Assassins and Liars is now available as an audiobook.

If you enjoyed reading about Finn and Mary in Assassins and Liars, you'll get an extra kick from listening to the audiobook. Narrated and produced by David Bosco, it's available now. To download your copy or to listen to a sample from Audible.com, CLICK HERE.

This is my first experience with publishing an audiobook, and I'm excited by the way David Bosco brings Finn and Mary to life. David is a storyteller in his own right, and he does more than just read the manuscript. His performance has given me a different perspective on the book, even though I wrote it.

I'm putting the finishing touches on the first draft of Sailors and Sirens, the fourth book in the Finn series. As I write the dialog, I find myself hearing Finn and Mary as David rendered them in Assassins and Liars. That's a real treat for me, and a tribute to his ability to give them unique voices. Working with him on Assassins and Liars was a blast.

Even if you're not a fan of audiobooks, click through to the book's page on Audible.com and listen to the sample. The audio version of Assassins and Liars is available on Amazon and iTunes, as well, but Audible has some subscription offers that might appeal.

Meanwhile, I'm working with David on an audio version of Avengers and Rogues, the second book in the series. The audio version of Avengers and Rogues will be released in July. Sailors and Sirens, the fourth book in the series, will be available for preorder as an ebook in June.

A New Sailing Thriller Series is Available -- Start Reading The J.R. Finn Sailing Mysteries

NEW SERIES!

"People just call me Finn," he says, by way of introduction.

Finn is retired after a 20-odd-year career with an unnamed government agency, but he still handles a contract job for them once in a while. The series begins in Puerto Rico with Assassins and Liars, when Finn meets Mary.

He's leaving on a mission when she asks to hitch a ride on his sailboat. Mary doesn't care where he's going; she just wants to leave Puerto Rico. Finn takes her along, thinking she'll provide cover for his clandestine mission. The trouble begins before they even leave port.

Click the covers above for details of the books.

The origins of the J.R. Finn Sailing Mystery Series

I was alone, tying my dinghy to the landing in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia's lagoon when she approached me. She was an attractive young woman in a nondescript way — clean-cut and self-confident. I was looking down at the cleat where I tied the dinghy when her bare feet came into my field of vision just before she spoke.

"Coming or going?" she asked.

Distracted while fumbling to lock the dinghy to the dock, I looked up at her. No shoes, cutoffs, a plain T-shirt, and a well-worn backpack hanging from one shoulder. She looked me in the eye, smiling. All in all, an appealing young woman. My guess is she was in her early twenties — about my daughter's age.

"Sorry," I said. "What's that?"

Holding my gaze, she grinned and said, "I was wondering if you were just arriving, or if you were about to leave St. Lucia."

"I've been here a couple of days," I said. "Why?"

"I'm looking for a ride. You a single-hander?"

"No."

"Got a lady already?"

"My wife's aboard."

"That's okay," she said. "I'm still interested. I'm flexible."

Confused, I shook my head. "I have no plans to leave any time soon. Sorry."

"No problem, but if you run across anybody looking for crew, tell 'em they can find me in the bar over there, please."

"Sure," I said. "Where are you looking to go?"

"Anywhere," she said. "Thanks."

I nodded and she turned away, walking back up the ramp from the dinghy dock toward the bar.

The encounter was quite a few years ago, but it's one of those memories that remains vivid. I thought at the time that she was living dangerously. Maybe she thought I looked harmless, or maybe she didn't care. I've wondered what became of her. Every time I read about a woman going missing, she comes to mind.

I was writing Bluewater Killer when she approached me. I was well into the novel, building a plot around a father's search for his daughter who was missing in the islands. That young woman in St. Lucia fueled my imagination, giving me an idea about what could have happened to Dani Berger, the missing girl. Fifteen books later in the Bluewater Thrillers series, Dani's proved that she can take care of herself.

Early in 2018, I decided to write a new series of sailing thrillers. At that point, my second sailing thriller series, the Connie Barrera Thrillers, was well established. The Connie Barrera books are a spin-off from the Bluewater Thrillers. I was looking for something different; I needed a new challenge.

I decided on a male protagonist, as both of my established series featured women in the lead roles. And I decided to try writing in the first person, which turned out to be far more difficult than I expected, but that's another story.

I settled on a man named Finn as my protagonist. Finn's a retired government assassin, living on a beat-up old sailboat in the islands. Or maybe he's not really retired. Maybe he does a little contract work for his old employer.

I needed an opening scene for Finn's first adventure. I searched my memory for something suitable. That's one of my tricks, drawing on my memories of experiences in the islands. That girl who approached me at the dinghy dock in St. Lucia came to mind.

While she'd already given me an idea of how Dani went missing, I still wondered about her. I figured she had more to offer. I'm sure she wasn't as innocent as she appeared to be, but what if she were a predator in her own right?

Did I look like a potential victim to her? A lonely older man, somebody she could scam, or worse? What if she approached Finn, instead of me?

And that's how Assassins and Liars began. When she introduced herself to Finn, I learned that her name was Mary. Finn, being unattached and amenable to company for his own reasons, decided to give Mary a ride. If nothing else, he figured she would give him a cover story as he undertook his next mission.

Finn's not an easy mark, but Mary played him nonetheless. Indeed, Mary turned out to be quite a predator. She may be an even match for Finn. Time will tell.

Assassins and Liars recounts Finn's experiences as they got to know one another. They both had some surprises along the way, but by the end of Assassins and Liars, they were attached to each another.

And so the J.R. Finn Sailing Mystery Series began. I've just released the second book, Avengers and Rogues, for pre-order. Finn's still trying to understand what Mary's game is, but he's enjoying her company more than he thought he would. And she seems to be fond of him, too. There's still plenty of trouble ahead for both of them as Finn tries to decide whether they're a couple or just business acquaintances. We'll have to wait for the third book to see how things turn out.

I'm about halfway through book 3, which I'm calling Vigilantes and Lovers for now. It will be out soon, so go ahead and get started on the first two books. If you like suspense and sailing, you'll enjoy this series.

Bluewater Rendezvous is available - Dani was right!

As Dani predicted in her last post, Bluewater Rendezvous is available now in the Kindle Store.  I appreciate her filling in for me while I wrapped up the book.  She was in more trouble than usual in Bluewater Rendezvous.  Before the villains even showed up, she was quarreling with her mother, of all people.

Dani’s so self-assured that she doesn’t often provide us with insight into her personal life.  I had forgotten she had a mother — we haven’t heard from her since she got into a snit because Dani didn’t call her on her birthday a few years ago.  The fact that Dani was unconscious and being held by human traffickers didn’t matter to the woman.  I learned early in Bluewater Rendezvous that the two had not spoken since then.  That was eight books ago.  Dani’s making a throat-cutting motion with her hand.  It’s clear that she wants me to stop.  I’m not sure if she’s worried about spoilers or if she wants the floor.

I created a monster when I invited her to make that first post a few weeks ago.  Now that she’s had a taste of what it’s like to speak for herself, she wants to make blogging a regular activity.  Not only that, but her sidekick, Liz Chirac, is clamoring for her turn at the keyboard.  Then there’s Connie Barrera, who already has me tied up with writing about her current adventure.  She wants in on this.  Once Paul Russo finds out, I’m guessing he’ll want a turn, too.  These are not patient people.

I would appreciate it if you would help me sell a few copies of the new book; I have a feeling I’m going to have to buy computers for the whole gang if this keeps up.

Liz said to mention that she’ll be writing the next post.  I notice that she waited until Dani went ashore to tell me that.  I need to go before trouble breaks out.

Thanks for your support.

Tips for Succeeding as a Self-Published Author

Dani’s blog post last week was fun, but she asked one question to which I’ll respond directly:

"I mean, how hard can it be to sit down and put a few words together?”

She should have asked, “How hard can it be to put a few words together that people will want to read?"  Most writers want their work to be read; a lot of us harbor the notion that people might pay to read our work. As those who have tried it can attest, it’s harder than Dani thought.

Know why you write.

To improve your odds of success as a writer, you need to understand why you want to write.

If you’re like me, you want to sell the books you write.  Getting paid for the hundreds of hours of work that’s involved in writing a book is important; it's making a living. It’s also a source of satisfaction, a sign that your art resonates with other people.

If you’re pursuing writing for the sake of fulfilling your artistic desire, your motivation may be different. You may not feel a need to be paid for your writing, and you may not care whether the reading public likes what you write.

Writing is a job.

Decide whether writing is a business or a hobby. Either is acceptable, but hobbies rarely pay the bills. If writing is a business for you, commit yourself to work at it. That means that you must allocate time to writing as your schedule permits and that you must write during those times, whether you feel like it or not. Writer’s block and lack of inspiration aren’t acceptable excuses for not doing your job.

Write what people want to read.

Recognize that writing is only a part of the job. You have to write material that people want to read. What you can sell may not be what you want to write. Until you have a few books published, you won’t know what you can sell. You’ll only be able to guess at it based on what other people are selling.

To make a living, you will always be working on the next book and refining it based on what you’ve learned from the previous ones.

Writing is only the first step.

We all need editors.

You can pay someone or not, but a vicious reader with a red pen is what you want. Be careful about your choice -- the only way to evaluate an editor is by seeing their work. Don’t be afraid to test them before you hire them, and don't hire one who fails to catch common errors in grammar and punctuation.

Package your product.

Don’t underestimate the importance of an eye-catching, enticing cover.  Be prepared to change your cover if a book doesn't sell.  It's as easy as uploading a file.

Format your content. What you see in your word processor isn’t what you’ll see in an ereader or in print. Easy-to-follow instructions are available; read them and follow them. Preview your work online and then run it through every different ereader package you can find. Make it look good on every screen.

Publish in paperback.  You may not sell very many copies in print, but the availability of a print version of your book gives you just a bit more credibility.  You can do this online without any up-front cost if you shop with care.  Follow the formatting instructions from your chosen vendor and use their online proofing tools to make sure the interior looks as it should before you order a proof.

A good product description is essential to selling your book.  It's easy to adjust the product description if the book isn't selling, but try to get it right the first time.

Price is a critical element of the package as well.  Resist the urge to underprice or overprice your work. Look at prices for similar books that are well up in the sales rankings.

There are many firms that will handle all or part of the packaging for you. If you decide to pay someone, use caution; make sure you understand what you are buying, and don’t give away the rights to your work.

Market your book.

Once your book is available, tell everyone you know, by every means at hand. There are plenty of articles on how to release books in ways that "beat the system."  Read them, but make your own decisions. This is a long-term process; gamesmanship may get you a quick start, but sustained sales are the key to building a business.

Spend money on online advertising.  It's less expensive than you think.  Don't expect each ad to pay for itself.  You want the cumulative effect of broad visibility.  That's more important than an immediate, short term spike in sales.  Allocate a percentage of your sales to paid advertising once you have an established revenue stream, however small it is.

You need reviews. The reviews you want are short, one or two sentence comments from real live readers, not lengthy, analytical reviews from a supposed expert. Ask outright at the end of your book. Beg. “If you enjoyed this book, please leave a short review on Amazon. You can’t imagine how important that is to an independent author like me. It’s the primary means I have of finding new readers. A moment of your time may help someone else to find the pleasure that I hope you found in reading my work."

There’s a lot of advice on the web about using social media to "engage" with your readers. Do what you’re comfortable doing. Don’t expect that activity on Facebook, Twitter, other social media sites, and blogs will generate a lot of sales, but don't discount the need for online presence, either.

The best way to "engage" with your readers is to keep showing them good books to read. That’s what they want from you — entertainment. If they read faster than you write, and most of them do, recommend books similar to yours by authors whose work you’ve enjoyed. The more you do that, the more quickly your own base of readers will expand. I like recommending other authors who recommend my work.  I don’t have explicit agreements with them.  Just do it; word gets around, and people reciprocate.

Get back to work!

Some people hate the marketing aspect of being self-published, others thrive on it. It’s part of the job. It’s also a distraction.

The best, never-fail, red-hot way to sell more books is to write more books.  I need to sign off now and go finish Bluewater Rendezvous. Dani and Liz and their fans are waiting. Thanks for visiting.

One, two, three … nine books … thoughts on writing a series.

In March of 2012, as I was finishing the second book in my Bluewater Thriller series, I wrote a blog post about my experience.  By now, I’ve written seven books in that series, and I just released the second book in a second, related series.  Sailor’s Delight - a Connie Barrera Thriller is available now in the Kindle Store.  I thought it might be time to revisit the question of writing another series.

At least it’s sort of another series. In some ways, it’s more of a fork in the road of the first series. Connie Barrera played a major role in my first novel, Deception in Savannah. That was before I was even committed to this notion of writing full-time, let alone writing a series. We got to know one another then, but it was only after I was well into the Bluewater series that I saw Connie’s potential. I decided to feature her in Bluewater Ice, the fourth Bluewater book, as a guest on the charter yacht, Vengeance.

She played so well with Dani and Liz that we collectively decided that she should stay for another book, Bluewater Betrayal. After that, though, two things happened. Dani and Liz were getting tired of sharing the spotlight with this dark-haired interloper, even though they were fond of her. That could have been sticky, but Connie solved the problem when she decided she wanted her own boat.

Her own story as a charter captain began in Love for Sail and continues in Sailor’s Delight. While she was hanging out with Dani and Liz, she met a friend of theirs named Paul Russo. Paul had just retired from his position as the head of the Miami P. D. homicide department. He had two compelling interests which caught Connie’s attention – sailing and gourmet cooking. Thanks to Dani and Liz, Connie had become a fine sailor, but she had no aptitude for cooking. She knew that if she wanted to run a successful charter yacht, she needed a first-rate chef.

Being the opportunist that she is, Connie persuaded Paul to join her as crew on Diamantista, and the Connie Barrera Thrillers got their start. During their first adventure in Love for Sail, she and Paul managed to survive an encounter with drug smugglers. In the process, they discovered that they shared a love for more than just sailing. Committed to being partners in life as well as business, they decided to sell Diamantista, get married, and buy another, more suitable yacht together.

In Sailor’s Delight, they’re waiting on delivery of the new boat and planning their wedding when their second set of charter guests arrives. They’re also wrestling with problems in their relationship that are exacerbated when their guests’ teenaged daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. Paul and Connie don’t agree on the best way to recover the girl, and there’s some doubt as to whether either their romance or the missing girl will survive.

I’m having fun with this second series, because I can bring in some of the more interesting secondary characters from the Bluewater series and add more depth to them. That’s how Connie got to where she is, so she’s willing to help. Once her series is well-established, it could be that Sharktooth, or Phillip Davis, or Marie Lacroix will want the chance to tell tales of their own.

It’s great fun to work with this expanding group of characters who all know one another. That’s an unforeseen benefit of having a second series branch off from a well-established one. Speaking of the well-established one, I hear Dani and Liz grumbling. It’s time to get to work on the eighth Bluewater Thriller now.

Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight ...

It's a gray, rainy afternoon in St. Martin, and there's a blustery wind that has Play Actor tugging at her anchor chain.  She's fitful, like she's ready to go sailing, but I'm not.  I've just sent  Sailor's Delight, the second book in the Connie Barrera thriller series, off for the first round of edits, and it's time for me to catch up with my neglected blog posts.  As I sat down to write this, I noticed that my last post was on August 4, and that I was a little over halfway through with the first draft of Bluewater Bullion, the seventh of the Bluewater Thrillers, when I wrote that post.

Since then, a lot has happened.  While we were visiting family in California, I had cataract surgery on both eyes.  The results were phenomenal; I had no idea how poorly I had been seeing.  Even though cataract surgery is trivial these days, it still interrupted the rhythm of my work.  As I mentioned in that last post, Dani and Liz aren't exactly patient.  They wanted their story told, my eyes not withstanding, so between follow up visits to the doctor, I finished Bluewater Bullion and released it in early September.  Dani and Liz have been enjoying the attention of their fans since then, which has left me free to work on Sailor's Delight.  That's a good thing, because Connie Barrera has more stories to tell since her debut in Love for Sail.

When I wrote that last post, I mentioned that Connie was tapping her foot in the background while I helped Liz and Dani tell their latest tale.  Connie's not as impulsive as Dani, but no woman likes to be kept waiting, especially if the delay is caused by another woman.  She's happier with me now, I think.  Certainly, she's relieved to get through the problems in her relationship with Paul Russo that plagued her in Sailor's Delight.  For a while there, they were having serious difficulty, and they had to wait for me to fly back to the Caribbean and get Play Actor back in the water before they could resolve their conflict.

Being the persuasive person she is, Connie kept reminding me that it wasn't all about her; one of their charter guests was in a dire situation as well while I was messing about in boats.  That's been handled, too, largely as a result of Connie's selfless bravery.  She's turned out to be quite a character, Captain Barrera has.  At first, I thought she was more patient than Dani Berger, but the truth is, she's just a little smoother in her approach.

I think I have a fleeting opportunity to catch up on some boat repairs and bring my blogs back to life, but I'm keeping a weather eye out for Dani and Liz.  They're up to something, and I know that before long, my services as a scribe will be in demand again.  They've got an eighth Bluewater Thriller in mind, I'm sure.  Meanwhile, the rain has blown over, and cocktail hour is upon us.  I'm off to sit in the cockpit and watch another Caribbean sunset while I splice the main brace with a bit of Gosling's Black Seal rum.

Look for Sailor's Delight, a Connie Barrera Thriller, to appear in the Kindle Store in the next couple of weeks.  The paperback will follow soon after.

Bluewater Bullion - Book 7 of the Bluewater Thrillers

I promised that after I finished writing Love for Sail I would write another Bluewater Thriller.  I’m 23 chapters along in Bluewater Bullion, the seventh book in the series. It’s nice to be working with Dani and Liz again, although I can feel Connie Barrera looking over my shoulder. She’s got something to say, and she wants me to get this next Bluewater book done so that she can have the stage again.

Dani and Liz are claiming that they have seniority, insisting that they’re entitled to my full attention. They’ve been sulky and difficult to work with when I’ve taken time off to contemplate Connie’s next adventure. It was one thing before her first book was published, but they’re seeing her in a different light now. I wouldn’t say they’re jealous, but they’re demanding that I take my time with their story and not let Connie rush me.

After six books, they’re wanting to do things a little differently. They’ve decided they want to be less dependent on their network of friends. They think that they can make it on their own, without calling Phillip and Sharktooth every time things get rough. So far, they’re doing all right, but they’ve had to slap me down a couple of times when I thought bringing in reinforcements would be expedient.

Characters in a series are like children; they grow and change quickly. That’s as it should be. Otherwise, their stories would become stale. This particular change isn’t one that I anticipated, though. I’ve been expecting one of them to get involved with a man, but their standards are high, and neither has found an attractive candidate yet. Witness the following exchange, where they’re discussing their two male guests in Bluewater Bullion.

“Gerald’s kind of hot,” Liz said.
“Not my type,” Dani replied. “He’s a little too limp-wristed.”
“So you like Joe better?” Liz was referring to their other guest. Joe Thompson was a former Navy SEAL employed by Yates to help him find the wreck.
Dani shook her head. “Loser. My bet is he got run out of the Navy. He strikes me as a bully, and he’s way to quick to tell you about his experiences.”
“He’s sure built like a Greek god,” Liz said.
“Like they say in Texas, ‘big hat, no cattle.’ That body comes from too much time wasted in the gym – not useful muscle.”
Liz laughed. “There’s no pleasing you. At least they’re both easy to look at.”

Or this one, where they’re talking about one of the guests and a woman friend that he’s brought aboard for a day’s sail:

“You know, he’s a nice enough guy, but … ” Dani shook her head.
“But what?” Liz encouraged her.
“I don’t know. She seems a lot more outgoing than he is.”
“So?” Liz said.
“They seem a little mismatched, I guess.”
Liz chuckled, shaking her head.
“What?” Dani asked. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“Not you. Us. Sometimes I think neither one of us is ever going to find a guy that measures up.”
“Nothing wrong with high standards,” Dani said. “I don’t want somebody that I have to take care of all the time; that’s a pain.”
Liz smiled.
“Well, do you want somebody like that around all the time?” Dani asked.
“Not all the time, but maybe just every so often. I mean, he is pretty hot, you know?”
“That’s what you said about Joe the other day. He ever get around to asking you out?”
“I think he sort of lost interest after Gerald told him I was going to shoot Rigo.”

I need to get back to work and finish Bluewater Bullion; I certainly don’t want these two annoyed with me. Besides, I hear Connie tapping her foot …

New Writing Tools for a New Series

I've been working on a new book for the last few weeks, and I've also been using some new tools to write it. I wrote the last couple of books using Scrivener for Windows, and I found it to be a substantial improvement over writing in Microsoft Word. The most significant advantage to me was the ability to use the index card view to organize the scenes and move them from chapter to chapter by dragging and dropping. A close second is the ability to keep all the reference material right in the workspace. While writing in Scrivener, I continued my normal practice of sending my last three days' work to a PDF file which I then read and marked up with a stylus on my wife's iPad.

Before I finished Bluewater Stalker, I bought an iPad of my own, as my use of my wife's iPad was beginning to interfere with her work. As I was thinking about the current Work In Progess, I began using three inexpensive iPad apps to capture my ideas. These were Drafts, a text editor; Phraseology, a companion app that provides some useful statistics and editing tools; and Terminology, a dictionary and thesaurus that integrates with the other two.

Drafts provides an uncluttered space for writing, with no distractions such as formatting and font choices. It also opens with blinding speed when you tap its icon, so it's immediately ready for your thoughts. Once you have some text that you want to polish, with a single touch you can send it to Phraseology.

Phraseology analyzes the text and provides several statistics as well as some handy editing tools. For example, Phraseology will categorize parts of speech with the frequency of use for each. I tend to overuse certain words, and this is a great way to catch myself. If you touch one of your overused words, you can see a listing of its occurrences in context. Touch an occurrence that you'd like to replace, and you can send it to the Terminology app, where you'll find a definition and a list of alternative words and phrases. Touch your choice, and it replaces the offending word in either Drafts or Phraseology. I also use this to make sure that I haven't overindulged my penchant for adverbs and adjectives. 

Phraseology computes the three most common indexes of reading difficulty, which is a big help in cleaning up my work. To assist in that sort of polishing, it provides word count by sentence or paragraph, with the ability to reorder sentences and paragraphs by touching and dragging – no selecting required. 

I've forgotten what I paid for this trio. They're sold individually by the same developer, and I think all three together cost less than $10. 

As I progressed to actually writing this next book, I went searching for an iPad app that would sync with Scrivener, as I had become hooked on writing on the iPad. I discovered that Scrivener for iPad has long been promised, but after several years, there's no delivery date. However, I found an app called Storyist, which mimics those functions of Scrivener that I find most useful. For $9.99 I decided to try it. 

I've written 30,000 words in two weeks using Storyist, and I don't miss Scrivener, nor do I miss working on the PC. The iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard is the ideal writing environment for me. Because it only has one application visible at a time, I don't get tempted to go check my book sales or my email when I hit a snag in my writing. My productivity, measured in words written per hour, has increased by about 30 percent, and though the screen is smaller than the one on my notebook PC, it's easier on my eyes because it's so crisp. 

I still send my last few days' work to a PDF file every evening, but instead of just reading it and marking it up, I use another inexpensive iPad app called PDF Expert. This app offers text-to-speech conversion as well as supporting handwritten notes with a stylus. It's amazing how many more typos I catch when I hear the mistakes as well as seeing them. I'm eager to finish this book and get it in the hands of my editing team to see if it turns out to be a cleaner manuscript than my others.

Look for Love for Sail early this summer; Connie's not a patient woman.

The Start of a New Adventure / Thriller Series: Writing Book 1

Connie and I have been working away on the first book in her series for the last couple of weeks.  She didn't like the cover I used in the last post; she thought it looked too much like the Bluewater Thriller covers.  She wants her own look, so we're working on that.  Any comments would be welcome; we probably need a referee or two.

We've also had more than one set-to about her behavior.  She keeps reminding me that she's not as volatile as her friend Dani Berger.  After all, she's a little older, and she's had a few more hard knocks, besides coming from a completely different background.  She's a bit more mellow, or at least she thinks she is. Time will tell.

We're doing all right, though, in spite of some minor differences.  She was right about having a story of her own.  We're about 20,000 words into it now, and it's moving along smoothly.  She's got me hooked, at least.

After spending some time in the Annapolis, Maryland, area fitting out her boat, she's now a couple of hundred miles off Cape Hatteras on her way to the Virgin Islands.  Paul Russo, her first mate and cook, couldn't make the trip with her, so she's stuck with pick-up crew.  Kirsten and Jimmy are a mismatched couple, each with their own agenda.  Connie's suspicious of Jimmy, but she's growing fond of Kirsten.

There's trouble brewing with Kirsten and Jimmy; we're going to see just how mellow Connie is when things turn nasty aboard Diamantista, her 56-foot yacht.  I'm braced for another struggle with her as she deals with the first challenge to her role as captain.  I'm sure she'll have her own ideas about how to handle the problems that are coming her way, and I already know that she's tougher than she lets on.  That's come across clearly as she's set me straight on some of my misapprehensions in the early part of the story. 

Bluewater Stalker is Published and a New Thriller Series is Coming

In November, 2011, I finished Bluewater Killer, the first book in the Bluewater Thriller series.  In March, 2014, I released Bluewater Stalker, the sixth book in the series.   In a bit over 2 years, I've written close to a half-million words about Dani and Liz and their friends.  I'm thankful that I've gotten enough positive reaction from readers to keep me writing.

Of course, that's what I hoped for when I started the series, but I've discovered something I didn't expect.  With each book, the characters have become more real to me.  I've watched them evolve and grow from their experiences, and they've become my friends.  I often wake up at night having conversations with them, and not with just the main characters.

As I struggled with the plot in Bluewater Stalker over the last few weeks, Connie Barrera started pestering me.  Remember her?  She had a major part in Deception in Savannah, my first novel.  At the end of it, she ran away to the Bahamas.

After Dani and Liz got their charter business going, Connie happened upon a windfall while beach-combing in the Bahamas.  Needing to slip out of the country, she chartered Vengeance.  She didn't know that she brought a bit of trouble from her past aboard with her.  Dani and Liz, being no strangers to a little difficulty, decided to help her out.  In the process, the three young women became fast friends, and Connie got hooked on yachting.

While Dani and Liz were chasing around the islands with the Fitzgeralds in Bluewater Stalker, Connie bought a 56-foot sailboat.   She had so much fun on Vengeance that she decided to go into the charter business.  Paul Russo agreed to join her as the cook and first mate until she gets the business going.  Remember him?  Paul's the retired detective from the Miami Police Department who's a friend of Dani's godfather.

Connie's demanding attention from me now, insisting that she has a good story to tell.  She's convinced me to spend the next couple of months with her as she sorts out her feelings about men and sailboats.  She thinks Dani and Liz will agree to let her have the next book.  She's a self-assured woman, and she's confident she can support her own series, distinct from the Bluewater Thrillers. 

Her idea is that she's more of a romantic than Dani and Liz.  She believes that she would bring a different perspective on Caribbean sailing adventures.  She's envisioning stories that will appeal to the same readers as the Bluewater Thrillers, but which will also interest readers of romantic thrillers.  I'm not sure about this, but I've agreed to spend some time with her and see how it goes.  She's willing to give Dani and Liz and their friends parts to play, but she's determined to have her own story.  If her first book turns out as she expects, it could be a great ride.

I'll keep you posted.  By the time you're ready for a follow-on to Bluewater Stalker, Connie will be ready to take you sailing.  And don't worry, there will also be a seventh Bluewater Thriller later this year.

Thanks for your support.  All of us appreciate it more than you can know.

Bluewater Stalker is Looking for Readers -- Available Now in the Kindle Store

When the first murder victim appears in St. Georges, Grenada, Dani and Liz are just getting acquainted with Bill and Jane Fitzgerald, their new charter guests aboard Vengeance.  Random killings are unusual in the islands, but there's nothing to link this one to Vengeance and her guests, although Bill has a professional interest.  He's a college professor whose sideline is studying serial killers and the societal implications of their acts.

When a second victim is found within a few miles of their first stop after leaving Grenada, the probability of coincidence diminishes.  As the trail of victims grows in the wake of their voyage north through the islands, the authorities become progressively more suspicious of some connection to Vengeance and her crew.  While the Fitzgeralds wrestle with problems in their marriage and Bill struggles to convince the police that he's not the killer, the stalker focuses ever more intensely on Jane and Bill.

When I'm writing a book, the characters become quite real to me.  In the course  of this series I've come to know Dani and Liz as well as if they were members of my family.  About midway through this one, I noticed that Dani has changed a bit.  She's still a feisty, rough-and-ready woman, but she surprised me when she confessed to Liz that she actually liked the Fitzgeralds.  I think Liz was shocked, too.  She's become accustomed to running interference between Dani and their guests.  Is Dani mellowing with age? Or is she finally losing the chip on her shoulder that she's carried since her abduction at the hands of the Bluewater Killer?

I'd be interested in your thoughts on how she's developing. Does she seem any different in Bluewater Stalker?  From my perspective, her personality is becoming slightly more complex, and that opens some new possibilities for the seventh book in the series.  While I contemplate their next adventure, I hope you enjoy another great sailing trip through the islands with Dani and Liz as they help their guests navigate an unfamiliar environment.

CLICK HERE to go to see the book in the Kindle Store.

A Hanging in Bequia? Inspiration for the fifth book in the Bluewater Thriller series

We left Grenada on the heels of a tropical storm a few years ago, sailing hell-bent for leather to reach St. Martin for a long-planned rendezvous with our daughter and her family.  After an 18 hour day, we dropped the anchor in Port Elizabeth, Bequia, to catch a little sleep.  Arriving around midnight, we anchored in the back of the pack of yachts, and we were up and away before dawn the next morning.

We were listening to one of the HF radio nets in search of weather information after sunup when we learned that a man’s body was found hanging from the masthead of a yacht in Bequia’s outer harbor that morning. 

  We were stunned; Bequia is a peaceful spot – one of our all-time favorite Caribbean islands.  As we picked up more scuttlebutt from the nautical grapevine, we learned that we had probably been anchored within yards of the boat where the body was found.  If we had left after sunup, we might have discovered the body ourselves.

Port Elizabeth, Bequia

What happened?  Was it murder?  Suicide?  The mutilated body of a woman was found below decks, and the people were European, but we never found out anything else.  If this had happened in another, better-known place, or if the victims had been American, there would doubtless have been a news media frenzy, but there was little to call attention to the deaths of two people in a Caribbean backwater.

I wrote a few words in a notebook, thinking that such an event wouldn’t be out of place in a suspense novel.  I had recently published my first novel, and was mulling over the idea of a series of yachting thrillers set in the Caribbean.  I had a number of false starts centered on the hanging, but it never seemed to fit into a story until I was at work on Bluewater Betrayal.

Writing is an exciting experience for me.  I start each book with a general idea for the story and with a few well-developed characters in mind.  As the characters play off one another, the story takes life and I do my best to record what’s happening.  So it was that at the end of a good day’s work, I found myself with a jerk hanging from the mast of his sailboat in Bequia.

As one of my favorite writers is fond of saying, “Some folks just need killin’,” and this guy was one of the most deserving.  Even so, I was almost as surprised to find him swinging in the breeze 60 feet above deck as I had been when I heard about that real hanging in Bequia.  At least this time, I know what happened.  If you’d like to know, grab a copy of Bluewater Betrayal.  It’s in the Kindle Store at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD9B2X2.  It’s available in paperback from Createspace at https://www.createspace.com/4454951 and will be available from Amazon as a paperback in a few days.

Bluewater Betrayal is the fifth book in the Bluewater Thriller series.  For more information on the series, see http://www.clrdougherty.com/p/bluewater-thrillers.html.

Technology for Writing more Efficiently – Tools to Free You from Paper

Abbreviated FreeMind map from Twisted Love, my recent thriller

It probably wasn’t original with him, but Abraham Lincoln referred to his signature stovepipe hat as his ‘office.’  In his early days as a traveling lawyer, he was known to keep court papers and other memos filed there.  When I was making a living as a corporate executive and a consultant a few years ago, I spent most of my working time traveling, and my compatriots and I used to joke that our offices were in our hats, although in our case, it was figurative.  Success in that environment, as in Lincoln’s day, required the ability to organize and produce creative work on the run without the support infrastructure of an office or a staff to research, document, file, and retrieve information.  Until relatively recently, the only tools available were paper-based.

I’m reminded of those days every time I work on a new book or put together a promotion for one of my existing ones.  When I wrote my first novel, I wrote it on loose-leaf paper, even though I had a computer available and could type adequately.  Why?  Because I found it easier to organize my thoughts if I could capture them wherever I happened to be when they struck me, and I always had pen and paper near to my hand.  It took me the better part of a year to produce a first draft, which I promptly keyed into my laptop, editing and rewriting as I went.  I think about that every time I release a new book.

Most of my recent full-length books have taken between 6 weeks and 3 months to produce, from start to publication.  I like to think that some of that increased speed is a result of experience, but I also know that a lot of it results from using today’s technology effectively.  In fact, I’ve written my last two books entirely without putting pen to paper – not even for those scribbled circles and arrows and doodles that I find necessary to work the kinks out of my plots.

Technology evolves more quickly than our ability to apply it most of the time, but I come from a high tech background and I work at trying new things to speed my writing along.  Most of us know the frustration of having ideas come and go before we’re able to record them, causing us to struggle to recover them.  There are readily available tools to overcome that problem; but they do come at a price.  The largest part of the price is time, though, not money.  They require some effort to learn and adapt, but the payoffs are large.  Most writers enjoy writing, but most of us enjoy having finished a piece of work even more than we enjoy producing it.  Judicious application of technology can significantly reduce the interval from idea to finished work.

The biggest reason I’ve worked to free myself from paper is the difficulty of keeping up with it and working with it.  Imagine sitting down to write and having every single piece of relevant information available on your PC desktop – even handwritten notes.  It’s not just possible; it’s imminently practical.  Some of my most valuable insights come to me when I’m reading.  Think of the value of being able to capture those insights without even putting the book down and booting up a computer or picking up a pencil.  The device I’m reading on always has all of the files for my latest work in process, up to date and a finger’s touch away from whatever I’m reading.  Programs to add to and edit the files are on the device as well.

Whenever I’m in a public place, I’m people-watching and eavesdropping, imagining how I might incorporate what I see and hear into my work.  Wherever I go, I have that device in my hand or my pocket, ready to modify or add to my current work in seconds.  I can even add a snapshot, if I think it might jog my memory later.  Writers’ minds are always writing, and the tools are at hand to capture those thoughts on the fly.  Once captured, they’re easily synchronized with files on a PC.  When I sit down to write, everything I need is on my PC’s desktop, ready to copy, paste, or study.

If you’re interested in how I do this, keep reading.  Don’t be put off by the techie flavor; remember, Google is your friend when you see an unfamiliar reference.  I’m not using anything that’s obscure or cumbersome, although the choices can be overwhelming.  The good news is that most of the hardware that I’m using is stuff that you may already have and be familiar with.  The software that you don’t already have is either free or costs no more than a few dollars, and it is intuitive in its approach. 

First, there are hardware choices.  The two big ones are what kind of PC and what kind of handheld device.  If you’re a writer these days, you probably already have a PC.  If it’s reasonably modern, it will do far more than you’re currently asking of it.  There are as many choices of handheld devices as there are of PCs.  If you’re using an e-reader, it may not have the flexibility to support a paper-free writing environment, but most smartphones will do the job, whether they’re Apple or Android.  Given the hardware, the magic comes from making judicious choices of software and then investing the time to understand and exploit its capabilities.  Rather than trying to enumerate the possibilities, let’s look at what I use.  Chances are good that what you have on hand can free you from the tyranny of paper.

I use a notebook running Windows 7, but there’s no magic there.  The software that I use will work on any recent vintage Windows or Apple PC.  I write in MS Word, and I use a free program called FreeMind to organize my material.  FreeMind is “mind mapping” software.  I don’t care for the term “mind mapping,” but that’s a personal hang-up.  FreeMind takes the place of all of those small scraps of paper and lets me draw circles, arrows, and doodles.  I can add text, pictures, or hyperlinks and move it all around to suit my whim.  Adopting FreeMind was the final step that freed me from paper.  Instead of reading about how I use it, I suggest that you download a copy.  For more information and a download link, click here.  Play with it for a little while; the learning curve isn’t too steep, and as you think of things that you’d like to do with it, spend a few minutes with the instructions or with Google, and you’ll probably find a way.

My handheld device of choice is an iPod Touch.  It offers most of the capability of an iPhone, but without the phone and the monthly bill.  If you have an iPhone or an Android equivalent, you’re in business.  I read ebooks on the iPod; after a day to get used to the small screen, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  The apps that I use most frequently in my writing are Goodreader, iThoughts, Wiki Offline, and a number of dictionaries (English, Spanish, Italian, French, and German) as well as several of my favorite grammar references.

Goodreader will readily synchronize files on the iPod with my PC and will open almost any kind of file.  Although Goodreader will open Word files, I usually save my work in process as a PDF formatted for print on my PC and then copy it to Goodreader.  When I open the PDF in Goodreader, I can actually mark up the PDF in different colors, right on the iPod screen.  I then upload the marked file to my PC and put the marked PDF on one half of the screen and the Word file to edit on the other half.  This is what I use for rewrites and self-editing.  Seeing the work in process formatted for print in PDF and being able to write and draw on it is helpful to me – it’s like working with a paper manuscript, but I don’t have to print it and handle it.

iThoughts is a mind mapping app for the iPhone/iPod/iPad that readily synchronizes with FreeMind on my PC.  When I have one of those bursts of inspiration, I open the map for my work in process and record it in iThoughts.  The next time I sit down at the PC to write, I just open the map in Freemind for the work in process, and there it is, updated with whatever additions or changes I made on the iPod.  Again, there is similar software available for other platforms; just make sure that it will synch with what you’re using on your PC.

Wiki Offline is an app that includes the entire Wikipedia database.  It’s handy for quick answers when I’m away from Internet service, and I can copy information from it and paste it into iThoughts.

There are a number of other apps on the iPod which I use for various things, but most are adjuncts to the core apps that I listed above.  Two favorites are WritePad, which does handwriting to text conversion off-line, and Notebooks, which is an all-purpose filing, organizing, and planning tool.  Most of the apps for the iPod/iPhone/iPad cost about what an ebook costs, so experimenting isn't expensive.

None of the tools I mentioned is unique; there are many competing apps which do similar things.  I’ve tried a lot of them, and these are the ones that best suit my needs right now, but I’m always looking, and I’d like to hear what tools you’ve found to make writing more efficient.  Please post your comments, questions, and suggestions below, and thanks for visiting.

Life's a Ditch: How one review inspired a new book

“I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”  I’ve always enjoyed that quote, attributed to Robert McCloskey, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department during the era of the Vietnam War.  It came to mind most recently in the context of one of my books.  Most of us who have written for publication have received reviews that surprised us.  I’m not alone there, but a recent review by fellow-writer Kathleen Patel of my non-fiction book, Dungda de Islan’ made me see my own book in a completely different light.

I wrote the book with the intention of sharing some of the experiences that my wife and I enjoyed (or endured, in a few cases) when we sailed off into the Atlantic from North Carolina headed for the Caribbean several years ago.  The book I wrote was a true-to-life sailing adventure story.   The book that Kathleen read and reviewed was something different.  I don’t mean that she misunderstood what I had written; she just saw beneath the surface, and read the story on a level that was meaningful to her.  I’m thankful for her review, because she said just enough in it to make me go back and look at some of the other reviews I’ve received for Dungda de Islan’.

There has been a lot of digital ink spilled on the topic of reviews recently, and I’m not going to weigh in on any of the questions that have been raised.  Reviews are useful to folks shopping for books and a source of pain or pleasure to writers, but to me, every review I’ve received has been interesting from the perspective that it gave me a clue as to what the reviewer saw in my book.  Often, there’s useful information to be gleaned from an unemotional reading of your own reviews.  In this case, I got a bolt of inspiration that sent me back to the other reviews for Dungda de Islan’, and I realized that Kathleen’s reaction was mirrored by others.  I began to understand why the book was appealing to a non-sailing audience.

When I wrote Dungda de Islan’, I wrote it as a promotional giveaway; I wanted to make myself visible to readers in the hope that they would enjoy my writing and buy some of my other books.  I chose the topic because it was an easy one for me, and because I was planning to write a series of thrillers set in the yachting world of the Caribbean.  I hoped that I could give away enough copies of the ebook version of Dungda de Islan’ to establish a base of readers in the sailing community.  This was before the day of free promotions in the Kindle store; I published the book everywhere I could for free, and for 99 cents in the Kindle store.  In the first month, I managed to move a couple of hundred copies without any real marketing effort, so I raised the price to 99 cents everywhere and managed to stop the momentum.  That’s a digression from the topic at hand, but it illustrates my intentions for the book when I wrote it.

That was 18 months ago, and the book has become a consistent seller at $3.99.  Usually, it’s on the Amazon best seller list in two or three relevant categories, and that, while gratifying, has puzzled me.  Now, after reading Kathleen’s review and rereading some of the others, I’m beginning to see that there’s a hidden story in the book; a story that appeals to a broader audience, and a story that has only an incidental relationship to sailing.  In telling the story of our adventure, I shared our experiences as a couple coping with a dramatic change in our lives; a change that a lot of people contemplate, but that few of us actually make.  It’s the story of tossing aside the accumulations of a lifetime to pursue a shared dream.

Thanks again, Kathleen, for the review, and thanks to all of you who have read the book and reviewed it or written to me about it.  My next non-fiction book is for you all.  My working title is Life’s a Ditch.  It tells the tale of our experiences exploring the East Coast via the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, or “the Ditch,” as it’s known to sailors who have traversed it.  This book takes a similar approach to that of Dungda de Islan’ in describing our life in “the Ditch.”  It’s not so much about where we went and what we saw during our time in the Ditch, but about how we reacted to it and how our lives were changed by our experiences.  The personal choices are as endless in this arena as they are elsewhere, and trying to enumerate them is fruitless, but you might enjoy sharing the choices that we made as we discovered what we got ourselves into when we abandoned our comfortable life ashore to become seagoing wanderers.  Life’s a Ditch will be coming out in the next few months.

Click here to read Kathleen Patel's review of Dungda de Islan'

More information on Dungda de Islan'

Dungda de Islan' in the Kindle store

Bluewater Voodoo -- Zombies, Voodoo, and Yachting

Zombies, Voodoo, and Yachting...

They’re all integral parts of the culture of the Caribbean.  I know yachting from intimate experience, but writing about the other two required some research.  Weaving these three elements into the third book of my Bluewater Thriller series was a challenge.  There were elements of Voodoo in the local culture of Savannah, where I grew up; it’s not surprising to find vestiges of Voodoo in the Deep South – references to Obeah, the plait-eye, and conjure women.  Most folks in the U.S. associate Voodoo with New Orleans, but its reach extends far beyond New Orleans.  Voodoo’s origins can be traced back to West Africa, and it moved to the New World aboard the slave ships.  Its presence is pervasive in the islands.

The common notion of Voodoo is that it’s black magic.  Although popular, that idea is incorrect.  Certain elements of Voodoo seem like magic to people without a grasp of the cultural context.  The same might be said of elements of Christianity, or indeed any other religion.  Voodoo is a religion, as much so as any other faith-based social structure, and its central focus is maintaining a balance between man and the forces around him; social, spiritual, and natural.  Because it evolved in cultures that depended more heavily on oral history than written history, Voodoo is a difficult subject for casual research.  The most comprehensive and credible reference that I found was Voodoos and Obeahs: Phases of West India Witchcraft, by Joseph J. Williams, S.J. (copyright 1932).  Although the title itself sounds prejudicial, Dr. Williams, a serious ethnologist, provided a thorough background on the evolution of the belief structure upon which Voodoo is based.

From Dr. Williams’s work, a number of brief but easily found references on the Internet, my own limited exposure, and my imagination, I developed a grasp of Voodoo sufficient to my purpose in writing Bluewater Voodoo.  Since publishing Bluewater Voodoo, I have read The Serpent and the Rainbow, written in 1985 by Wade Davis, which provides a more modern perspective on Voodoo and its role in the Haitian culture than Dr. Williams provided.  I read it with great interest and some anxiety, having been unable to lay hands on a copy before releasing my novel.  I was relieved to find nothing in Mr. Davis’s work that contradicted my own guesswork.  Writing as a novelist, I certainly had the latitude to present Voodoo as I wished in order to further my story, but I’m ever mindful of Mark Twain’s statement that “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

I wanted to write a thriller that presented a reasonably accurate view of the culture in which it was set, and I wanted to afford that culture the respect which it richly deserves.  So, what about zombies?  How are they related to Voodoo?  If Voodoo is a religion and a force for good, providing a framework for its practitioners to function constructively in society, how do zombies fit in?  Interestingly, Williams didn’t mention the word; Davis dwells on zombies obsessively.  Pop culture today makes monsters of them.  There is ample evidence that there are (or have been, in recent times) zombies; not the mindless, flesh-eating monsters of TV and the movies, but mindless, pliable creatures; victims of the darker elements within the culture that embraces Voodoo.  The case of Clairvius Narcisse, which I mentioned in Bluewater Voodoo, is well-documented and is not unique. 

The question of why someone would turn a fellow human into a zombie has many answers.  Based on my research, the motivation of the houngan who created the zombie in Bluewater Voodoo was not far-fetched.  It appears that one of the less atrocious reasons for turning someone into a zombie was as a form of capital punishment.  Whether it’s more or less acceptable than the death penalty or life imprisonment depends on cultural norms.  

As to the question of how someone could make a zombie, the effects of tetrodotoxin and its use as a poison are no secret; it’s readily found in puffer fish and other natural sources.  The use of puffer fish as an exotic food in some Asian cultures results in a substantial number of people experiencing death-like states every year.  Some recover and some don’t.  The death-trance itself is the reason for its popularity there, along with the risk.   The sources and uses of tetrodotoxin to create a death-like state are covered in a number of published works related to the darker side of Voodoo, as is the use of other herbal concoctions to keep the victim docile and obedient afterward.

Could they be used to turn someone into a zombie?  Probably.  Children, don’t try this at home.

"Who was the real Mike Reilly?"

“Who was the real Mike Reilly?”

“I almost quit reading the book when he killed that dog.  Where did you get that character?”

When someone asks me if there really was a Mike Reilly, I know that Mike came to life in the reader’s mind.  When a reader expresses revulsion at Mike’s act of killing a dog, I know that they were repulsed as much by his sick mind as by the dog’s death, which was not described in any graphic, gruesome detail.  Mike, at least for a moment, was real, and the insight revealed by his act was upsetting because it was believable.

I listen carefully to comments like that, and probe the reader, if I can, in an effort to understand the reaction.  No writer wants to write something that is so repulsive that it causes the reader to abandon a story; every writer wants to create characters that seem real to the reader.  I take it as high praise when readers find a character so real that they believe I copied him from real life.  Mike Reilly was a product of my imagination, and I’m humbled, surprised, and gratified when a reader finds him so realistic that they can’t discount his actions as just part of a story.  Several people have insisted that I must have known someone like that.  That frightens me a bit; perhaps I did, but I didn’t recognize it at the time.  Reilly isn’t the kind of person I would want for company. 

It’s equally rewarding when readers identify so closely with a character that they express worry about what happened to the character after the story concludes.  In Reilly’s case, I hoped for that.  He was a central character in Bluewater Killer, and I put a lot of effort into developing him.  It’s also fun when readers unexpectedly identify with bit players in a story, and I always take note of which characters those are.  Two peripheral characters from Deception in Savannah keep coming up in conversations with readers.  Neither was central to the story, but clearly each one had some aspect that brought them to life.  I’m studying both of them – Dopey and Jonas Belk – to decipher what about them accounts for their appeal.  It may be that they have stories of their own that need to be told.

Having readers share such thoughts with me is a privilege.  It’s gratifying, and sometimes it’s a little scary, especially when I’m taken by surprise, as I was by the revulsion invoked by Reilly’s killing the dog.  I thought some of his other actions were far more disturbing, personally, but that’s the one that I hear about.
   

Having a character come to life in my mind is exciting and sometimes unsettling.  I know that a book is going to work out when the characters begin to populate my dreams; they are real for me, then.  They begin to interact with one another in ways that are consistent with their personalities, but their interactions are often unforeseen.

When that begins to happen, my notion of the story has to change.  The more realistic the characters become, the less amenable they are to conforming to the structure required to make a good story.  They have their own agendas, and the story must be altered to accommodate them, or the characters cease to be realistic.   Sometimes the story changes significantly, and I have to argue with the characters until we reach some mutually acceptable accommodation.  The frustrations and rewards of this aspect of writing fiction are private, enjoyed in the solitude of my mind, and I can’t really communicate them.  I can share the results by publishing a book, and readers’ reactions are rewarding, satisfying, and sometimes puzzling, but always quite different from the internal satisfaction I get from writing and watching the characters evolve.

Tips for Editing Your Work

My wife and I have each read hundreds of books by Indie authors over the last 18 months or so, and there are three recurring problems.  These problems appear in some “professionally edited” works as well, and even the big publishers aren’t immune from them. 

   

1. Improper use of the first person personal pronoun is common.  This one offends my wife and me every time.  If you think I made a mistake in the last sentence, you’re most likely an offender on this one.  “I” never serves as the object of a preposition.  If you think the sentence should have been, “This one offends my wife and I every time,” then you need to work on this.   If you have trouble with this, look it up in your favorite grammar reference.  Don’t depend on grammar check for this one.  Study it until you understand it.  You’ll be surprised at how often otherwise literate people mess this up in speech or in writing.  It’s easy to fix; there’s no excuse for it to appear in your written work if you want to be taken seriously.
2. The use of dangling participles is a second common problem.  “Sitting on the porch, the bus went by,” was the grammar school example that stuck with me.  That one is obvious and comical, but less obvious ones often seem to slip past editors.   Writing this post, the answer to this problem is the use of a good reference.  There – that’s a less obvious example.  If you can’t see anything wrong with that sentence, you may be an offender.   Reach for that grammar reference and study it until it’s clear.  This is a problem that will make careful readers laugh at what was meant to be a serious passage in your work.  Again, there’s no excuse for a writer to do this.  
3.  Incorrect use of the lowly comma is a major problem for all writers, and it’s something over which we all should agonize.  There are actually only a few rules to learn about the use of commas.  One of my standard proofing routines is to look at every single comma in my work and justify it based on one of the rules.  If I can’t make it fit a rule, it comes out.  This exercise often points out flawed construction and leads to rewriting.  The result is always more concise and coherent.   I have a tendency to insert a comma in my writing whenever my thoughts pause, and apparently a lot of other people do this.  That almost always results in an improper use of a comma.  Get that grammar reference out and learn the rules.  Try the exercise on a paragraph or two of your own or on someone else’s writing.   You’ll produce better work for the effort.

There are a number of other pitfalls for writers and editors, but if you avoid these three and scrupulously check for spelling errors and misused homonyms, you’ll be ahead of the rest.   If you’re in search of a concise reference that covers these and most other common problems, my own favorite is The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White.  It’s readily available and inexpensive.  I even have a Kindle version, so it’s easy for me to check things as I’m reading.  It doesn’t cover everything, but if you take it to heart, it will make you a better writer.

 Please post the errors that you catch most frequently, and let’s clean up our writing.

Writing the next book in a series - surprises and pitfalls

I've done six rewrites of Bluewater Vengeance, the second book in the Bluewater Thriller series.  It's almost ready; I'm waiting to hear from two first readers to see if it needs another edit.  I'm hoping to publish it in the Kindle Store within the next two weeks.

If you've been waiting for it, thanks for your patience.  If you enjoyed Bluewater Killer, you should enjoy this one, as well.  Many of the characters will be familiar, and you'll see some different aspects of their personalities as they grow and interact with new people in different situations.

This is my first effort at writing a series, and it's been interesting.  When I wrote Bluewater Killer, I was planning to follow it with a second book.  I laid the groundwork for Bluewater Vengeance, or so I thought, anyway.  As I started writing the second book, I realized that I had a whole new set of constraints related to the characters and the plot.

In the planning stage, before I wrote the first book of the series, I thought only of the positive aspects of carrying the same characters forward.  I was right about that; there are a lot of positives, but there are also some problems.  The characters have to stay true to themselves from one book to the next, or if they don't, their evolution has to be explained.  That made for some interesting work, and constant re-reading of the previous book as I wrote the second one.

The same was true for facts from the first book.  I was constantly checking back and forth to make sure that what was black and white in Bluewater Killer didn't become green and red in Bluewater Vengeance.

Those two things made for some tedious work as I spun out the story, but, for me at least, the hardest thing was making sure that Bluewater Vengeance was self-sufficient.  I've read a number of books that were part of a series, and I have often started in the middle.  Sometimes that happened because I didn't realize I was buying a book that was in a series, and other times it happened because I couldn't lay my hands on the previous book and I was strongly attracted to the one which was near at hand.

The best of those series were perfectly coherent when read out of order; it 's always frustrating when I find myself lost because I'm missing references to the previous work that I haven't read.  Patrick O'Bryan's Aubrey-Maturin books were outstanding, because they could be read out of order without any sense of confusion, and each book still built on the collected experience from the others.

I now have a better appreciation of what a fine writer he was.  The challenge of carrying the characters forward into a new story that builds on their experiences in the previous book without continually summarizing the previous book (boring and condescending) or leaving the reader confused and annoyed was new for me.  I should have seen it coming, but I didn't.  A lot of the re-writing dealt with this issue.

Now that I've been through the learning curve, will I do it again?  I've always been stubborn, and not always bright, so the answer is yes.  On the balance, it was fun to develop the characters further.  I've already started sketching out the next book, which I'm calling Bluewater Voodoo for now.

Let's remove the Stigma attached to Indie Authors.

Almost every day, I see an article online about the need for editing in self-published works.  Not quite as often, but still frequently, I see counterarguments about the declining quality of professionally edited, traditionally published works.  I agree with both of these positions.  The solution that is most often offered is that Indie authors need to hire editors.  That doesn't address the problem of declining quality among the editorial ranks.  Good editors, like good writers, are hard to find.  Encouraging a poor writer to hire a questionable editor may not remove the stigma.

So, what's the solution?  It's multifaceted, but it's not complicated. As a first step, I think Indie authors need to cultivate critical readers and listen to their feedback.  When you find such gems, don't give them the book until you are certain it's ready to publish.  Ask for comments on the story structure, the ease of reading, and the pacing.  Try to get the reader to zero in on specific examples to illustrate any criticism, but don't expect that they will point to the precise problem.  These folks are hard to find, but they're there.  If you're depending on a relative,  be sure to explain that the purpose of their feedback is to keep you from embarrassing yourself in public, not to make you feel good right now.  Although my wife is fond of me and likes to say nice things to me, she won't let me go out on the town with my shirt on inside out.  I've tried it.  There are some others who help me, as well, and when some or all of them tell me that there's something wrong, I know there's something wrong.  They may all point at different things, but that doesn't matter.  It's my job to find the specific problems and fix them.    

As a second step, if grammar and punctuation get in the way of the story, the writer (or editor, in some cases) needs to go back to school or find a different outlet for creative urges.  An editor should be correcting oversights and mistakes, not picking through the fruits of ignorance.  There is a difference between an editor and a ghost writer.  Let's not confuse the two.

The third step, and the one that all of us who are serious about removing the stigma attached to Indie authors should embrace, is to give honest, direct feedback, as opposed to "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine" reviews.  That's best done with some degree of privacy, as opposed to posting a critique for the world to see.  If you read a lot of Indie books, as I do, you've encountered some that have egregious errors in the first few pages.  Take a minute to write to the author and suggest that, while the story might be interesting, it's obscured by the poor grammar and punctuation.  Don't give it 3, 4, or 5 stars and hope for the same in return.  That's where the stigma comes from.

Is there a place for paid editors, cover designers, and blurb writers in this world?  Certainly, there is.  The good ones earn their money, as do good writers, and their work stands out for the same reasons.  Let's all focus on the quality of our collective product, and the stigma will go away.