Deadline Madness

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Still floating from a wonderful Malice Domestic…it was such an honor to be your toastmaster.

 (In this closeup from the opening ceremonies, (thank you photographer Mo Walsh), what's in my glass is leftover latte, with the ice melted, so glamorous..)

 Last year I was so zonked when I got back to Boston I went to work the next day wearing mis-matched shoes. This year I solved my exhaustion by staying home.

  So—Charlaine broke the big news yesterday: Congratulations to next year’s Toastmaster, our own Marcia Talley, and next year’s guest of honor, our own Elaine Viets, and next year’s lifetime achievement award winner, our own Charlaine Harris! Whoo hoo. The Femmes take Malice! Isn’t that fantastic? (We are already planning something amazing.)

Anyway, a fabulous fellow Best Novel nominee, Annette Dashofy, (here we are in our banquet finery) was wise (and organized) enough to write a blog for the Femmes before the Malice festivities. For which we are infinitely grateful.

DEADLINE MADNESS

By Annette Dashofy

Happy book birthday to me, happy book birthday to me—okay, let’s all sing it, folks! All right. Maybe not. I’m slightly punchy these days. As in bordering on psychotic.

Yes, today is the official release date of my fourth Zoe Chambers Mystery, With a Vengeance, and the only difference from my first release excitement-wise is that I have a better idea of what to expect.

I distinctly remember being clueless and blindsided by the whirlwind of publication day mania when Circle of Influence came out.

Today, I’m ready. Bring it. (Note of disclosure: I’m writing this post almost two weeks prior to you reading it. I may be fooling myself, in which case, I’ll make a full confession in the comments.) The madness of a new release is only part of my insanity.

As you read this, Malice Domestic and the Agatha Awards Banquet happened last weekend. As I’m writing this, I’m preparing for the BIG EVENT. Bridges Burned, last year’s release, was an Agatha nominee for Best Contemporary Novel, along with Hank’s What You See and Catriona’s The Child Garden. Esteemed company. Pinch me.

Still upcoming is the Pennwriters Conference in a couple of weeks. I’m teaching two workshops this year, and I’m not entirely prepared for either. However, neither workshop is completely new to my repertoire. I need to dust off my notes and update the lesson plan a bit. Piece of cake.

No, the real reason for my lack of mental stability is DEADLINE MADNESS. Today, as I celebrate the release of book #4, I’m frantically finishing book #5 with a looming deadline of June first. Keyword: frantically. I had grand ideas for this one. Big ideas. Three murders, two states, lots of suspects.

What was I thinking? That sound you hear is me headsmacking my desk.

So here’s one of those tidbits no one tells you about when you’re an aspiring author, struggling to get your first novel published—you have to remember what you wrote in which book.

Within the last month, I’ve talked to a book club which had read Circle of Influence. I’ve been speaking about Bridges Burned being an Agatha nominee. I’ve been blogging and doing interviews about the newly released With a Vengeance. And my brain is deeply ensconced in the work in progress.

Parents, you know how you sometimes have to go through all your kids’ names to get the right one? It’s like that. Only someone in a crowd fires a question at me about a particular event in a particular book, and I have to run down the plots of all of them to figure out an answer.

Lest you think I’m complaining, I’m not. I love my writing life. Every weird psychotic moment of it. I’m living my dream, and I don’t just mean rubbing elbows with the elite at Malice.

But if any of you have a trick for the thing about remembering what happens in which book when you’re out doing talks, I really want to hear it!

Comments

[Mary Sutton]

No tricks, sorry. But how wonderful for you and happiest of book birthdays! I look forward to helping you celebrate in a couple weeks.

[Judith Mehl]

Keep a chart of each book. A pain, until you need it. Then it's a piece of cake. Good luck.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Yes, it is a pain--but I keep a chart, too, as I go. Just on a yellow pad! It is SO helpful...for instance, for the times a character says something like "Was it only Tuesday she was killed?" And I think--whoa, I have no idea.

[Mark]

Heck, sometimes I can't remember character names from a book I just read and loved a week after I've finished it. The characters from the new novel are there in my brain instead.

Congrats on the nomination and the new release today!

[Annette Dashofy]

Thanks, everyone!

And I do keep a file of all the little details in the series. My problem is at personal events when someone in the audience asks me about a certain detail in one of the earlier books. Then I'm left scrambling. Can I drag my laptop with me and say, "Just one minute while I look that up!"???? ;-)