely about the crimes and how they were solved.

The screenwriting panel featured a gentleman, James Strauss, who has written for both feature movies and television. Currently he’s writing for House and trying to switch careers. He wants to write novels. It was fun listening to him talk about the Hollywood scene and some of the actors/directors/producers he’s known. He handed out a “treatment” he’d done for a new tv series so we’d have an example of how to write one. Apparently “treatments” are what you use to “pitch” a screenplay. He was very clear that we shouldn’t use the word “pitch,” instead call it a “presentation.” He also said if we were serious about writing screenplays, we should buy “Final Draft” – a software program that is the industry standard.

My afternoon panel on Collaborative Writing went well. The audience was very small, but those who attended had lots of questions. Susan Smily and Honora Finkelstein authors of the Ariel Quigley mystery series sat next to me. I met them for the first time two years ago at Love Is Murder and we’ve crossed paths many times. It was fun to catch up on all the news.

After my panel there was a “tea” in one of the larger banquet halls. While I was there, I met Deb Baker, author of the Gretchen Birch mystery series and the Gertie Johnson mystery series.

The best thing about conferences is meeting people and authors you’ve chatted with on-line!

Got to get ready for the signing.

More later.

Evelyn
http://www.evelyndavid.com/

The Road to Love Is Murder – Part III

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I’m writing this blog on Sunday morning. Thursday morning when this blog posts, I’ll be halfway to Chicago and the Love Is Murder conference. (I hope.) I’ll be updating this blog entry Thursday night after I arrive at the hotel. Be sure to check back through the weekend for the latest highlights and low-lights of my trip!

Wish me luck. I can’t wait to get my hands on copies of Murder Takes the Cake and Missing. They both debut at the conference.

If you want autographed copies of either, just send us an email at evelyn@evelyndavid.com

Copies of Murder Takes the Cake are very limited until May, so first come, first served!

****Update! 3:00 PM Central

I’m here!!! Chicago is cold but this is the first time I’ve been here that the skies have been clear.

Saw Rosemary Harris as I was checking into the hotel. She’s hosting a hospitality room at the conference and promoting her new book – The Big Dirt Nap.

My first order of business is to find a late lunch somewhere and then find where the book room is located. My publisher, Karen Syed of Echelon Press, is reported to be in the building somewhere. Can’t wait to find her and get my hands on Murder Takes the Cake and Missing.

More later.

Evelyn David
www.evelyndavid.com