Interview with Uneasy Spirits Narrator, Alexandra Haag
You know how your own voice always sounds so strange when you hear it recorded? Well, my voice in my head always sounds warmer and deeper to me than it does in real life. Not surprisingly, that is also how the voice of my main protagonist, Annie Fuller, sounds to me. This difference between my real voice and what I think Annie should sound like is one of the reasons I would never narrate my own books. Unfortunately, the narrator of my first book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series didn’t produce a voice that satisfied me—or many of my fans, so I put off getting Uneasy Spirits, the second book in the series, narrated for some time. Then, at a local book club in town, I met Alexandra Haag, a professional narrator, and I fell in love with Read more…
Fun Halloween Ideas from the Past
Hallowe’en. The night wind whispers — Ghosts ! They are waiting for their hosts; The waning moon is weary and will not be up till late ; Already there are shadows at the gate. A word, half heard, that is whispered in your ear, And a presence that is felt when no one else is near. Have you been along the corridors alone — all alone — And listened to the wind up yonder making moan? Have you thought about it all, The footfall in the hall That comes and goes — comes and goes — With the measure of a heartbeat of a life that ebbs and flows ? The poem above was the first item in a nearly 200 page book, Hallowe’en Festivities by Stanley Schell, put out in 1903, that was devoted to giving suggestions on how to Read more…
Summer Kickoff: Update and Uneasy Spirits Sale
It has been 3 months since I wrote a substantive blog post. So you might be wondering, what have I been doing? The answer is simple, I actually started taking some of my own advice, and I have been concentrating on writing and getting more work out there and available rather than spending so much time marketing or giving everyone else advice. Did you miss me? Mostly, I have been writing short stories for my Victorian San Francisco series. If you want to see my most recent one, Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong, you can buy it for 99 cents here. The story I have almost completed, Madam Sibyl’s First Client, is going to be available for free in June for a limited time to those who have signed up for my newsletter. Additionally, I am working on bringing my Read more…
What does it mean when your characters name themselves?
This week I read an interesting post the importance of choosing the right names for fictional characters. One of the points the post made was that authors should avoid doing anything that might bring a reader out of the story, including having names that sound alike. I first ran into this specific problem when I was about to publish my first book, Maids of Misfortune. Most of you know the story by now: I published this book thirty years after I came up with the plot and twenty years after I wrote the first draft so, as you might imagine, I had grown very fond of the character names I had chosen. Then one of my beta readers pointed out that two of my main characters, my main protagonist, Annie Fuller, and Annie’s maid, who I had named Maggie, had Read more…
Two-Day Sale of Victorian Mystery Books on Kindle
I don’t usually just post when I am doing a promotion, but I am experimenting this time with a pre-Holiday promotion of my two Victorian San Francisco Mystery novels so I thought I would let you all in on the experiment. Uneasy Spirits, the sequel in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series is FREE on KINDLE for two days, Tuesday-Wednesday, December 11-12, 2012. Here is the link for the U.S. Kindle Store, and the U.K. Store. A second part of the experiment is to offer the first book in the series, Maids of Misfortune, for 99 cents for the same two days that the sequel is on sale. While I know there are lots of people out there who already have Maids of Misfortune and are going to be glad to pick up the sequel for free, I wondered if those Read more…
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