November 20, 2005

"Crime Pays: Writing Mysteries for Fun and Profit"

Whodunit? Ask Joyce Krieg, our speaker at this month's meeting, and she might—quite rightly—say:

"Me.”

Why? Well, after all but giving up on a novel she'd penned, Murder Off Mike, she mailed it off on a "well, what the heck” whim to a St. Martin's Press contest for "best first traditional mystery.”

And won!

Thus was born the Shauna J. Bogart Talk Radio Mystery series.

Joyce's third book in the series, Riding Gain, was published this very month by St. Martin's Minotaur. Publisher's Weekly called it "charming...the best in the series.”

The background for Joyce's series comes from her many years of working at KFBK NewsTalk 1530 in Sacramento, the station that discovered Rush Limbaugh and launched his career. This Joyce calls her "greatest claim to fame or shame”—at least, until she published that first book.

These days she lives off the air waves in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula, where her day job consists of serving as chief of household staff to an Abyssinian cat named Amberjack.

We're fortunate Amberjack has given her the afternoon off to spend with us. Her story of how to persevere in the writing game—mysteries or any genre—until the trail grows so cold not even a talk radio host could warm it up again is a true inspiration.

By the way, Joyce is a member of CWC Central Coast and has an especially lively website to investigate beforehand. Check it out at: www.joycek.com.

"It's always easier when you're starting out to write the kind of book you'd like to read."

"If Tom Clancy had followed the 'write about what you know' advice, his first novel would have been a thriller about an insurance agent."

"If you can't answer 'what’s it about' in a 20-second sound bite, your concept needs more work."

"Pretend you're telling a story or sending an e-mail to a friend and just describe what's happening. Commit to writing something every day, even if it's just a paragraph."

"Yes, there is a formula to writing popular fiction. Don't be afraid of it!"

"Root out clichés, stilted dialogue, awkward sentences, flabby and lifeless prose. Set your manuscript aside for at least a week, then give it another read."

"Be calm, confident and professional in your approach [to agents]. This is a business, so now it's time to act like a businessperson, not a wacky creative type."

"Rejection is a fact of life in the publishing industry. It has nothing to do with you as a person, or even a writer. Get over it. (P.S., I never did.)"

"If your agent hasn't been able to sell your novel in about 12 months, it's the time to sever the relationship."