Uber-prolific and talented author Marilyn Meredith has put aside her mystery writing for just a little while to write what is essentially a love story loosely based on something that happened in her own family, and in the process she has managed to capture the essence of a young woman, Nicole Ainsworth, trying to cope with the tragic loss of her husband.  At the same time, Meredith manages to interject mystery elements that will keep you guessing until the end.

Nicole’s police officer husband, Steve, who uprooted their family to provide them with a more peaceful existence than the one they were previously living in, had been having premonitions of danger, but never dreamed anything would happen in what he felt was a safe, almost hidden location in the northern California mountains.  However, it did happen.  Steve is killed and Nicole is left to try and get her life and that of her two young daughters back to some semblance of normalcy.

Then strange things begin to happen.  Nicole thinks maybe she’s losing her mind because Steve’s spirit appears to be still around, trying to tell or show her things. At the same time, Steve’s friends at the police department try to help her out, including a stranger who pops in and out of her life with disturbing frequency.  She begins to worry about who he is and what he wants because he seems to know her well and she’s sure Steve never mentioned him.
 
Marilyn Meredith really can tell a story, no doubt about it.  This one kept me reading and becoming more impatient with every interruption because I could not wait to find out what happened to this endearing family that I quickly came to know and love.  There are lots of touching scenes, I can attest to that because this book actually made me cry in several places–not because of sadness, but because Meredith really knows how to portray emotion in her characters.  Nicole was so real, as the children were also, without being cloying the way children sometimes are in novels.  These could have been my own kids, they were so real.

Lingering Spirit is well worth buying and spending time with.  It’ll give you a lot to think about after the story is finished.  I loved it, as you can tell.  It’s the perfect summer OR winter read.  Great book, one of my favorite reads this year.

I asked Marilyn if, instead of answering interview questions, she’d tell us how she came to write this book, which is such a departure from her usual mystery novels.  People always like to hear about this when they can and I thought you all would like to hear it also, so she graciously agreed and sent me this note:

Lingering Spirit is based on a heart-breaking tragedy that happened in our family. My son-in-law, a deputy sheriff, was killed in the line of duty, leaving my daughter a widow and her three sons fatherless. At the time I had no desire to write about what happened.

Several years passed and it came to me that I should tell the story but in a different way than it actually happened—in other words fictionalize it. Of course, while I was writing it, some of the memories became too vivid and my emotions took over. It got easier once the fictional characters became real inside my brain and the plot veered away from the actual events.

The novel was first published as an e-book only. Time went by and nothing much happened with it—-mainly because e-readers hadn’t come into their own like what’s happening today. I eventually pulled the book from the publisher. Later when the publisher of my Rocky Bluff P.D. books started putting books on Kindle, she asked if I had any old books I’d like on Kindle. I sent her Lingering Spirit. She loved it.

At the beginning of this year, she said if I agreed, she’d like to publish Lingering Spirit as a trade paperback. Of course I said “yes.”

She sent the proof to me for editing and of course I found quite a few things that needed to be changed. Re-reading it after such a long time brought tears to my eyes.

The proof was corrected a couple more times by both the publisher and me; amazing what mistakes you can find in a book that you thought was perfect. (And I’m sure gremlins will sneak something else in.) My hope is that readers will enjoy the story so much they won’t see any mistakes that might remain.

Now the book is available on Amazon.com, can be ordered from any bookstore, my own website, http://fictionforyou.com, and the publisher’s bookstore http://www.oaktreebooks.com/bargainbookshop.htm

Though at times it was difficult to write about something that had such an impact on our family, changing it to fiction definitely helped my own grieving process. There truly were some ghostly visitations, and I had great fun adding much more to the supernatural aspect in the story.

For anyone who might wonder, the story did not end the way the same way it did in real life. Though the real life ending is a good one and still ongoing, it isn’t what happens in the fictional tale.

And now some facts about Marilyn:

Marilyn Meredith is the author of nearly thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Dispel the Mist from Mundania Press. Under the name of F. M. Meredith she writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, An Axe to Grind is the latest from Oak Tree Press.

AND some news of her contest, which you’ll want to enter:

Have you ever dreamed of being immortalized in print? Well, here’s your chance! Award-winning author Marilyn Meredith is running a contest during her Lingering Spirit Virtual Book Tour, which runs from July 6th through July 30th. Marilyn will name a character in her next Rocky Bluff P.D. book after the reader who comments at the most blog stops during her virtual book tour. This book is currently scheduled to be released in 2012.

That’s all for this week, folks.  Next week I’m going to let my dog, Danali, write the blog, since he’s been nagging me about it.  Seems he has a yen for writing, so it should be fun and interesting to see what he comes up with.

Big Hugs to all of you, and please stop by again soon.  I’ll leave the porch light on for you, I promise.

Love y’all,
Beth Anderson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZoJ5OKmEJY&feature=player_embedded

Hilarious, isn’t it!

Did you know Chris Grabenstein is also an improv comedian?  Not sure I could do it, although I get funny once in a while.  In front of an audience, though?  Well, yeah, I could do something in front of an audience, I’ve done it many times when giving talks at writers’ conferences.  But still…funny?  For fifteen, thirty, sixty minutes? 

Nah.  Wish I could, I’m sure it sells books.  I can talk that long easily.  I can even be friendly and interesting and sometimes funny.  But funny ALL the time?  Oh, Lord.  I can hear it now.  “Beep! Get out of the box!”

Then there’s the ubiquitous Rob Walker, who is everywhere every minute of every day, promoting his books.  Some people might not like that so much, but I’ve noticed that when he put his books up for sale on Amazon’s Kindle website just a month or so ago, they started immediately selling like hotcakes, a real coup for anyone.  Granted, he did it on the tail end of Joe Konrath’s incredible Kindle debut, but still, there are thousands of ebooks up there, more every day, and most of those people aren’t raking in over a grand in their first month there. 

How’d he do it?  Well, he’s everywhere every minute of every day promoting his books.  God love him, he never shuts up, but he does it with such good humor you can’t get mad at him.  And it’s not like he has a lot of time on his hands.  He’s an author, a fairly new husband, and a school teacher.  We all know what that means, papers to grade, classes to teach, parents to call, all that and more.  But you’d never know it if you watch for him online, because he’s…well, I already said it but I’ll say it again because if I don’t, he will.  He’s everywhere, every minute of every day, talking about his books. 

SO many authors flogging SO many books, it’s a wonder anyone ever sells any through all the noise.  But ya gotta do it.  Make the noise yourself because it’s pretty much a given nobody’s going to do it for you.

The trick, I think, is to promote your books online without always appearing to promote your books online.  I know very few authors who can carry this off successfully.  We have way too many of the ones (Rob excluded because he’s so loveable) who offend just about everybody because they’re SO in your face and they NEVER let up.  They sell books, though.  Can’t deny that.  I’m not sure how many.

I’ve always maintained the only way to really successfully sell a ton of books is for the books to be IN the stores to begin with.  I’m talking like thousands.  Many thousands.  You can push books at every small venue you can sign up for, and you’re still never going to wind up with big, big sales unless your books are IN the stores.  To begin with.  Of course, I’m talking about physical books here.  Looks to me though that e-books are going to catch up eventually in many ways, especially with the Kindle phenom going on.  Time will tell. 

Online promotion?  That’s fine, but too many of us forget there’s a whole world full of people who don’t go online and if they did, they don’t necessarily go most places where authors hang out.  It’s just not on their radar. 

I want them, too.

I’m plotting for when my next book comes out.  Right now I’m just on the Agent Chase, looking for the right agent for my new baby.  I’ll keep y’all posted on that. 

Meantime, it’s summer.  Keep cool.  And pray for the folks along our southern American shorelines who are having such a struggle.  And while you’re praying for them, don’t forget the defenseless animals out in that water.  Every time I see a shot of even one of them my heart cries.  

Come back and see me again soon.  I’ll be here, I promise.  And I’ll leave the porch light on for you.

Cheers, B.A.

But dammit all.  If a successful series has lasted for six books and there are more, wouldn’t you think they’d want more? Well, apparently not, so Joe decided not to get mad, but to get even. 

So Amazon is going to publish the rest of his series, Kindle ebooks first, then in print a few months later.  Evidently the contract is a very lucrative one for everybody concerned. 

What happened was that Joe recently discovered all by himself that the Kindle is a gold mine for experienced authors who are willing to sell their ebooks cheap.  A few other prolific (and experienced) authors have followed his example and are now reaping considerable benefits.

Note that I said experienced authors.

Problem is, most publishers who control the ebook rights don’t want to sell them cheap, citing high publishing expenses.  Joe says, and he has proved it over the past couple of months, that lower prices mean more sales.  Lots more sales.  WAY LOTS more sales. And he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is.

A big side issue here is being discussed in a lot of author blogs, though:  What about all the new authors who will head straight for Kindle publishing without bothering with the middle man–the agent/publisher route, or even the online ebooks route.

There are a lot of pros and cons here.  I’d like to add my two cents worth, having been involved in both traditional and e-pub worlds.

So I read the article today on HuffPo by Jason Pinter, a bestselling thriller writer, positing that now too many brand new authors will head for Kindle and ruin their talent by publishing before they’re really ready to publish without the benefit of a good editor. 

I know in my heart of hearts he’s going to make a lot of newbies mad by saying that, because all newbies (Jason and I both know this, having been newbies ourselves once) believe their first book is The One The Universe Has Been Waiting For, and Is Perfect Just As It Is, and they’re going to believe Jason is trying to keep their book from being published because he doesn’t want the competition.

I understand that attitude.  The reason I understand it is that I know how much you do have to believe in yourself to actually go the whole route and become a published author.  Anyone who believes in themselves that much is going to believe he or she actually IS competition for bestselling authors. I believed it myself before I got published and I still believe it today.  The day I stop believing it is the day I’ll quit writing for good.

But Jason has a point, and for those of you who read this who are still struggling for that first sale, I want to emphasize the reality of what he’s saying.  He’s simply saying, as some have repeated today all over the Internet, that Joe Konrath had the benefit of editors through the publication of his first six books, and that gives him a huge edge to probably make a big go of this experiment. 

Anyone who reads my workshop pages here will know that I always emphasize believing in yourself because it’s crucial.  BUT you have to also face facts.  Believing in yourself takes you down the path to publication, and unless you self-publish, it also leads you through a lot of lessons learned from a lot of editors.  Even if you self publish and have editorial help, you’re still learning.

Editors are your best teachers.  They are.  But only if they’re good, experienced editors.  A bad editor, like a bad agent, is worse than no editor at all, because they will tell you things that aren’t true, you will believe them, and mistakes will be ingrained in your writing, which makes it twice as hard since you have to unlearn the bad stuff to learn the good stuff.

There’s a lot to editing.  There’s line editing and there’s content editing.  They’re two different things.  What most of us learn in most critique groups, if we’re lucky enough to have one, is line editing, and that’s partly because there isn’t time to do both line and content editing in crit meetings. Even if there was enough time, they’re two entirely different things.

Line editing is spelling, grammar, multiple instances of the same word in the same paragraph, spotting the wrong word usage (there/their) (your/you’re).  It’s watching for quote marks and paragraph spacing and keeping your chapters numbered right. It’s all that and way, way more. You can generally learn a lot about line editing in crit groups IF you have someone experienced enough to teach you. 

But then there’s content editing, and this can only be done right by someone with a lot of knowledge and experience.  Content editing is knowing how (and why) you should move a paragraph or scene or even a whole chapter to a different location.  It’s being aware that somebody has blue eyes in Chapter One and green eyes in Chapter Fifteen.  It’s knowing that what you said in Chapter Six isn’t jibing with what you said in Chapter Seventeen.  It’s remembering all the details that you have to remember because you can count on the fact that some reader will, and will let you know about it.  It’s knowing how to end a chapter with an aha! moment and how to find that moment.  It’s way more than all that.  It has a lot, combined with pure luck, to do with whether your book will be a runaway success or an also ran, because it’s always, always the icing on the cake, that extra lovin’ care that only someone with a lot of experience (and a good memory) can give you.

Now here’s the part that will probably get me a lot of hate mail but I have to say it anyhow because it’s true.  You don’t always get good content editing except (hopefully) with major publishers, and nowadays, it mostly happens with big, big books that the publisher is going to get behind because the advance was large and they want to recoup that advance money.  They’re willing to go the extra mile and spend a LOT of money on it and so they pay more attention to the small stuff that gets left to chance in too many other cases.

All this is why Jason Pinter said what he said.  It’s not that he’s trying to stifle the competition.  It’s because newbies, if you’re reading this, he knows how hard it is to get a whole book right, and most of the time, with rare exceptions, with a first book it’s almost never right at the git-go–not because you’re not a good writer, but because there are things you’d never dream you have to remember to do, as well as learn to do in the first place.

The upshot of all this is, if you’re a first time writer and you want to put your book on Kindle, please do yourself a huge favor and have it edited by an expert.  Not your kid who majored in English in college.  Not your best friend who works as a secretary.  They may know grammar but they won’t know how to put a book together.  If you’re not going to go the long route and work your way up through the ranks and learn as you go from your editors, then hire one.  Believe it or not, a lot of writers have their book edited by someone else anyhow.  If you’re getting a lot of rejections, an editor might be all you need to point out all the pesky little things that you need to watch.

Whatever you do, most successful authors today will tell you to give yourself a chance to be the best you can be.  If you don’t have some good editorial help, no matter who you publish with, you’re not giving yourself that chance. 

That’s all Jason meant.  It’s all I mean.  It’s all meant more with love of other authors than anything else.  It’s just because we know how hard it is under any circumstances, but if it’s worth doing, it’s worth learning how to do it right.

Comments?  Questions?  Lay it on me.

Hugs, see y’all next week.
B.A.
(That’s me, Beth Anderson.  But you knew that, right?)

And oh, I almost forgot.  DanaliDawg and Sarge and BooBoo all say “Hey!”

>>>A provision buried deep inside the $787 billion economic stimulus bill would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions that are much tougher than those proposed 10 days ago by the Treasury Department.

The provision, inserted by Senate Democrats over the objections of the Obama administration, is aimed at companies that have received financial bailout funds. It would prohibit cash bonuses and almost all other incentive compensation for the five most senior officers and the 20 highest-paid executives at large companies that receive money under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The stimulus package was approved by the House on Friday, then by the Senate in the late evening.

The pay restrictions resemble those that the Treasury Department announced this month, but are likely to ensnare more executives at many more companies and also to cut more deeply into the bonuses that often account for the bulk of annual pay.

The restriction with the most bite would bar top executives from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual pay. Any bonus would have to be in the form of long-term incentives, like restricted stock, which could not be cashed out until the TARP money was repaid in full.<<<

Well, DANGITALL!  Now I’ll have to pare down my personal list of bankers I’d like to snare for a quiet little trip to Vegas in one of their own personal private jets, staying in a luxury suite at one of the big casinos (I really love WYNN and BELLAGIO) and playing with an everyday ten, twenty thousand or so of the Banker Du Jour’s private stash!

Sniff, sniff.  Pardon me for a minute while I grab a tissue, my tears are dripping all over my new faux leopardskin and ostrich feather bustier.

Okay, I’m back.  I’m serious, this is going to cut into my fun somethng terrible.  No more bankers’ top secret bonuses to have my way with.  No more hops around the world on those cute little $60 million dollar jets. No more gourmet dinners prepared in penthouse suites by Emeril or Bobby Flay.  (That’s really a bad break, Bobby’s awfully cute but now I’ll have to slash HIM from my list too, since I won’t be seeing him quite as often due to this recession.  How inconvenient is THAT, I ask you?)

To make things even worse, no more dinners at Stratta, where I always try to coordinate my outfit with their decor, red and gold and white and tastefully gentle brown.  Once I even coordinated my clothes with one of Stratta’s  individual pizzas, quite an undertaking considering all the different colored things on it, but hey, I wowed Count Babalallapaloozo anyhow.

Oh, yes, he’s still around.   Count Babalallapaloozo owns a bank.  You didn’t know that, did you?  I bet you thought he was one of those multimillionaires who sits around on his yacht thinking up ways to part you from your money and hide it in his Swiss bank account, didn’t you?  Well, you’re right, he IS!  He owns his own BANK!  Right here in the USA!

I don’t know how much longer he’ll be around though.  I heard through the grapevine he’s being investigated.  Sigh.  Isn’t that just my luck.  Find a live one with money and he winds up in Leavenworth, although I hear that’s called The Country Club where so many government-inspired bad boys go, so it ca’t be all that bad, can it?

They’d better be building another wing, from the looks of things.

Remind me to check out eHarmony.com.  They must have some millionaires on their list, right?

Next week:  THE DAWG!  Yes, Beth and I are going to tell you about Our New Addition.   Come back, ya hear me, and don’t forget, we love y’all, yes we do, even if we have been AOL for a while.  Okay, quite a while. 

Love,Hotclue Herself, In Person and Unattached.

>Switched banks.  A whole new start, right?  Out with the old, in with the new.  Banking, that is.  Love the new one.  Hopefully when they write out checks to pay some of my bills to companies that haven’t caught up to the 21st Century enough to have automatic bill pay, this bank won’t bounce the same checks THEY wrote and THEY mailed, as happened twice in the same year with my old bank.  Ya know why they did that?  Beats me, but I think it almost certainly has something to do with outsourcing the work, where nobody is accountable.  Take that, George Bush.  Outsourcing Does Not Work if you want your business (or your country) (OR your war) to be run with any sense of responsibility whatsoever.  I’ve had enough and I’m not taking it anymore!  (Yay me!)  Old bank, gone.  New bank, huge enough that they have to hire people within their organization to do all the work, which means there’s more chance they MIGHT do it right, capice?

>Dropped my land line and am using my cell phone exclusively now, which I’ve been thinking about doing for quite a while anyhow, and I’m findng it curiously freeing because now I won’t have to go running to my house phone when I come home from wherever, to see if there are any messages.  Anybody calls me now, I’m going to know about it in real time. Somebody  call me so we can check that out.  Anybody?  Hello?

>Speaking of my cell phone, I managed to finally call Verizon for a new area code to match the area code I actually live in.  When I got my cell two years ago, attached to my daughter’s cell contract in the next state, there were no numbers available in my area so I used her area code, which has always kept me off-balance anyhow, and I don’t need any extra help with that, thank you very much.  Old phone, but new number.  And actually, it’s NOT my old phone.  I got a new one while I was at it, after putting that off for six months.  This one’s red, a happy color unless you’re a Democrat.  I hope to God I don’t have that backwards.

>Wore one of my late husband’s T-shirts without feeling guilty or morbid about it.  In fact, it felt quite comforting.  Not so much because it’s red and white striped, but probably because it’s big and soft and floppy.  Big and soft and floppy is good, right?  (Well…maybe not always…)

>Watched the Ellen Degeneras Show for the first time EVER, and I have to tell you, I haven’t laughed like that, which was out loud and totally delighted, in I don’t know how long.  She even had me dancing, even though I was alone in the house with my two cats, who cowered in the corner wondering what the hell was wrong with me.  Thank you, Ellen Degeneras, and I hope I spelled your name right.  If I didn’t, somebody will tell me fast enough.

>Managed to get my late husband’s insurance company (who generously offered to allow me to leave my insurance proceeds with them, let them manage it, and dribble it to me in monthly checks until the money ran out, wasn’t that lovely of them) to send it to me in one lump sum.  I gave them a list of enough reasons why I was perfectly able and more than willing to manage my own money.  About a dozen or so, to be sort of exact, all valid if a little goofily worded for maximum effect.  In fact, I let Hotclue write it. I got my check exactly one week later.  I had no idea until I opened the envelope that their sleazebag salesman had dropped in one day years ago when I wasn’t home and talked my husband into switching his policy so that the face value would begin to diminish after the first three years.  Which I’m absolutely sure my husband did not understand AT all.  No, I won’t mention their name, but I do seem to remember a picture of a huge rock jutting out of an ocean somewhere…Oh, but I digress.  Anyhow, I SO appreciate their concern for me in my dotage.  Even so, there’s nothing as exhilarating as winning a battle of wills.  I probably misspelled exhilarating just now, but I don’t think I’m dangling any participals.  Or is that participles?  Sigh…

>Last but not least, my one and only extravagance, because I’m becoming as tight as a witches…well, never mind, I’m trying to be nice here.  I bought a Garmin GPS.  And in addition to that, I paid for a third of it by cashing in credit card points, also for the first time ever.  (You have no idea what it took to get me to do that.)  So now, for the First Time EVER, when I get into my car to drive anywhere further than one mile away, I won’t get lost like I always did before.  Sometimes, I blush to disclose, less than a mile away.  Now I’ll always have that little voice to tell me, “Turn right at the next corner.  NO, NO, RIGHT, did you hear me, RIGHT!  NOT LEFT, you idiot!  RIGHT!”

>I haven’t changed my hair color.  But I am thinking about it. 

Ciao for now.  I may not be doing that well with Widowhood 101, but I am learning independence.  I’ll probably never be fit to live with again.

Beth, and Hotclue is right behind me, laughing.  I have no idea why.  Love you all, you know we do.  Come back and see us next week.  We’ll leave the front porch light on for ya.