The Attack of the Story

So I finished my latest book (Stone's Ghost), had my book launch last month and was eager to start something new, although just exactly what was not clear. I had several ideas floating around in my brain, but none was clamoring loudly for my attention.

Then I had a short conversation with a friend, also a writer. She had told me she was deliberately holding off on reading Stone's Ghost because she was in the middle of her own ghost story and didn't want my book to bleed into hers. Perfectly understandable. She also asked me if I would beta-read hers when it was done, and I readily agreed.

She told me only two things about her story: there were two ghosts, and one was evil.

That evening as I was going about my normal evening activities, my mind kept coming back to that simple premise. Since I knew nothing about the personalities of my friend's ghosts, nor of their agenda, their conflicts, their manifestations, I began to make up my own. I, too, developed two ghosts, a brother and sister based on some people I knew decades ago. I also remembered stories from my teenage years of a friend's experience with a ghost who set fires in the house. Very quickly I had a story line for my ghosts (which I won't reveal here!), and the basis for their conflict that needed resolution.

Then I needed the story line for my contemporary, living characters. My protagonist is a woman this time, struggling a bit with her moody husband. They've just moved to a small town and bought an old house. He's not particularly happy about it, although she loves the house and the area. 

Very quickly all the pieces were dropping into place. This is a magical time for a writer, because this kind of story-building is effortless. By asking myself a few simple questions, I had my two parallel story lines; I had the way they intersected; I had the conflicts between the living characters and between the ghosts; I knew how the stories developed, how they evolved and how the tension ramped up. I had secondary characters who would become important, I had the back story that would be revealed in bits and pieces along the way. Rather than working hard at this, it would have been more difficult for me not to figure it all out. This story, very literally, took over my brain all that night.

The next day I was frantically writing down notes as quickly as I could. When a writer is in this mode, you have to act fast, because you don't want to lose a single detail. I worked out a chronology, set down some important dialog, began working on names, places, dates. On the side, I noted what things I needed to look up, research, verify. I pulled up a map of my location so I could talk sensibly about it. I did a Google search for images of Victorian houses so I could be looking at a photo as I described my house. 

I also e-mailed my friend and told her I could not beta-read her book until I was done with mine!

Then I began to write.

Just over two weeks later, I'm halfway through Chapter 4. The book is buzzing along. I get held up now and again, pondering the varied directions I can go, but once I sort that out, I'm off to the races again. This is one of those rare times when a book does not need to be cajoled, wheedled, invited, entreated. This is one of those times when the tap is wide open and the story is gushing out. 

Photo by D. H. Parks via Flickr

LOVE it when that happens!

Book Launch Party - Wrap-Up

So my book launch via the Friendly Ghost Party was a success. There are many ways to calculate success, but the formula I'm using involves lots of people having lots of fun. People posted pics on the Facebook page, posted ghost stories on my blog, and we all had fun reading, commenting, sharing. The virtual buffet was a big hit, especially because the food items were so darn cute and I had links to the recipes. I heard from several people that they were taking notes for upcoming Halloween parties. Trivia questions were asked and answered, prizes were won and awarded; all in all it was a good day.

Book sales? Don't know yet. My book, Stone's Ghost, certainly rose in Amazon's rankings during the day, but I don't have the final sales figures yet. I am assuming the sales were modestly good. I want to thank everyone who bought a book, whether paperback or e-book, for their support and encouragement. I truly hope you enjoyed the book. I think it has become my new favorite. It's a small story and quite subtle, but I think it actually has a very important message.

But enough about the book. I want to talk about all the people who helped me.  Being an indie writer--doing all the writing, editing, formatting, cover design, packaging, marketing--it's easy to feel that I did it all by myself. I did--sort of--but along the way there were many people who lent me their thoughts, suggestions, ideas, advice and support. Without those people, the book would not be the success that it is.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my beta-readers. These are the people who read the book first when it was hot off the computer and still had some issues. They are: my husband, Bud (who, halfway through the book turned to me and said, "You're a hell of a good writer!"), Rich Meyer, Bill Hiatt, Lorraine Reguly, Sheryl Falgout, and Joe Harwell. Their sharp eyes, questioning natures and sympathetic spirits helped me polish the book into its final form. No writer wants to hear that there are typos in a book but the little buggers are inevitable and I'd much rather hear it before I publish the book than after! Thank you all for stepping up. 

Next I want to thank Brenda at www.coversbydesign.net. When I'm designing my book covers, I generally do some Google searches on images, grab the ones I like, cobble together my idea for the cover, then give the whole mess over to Brenda. She, then, brings my idea to beautiful, legal and high-res perfection. She's a talented artist with good instincts, easy to work with and affordable. I highly recommend her.

I want to thank again all my co-host bloggers who put up posts on party day and kept the roving virtual buffet going: Carol Wyer, Laurie Boris, Yvonne Hertzberger, Carolyn Schriber and Lorraine Reguly. All of these ladies were so supportive throughout the day, checking in, commenting with the visitors, keeping the ball rolling. Their good work left me free to flit around to all the sites as needed during the day. Thank you, ladies!

And finally I want to thank you, all my friends, acquaintances, friends of friends--readers!--for stopping by the party, for participating, for engaging, for joining in the fun. It was a great way to celebrate the new book. This was the first time I've ever done a book launch party, but you all proved to me that the work was worthwhile. I will definitely do it again. 

Thank you all.

Book Launch Party - Part V

Welcome to the Friendly Ghost Party, a celebration of the launch of my new book, Stone’s Ghost on July 26, 2013!

  

We can’t have a party without food, right? As I have said before, the great thing about an online party is that you don’t have to worry about what you’re going to wear. The bad part, of course, is that you can’t take up a stance at the buffet table and eat yourself into oblivion. Regardless of that, I've got some ideas for ghostly food items that are both yummy-looking and fun. This buffet is a sort of movable feast; several friendly bloggers have offered to co-host the buffet, so you’ll want to hop over to the other sites for more food items. As you’ll see below, we've got appetizers, main meals, drinks and desserts, and we've provided links to the recipes. (Good ideas for your next Halloween party!)

Blogger	Blog Website	Topic
Melissa Bowersock	http://mjb-wordlovers.blogspot.com	Ghost-Appetizers, overview
Carolyn Schriber	http://www.katzenhausbooks.com/blog	Ghost-Main Meals
Lorraine Reguly	http://lorrainemariereguly.wordpress.com/	Ghost-Drinks
Laurie Boris	http://laurieboris.com/blog/	Ghost-Desserts
Carol Wyler	http://facing50withhumour.com/	Book information
Yvonne Hertzberger	http://newfantasyauthor.com/melissa-bowerstock-invites-us-to-a-friendly-ghost-party-and-blog-tour/	Book info, review

Please share the love by visiting the co-host blogs, browsing through the food items, leaving a comment if you like, sending out a tweet and telling your friends. (If you right-click on a link above, then choose “open in new window/tab,” you won’t lose your place here.) And, just to keep it interesting, anyone who visits all the blogs above and leaves a comment on each will be eligible to win ghost candy! I'll make random awards throughout the day. Take a look:

Now … to get the buffet kicked off right, here are …

APPETIZERS

Stuffed potato ghosts!	Chocolate-covered ghost pretzel rods!	Ghost chips!
Click for recipe.	Click for recipe.	Click for recipe.

Now, this party is about more than food. If you don’t already know, there are a couple of contests you can enter. One is on the Facebook event page (https://www.facebook.com/events/142948992566792/) where you can post pictures of anything ghost-related. Encourage your friends to “like” your post, because the one with the most likes toward the end of the day wins a prize package. The second contest is here on my blog: http://mjb-wordlovers.blogspot.com. Here you can post a ghost story in the comments section, and again, toward the end of the day, I will pick a random winner of a prize package. (If you don’t have any of the profiles in the dropdown box when you comment, just choose Anonymous, but please put your name in your comment so I’ll know who you are!) I’ll be tweeting the winners and other announcements throughout the day using hashtag #FriendlyGhostParty.

Here’s the Stone’s Ghost Prize Package: a mouse pad, autographed book, bookmark and magnet. How fun is that?

And, just to share the love, there’s a giveaway going on at Goodreads. The winner will be chosen at midnight on July 27, so if you haven’t entered, hop on over there and do that.

Finally, to celebrate the new book, I have put the Kindle version of Stone’s Ghost on sale for just 99 cents for today only. And, just for fun, I've discounted the Kindle versions of all my previous books as well. You can find them all from my author page at Amazon.

And just to reiterate, I'm using Mountain Standard Time because I'm in Arizona (and we don't do Daylight Savings Time here--yeah, I know, we're weird), so the party will start at 5am MST (same as PDT) on Friday, July 26, and will go until 5pm. For my friends "across the pond," that means it starts at 1pm London time (if I've done my calculations correctly). For my friends across the slightly larger pond, that means it starts at 8pm on July 27 in Perth, Australia. Is that perfectly clear? I hope so. 

Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the party!