Happy grandparents day, all. And here’s to the kids, who bring a sense of wonder…
and curiosity…
and open the door to new experiences…
and make for a gift that keeps being opened.
Beginnings Cover Reveal contest
Hey, it’s time for a cover reveal–and an e-puzzle!
Here’s what you do:
- Go here.
- Do the puzzle, on your computer or mobile device.
- When you’ve done it, send me an email to [email protected] with the subject Beginnings, and tell me what the main image of the puzzle is. We’ll do a drawing from the correct replies.
BUT YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY because it’s going up on the publishers’ site then. So spread the word, enter the contest, win
ONE OF SIX SIGNED PAPERBACK COPIES
before it’s actually published on October 1. (This one’s good anywhere in the world.)
Have fun!
Fun with adverts
One of the fun things we do here in Team LRK is put together ads and images for various projects. I toss down some words and ideas, then Robert the Photoshop King tries to make sense of them. We always go back and forth a hundred times, but we always end up with something I think is fun.
This one is an ad for the center pages of the pocket guide for this year’s BoucherCon, left and right. Since we’re sponsoring the hospitality suite all Thursday morning, make sure you stop in and have a cup of tea–or coffee–on Ms Russell and Mr Holmes.
And maybe something sweet from Mrs Hudson.
July giveaway
The July giveaway closes on August 1! Here’s what we’re giving away this month, a really gorgeous notebook that I got in Venice, where Island of the Mad is set. It shows the tile-work of the San Marco floor.
If you haven’t entered yet, you might want to pop over and stick your name down. Instructions are on the last newsletter, here.
Giveaways for June
For those of you who like giveaways but aren’t yet signed up for the newsletter, this month we have two. 
One is from my US publishers, for a book-club sized pile of the new Island of the Mad paperbacks AND some nice swag for your book group to enjoy. The other is from me (therefore, not just US) for one copy of that shiny new paperback and a gorgeous silk scarf that I bought when I was in Venice researching the book.
The Random House contest ends June 21. The scarf drawing will be July 1.
If you want to enter either contest, links to both are at the end of my June newsletter, which you can find here.
Write and rewrite
[Sorry all, the rewrite workshop is the 29th, not the 22nd. Brain fever…]
Today I hit the (theoretical) 2/3 mark in the new Russell & Holmes novel! Not that 201 pages is a novel–even 301 pages isn’t–but there’s a rhythm to a book that I get to know, and 200 is a good, solid mark.
I also want to let you know that there are still some seats left in the workshop I’m teaching on the rewrite process on June 22. I’ll be using sections of my own work, including this very Work In Progress. If you or someone you know are interested in the rewrite stage, I’m in San Francisco on June 22—signup is here.
Pub day for ISLAND OF THE MAD
To celebrate today’s paperback birth of Island of the Mad, here’s a groovy tune for you to hum all day—and yes, those are my kids dancing:
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes…
A Winner—and a Paperback!
Matter the First: The winner of the four “inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon” anthologies that Les Klinger and I edited is Isabella T. And I think Bella’s going to enjoy these dozens of excellent stories, because she said:
OH MY GOD!! Wow thank you sooooooo much!! I’m such a huge fan!
I can’t believe this thank you thank you thank you!
For the rest of you who entered the contest—and especially for those of you who tried to enter the contest and found it had already shut—I’m so sorry, I screwed up, and thought it was still open. Because of my goof (and your interest) I think I’ll run a second giveaway for these books later in the summer. (However, if you’re depending on blogs or social media for your notifications, you might want to sign up for my newsletter—which is here. In these days of Facebook misdeeds and Twitter toxicity, the newsletter is where I’m tending to put my trust.)
Matter the Second:The US paperback of Island of the Mad hits the shelves tomorrow!
My publishers will be running a couple of giveaways for this—one on Goodreads is open now. The other will be a Book Club in a Box—with multiple copies, party swag, and a letter from me. I’ll let you know when that one opens up.
And if you’d like a signed copy of this fresh and shiny paperback, ask Bookshop Santa Cruz to set one aside for me to scribble in, next time I’m by. Here.
Giving away Sherlock
My friend Les Klinger and I have edited (i.e., dragged many of our friends into writing stories for) four anthologies “inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon.” The stories have won awards, been nominated for others, and mostly have entertained a lot of people.
The giveaway of these four volumes ends midnight, June 1, so make sure you’ve signed up for it, here.
[Oh drat, sorry friends–the contest site seems to have interpreted “June 1” as the beginning of the day, not the end. Apologies for my idiocy, and better luck with next month’s giveaway!]
For the Sake of the Game (2018)
Echoes of Sherlock Holmes (2016)
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes (2014)
A Study in Sherlock (2011)
Halfway to a Russell…
The last couple years of my writing life have been a bit like having my laptop set up in front of one of those machines that spits balls down the length of a cage at a person holding a bat.
It’s not impossible, to dodge, hit, or field the missiles and toss them back while trying to create a story, but it can be somewhat distracting. And I do find that I can handle two or three interruptions in a morning and still go back to the words–although when it comes to four or five, eventually my brain says Hey, look, can we go do something else?
Which makes milestones (if you’ll pardon the confusion of metaphors here) all the more important, either when they’re off on the horizon, or when they’re reached, and falling behind.
Yesterday I hit one of those nice, round, if meaningless and deceptive milestones: the more or less halfway point of a theoretical first draft. My first drafts are a kind of expanded outline, whose purpose is to set up the machinery of the plot and to sketch in the characters. A first draft is not a novel. Mine are rubbish, utterly unreadable for anyone but an experienced editor. For this stage, I aim at 300 pages. Since the final manuscript will be over 400 pages, it gives an idea of how very skeletal the story is in its early form.
(And incidentally, that doubling up of metaphorical imagery–baseballs and mile markers–is not a bad illustration of the difference between a clumsy first draft and a hammered-down final one.)
But: I now have 150 pages that I didn’t have at the beginning of March. Better yet, there are no conferences, Mystery Writers of America workshops, book festivals, or trips to New York coming at me from down the other end of the batting cage. Which means that with a touch of luck, I may be able to keep my head down and write.
Here’s hoping I don’t get knocked off my seat by anything thrown at me by the pitching machine of life.
