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The Other Side of the Writer: Political Blogging

One of the political blogs I post on, BlueGrassRoots, was selected to represent Kentucky at the Democratic National Convention last month. The site is sort of like DailyKos, with people posting their diaries for others to read and review. Most of the members are Kentuckians, although not all of them are.

I had the great honor of attending the Convention as one of the reporters representing the site: media pass and everything! Twenty-three years after getting my degree in journalism, I had my first press gig.

There were three of us, so we took turns for who got which night at the Pepsi Center. I covered Tuesday night and got to see all the Hillary action. I also got a pass for the final night at Invesco Field, where I got to see Obama deliver his speech from a skybox seat! It was an experience of a lifetime.

If you would like to see my political posts in general, you can check them out at:
http://www.bluegrassroots.org/userDiary.do?personId=82

Interest or Commitment?

Well, it’s time for the rubber to hit the road.

I have spent the past six months querying agents, working on synopses until my eyes crossed, and pondering rewrites of my novel. So far, no nibbles from agents, but I need to get on with my writing. I didn’t go on hiatus entirely from writing; I’ve worked on some short stories and have done a good amount of political blogging. Political blogging is, of course, when you root out the fiction in other people’s words.

My blogging, in fact, is where I’ve been most successful this year. I was invited to a bloggers’ panel at the local university earlier this year, and I’m one of three bloggers from Kentucky who will be using a press credential at the Democratic National Convention in August. My first press gig comes twenty-three years after getting a degree in journalism! I guess I had to wait for the Internet to find my niche.

In terms of my next novel, though, I find myself in a quandary. After much deliberation and one very telling Tarot reading, I think I would be better off not taking one specific character into the novel format. Too many people are familiar with him and would attempt to take credit for any book I wrote, regardless of content. This leaves me with the following options:

1. I could write the follow-up story to All This and Family, Too and see if I could sell it alongside or separately from the original novel.

2. I could write a Bethany Howard novel sans woo-woo. I’m not certain I want to do this, though.

3. I could write a novel featuring Lana, my lesbian detective in Asheville.

4. I could write an entirely new novel with characters from scratch.

My wife and I do plan to write at least one novel together, but I believe that having separate projects will make us better writers.

Meanwhile, I need to make some decisions... because six months is long enough to take off from writing novels, and I have made a commitment to writing them.

NOW I get it!

The Bluegrass Blogger Bash!

This Friday, I am one of the invited guests at the Bluegrass Blogger Bash, which will take place in the University of Kentucky Student Center. The focus of the event is political blogging, so I was invited on the basis of my work on blogs like Bluegrass Roots and Focus on the 88th. It's not a fiction-oriented event, although there does seem to be plenty of fiction in politics. Come by, if you can!

Short Division

Only one of us will be attending Saturday's Sisters in Crime meeting: Gwen. I will be staying in Lexington to attend my Legislative District meeting and help elect party officials. This is one of my duties as a new precinct chair.

I realize that one seems hardly connected to the other, but there are some strong resemblances between mysteries and politics. They both involve alliances and secret cabals, the examination of motives, and, frequently, digging up the dirt. They used to both involve murder, too, but the politicians have been cutting back on that with the development of good forensic science.

Bilocation

Gwen and I have been presented with a conflicting schedule: the next meeting of our Sisters in Crime chapter, when we will finally get a critique of the story we wrote jointly, will be on April 12th. Unfortunately, the 12th is also the day for the KY Democratic Party Legislative District elections, a very important day for the party. County executive committees will be elected across the state.

It looks like Gwen and I will have to split up for the day: one will travel to Louisville to hear the critique, while the other stays in Lexington to participate in the elections. The one who stays will have to be the one running for the precinct committee this year. We haven't decided which one of us that will be yet. The position is very important, especially in our underrepresented area, but naturally we are both eager to learn what the group thinks of our story! It will be a difficult decision.

Due to circumstances beyond our control...

...we did not attend the ORV chapter meeting of Sisters in Crime yesterday. In fact, there was no meeting of the ORV chapter, because the place the chapter meets was closed due to the weather. Mother Nature saw fit to dump snow and copious amounts of freezing rain on Kentucky this weekend.

Some members of the group were kind enough to contact and compliment us on our first jointly written story. It'd be funny if the story we wrote together wound up in the anthology and not the ones we wrote individually.

While we were housebound, Gwen and I registered domains in our names at GoDaddy.com. Just thinking about the future, folks. I also spent some time tweaking my novel, but the majority of my Saturday was spent parked in front of crime television, watching the birds and squirrels swarm our feeder and viewing YouTube videos of baby sugar gliders.

Perhaps next month we will get further commentary on our story. Meanwhile, I really need to buckle down on other projects.

Productivity

February was a busy month for us. Gwen and I wrote a new story together from scratch for our SinC chapter's bourbon anthology, and I've spent the last few days making final revisions to my solo story for the anthology. It would be very nice if both our solo stories and the one we wrote as a team were published together.

As mentioned before, I have begun sending queries to agents about my novel. We will see if I get a nibble. Keep your fingers crossed!

Welcome...

...to all members of Sisters in Crime. This page was recently added to their list of member websites.

If you've just tuned in, let me introduce my work. I write weird stories. Some are mysteries, some concern the paranormal, and several stories combine these elements. I've written a few horror stories, but I am more comfortable with the term 'paranormal' because so many of them have humorous elements.

I finished my first novel last year, and am in the process of shipping it around to agents. I have already begun outlining its sequel, and I have a few short story projects going on as well. I am writing one of the latter in conjunction with my wife, Gwen Mayo.

Please feel free to check out a short sample of my writing on the left, plus my story in Low Down and Derby.

As I said before, welcome!

Updates

In October, our chapter of Sisters in Crime made a field trip to a gun range outside of Prospect, Kentucky. We were all trained in gun safety by a former police officer and firearms instructor, then turned loose on the range. I got the shooting part down okay, but I repeatedly loaded the bullets backwards. Yes, fine mechanical ability here. Now my fellow writers know why I usually stick to other methods of murder in my mysteries: defenestration, poisonous blossoms in salads, and strangulation by bullwhip.

Speaking of mysteries, I completed my story for next year's SinC-ORV anthology, which focuses on bourbon. It contains a few of my favorite things: Frank Sinatra, homemade candy, and garden gnomes. My character John Aleron, who previously appeared in 'Spectral Evidence', is the narrator for this story.

The best news, though: I finished my novel! Gwen also finished her novel, so we will be spending the next couple of months editing our works and looking for agents. 2008 promises to be a big year for both of us.

Happy holidays, whichever ones you celebrate!

My Visual DNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Still Alive.... Still Writing

Once again, real life has interfered with my blogging. The holidays were great, and I had a Happy Birthday, but since that my life has gone straight to hell. Let’s just say that 2007 appears to be the year when my wife and I have to repair (and repaint) everything.

My current project is a story for the Ohio River Valley Sisters in Crime's next anthology, which will center on another fine tradition in Kentucky: bourbon. I'm in that annoying stage where I have to pull everything together and hope it won't turn into a wad of crap. (Could I write crap? Surely not, you say, but people only get to see the things I permit them to.)

It's enough to make a writer run screaming into the night... but somehow, I eventually find my way back to the computer to do just a little more.

R.I.P. Rage Machine Books

I am sorry to report that Rage Machine books, the publisher of the Ghostbreakers series, has closed down. This means that my stories “Caldera of Trouble” and “Spectral Evidence” are currently unavailable. The world of small publishers is a cruel one, but hope springs eternal. If the series returns to print, I’ll post the new information here. In the meantime, I’ve had to shift my links.

Us at the Frankfort Book Fair

Here we are at the Frankfort Book Fair. Gwen on the left, Sarah on the right. It was a very large and well-attended event, and we did a brisk business with our anthologies.

Finally, the dust has settled

Well, NaNoWriMo is behind us, and Gwen and I were both very productive during that time. We might have been more productive in a non-election year, but our novels still got a righteous boost towards completion.

Now that the frenzy of NNWM is over, I’ve returned to my bourbon story for the next anthology of the Sisters In Crime – Ohio River Valley Chapter. We bought the ingredients for bourbon balls this past weekend, so soon life will be imitating art.

NaNo, NaNo!

Gwen and I are preparing to participate in the National Novel Writing Month for 2006. This is a great non-competition in which participants try to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. NaNoWriMo 2005 helped us both become more productive in our work. I wrote more words in one month than I had in the preceding 10 months!

Once again, I am listed as Kyrrdis on the site. If you're interested in starting a book with a large group of sympathizers, come join us.

Sarah

Nov. 11th: KY Book Fair

Gwen and I will be sharing the Sisters in Crime booth during the 2006 Kentucky Book Fair, which takes place November 11th in Frankfort, KY.

The fair itself is free, although some special events may cost money.

Location:

Frankfort Convention Center
405 Mero Street
Frankfort, KY 40601

Gwen and I will be working the 9 AM-11 AM shift.

Updated Information on LDD Signings, May 20-21

We will only be presenting and autographing our anthology at one branch of the Lexington Public Library tomorrow. The information on the signing is below. Light refreshments will be served!

Eagle Creek Library, May 20
1 pm to about 3 pm
101 N. Eagle Creek Drive
Lexington, KY 40509
859-231-5560

Our other date this weekend:



Brownsboro Farms, May 21 2-4 pm

Brownsboro Farms
3615 Cascade Rd
Louisville, KY 40241

We will be meeting in the community center.

Come join us!

Book Festival: Signing the Anthology