Report from Capital Crime Writers Conference

I’m giving a workshop tonight in Belleville on writing character. I enjoy doing workshops, I like talking about writing and I like meeting people who want to be writers. It is at the Belleville Library at 6:00, in case you are interested.
Home from Ottawa.

I had a great booksigning at Chapters on Rideau Street, and thanks to Gary and Dan for organizing that. It is a strange store though. It joins one major street to another and I soon came to realize that a lot of the people passing my table were just walking through. Perhaps the highlight was when one man came up to me and asked “Where is the mystery section?” I was standing in amongst all the ridiculous fru-fru that now populates bookstores and waved my arms towards my table and said “Right Here.” He bought two books.

The CCW conference on Saturday was just great. It was very well attended, about 100 people I’d guess, and a lot of fun. I was on the panel on building your characters and moderated the cozy vs. Hardboiled. There were also readings by local celebrities and Linda Wiken from Prime Crime books was there selling books, and appearing to do a roaring trade. There was even a wonderful catered lunch. Free.

After a lot of us trundled down the road to Darcy McGee’s and then I went out to dinner with some of my friends.

A really great day.

Made even better by getting a good review in the Globe and Mail for Winter of Secrets. The Globe has reviewed most of my books, but never the Molly Smiths, so I wasn’t even expecting them to review the new one. She even recommended it as a gift.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/new-in-crime-fiction/article1361000/

Read an excerpt from Winter of Secrets

I'm all over the Internet this week, blog touring and guest posting. You can read an excerpt (not the first chapter, which is posted on my web page) from Winter of Secrets at http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/. I continue all week to answer questions from the gang at Criminal Minds at http://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/. I'm very pleased with the way the release of the book has been handled by Poisoned Pen Press's new distribution organization Ingrams Publishing Services (the Manda Group in Canada). By the time I got around to sending out notices about the book to my contacts list, several people replied to say they'd already bought it. A couple had finished it! Under the old model if the release date of the book was November 1 that meant it would start trickling into the bookstores two or three or even four weeks later. Now November 1 seems to mean November 1. Which is just great for setting up booksignings. On Friday I am off to Ottawa for a signing at the Chapters on Rideau Street, but the big event is the Capital Crime Writers one-day conference. There will be panels and readings and signings and books for sale, and all for free! If you are in the area of our capital city, check it out at www.capitalcrimewriters.com. So far I am scheduled to be read by TBD. I hope he or she is good!

It is getting cold enough that my furnace has kicked it (and I keep my house plenty cold, let me tell you.) So this morning I laid a fire in the woodburning stove. I use the wood mainly because it is a lot cheaper than the propane that fuels the furnace, and because I like it. Except that the stove is in the same room as my office. I am soon going to be driven out by the heat. For the rest of the winter I'll be moving my laptop into the dining room when not using the table. Seems somewhat inefficent to me - a nice study that I can't use half the year!

Criminal Minds

All this week, I'll be the guest blogger at Criminal Minds (http://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/). Yes, that's a whole week with seven postings. So between doing that and working on the edits for Negative Image and sending out notices about the release of Winter of Secrets, and getting the garden ready for winter, I'll be busy. Oh, and today is my day over at Type M. So about all I can do on this blog is post a link to Criminal Minds. See you there!

Fatal Foodies

One of my favourite blogs to visit is Fatal Foodies. That picture on the top of their page is really something. They were kind enough to invite me to guest blog this week, and I wrote about how easy it was to create mood and atmosphere in Winter of Secrets because the book is set over the Christmas holidays. The book begins on Christmas Eve and ends on New Year's Day. Take a peek!

Editing Negative Image

Back and home and back to work. I got the editor’s comments on the newest Molly Smith, Negative Image. She likes the book – yeah! That’s always a relief! – but (there’s always a but) she wants some changes. In particular she doesn’t like the motivation for the major plot point. Keep the plot as it is, she said, but the character’s motivation isn’t convincing. Fortunately she doesn’t just say, don’t like it change it, she has suggestions. And I like her suggestion for this one. So back to work I go.

ALso, Andy Smith takes very ill. In my version he has a heart attack, and the editor doesn’t like that either, she wants a different problem. I have been investigating various diseases, but might stick to my guns on this one. Everyone knows what a heart attack is, why go running off in search of something else?

In the meantime I have several guest blogging posts coming up and have pieces to write for them. Generally I like doing those: it’s a different sort of writing than pure fiction and stretches some of my less-used mental muscles.

And then there is my W-I-P (work in progress) that I am anxious to dive back into. My goal for that is just to have the prologue and first scene ready for my critique group at the end of the month.

And, of course, the garden to look after. While I was away the trees dropped all their leaves and the plants all died so there is a lot of cleaning up to do. At least I got the vegetable bed turned over and prepared for next year before I left. I am wanting to plant garlic and that has to be done pretty soon, so I might not get around to it.

P.S. last night’s stew was fabulous. I have enough left over for tonight’s dinner.

Beef Stew Tonight

Home, home, home. Thank Heavens. It’s cold and raining heavily and I am looking foward to a big pot of beef stew for dinner tonight. I’ve been eating in restaurants and grabbing meals on the road for two weeks - I’ve also been very tired and feeling sluggish, and I think the two things go together.

So tonight I’m going to do beef stew with mushrooms and carrots (the only time I can stand cooked carrots) and a couple of potatoes in the stew for thickness and a pile of mashed spuds on the side. When the stew has simmered for a couple of hours, I’ll stir in a big batch of Swiss chard and boil most of it down to add extra punch and nutrition to the dish.

Can’t wait.

On Monday I did an interview with Linda Faulkner at her Author Exchange Blog. You can read it at: http://lindamfaulknertips.blogspot.com/2009/11/author-interview-with-vicki-delany.html

And by the way - the car was fixed quickly and we were able to get back on our way. We lost the half day we had planned for going to Peggy's Cove to see the ocean, but didn't miss any book events

Stranded!

Every book tour has its up and downs and this one seems to have had a lot more downs than usual. There were a lot of problems with getting books into the bookstores, the sales were less than stellar although our library and university events were quite successful. Then - car trouble. We are sitting in the waiting room of the Chryster dealership in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia at the moment, while the mechanics check out Robin's car to see what that noise is. Let's hope we can be on our way shortly. On the plus side - we had a super stay with Patti Gouthro and her husband Brian over the weekend and met a lot of very nice people in Halifax.