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Category Archives: Beyond the Tripping Point

Turning winter weather into fiction

14 Jan
Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

If you’re like me and hate winter with a passion, don’t just moan and groan about it. Write about it.

Not necessarily your hatred for the season itself. But set your story in winter. Take some of the weather highlights as white fodder for your stories. Follow news stories on the weather on TV or online from various media outlets. One of the best sources is The Weather Network. Both on TV and online, they feature stories in video and text (online) formats about some of the extremes in winter, as well as amusing incidents.

For example, this week, a motorist parked his car beside Lake Erie in south western Ontario. Then we got a flash freeze and snow. If you can’t imagine what happened (no the car didn’t fall into the lake, check out the story here). From that you can let your imagination run wild with story ideas. Maybe there is a dead body in the car – froze to death or murdered before and left there to die? Somebody in an emotional turmoil – failed relationship, terminal illness, etc. – decides to end it all. Somebody wants to save their body for posterity to come back in a later century and finds a unique way to “preserve” his or her body.  Or? Well, you get the picture.

The main idea is to take the actual story, not copy it, but use it for inspiration for your story. And be original.

You can also do the opposite of what is written. In my story “The Couch” from my short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point (Blue Denim Press, 2012), I took a theme from many private eye stories – the PI who is having trouble making ends meet. (If you want a recent TV series on that one, watch the British series Case Histories). My story had a young, mid-20s PI who had just the opposite happening – too many clients. So my story took this dilemma and spun out a tale of how this PI tried to reduce the number of clients. It wasn’t that straightforward as the story has many twists and turns and a surprise ending.

And that’s all I will tell about “The Couch.” If you want to read it (warning, short plug coming here), you’ll have to read “Beyond the Tripping Point.” Click on the book cover below for one place it is available besides the usual Amazon (yes, it’s available there, too)

And use that blizzard keeping you indoors for time given to write your story.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Beyond the Tripping Point Cover 72dpi

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2016 in Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Characters and plot in fiction, Credible Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection

 

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Beyond Blood characters wish you Happy New Year

31 Dec
Sharon A. Crawford channelling Dana Bowman from Beyond Blood

Sharon A. Crawford channelling Dana Bowman from Beyond Blood

Sharon A. Crawford has asked us to step in and wish you a happy new year. But before we do that, we – Dana Bowman and Bast Overture from Beyond Blood would like to sum up this year from our perspective between the book covers.

Dana: It’s been a good year for both of us, me especially as Sharon is channelling me, or so she says. But really it is me jumping out of the book, going in front of an audience and telling what I think of Sharon, her writing and some of her quirks. She really seems to have a thing about short people and making me three inches shorter than her? But she really gets me – my impulsiveness, sticking my nose in everybody else’s business…

Bast: She is a former journalist and that’s what journalists do.

Dana: You should know. You are a former crime reporter.

Bast: True. But Sis, you really need to get over this short height thing. Not even an issue.

Dana: You should talk. You’re 6’3″ I don’t think Sharon will ever channel you on stage.

Bast: Maybe not, but I’ve heard a writer friend of hers is interested in doing this.

Dana: Really. Actually that should be interesting. We can then both dis Sharon.

Bast: Why not just talk about how she writes with us?

Dana: Yes, she does do that, but it’s more fun to talk about her quirks.

Bast: Now, Sis, I don’t think that is a good idea.

Dana: Why not?

Bast: We shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds us.

Dana: Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

Sharon: Dana, Bast, stop! I asked you to extend a Happy New Year to all, not get into a sibling squabble. But I get it. You both were born December 31, so maybe that is behind all this. You know getting a year older.

Dana: Which year?

Sharon: Let’s just focus on this year going into next year. Now, all together…

Dana, Bast, Sharon: Happy New Year to everyone. May you write and read a lot and most of all be healthy and prosperous.

 

Cheers.

Sharon, Dana, Bast

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2015 in Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Channelling Fiction Characters, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Sharon A. Crawford

 

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Beyond Blood another book review on Goodreads

24 Dec

Hi all:

Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

Another review of Beyond Blood, this time by literary novelist Christopher Caniff, has been posted to my Goodreads account. Here’s the review and some links afterwards.

 

Sharon Crawford’s latest novel Beyond Blood is a story of murder, kidnapping, fraud, and abortion with a varied cast of characters led by an undercover security guard at Toronto’s Thurston Mini-Mall, Dana Bowman. To call this book a simple murder mystery would not initiate an expectation of this plot’s complexity. When Dana plans to start the Attic Investigative Agency in August of 1998 with her fraternal twin, Bast Overture (a former crime reporter), a series of events unfold which begin with a mall kidnapping, two others having occurred recently at other malls in Toronto, and the abduction of Dana’s son David at the agency’s opening ceremony. David’s babysitter Debbie Sangwell is found lifeless with a knife in her back. Dana leaves her job at the mall to work with police detectives Harker and Fielding and investigate the murder, as well as a seemingly unrelated string of burglaries, and in the process to find her son.

Frustrating and complicating her search are the Mini-Mall merchants Lois and Ray Chalmers, Dana’s ex-husband Ronald, her ex-lover Gordon Lambton, and her Great Aunt Doris. The loss of two of her friends and her aunt also cause difficulties as Dana continues to seek to elucidate the reason for all of the apparently unconnected events occurring around her. A television reporter, Charles Haas, is ever-present and confronts Dana and Bast about the burglaries and kidnappings. There are ransom demands made by the kidnappers as enquiries into a past hit-and-run become important.

As she progresses in her increasingly emotional exploration for answers to her son’s whereabouts, her past job becomes significant and illuminates information she would not have otherwise obtained. As Bast knew, “Dana was the one who wore her emotions on her sleeve. He was the twin who held it in.” This is shown throughout the novel and becomes central during confrontations both on land and, toward the end of the novel, on the water at Snow Lake Harbour.

The novel is told with the alternating first person viewpoint of Dana, and the third person stories of Bast, David, and the mysterious “him” produce a complex weaving of interrelationships that enriches the world these characters populate. While I do not normally read this genre, I would recommend this novel to both seasoned mystery readers and novices alike.

 

Thanks you Christopher. Here is the link to our Goodreads pages

Sharon A. Crawford

Christopher Caniff

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate and a good 2016 with lots of writing.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

The book cover at the top links to Beyond Blood and Beyond the Tripping and my author profile on amazon.com

 

 
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Posted by on December 24, 2015 in Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Book Promotion, Book Reviews, Characters and plot in fiction, Writing

 

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Act like a journalist to do research for your novel

17 Dec
Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

Three and a half years ago I finally stopped being a journalist. Or so I thought.

The journalistic writing may have stopped, but something stayed, something carried over to my fiction writing. My research skills, including my interviewing skills and more important the realization that even with fiction you need to seek out the experts for some aspects of your novel besides the craft of writing fiction. Most novels contain something else – perhaps medical conditions, perhaps police procedure, perhaps court procedure, perhaps historical information, perhaps socio-economic conditions, perhaps geographic information. The list goes on and on.

So as I write my novels, this research necessity is always in the back of my mind. Coupled with readers’ intelligence and knack to find anything off in my novel, I make notes in brackets in the manuscript about getting more info. I even do separate files with lists of what I need to find and where I could get it.

Some, of course can be found on the Internet. Mr. Google is very helpful. So are books on the subject. But some more specifics may need that personal expert.  In the last few years when I did a story for a magazine – print and/or online, and I needed information, I did the list of online links for information as well as indicating where a person was necessary. Sometimes there would be someone mentioned in these links; other times not. Then I used my other writing connections – sometimes posting on a listserve I belonged to – sometimes directly to a contact who might have this info.

I have received some good sources that way including a source who decided he could play guinea pig to be interviewed because he had been involved as victim in the crime. (Yes, this was a story about crime).

Other times I’ve found sources at writing or other conferences – either others attending or a speaker. So I talked to them, let them know what I was doing, and asked if I could interview them.

Usually they could help including letting me interview them.

Sometimes just random conversations with friends lead to sources and sometimes they were the source. Other times it worked for story ideas. That can work for fiction story ideas but that’s for another post.

Another good source is your public library and sometimes it is better to go right to the library, especially if there is a reference library branch. Stacks of books that you can’t find elsewhere and you can’t borrow can be found there – for in-library checking. And don’t forget the knowledgeable librarians. University libraries can also be of great help.

Just remember that because you write fiction, you have to include some facts. You wouldn’t want to have your main character holidaying today in a country using the country’s former name? If you set your story during a war, you definitely want to get your facts right about places and dates.  Leave no (research) stone unturned.

Which reminds me – I need to talk to a medical doctor who specializes in concussions for the novel I’m currently writing. I have taken the first few steps, the Internet, books, and getting some contacts from a former medical doctor turned journalist.

Your publisher may catch some or raise questions about others, but what if you are self-publishing your novel? Either way, you the author are responsible. Get your facts right. Act like a journalist but write like a novelist.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

The book cover at the top links to Beyond Blood on Amazon.com

 
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Posted by on December 17, 2015 in Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Research for fiction, Sharon A. Crawford, Toronto Public Library

 

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Book promo through acting?

03 Dec
Sharon A. Crawford channelling Dana Bowman from Beyond Blood

Sharon A. Crawford channellng Dana Bowman from Beyond Blood

If you are a published author, you might want to try something else besides reading from your book to entertain and possibly sell book copies.

When I present with three or four other Crime Writers of Canada authors, we don’t just stand there and read. We have found that reading only bores the audience and we don’t really connect with them. So, we get a lively panel discussion going with one of us moderating. Sometimes we have prepared questions which we all answer – or some variation of the questions when we have true crime and fiction writers. Sometimes we each take turns talking about something connected to our writing – maybe writing series novels, research for true crime books. In both setups we welcome lots of questions from the audience.

And that gets the lively discussions going and what you have is writers and readers connecting.

Some of us venture out into more creative outlets. I know one crime writer who has actors play out scenes from her books. Another one has conducted mystery tours in Toronto. And I have started acting (in my old age, no less, portraying someone 25 years younger than me).

As mentioned in last week’s post, I now do brief skits, dressed up as my main Beyond Blood character Dana Bowman. In most of the scenarios – and I do vary them each time – Dana disses me, her author. That can include some quirky personal habits and writing habits. Dana, of course, claims to write her novels. But she does give me credit for getting her character down pat. I take a humorous tone and keep it to 10 minutes.

So far, i.e., two times it has gone over very well. One person in the audience (also a writer) said that my character just jumped out of the book. And the editor at my publisher’s was so enthused, he and I are planning on doing skits together starting in spring 2016.

And yes, it helps sell books.

Maybe I’m a ham at heart. Seriously, it might be a good idea for you to do something else besides read to promote your books. Do something unexpected; catch your audience off guard and at the same time connect with them.

I do one more Dana skit this year, tomorrow, Dec. 4, 2015 for a fundraiser for Syrian Refugees. Here is the blurb for that one.

This is a reminder of our upcoming Lifeline Syria Fundraiser.
Writers, musicians, and actors across Toronto are joining forces to raise money for Lifeline Syria (the Toronto-based grassroots organization helping to sponsor l,000 Syrian refugees).
There will be a silent auction including tickets to Soulpepper, spa passes, books, and lunch with Camilla Gibb.
Middle Eastern appetizers and desserts will be available on a pay what you can basis.
Details: Date: Dec 4Time: 6:30pm-l0:00pmLocation: Friends House, 60 Lowther Ave (Avenue Rd/Bloor) Cost: $l0.00

Cheers.

Sharon

 
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Posted by on December 3, 2015 in Author Reading, Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Book Promotion, Channelling Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Uncategorized, Writing

 

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Tales – good and bad – from the book promo trenches

26 Nov
Sharon A. Crawford channelling Dana Bowman from Beyond Blood

Sharon A. Crawford channelling Dana Bowman from Beyond Blood. Shane Joseph photo

Still promoting my Beyond books. But when you do this you also need to help other writers promote their books. It is only fair as we are all in this together.

And sometimes that can be fun as the photo at the left shows. Cut line explains it briefly but more on that shortly. First I need to mention the downside as other published authors may run into this, if not with this bookseller, but another one, or two.

Up to last week, my encounters with booksellers have been amicable and polite. All had said they would at least see about carrying my Beyond Blood in their store. One even opted to carry a copy of each Beyond book. A couple of others I have to follow up on but they are part of a big chain, which has been helpful at other branches, so we will see here.

Now the bad and the ugly. I have also been approaching independent bookstores, but the latest venture there has left a sour taste in my mouth. Last week I entered Ben McNally Books in downtown Toronto. I always like to check to see if they already have a copy of my book. Ben McCally Books has a weird book placement system. No books by category – no signs either at the top of the bookshelves. Mystery,science fiction are all placed in with all fiction – alphabetically by author. So be it if that is the way they want to do it – their prerogative.

I approached the owner, Ben McNally about carrying a copy of Beyond Blood. As always, I stated it is not self-published but is published by a small Canadian trade publisher and handed him my business card and now that I have more – a couple of bookmarks. He barely glanced at them and said, ” Sorry, no.” He looked about as sorry as a person arrested who shows no remorse for his crime.

Being a former journalist and naturally curious, I asked “Why?”

He said he didn’t want books by small trade publishers.

So, I three him my kicker:

“Indigo (big Canadian book chain) has them in their stores.”

Then, I turned and left the store.

And you know, there weren’t many other customers in the store. Which says something.

I went directly to the big downtown Indigo store and what a difference. Manager very interested in carrying my Beyond Blood in that Indigo store. Indigo Chapters online has carried both Beyond books from day 1 for each, including print copy and e-copy (Kobo). Also this downtown Indigo bookstore is very busy – lots of customers. Because of the positive response, I bought a book there to give as a gift to a friend.

What goes around comes around.

And that brings me to what goes with the photo at the top.

I have started doing brief skits featuring Dana Bowman, the main character in the Beyond stories. I give Dana instructions to talk about herself and to read a bit from Beyond Blood.

Dana being Dana doesn’t listen. She does talk about herself some – but connects it to talking about me, her author. Dana claims she is instrumental in writing the Beyond stories. Oh, to a certain extent. I’ve been told I’m channelling Dana. I don’t mind her talking about writing and some of my quirks – if related to writing, but she can leave my plants out of it.

And when I say to read, she needs to read from Beyond Blood. And that hair in the photo above, taken by the editor at my publishers at their fall book launch, November 21? Dana has short “boy style hair.” Now she has decided to grow it somewhat. Really?

But the skit went over well at Blue Denim Press’s book launch. I was happy to bring along a few friends and to pre-promote the book launch and the authors launching their books, Shane Joseph and Chris Canniff, including reviewing their books in the two previous posts on this blog. The launch also had a Flamenco dancer and her husband providing the music on his guitar.

The funny thing here is Michael, the husband, used to come to my East End Writers’ Group when he and Lesley lived in my area. So did Shane when he lived in Toronto. And I knew Chrit from Canadian Authors Association Toronto Branch.

See, we writers are all connected, so we need to help each other.

Certain booksellers need to learn that too. Then they might get more business.

Dana Bowman will be making one more appearance before Christmas on Dec.4 and Sharon A. Crawford will have her Beyond books for sale at the Toronto Heliconian Club Art and Gift sale, Saturday, November 28. See my Gigs and Blogs page for more info.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on November 26, 2015 in Author Reading, Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Book Promotion, Book Reviews, Channelling Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Uncategorized

 

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Transitioning the real into the reel (fiction)

29 Oct

 

Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

Sometimes we go through tremendous ordeals in our lives. Often it is because of a big change – a death in the family, relationship breakup, personal illness, or being the victim of a crime.

Writing about it is often a way to heal and tell our story to others. A journal, personal essay or even a non-fiction article encompassing the ordeal is more fact, more actual with a story (and viewpoint included).

But what if you want to fictionalize it? Do you present details and people as they happened? Do you change people’s names and some details? How can you go about it?

Authors do it several ways. You do have to be concerned with libel – especially if the fiction is more fact than fiction. An author colleague is very particular here because she ran into libel issues a couple of times in the past – no libel involved, but it can scare you and serve as a warning.

Other authors use the “based on…” line.

Some write what they want and use the “Any resemblance to living persons, etc.” disclaimer.

I am a bit liberal about my approach. For the most part I sometimes take something from my life as a basis for a story – but the characters aren’t me or whomever else appeared and the story definitely is different. For example, in my short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point, one story deals with two female friends who have problems with a car brake that won’t work as they drive up to the cottage. This happened to a friend and I about 30 years ago. All my friend had to contend with was the brakes failing. She used the parking brake and we were in and out of gas stations looking for a bay to get the problem fixed. That’s where truth ends. What happens in “No Breaks” is well, crime fiction.

But I do up the ante sometimes if someone has really messed up with my life. When I told this story at a recent Crime Writers of Canada reading, I could just feel the other author mentioned above cringe. (I was looking at the audience, not her, so didn’t actually see her face).

There is a way to do this. One of the characters in one of my short stories in Beyond the Tripping Point is loosely based on this real-life person – only the age is in the same decade and I saw her features, her way of dressing in my mind. But from the minimal description I gave of her, she could be any person in that age bracket fitting that description. I kept her in the same work industry but a different job. Yes, she was one of the suspects, but I won’t tell you if she was the guilty one.

A bit of background here – the person (yes a family member) objected to me writing and getting published family stories as memoir but she said I could fictionalize any of it. So, I did a variation of that.

In Beyond Blood, a couple of characters, Detective Sergean tDonald  Fielding and Great Aunt Doris Bowman are loosely on people I have known – but none of them messed up my life. The first one I liked and the second one was an interesting person. Dana Bowman, my main character, is she based on me? Not exactly. For one thing she is 25 years younger than me. True, we are both short in stature, but I made her shorter, something she is a bit peeved about. Let’s just say Dana tends to boldly go where I just might not do so.

So, it is not all cut and dry about going from real to reel. Just consider that even when your fiction has nothing to do with real life, at least any you have experienced, read about or seen, there is always somebody who will insist that a character in your story is based on them.

Usually they are wrong. Perhaps they have a latent wish to be immortalized in some way.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Click on the Beyond Blood cover at the top to find out where copies are available

 
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Posted by on October 29, 2015 in Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Characters and plot in fiction, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Uncategorized

 

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Don’t rush your writing

08 Oct
Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

We writers all seem to have deadlines with writing our novels or short stories. Sometimes it is the publisher’s deadline, sometimes our own. So we fret and hurry through writes and rewrites and maybe don’t write our best.

Last Saturday I had a heart-to-heart talk with the acquisitions editor at Blue Denim Press (publisher of my Beyond mystery books). Shane had a big piece of advice – Don’t rush the writing.

If you rush it, you’ll miss things, make errors and your writing will come across as hurried. This is mostly me speaking, but including some of what Shane and I discussed. Note: Shane is also a published fiction author. Both of us have missed things because of writing in too much of a hurry. His error is his business, but it was caught in time before all print copies of his new novel In the Shadow of the Conquistador were done for the book launch, etc.

I’ll tell you my stupid error – it is in the current Beyond book (third in the series), I am writing – apparently too fast because of time constraints (too much else going on in my life – the writing, editing and instructing business, health, house, social, etc.) Anyway for  those familiar with my Beyond books, they are set in the late 1990s, although this third one gets my fraternal twin PIs, Dana Bowman and Bast Overture into the beginning or 2000.

Which is neither here nor there with my writing error. In one scene Bast goes to the Toronto Reference Library to look up old addresses in the Toronto Might Street Directory. So, I had him go to the library’s former address – now the University of Toronto Bookstore. Why? I had done research there and for some reason the decade  that I did so got lost in my brain, so hence my date mixup.

I had gone there in the early 1970s. Bast went to the Toronto Reference Library in late 1999. This newer (and current) TRL location opened in 1977. My error arrived in my brain weeks after writing it, as often happens when not actually writing. You can bet I made the change next time I turned on the computer.

That is only one of the many things that can suffer if you write too fast. Try to pace yourself and make more time for your writing – either in the time spent each day/week or the whole time (months/years) spent.

If you do that, when your publisher accepts your manuscript and you sign that contract, you won’t have to worry so much when the publisher suggests some changes.

And often publishers have tight deadlines.

I am constantly trying to prioritize my life – including dumping things, saying “no” more often and putting some people and things on hold.  Still an uphill battle, but I try. And I need to try to relax more.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Click on the Beyond Blood cover at the top to find out where copies are available

 
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Posted by on October 8, 2015 in Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Rewriting Fiction, Sharon A. Crawford, Time Management for Writers, Toronto Public Library, Writing, Writing Time

 

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Book Promo trick learned at festival and library

01 Oct
Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

It has been a hectic few days with my Beyond Books at two booths (not during the same hour) at Word on the Street last Sunday and Tuesday evening at the Runnymede Toronto Public Library Branch.

Very interesting – great to meet readers and other writers and chat. And I also learned and applied a new sales technique (new to me) that worked, so much so that I have to order more copies of my first published Beyond book – Beyond the Tripping Point from my publisher and he in turn has to order more from the distributor. This book was published three years ago. And we’re talking print copies, not e-copies. So there is still steam in the “old” book and the “old” book copy option.

So what happened?

I’ve been attending the Word on the Street Festival, Toronto version almost every year since it began, often selling books or passing out info about writers’ organizations or both. This year it changed venue for the third time.This year it was at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre beside Lake Ontario. It was a hot summer day (yes, I know it is fall), sunny and very pleasant. So were most of the people there and the venue setup – closer together and also specific areas to sit and rest your feet and your a.. well you know what.

At WOTS I had an hour each at two booths selling Beyond Blood and Beyond the Tripping Point as well as handing out business cards and flyers for two more of the venues I would be at this fall, and chatting about my books with people who pass by. Very important. You don’t just sit there and smile because not everyone is going to stop unless you approach them. “Do you read mystery novels?” became my ice-breaker and if the answer was “yes” (about two-thirds to three-quarters of the time), I was off talking about my Beyond books and holding up copies as I talked. I was at the Crime Writers of Canada booth first and then Toronto Sisters in Crime. Despite the crowded quarters of the latter (in a booth at extended tables with other writing organizations). Space was so limited the poets reading had to stand on a table at their end. That was also where anyone going to sit behind any of the tables had to enter the area. Sisters in Crime had their booth at the other end. So if I didn’t want to hop the table to get out and chat, I had to maneuver over to the other end, avoid the poet on the table, slither out and walk to the end where I stood and chatted.

I was selling both books as two for one price (and made sure I had the individual prices listed on my price sheet to show the difference). That worked for sales, including to a lady who said she had to run into the building behind to the ATM and would I be there? Of course, I would.

During all this I was trying to find and keep track of two old friends (who didn’t know each other at that point). One found me over at the Crime Writers booth but the other didn’t find me until the end of my stint at Sisters in Crime. But both kept busy going to booths, chatting and collecting info. The latter friend got steered to me by another mystery writer the friend had seen and heard at a previous Crime Writers of Canada library reading.

Which brings me to Runnymede library branch and Tuesday night. Despite rain, we got a good number of readers who filled the library program room. And it was one of the better author presentations by some of us from Crime Writers of Canada – Rob Brunet, Karen Blake-Hall, Madeleine Harris Callway and me. We talked about our books, often putting in humour, telling stories of how we got our stories settings, how we got our stories, did a little reading from our books and then opened it to questions.

It was really like chatting with old and new friends.

And yes, I sold more books – the package deal again and was really rewarded more by one author purchasing when she said “I really like your writing.” Mind you she has attended some of my writing workshops at library branches and I probably read something I had written there.

So, what’s the morale here to promote books? Get involved with your audience, entertain, and offer good deals with your books.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection. Click on it for publisher's website

 
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Posted by on October 1, 2015 in Author Reading, Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Book Promotion, Characters and plot in fiction, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Toronto Public Library, Writing

 

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On the book promo road again

24 Sep
Sharon A. Crawford's latest in the Beyond series

Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

The presentation at Woodbridge library last Thursday evening was another one of those magical evenings where readers and authors connect. So much so we could have gone long beyond the end time.

Rosemary McCracken, Nate Hendley and I did our separate mini-presentations, each ending with a short reading from one of our books. Nate sat between us “the thorn between the roses” is the way he put it. Maybe, but not the author, more for what he writes – true crime. Nate talked about how he started writing books and sort of “fell” into writing about criminals and now also those wrongly convicted like Steven Truscott. Nate also read an excerpt from Steven Truscott: Decades of Injustice (Five River Publishing, 2012)

Rosemary talked about her mystery series featuring financial advisor Pat Tierney and the issues writers of book series have to face. She also discussed how writing contests have helped her get her stories (yes, she also writes short stories) published – something writers shouldn’t ignore. Rosemary read the beginning of her first Pat Tierney novel Safe Harbor (Imajin Books, 2012)

I talked about my series characters – but not from the writing a series viewpoint, but where some of them came from and the location and time period for the Beyond stories featuring the fraternal twin PIs Dana Bowman and Bast Overture and how both affect my research. I also covered a bit of the research I do and read the beginning Prologues from Beyond Blood.(Blue Denim Press, 2014)

And then we turned it over to the audience. Lots of questions – from research to journalism – I got the question on the latter to my surprise because I’m the former journalist and Nate and Rosemary continue working as freelance journalists. The questions turned into a real dialogue among authors and readers. Like we were chatting in a living room – well a somewhat large living room. Afterwards, some of the readers came up to the table to chat more with us and to buy a few books.

And some of us Crime Writers of Canada authors are going to do it again next Tuesday, Sept. 29, 6.30 p.m. to 8 p.m., this time at a library in Toronto’s west end – Runnymede branch. This time the authors are Rob Brunet, Karen Blake-Hall, Madeleine Callway and myself. No true crime, but three of us (Rob, Madeleine and I) all had our first novel published in the second half of last year. Karen writes sizzling suspense-romance. The presentation is free so if you are in the Toronto area, please come – exact address is 2178 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON. I’m not going to put the library link because as I found out in my other blog http://www.onlychildwrites.wordpress.com) posting on Tuesday, the link for that memoir writing workshop I was teaching Tuesday evening has now disappeared. Fair enough. The workshop is done and over with. So, for now you can check out my Gigs and Blog Tours page on this site (click on it at the top). Just remember the link to the Runnymede library blurb will probably disappear after Sept. 29.

And that reminds me – I better add October’s events to this  Gigs and Blog Tours page.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Click on the Beyond Blood cover at the top to find out where copies are available

 
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Posted by on September 24, 2015 in Author Reading, Beyond Blood, Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Book Promotion, Crime Writing, Other authors, Public Libraries, Series Characters novels and short stories, Sharon A. Crawford, Writing

 

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