JoAnn Krapp and I, two Long Island Indy Authors, have been visiting Indy Bookstores this summer. You can see our first installment at Summertime is a great time to find the treasures and surprises found in a bookstore. It’s a…
I had an idea. The idea was to expand my first novel, The Madonna Ghost, by explaining how I wrote it. That idea grew out of a workshop I did for libraries and other groups called “So You Want to…
. . . Why not branch out and use them while you’re waiting for that bestseller to happen? Author Groups are one of the best places to share information, tips and experiences. One of my author friends told me about…
62-15 for Newsletter Seasons on the Flower Farm at 62-15 Spring Yes. It really was a flower farm. Living in the city of New York, I just never thought of it that way, but like the farmers in the mid-west…
The aspect of coming up with ideas for a new book, or series, that is, for me, the most fun is definitely the characters.
Once I’ve a plot idea I need to get that plot going by creating people to drive the plot.
The main idea for “Buccaneers” was to have a group of kids, living on a remote island, solve a mystery. The Catholic School part was something that I’ve been wanting to do for some time. I thought it would be fun to draw on my own Catholic School experiences. I also wanted to set the story in the simpler times of post WWII America.
Since my main audience is young readers, I wanted to present how kids would survive without the internet and cell phones. But I also wanted “my kids” to use the technology of their times, a precursor to how their modern counterparts have embraced technology.
So, Lily! I close my eyes and here’s this healthy, pig-tailed girl with sagging knee socks, a slightly untidy uniform, and saddle shoes. She’s a little taller than her contemporaries, and able to corral her friends into a club.
The name, Lily Dawes, just sounds nice. When I do workshops with students, they want to know how I come up with names for characters. I honestly can’t say I have a gimmick for doing this. I think being a teacher with seventy-five to one hundred students’ names per year, there is a backlog in my memory and names just pop up.
The name must fit the character. Lily Dawes is a name that bespeaks a future young woman with a beautiful name. But, c’mon, we’re in 1947 in the eight grade and a lovely young woman is not on the radar. So, Lily chooses her code name, Sprocket. A sprocket is a machine part that make parts of a machine engage and move. The other Buccaneers have code names too. Find out about them next time.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER CONTEST I just entered the Independent Press Award BIG BOOK contest. See the details on www.independentpressaward.com AUTHOR’S TIP: Figure out the different genre’s or categories your book might fit. It broadens the number of contests, awards, competitions,…
THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST AVENGER What is the allure to Annie of the story of her great grandmother, Charlotte Wheeler? What is your theory about Charlotte Wheeler’s ghost? How does Annie begin to see her mother in light of…
During my teaching career when I taught Forensic Science, and now in my lecture series, I have dealt with and do treat topics in forensic science. Forensic science is any branch of science or area of expertise in that branch…
Writing my Annie Tillery Mystery series is a second career for me. My first career was teaching the sciences. I was lucky enough to teach forensic science which had afforded many possibilities for writing “case studies” for my students.…
https://www.book2look.com/book/paXPc52TTo This is a neat way to advertise your books. It puts all your good stuff into a compact package. The book itself, or an excerpt Where to buy your books Book Trailers/ videos or podcasts Review How to share…