August | 2016 | Jan Christensen

BALANCING WRITING ITSELF AND MARKETING THE WRITING

The other day I was reading about finding time to write and the reminder of Anne Lamont’s advice in Bird by Bird that you do as much as you can each day, and keep building on that, and you will finish, if you keep at it long enough.

So, I have that down pretty well. I get stuff written—last couple of years two books a year plus articles, a short story or two, and email. Oh email doesn’t count?

Now I have nine (!) books published, and, I admit, they are languishing. This is probably because I’m not a good marketer. No, this is definitely because I’m not a good marketer.

So, my new plan is to set aside one hour a day for marketing. Yesterday, I was all set to do that when a big household project came up, and I ran out of time.

I guess today is another day.

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FIVE MAJOR INFLUENCERS OF MY NOVELS

Lewis Caroll

Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass

Entranced during childhood and beyond by the quests with very quirky characters and fun situations.

Influenced and still influences everything.

Mad Tea Party

Anne Tyler

Love her quirky characters, the humor, and the interesting plots. Locations are also often well-drawn.

Influenced almost everything, but especially my first published novel:

Sara’s Search

Nancy Drew

Influenced:

Tina Tales, especially Cluttered Attic Secrets where a group of friends—both female and male, but grown-up–attempt to solve a mystery. Sassy, pro-active protagonist.

Organized to Death

Buried Under Clutter

Cluttered Attic Secrets

Donald Westlake

Dortmunder Series, but all his books are great with engrossing situations and amazing characters.

Influenced: The Artie Crimes series:

Artie and the Long-Legged Woman

Artie and the Green-Eyed Woman

Artie and the Brown-Eyed Woman

Artie and the Red-Haired Woman

and upcomming, Artie and the Big-Footed Woman

Sue Grafton

Influenced, of course, my female PI series about Paula Mitchell:

Perfect Victim

A Broken Life

Secret Exposure

I recommend composing your own blog post about the five major influencers of your writing.

(Sorry about the formatting. I don’t know why WordPress won’t let me do single spacing in this post, and I don’t want to take the time to figure it out when i could use the time better by writing my fiction!)

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A HUGE GOAL BROKEN DOWN TO DAILY GOALS = SUCCESS

If you only do these things, you will succeed:

Keep track—make your own scoreboard
Work to perfect your talent—study every day
Push through the bad days
Dig deeper by upping your daily goals, studying harder, and figuring out how to lessen your bad days
Never give up

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REVIEW: THE LIMPING DOG BY JOHN LINDERMUTH

New England. A sailboat washes ashore. Gavin Cutter, a local artiest, rushes aboard to help. But the only living thing he finds is a limping dog. There is no discernible damage, and no obvious reason for the boat being abandoned. A strange-appearing woman who was walking by with her dog when the ship ran aground disappears. Who was she? No one can find her.
Gavin recuses the limping dog, and the mystery of the ship’s missing passengers goes unanswered.
Then an insurance investigator shows up, asking questions, seemingly suspicious of Gavin Cutter. A woman insists Gavin take some money for rescuing the limping dog, but he refuses.
When even more questions are asked about the sailboat, Gavin becomes involved in getting some answers.
This story has great characters and a fascinating plot. The setting is picturesque and well-drawn, too. What more can you ask for? It definitely gets five stars from me.

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Jan Christensen

Mystery author

Monthly Archives: August 2016