Getting Scroogled and Amazon Attacks, Part II

Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced books for over 1,000 authors and imprints with over 2,000 produced books up on Amazon and other retailers.

Hi, Gang!  We interrupt this incredibly insightful blog on Amazon's Persnickety Punctiliousness, Part II, to talk about Being Scroogled.

Are You Getting Scroogled?

For anyone that hasn't seen the ads, or the kerfuffle on the Net, Microsoft has made a point of letting GMail or Googlemail users know that they are being "Scroogled" by Google.  What's Scroogling, besides something that sounds like Big Booty Sex?  Being Scroogled is what happens when you use your GMail account and email someone--anyone.  If you email someone, say, Auntie Flo, telling her that you're shopping for a car, you might find it a bit startling that suddenly, everywhere you go, you see GoogleAds for cars and car websites.  Is Google prescient?  No, they're not:  they're reading your email.

"We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are, with your permission; we know where you’ve been, with your permission; we can more or less know what you’re thinking about."
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at the The Atlantic Washington Ideas Forum in 2010

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Consumer Privacy

What did he say?  Seriously?

Yup:  Google is reading your email.  You can see Microsoft's discussion about it, here:  CLICK HERE.  Oddly enough, and maybe it's because it's Google, I haven't seen the big outcry that was heard 'round the Net when people had their knickers in a twist about Facebook invading their privacy.  Frankly, to me, what you say on Facebook is public, and if that "privacy" gets invaded, it's the same thing as the goodies from a criminal endeavor lying about in plain sight.  But reading my email?  I don't care if it's bots or a program--I don't want Google or anyone else reading my damn email.  I wondered why, recently, I was seeing Google ads for the very same project management system I am already using at Booknook.biz; now I know.  I'd answered a GoogleMail question I'd received, asking about project management systems, and I'd said that I use TeamworksPM.  Now, everywhere I go--everywhere--I see ads for this self-same system.  To say it's annoying doesn't do it justice.

What Happened to My Privacy?

But the bigger issue is:  Google, get out of my damn email. In a day and age in which privacy is ever-dearer and harder to find, I don't want someone, mechanical or otherwise, poking around in my email skivvies.  I mean, seriously:  if I became angry and referred to someone as a "dildo" in an email (not saying it's happened, but, hey, I'm human), I shudder to think at what ads I might be seeing afterwards.

###

 

Amazon Strikes Again!

 

Meanwhile, back at Booknook.biz:  you may recall, faithful readers (ha!), that sometime ago, I blogged about "Amazon's Punctuation Punctiliousness," referring to it as "persnickety."  Well, we've had another event at Booknook.biz that has simply reinforced my irritation at what seems to be the unequal treatment of better-selling authors with regard to mere typos.  Now, I'm as keen for clean books as the next guy (maybe not as much as Jodie, but, hey, I'm a bookmaker, not an Editor), but anyone who believes that any book out there is "perfect" is deluding themselves.  So, what happened?

 

Believe it or not, today we received a "Kindle Quality Notice" ("KQN") for one of our top author clients, a bestseller on several continents with a large list of books.  What for, you may ask?  The book in question is a backlist title, and was scanned, OCR'ed, etc., so as scanning causes errors it's not that surprising.  The KQN was for TWO--count 'em, TWO--"typos."  Both were mere spacing errors, where the scan created a slight amount of space between the first letter of a word and the rest.  Not quite a full space--but a small gap.  TWO errors. Now, mind you, this is out of a book that has 220,015 words.  Yes, Two Hundred Twenty-Two Thousand and Fifteen words.  In print, 800 lovely lusty pages. 

 

I'm not a math whiz, but I make that an error rate of 0.00001.  Yes--one one-millionth.  That's the error rate; one one-millionth of 1 percent.  I wrote to Amazon again, as I do on almost every KQN that comes in (invariably for the  best-selling authors, as I noted back in July of last year), and asked them once more to establish a clearer and better threshold--something like, 1 word out of every 10,000 can have an error, or whatever they think is a reasonable threshold--and to apply it evenly across the board, to all authors and publishers--not just the best ones.  It's grossly unfair for people who have already paid good money for scanning, OCR, proofreading, cover design, book creation, etc., to get the short end of the stick, simply because they are the ones that get read, and whose readers report errata. 

 

So:  Why Not Fix Print, Then, Too?

 

I noted that they wouldn't dream of asking someone in print to "fix" their book--why ask those who've submitted professionally-created ebooks?  I understand their mindset; the bulk of their self-published authors type up a Word file and submit that, so fixing it isn't that big of a deal.  But what about the other thousands of authors who paid someone, just as they would have paid for a print book?  What about authors who have both up?  Why is it always the ebook that gets the Quality Notice?  Why the double-standard, both about curation and ebooks versus print?  In this day and age, much of what's sold in "print" on Amazon is made at Createspace or other POD houses--so why not make print authors "fix" their books, too? 

 

And I'd really love, love, love to know if KQN's get sent to Random House and the other legacy publishers.  I think that while Amazon certainly has every right to seek the highest-quality content, they need to start curation at a much more fundamental level.  If they're not going to do anything about the Broken Bones of the world (see my July post), then really, they need to stop telling first-rate authors, the bread-and-butter of Amazon's world, to fix books that have an error rate of one one-millionth of a percent.  That's just ridiculous.  Amazon, c'mon, think about this, will you? 



This is Hitch, over and out, until next time.

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Where E’er We Tread, ‘Tis Haunted, Holy Ground

Sharing the Hidden Heart of Ireland

A guest post by Erin Hart. 

People often ask why I chose Ireland as a setting, and I always say it’s the other way ‘round—I’m fairly certain that Ireland chose me. For some reason, I've been drawn to that little island more than any other spot in the world ever since I was a child. There's just something about the deeply complex and contradictory nature of the place, all those layers of history one on top of the other—that lends a particular resonance to the kinds of stories I feel compelled to tell. I’m attracted to the otherworldly quality that emanates from certain spots in Ireland, and one of my aims in writing stories set there is to share some of those wonderful hidden places.

I’m fortunate to have some really good connections. My husband is an Irishman and a traditional musician; his name is Paddy O’Brien (not making that up!) and he plays the button accordion. Whenever we travel in Ireland, we visit musician friends and go to informal sessions where tunes and songs are traded. Those places aren’t exactly top secret, but they’re usually off the beaten path. You have to know where to go, or you risk straying into a bar where a DJ is blasting ordinary pop music, or even American-style country, also very popular in Ireland. If you’re looking for traditional music, it helps to know someone who knows where to find it. Paddy and I have gone into bars out the West, in Clare and Connemara where the locals are mad for set dancing, and have their own signature sets (danced in a square, with eight people and a bit of fancy footwork), that the people in that particular locality have been doing for a hundred years or more. All right, it does help if you bring along a well-known, world-class musician to play for them, but still…

When I take groups to Ireland, which I’ve been doing for the past three years, we visit many of the locations from my stories. There’s a lot of traditional music in my novels, because the main characters, Cormac Maguire and Nora Gavin, are both musicians. (He plays the wooden flute and she’s a traditional singer, as I am.) In the beginning the choice to make the characters musicians seemed like a handy way to give them a little extra dimension, but it also seemed pretty authentic, since many of our musician friends are also schoolteachers and journalists doctors, policemen, and scientists in real life. So many people in Ireland play traditional music that it seemed quite natural to have characters who’d bring along instruments when they traveled to an excavation site, just in case there might be a good local session nearby. As time went on, the music also became a way to flesh out the stories, a chance to slip plenty of history and culture into the mix, and to give the characters a true grounding and connection to the places they come from. 

So when I bring people to Ireland, we always try to hit some music or singing sessions, like An Góilín – the traditional singer's club that meets at the Teachers’ Club on Parnell Square in Dublin, or instrumental session at The Cobblestone in Smithfield or Hughes’s pub in Chancery Street. Old friends are regular performers at all those venues. If you’ve never been to one, a traditional session is a feast of music—jigs, reels, hornpipes, a whirl of notes that will leave you exhilarated and sated by the end of the night—even if you’re not drinking porter.

I’m also fascinated by traditional culture, folklore, and folkways. My stories often involve ancient rituals from thousands of  years ago, still practiced today in Ireland—and there are many: bonfires set alight on the tops of hills at certain times of the year, crosses woven of rushes, trees adorned with rags and ribbons beside holy wells, and otherworldly ringforts said to be inhabited by the little people. 

My husband  used to work in the industrial peat bogs of the Midlands, so we often cross these dark bogs, strange places where all surface vegetation cut away, where blackened peat from just after the last Ice Age still remains underfoot—not quite the picture of green Ireland that so many hold in their imaginations. I asked Paddy to take me to the place where he’d worked, since I was writing about a similar workshop in LAKE OF SORROWS. We parked the car, and as we approached the large machine shed, I asked, “Will anyone here remember you?” He said, “You must be jokin’. I haven’t been here since 1969.” But as we got closer, a man in a brown canvas coat stepped out of the doorway, looked us up and down once, and said, “O’Brien—what do you want?” The exploitation of the bogs might be bad for the environment, but in that part of the country, it was the only good job to be had. Everyone Paddy had worked with—way back in 1969—was still working there.

But the most fascinating thing about the industrial bogs is that they’re also the spots where much of Ireland’s archaeology is going on these days, and where artifacts and bog bodies still turn up with an almost alarming regularity.  At the National Museum in Dublin, we visit an exhibition called “Kingship and Sacrifice,” which features the remains of several bog people, thought to be human sacrifices during the Iron Age. One of these men was discovered by my husband’s cousin, Kevin Barry, while he was clearing a drain in a bog being developed for gardening peat moss. If this really is a small world, there’s no place smaller than Ireland. Everyone is linked to everyone else somehow, and if you need to get in to see the state pathologist or a member of the murder squad, you’ve nothing to do only ask your friends, and someone will come up with a connection. At least, that's what happened to me.

In researching THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN (Scribner, March 5), I visited the bog where the Faddan More Psalter, a 9th-century book of Psalms, was discovered, buried in a bog. My aunt and I went to interview Ned Kelly, an archaeologist and Keeper of Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. And we visited many old ruined chapels and monasteries, and exhibits featuring some of the few existing manuscripts left from the days of the ancient scribes. We toured a friend’s organic farm, and visited with a local cheesemaker and his goats to get the flavor of the locality where this story is set. 

Of course on the HAUNTED GROUND tours, we also visit regular stops like museums and woolen shops and the Guinness brewery (practically required by law!) We also go to an old distillery, tiny pubs out the West, and we usually stop at the most haunted castle in Ireland where the current human inhabitant tells stories and plays a few tunes on the whistle. We venture down narrow, hedge-lined roads to wild boglands, rocky coastlines, hidden streams, and coral beaches that resemble ground-up bones;  we clamber around ruined monasteries and ancient burial places. It’s easy to miss these hidden places, and that’s why I enjoy sharing them so much, these spots where you can feel the connection to the past, where you can almost hear strains of ancient music in the wind that goes through you, right down to the bones.


Erin Hart writes archaeological crime novels set in the mysterious boglands of Ireland. Before a wayward detour into crime fiction, she worked as an arts administrator, editor, copywriter, journalist and theater critic. Her debut novel, HAUNTED GROUND (Scribner, 2003) won the Friends of American Writers award and Romantic Times' Best First Mystery, was shortlisted for Anthony and Agatha awards, and was named by Book-Of-The-Month Club and Booklist as one of the best crime novels of 2003. LAKE OF SORROWS (Scribner, 2004) was shortlisted for a Minnesota Book Award, and FALSE MERMAID (Scribner, 2010) was named by Booklist as one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of 2010. Her latest, THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN, is being published by Scribner on March 5, 2013.  Erin lives in Minnesota with her husband, Irish button accordion player Paddy O’Brien, with whom she frequently travels to Ireland, to carry out essential research in bogs and cow pastures and castles and pubs.


Please drop by Stuff and Nonsense today for a review of THE BOOK OF KILLOWEN, to be released tomorrow.

Chatting with Thriller Authors Joe Moore and Lynn Sholes, Pt. II

Interview by Jodie Renner of the co-authors of The Blade and other thrillers.

See yesterday's Part I – The Challenges and Rewards of Co-Authoring a Novel.                                  

Part II – HONING YOUR CRAFT and INDIE PUBLISHING

JR: Learning to write compelling fiction of the caliber you two accomplish must take years of study and practice – as well as talent, of course! Do either of you ever go back and read your earliest writings?  What’s your reaction?

Lynn: Yuck. Yes. When I first decided to take writing seriously, I wrote a book called TALISMAN ROSE, mostly to see if I could sustain about 100,000 words. I wrote it on a typewriter, which convinced me to get a computer and printer. Well, I discovered that I could write my way through 100,000 words. But that manuscript rests in a box I never intend to show anyone, high in the closet. Every time I write a book, I learn something new. Sometimes I look back in horror and slap my forehead asking myself, Did you really do that?

JR: Did you have any mentors who helped you learn your craft?

Lynn: Hundreds.  Let me explain. One day my husband commented on how many books I have on shelves and suggested I get rid of some of them.  I asked him to follow me, and I led him out to the garage and asked him to look at all the stuff (probably called it junk) he had—all the drills and wrenches, saws, screwdrivers, etc. and politely suggested that he clear out some of that. He was mortified. “But those are my tools,” he said. I answered, “Exactly. That’s what my books are to me. My tools.” There are tons of times I have had a scene in my head but have had no personal experience related to what I wanted to write—like a fistfight, or a car chase, or holding someone I loved in my arms as they bled out and died.  That’s when I go to my shelves and see how other authors handled that kind of scene.  I study the passages for sentence structure, rhythm, word choice, punctuation—all things related to the craft the author used.  I read as many as I can find.  That builds my repertoire that I pick and choose from when I write that scene I had in my head.  Essentially, I have the cream of the crop writers as my mentors and they are available 24/7.

JR: Back to your most recent thriller, THE BLADE – as I was editing it, I could really visualize it as a box-office hit movie. As I mentioned in Part I, I really loved your characters Maxine Decker and Kenny Gates. And Reverend Applewhite was so creepy! If it was made into a movie, who would you choose to play Maxine, Kenny and Applewhite?

Joe: I see Naomi Watts as Maxine, Jude Law as Kenny, and Brian Cox as Applewhite.
Lynn: Maxine –Julianna Moore, Kenny – Hugh Jackman, Applewhite – Tommy Lee Jones or William H. Macy?

JR: You two have published a lot of novels! And they’re selling very well. Do you have any advice you’d give to writers trying to break into the industry?

Joe: There are no shortcuts. No silver bullets. No secret handshakes. Just write the best book you can and once you’re done, find an experienced freelance editor who specializes in your genre, like Jodie Renner, to go over it with a fine-toothed comb while you start planning the next one.

JR: Thanks, Joe! And I agree about the importance of finding an editor who specializes in your genre. A nonfiction editor or someone who doesn’t even read your genre for pleasure is not a good choice to help you fine-tune and polish your novel to captivate readers and garner great reviews.

JR: Joe, as you mentioned in your recent post on The Kill Zone blog, this is your first venture into indie publishing. Joe and Lynn, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of going the indie route? Do you find that authors are doing more and more of the work that publishers used to do?

Joe: With the advent of indie publishing, writers have become a self-contained business and must handle most or all of the facets of sales and marketing. It takes away from writing time, but it’s also liberating and fulfilling. And with publishing The Blade ourselves, we enjoyed the direct contact and ongoing back-and-forth communication with you as our editor.

Lynn: I have found that more is expected from writers now than when my first book came out in 1991, especially in the marketing and promotion arenas. But the entire publishing industry has gone through tremendous change.

JR: And it’s continuing to change. I find more and more of my clients are choosing to publish their novels themselves, and are enjoying the control they have over the process – not to mention more frequent payments! Personally, I love that I can go in and update my e-books on Amazon-Kindle, and in 12 hours or less, the new version is up there for sale!

Thanks for dropping by Crime Fiction Collective, Lynn and Joe. Readers are in for a real treat with this fast-paced roller-coaster ride! Kudos to you both on collaborating together to create a stellar novel! I enjoyed playing a small part in the final editing.

And I can’t wait to see what you two come up with next…

Readers and writers - Do you have any questions for Lynn and Joe?
 

Lynn Sholes & Joe Moore are the international bestselling authors of THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY (#1 Amazon Kindle bestseller), THE LAST SECRET, THE HADES PROJECT, THE 731 LEGACY, THE PHOENIX APOSTLES (#1 Amazon Kindle bestseller), and their latest, THE BLADE. Their thrillers have been translated into 24 languages including Chinese, Russian and Greek. Visit them at: http://www.sholesmoore.com.

 

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other crime fiction, and she also writes craft-of-fiction articles and books. Jodie’s website: www.JodieRennerEditing.com. Jodie’s books: Writing a Killer Thriller and Style that Sizzles & Pacing for Power.

 

Chatting with Thriller Authors Joe Moore and Lynn Sholes, Pt. I

Interview by Jodie Renner of the co-authors of The Blade and other thrillers    

Part I – The Challenges and Rewards of Co-Authoring a Novel    

A few months ago, I had the privilege of editing The Blade, an excellent thriller by Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore. This was my first experience working with two authors simultaneously on one book, and I worried that it might be too complicated, but the collaboration went very smoothly! I can’t imagine co-authoring a book, so I was curious about how the process works for them. – Jodie Renner

JR: Welcome to Crime Fiction Collective, Lynn and Joe. Your new thriller, The Blade, has only been out on Amazon for two weeks and it has already garnered several glowing 5-star reviews. It promises to be a huge hit, and I feel honored to have worked with two such talented authors on the final tweaks and polishing of this riveting international thriller.

So how did you two end up co-writing, anyway?

Lynn: Joe and I belonged to the same writing critique group that met every week.  During the middle of each session we’d take a break and we’d all chat.  Sometimes we’d share ideas about other projects we’d like to do.  I had this idea about a book I wanted to write, but it wasn’t in my comfort range because of the genre.  Joe thought it was a great idea, and after a year or so, he finally threatened me that if I didn’t write the book, then he would.  We decided to give co-writing a whirl.

That produced THE GRAILCONSPIRACY, our first collaboration, which did very well. It was ForeWord Magazine’s book of the year and an international bestseller. So far, it’s been translated into 24 languages.

JR: Really? That’s impressive! Congratulations!

 

JR: What about the logistics of it all? How do two people write fiction together?

Lynn: I can only vouch for what Joe and I do. At first it was very difficult, not because we disagreed on anything, but rather because our styles and voices were so different. Joe wrote male action-adventure with a very bold voice. I wrote historical fiction with a more lyrical voice. So blending took a lot of work, but we stayed with it. As a matter of fact, friends are always guessing which line one of us wrote. They’re usually wrong, but we never tell. As far as the mechanical process, we do outlining and brainstorming so we know the story. Either of us could write it. Then whoever feels they have the best handle on a scene takes on the first draft of that scene. We send it back and forth for revisions. Using Dropbox makes it easier. We drop a file in the shared Dropbox folder and voilà! The other picks it up.

JR: Dropbox – hmmm… I’ll have to find out more about that…

 

JR: For The Blade, I love your main characters, Maxine Decker and Kenny Gates, and their story was fascinating! And multi-faceted! Not to mention whisking readers to all those interesting locations. Where do your ideas come from?

Joe: An idea that sparks a story can come from anywhere, anytime. Movies, newspapers, magazines, other books. What we look for is the seed that grabs our attention. Our first book written together came from an article in Discover Magazine about a cup found by an archeologist in Israel. He believed it was the Holy Grail and subsequently discovered that traces of blood residue were present. Could it have been the blood of Christ? What if someone used the DNA to clone Christ? The result was our first thriller written together, THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY. An article I stumbled across on the Internet about the Germans working on an atomic bomb at the end of WWII prompted our latest thriller, THE BLADE.

JR: Do you revise as you go along or when the novel is complete?

Joe: Because there are two of us and we exchange drafts of each chapter many times, the revision process is ongoing, with the final one after input from our editor. By the way, Jodie, we liked your process of editing in sections as we go along. That way we could change future sections before you got to them, based on suggestions on earlier sections.

 

JR: Some authors write long chapters and some write short ones.  You seem to favor short chapters.  Can you explain why you use that technique?

Joe: Most of our chapters average 1000 words. We do that to keep the reader turning the pages. If they see that the next chapter is only a couple of pages long, they will decide to read just one more. And then one more.

 

JR: Do you ever have writer’s block? If so, how do you handle it?

Lynn: Because Joe and I write together, I don’t think we’ve ever had writer’s block. Having a brainstorming partner tends to prevent that. Of course we have plot issues we have to work out, but not true writer’s block. One thing we have learned is that when you come to a stumbling block and don’t feel you are writing the best that you can, write through it and something will eventually pop up. That’s the beauty of knowing that there comes a time that is devoted to revision.

 

JR: It’s obvious from reading The Blade that you are both not only accomplished writers, but passionate about producing compelling, suspenseful fiction. What do you love most about writing?

Joe: Entering into the “zone” where you lose track of time and place as the words flow freely.

JR: The “zone” – ahh, that coveted place all authors wish for every day…  

Readers and writers - do you have any questions for Lynn and Joe about their process or novels?

Part II of this interview, Learning the Craft and Indie Publishing, appears here tomorrow, March 3. See y’all there!

Lynn Sholes & Joe Moore are the international bestselling authors of THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY (#1 Amazon Kindle bestseller), THE LAST SECRET, THE HADES PROJECT, THE 731 LEGACY, THE PHOENIX APOSTLES (#1 Amazon Kindle bestseller), and their latest, THE BLADE. Their thrillers have been translated into 24 languages including Chinese, Russian and Greek. Visit them at: http://www.sholesmoore.com.

 

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other crime fiction,  and she also writes craft-of-fiction articles and books. Jodie’s website: www.JodieRennerEditing.com. Jodie’s books: Writing a Killer Thriller and Style that Sizzles & Pacing for Power.

Working Crimes with Detective Jackson

by L.J. Sellers, author or provocative mysteries & thrillers

Rules of Crime, Detective Jackson's 7th novel, released this week. For those who haven't met him yet, here's a post in Jackson's perspective. (Originally published by Dru's Book Musings.)

Actor Hugh Jackman

"Detective Jackson, Eugene Police Department." That's how I introduce myself to witnesses and suspects, so that's why this series is called the Detective Jackson series and not the Wade Jackson series. No one calls me Wade, except my girlfriend Kera, and she doesn't do it often.

I wake up most mornings at 5:30, even on weekends if I’m working the first few days of a homicide, which often go round-the-clock. Most days, I’m home long enough to have breakfast with my daughter, Katie, then drive her to high school. I was a single parent even before I divorced, because my ex-wife is an alcoholic and not someone Katie can depend on.

And I'm a workaholic, so my daughter is rather self-sufficient. That's my greatest struggle every day: How do I be a good father to the person I love most in the world and keep my hometown of Eugene, Oregon safe from violent offenders?

At the department, I check my emails and phone messages like any other public servant, but that after that my day gets interesting. My boss, a big gruff woman named Sergeant Lammers, often assigns me a new case or wants an update on the case I'm working. Those are the easy ones. More typically, I get called out to homicide scenes during a date with Kera or on a weekend spent building a trike with my daughter. Murder has no boundaries or patterns, but I seem to catch the toughest cases at the strangest times.

Whenever I get the call, I drop what I'm doing and get out to the crime scene. I like to arrive before the medical examiner does so I have chance to look at the body and the scene up close. On television, the detective often takes a long look around and announces something like "The intruder came in through the window, grabbed the trophy from the fireplace and conked the victim on the head."

It's never like that for me. I get cases where a young girl is found dead in a dumpster without a mark on her—and no leads or witnesses. Or a whole family has been assaulted and killed and the evidence is too messy to make sense of. In my last homicide case, a young veteran was found dead in his car with his throat slit.

Solving murders is often tedious work. Hours spent looking at phone or bank records and days spent tracking down family members, boyfriends, and co-workers to interview. The case often breaks because the killer, in desperation, commits another crime or makes a fatal mistake.

Actor Viggo Mortensen

Or often, it's one of my task force members who sees the connections that lead us to the guilty party. Or a crime lab technician who discovers a key piece of forensic evidence. We're all part of a team, and we've worked together for years. My detective partners are also my best friends, because they're the only people I really trust. Chasing criminals will do that to you.

The case I'm working now (Rules of Crime) is personal—my ex-wife has been kidnapped, and the FBI is leading the task force. My partner, Detective Lara Evans, is investigating the assault of a young woman who was beaten and dumped at the hospital. Any minute now, we'll compare notes and discover how these crimes are connected. I hope you'll be there for the revelation.

And what do you think? Should Hugh Jackman play my part when I make it to the big screen? Or maybe Viggo Mortensen?

This is for all us geeks

By Gayle Carline

One of the nice things about writing genre fiction is that there are organizations that celebrate practically each genre. As a mystery writer, I belong to Sisters in Crime, and lucky for me, there is a chapter in Orange County with monthly meetings. We have all kinds of guest speakers, from other authors to law enforcement experts to ex-CIA operatives. As both a writer and a reader, I find everyone fascinating.

 

This month, we had Daniel McKerren, a man who spent thirty years as a police officer and now works as a freelance investigator with insurance companies, law enforcement, etc, specifically as a computer forensics and data recovery specialist. It was an interesting talk, although it started out, well, I’d call it wonky. You might call it boring.
 

He began by telling us how computers work. They are full of on/off switches called bits and eight bits make a byte and they are arranged in sectors and accessed by pointers in another sector, and so on. As a former software engineer, I kept thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, get to the crime solving part.”
 
Stay with me, here.
 

Eventually, I saw the point to his explanations: he had to educate everyone in the room so that his crime-solving discussion would have context. People think they can delete files and no one can ever find them again, even though we see on crime shows that the computer-CSI guys can recover deleted files… but how?
 
It’s all about the pointers. When you delete a file, you are only deleting the pointer to that file. The file contents are still floating around in their sectors, unless and until they are overwritten by a new file. There is something you can do called wiping the disk, which sets all those on/off switches to off, but don’t get cocky—there are still some labs that can use magnetic technology to reset the switches to their last position.
 
In which case, it would suck to be you, if you were trying to hide something.
 

I kind of knew this, but the one thing I didn’t know was the way forensics techs recover data. You see, they don’t just fire up the suspect’s computer and dive in. That’s because every time you start up your computer, you are altering the contents. Hardware and peripheral checks are always performed by the operating system, which results in updating the time stamps.
 
Instead of hitting the Power button, the tech removes the suspect’s hard drive and attaches a device that uses an old-school, read-only DOS program to copy the data to another drive that is read-only. At that point, the data can be extracted and the original hard drive is bagged and tagged.
 
Just hearing that information made me want to run home and re-write a few scenes.

In addition, they have to know how big the hard drive is because their warrant has to be that specific. Dan said if he took a 30G hard drive to a location and the suspect had a 60G drive, he has to go back and get another warrant, which gives the suspect time to try to wipe the drive. Hell, he might even destroy the drive.

 
I don’t know of any way to recover data from a hard drive that’s gone a few rounds in the garbage disposal.

 

I was reminded of Saturday’s post by J.H. Bográn, and how technology can be a stumbling block for thriller/mystery writers. Dan’s talk inspired me to find ways to use technology to my hero’s advantage.

His parting advice? “Technology is advancing at mach speed. When anyone tells you that ‘they can’t get something specific from a computer,’ add the word now to the end of that sentence.”

Any questions, class?

What Floats Your Boat?

By Jenny Hilborne

Author of mysteries and thrillers

Earlier this month, I found myself in an unfamiliar position – I went to a party. I was pulled out from behind my computer and my beloved writing/editing and dragged along invited to attend this thing. The event, organized by a professional tour group, wasn’t just any old party, either, but an evening of pre-show revelry for some of rock band Bon Jovi’s most loyal fans. It meant a lot to these people, many of whom (including my sister) had traveled all the way to Canada and were one day away from meeting their idol – the man himself, Jon Bon Jovi.

I wasn’t keen. As the hour drew near, I grew less keen. For one thing, I had picked up a nasty little cold on the plane ride over and it had found its grip. Secondly, I hadn’t been to a party (or dressed up and worn make-up) in ages. Lastly (though, if not for my sister, I’d have thought up a host of other excuses), I like the band’s music well enough, but I’m not a fan. I’d rather spend my time writing.

Anyway, I donned what I thought might be acceptable attire for a rock party, and cringed when the elevator doors opened on the 38^th floor of the hotel and ejected me directly into the party - and into a throng of die-hard fans. No turning back, and no talking about books or writing. Not here.

My bag stuffed with tissues, I gravitated to the drinks line, got my tipple, then meandered over to the window where I downed it and looked out at the stunning views of Toronto - and wished myself back behind my computer, seventeen floors below. What did I have to talk about up here, with all these Bon Jovi fans?

Surprisingly, quite a bit, as it turned out. As I mingled, I discovered passionate people are happy people, good folks to be around. Their enthusiasm is contagious and I got caught up in it, forgot I wasn’t a fan and that I felt like crap, and enjoyed myself chatting with people about their passion (for some an obsession) instead of mine. 

While I won’t be attending a Bon Jovi concert any time soon, it was good to do something different, and for someone else. These fans couldn’t wait to meet their idol, and I felt a tinge of sadness that I don’t have one.

It’s hard not to be affected by the excitement and the energy radiated by passionate people.  There was no apathy in the room that night, only happiness and excitement. I’m glad I got to share in it, form new social bonds, and appreciate someone else’s passion. Indulging in my sister’s interests for a week gave me an opportunity to travel. I got to see Niagara Falls, the Toronto Islands, the CN Tower, and the underground PATH system. The experience was meaningful and satisfying.

Whether it’s music, books, sports, food…indulging other people in their passions is a chance to learn, and brings unexpected pleasure. It makes the world a more enjoyable place. I took a much needed night off from writing, and enjoyed a great night at the Bon Jovi pre-show party. I even got a few ideas for characters in future books.

Whatever floats your boat, get out there and enjoy it. When you’d rather stay at home, go out and get carried along with the hype. It’s infectious. Then you can bring those passions alive again—whether they are yours or someone else’s—when you write.

Editing: Increasing or Decreasing Your Word Count

Tom Schreck

Typically, the advice you get is to reduce your work by at least 10% with each editing session.

If you've got 100,000 words when you start you should have 90,000 after you edit the first time and
80,000 the second time.

"On Writing" is my favorite writing book

Why?

Good writing means using the fewest words possible to get your plot, characters and feel communicated.

Could your editing ever result in increasing your word count?

It does for me.

That used to bother me but it doesn't any more.

I've come to realize that my first draft is for me to get stuff out of my head and on to paper. I write for short bursts of time and when I go back and read what I've written I've almost always find that I need to develop themes more, get into characters more and smooth out the plot by adding seasoning.

It goes against Stephen King's, Syd Fields and Robert McKee's advice.

The lesson? Take advice, find out what experts say and then do whatever it takes to get your book written.


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