[contest below]

(I had technical difficulties all last night getting onto the site to post… and we’re aware this is happening often. We’ll be having that fixed very very soon, so if you’re having troubles getting on here, please do try again.)

Geez. Heat indexes soaring to 119 (I kept typing 199, and it feels like it), the DOW plummeting after Congress’ brilliant efforts at sinking our credit rating and handling the debt (and I’m shaking my fist at both sides of the aisles, here), and nothing fabulous at the movies right now to escape to… well, geez.

I was reading Jenny over on Argh yesterday, and she’s talking about coping with life stressors, which seemed pretty apt right now. When life is coming at you from all directions, with spit in its eye, a knife in its hands, how do you cope? Me? I tend to either binge read or binge-TV. (One or two summers, I managed to binge-movie, because there were quite a few good ones coming out then. Oh, how I miss those days.) I tend to get into a mood for a particular type of story, even when I’ll have a couple of dozen books on my TBR pile, and I’ve got to read that particular type of story until I’m burned out on it. Maybe there’s something about that type of story that’s just calling to me (and I almost always end up having an epiphany about what I’m writing when this urge takes hold and I read like that, so clearly my subconscious is sifting and analyzing in a way I’m not conscious of doing). Lately, it’s been the police procedural. Up next on the batter’s deck are quite a few books that I would classify as dark suspense, not exactly mystery or thriller, but with elements of both. I kinda have a hankering to get back into SF/F and I’ve got several wonderful novels right now on my iPad that I started and stopped only because life got in the way and then my mood changed so radically.

I think summer always puts me in the mood to read, anyway. (Well, with temps like we have here, only the insane or the unlucky ones who have to work in this heat are out in it.) I remember so many years of champing at the bit for school to end so my mom would take me to the library. For weeks, I’d pile up ten books (the maximum they’d let me check out at a time) and read non-stop through the week. (When I wasn’t fighting with my little brother, who was bored out of his mind and could not fathom why I was buried in a book instead of, you know, entertaining him.) I’d read curled up in the bed (when I was hiding from the little brat) or in the living room (when he was out terrorizing someone else) (and strangely? we’re close now…. life is weird and unexpected…). It never took as long as my mom anticipated for me to plow through those ten books and be ready to go back to the library. And, sometimes, when we couldn’t get there fast enough, I’d re-read them, or I’d cadge hers and sneak off to re-read. (My mom liked mysteries; it was awesome to read about murders when I was ten.) (Hi, mom!)

So how about you? Do you have a way that you cope with the outside world when it’s just tilting on its axis? Do you read? knit? sew? quilt? paint? 

All commenters will be eligible to be entered to win one of four $25 gift certificates to an online US bookstore of your choice, or you may choose something like Starbucks or Target — as long as I can order the gift card online and have it delivered to your email, it’s fair game. Contest ends Saturday morning, 10 a.m. CST and winners will be announced Sunday. 

I’m back from New York City where I was at first the Romance Writers of America conference then the International Thriller Writers “Thrillerfest.” There are many great wrap-ups of the conferences around cyberspace, and it’s kind of old news, so I won’t rehash it here. Besides, I have little to add.

But one thing that happened–and is still happening–I want to talk about, because I think it affects all authors … and readers. Self-promotion.

There was an undercurrent of angst among authors–and not just debut authors or midlist authors–that they needed to do *more* self-promotion. Many conversations, particularly at RWA, centered around what authors were–or weren’t–doing to promote their books. Bookmarks, excerpts, print ads, on-line ads, book tours, book trailers, romance trading cards, Twitter, Facebook, social media in general, newsletters, blog tours, Skype book clubs, postcards, email lists, free digital stories, cheap digital stories, more web content, blogging, tweeting–and that’s just what I remembered off the top of my head.

In some ways, I understand how an author feels pressure from within to do as much as physically and mentally possible to promote the book they labored over for four, six, twelve months — or longer. That we want to make sure we’ve done EVERYTHING to give it the best shot of success. That if the book doesn’t do well, we’re more apt to look at OUR failings than anyone else’s failings. And especially in 2011, with the uncertainties of the digital market v. print market, the demise of Borders, the rocky road of traditional publishing, and the cult-like pressure by some that self-publishing is the best/only route, our success or failure seems to be put more and more solely on our backs.

And while I understand while authors might discuss self-promotion, one thing I heard here and there a couple years ago I’m hearing from EVERYONE today: That publishers are pressuring their authors to blog and become active in social media. More than one person (more than a dozen people) told me that their publisher/editor insisted they go on Facebook or Twitter and that their resistance could damage their sales. The underlying threat (implied or stated) was that the publisher would be looking at the authors with a successful social media campaign and would be more likely to support said authors when it came to their own publishing efforts.

I want to call a Time Out.

Twitter does not sell books.

And unless you have a blog that’s read by tens of thousands of unique visitors a day, blogging does not sell books.

There is only one thing that truly sells books–that makes a book hit lists, go into second and third and fourth printings, that gets a book talked about–and that is Word Of Mouth.

EVERYONE in publishing who I spoke with about this said the exact same thing: The only thing that sells books is word of mouth–and there is no one way to make that work. There is not only no one way, but there’s no guaranteed way. What works for one author doesn’t work for another. You could have two great romantic thrillers with strong reviews, and one hits lists and one tanks. One gets talked about, one doesn’t.

But the feelings I’ve been hearing from scared authors is that if your book tanks, it’s your fault.

Um, no.

Sure, you may have a hand in your book not doing well, but traditional publishing is a partnership. There’s a lot that goes into making a great package. Let’s assume we’re starting with a strong book in a marketable genre. What goes into making that book exceed expectations?

* Cover design
* Cover quote/endorsements
* Early reviews
* Competition
* Co-op (what the publisher spends for front-of-store shelf space or cyber space)
* Sales enthusiasm (the publisher’s sales force getting excited about the book and helping to generate more bookseller orders)
* Distribution (the book is available through all sales channels, both print and digital)
* Bookseller enthusiasm (because of the above, they read and/or hand-sell)
* Reader word of mouth

ALL OF THE ABOVE matters more than anything the author herself can do. Why? Because if you don’t have at least most of the above items in the bag, what YOU do isn’t going to impact sales. If you have all of the above, plus a strong publisher marketing plan, then anything you do will help impact sales. Why? Because people will have heard of your book. But EVEN if you have all of the above and even if YOU compliment the publishing program, your book still may not succeed. And sometimes no one knows why. And sometimes they do. (Yes, it’s a wonky system.)

Our Toni has a great analysis about why Twitter isn’t the an effective way to sell books. I don’t want to screw it up, so I’m hoping she’ll summarize it here in the comments. In essence, you need tens of thousands of followers to have any measurable impact on your sales. Most of us don’t. Most of us have a couple thousand. I’m nearing 3,000. The other problem is that Twitter is fluid–you post, it goes. For those who are following thousands of people, they aren’t seeing your tweets in their stream. There’s just too much information.

Where Twitter and Facebook and all the other social media comes in handy is when you are consistent, people expect to see you regularly, and so when you post that you have a new book out, your loyal fans will (hopefully) go out and buy it opening week and that will generate velocity and hopefully have the impact on your list placement.

Provided you are already expected to hit lists.

Provided that your books are well-distributed.

Provided that there’s some buzz either because you’re already an established author with a fan base, or because of strong publisher support and great packaging.

You can’t buy word of mouth. You can’t pay people to love your books. (Well, I suppose you COULD but it wouldn’t last more than one or two books … ) To get people recommending an author, the author needs to write more great books that get into the hands of readers who want to read them. The front list (new books) sell the back list (old books) and it’s in the back list that the publishers make the bulk of their profit.

I’m not suggesting that authors not be on social media, or insisting that they need to be. I don’t think every author should blog. I think authors should do what they are comfortable doing that doesn’t impact their writing time. Writing books should always come first. Everything else is a distant second.

The single most effective tool an author has is their book–so getting that book into as many reader’s hands as possible is the most effective way to generate word of mouth. But it has to be the right readers for that author, and that’s something that only the package itself–cover, title, cover copy, etc–can show. This is one reason why I have given away over 2,000 books at my expense over the last six years I’ve been published, plus printed 1500 copies of my digital-only novella to hand out as a sampler of my voice. I give to anyone–conferences, friends, repairmen, whoever. If I think they’ll like the book, I want them to be an advocate for it. (Of course, my single most effective advocate is my mom, and she can’t be duplicated or replaced!)

Authors need to partner with their publishers. Find out what THEY are doing then compliment it with promotion you’re comfortable doing–and that you can afford. Be smart about it. If you have a teeny-tiny print run, buying a $4,000 print ad isn’t going to help you increase sales because no one will be able to find your book. People need to have 4, 5, 6 impressions of something before they really consider buying it (which is why publishers love prolific authors because the NAME becomes the IMPRESSION.) They need to see the book on the shelf, see it in cyberspace, see their friends talking about it. Your efforts may be ONE impression, but if your efforts are the ONLY impression, the reader isn’t going to be fooled into thinking there is a bunch of reader enthusiasm for the book.

What I’m trying to say … don’t be scared you’re not doing enough. Chances are, you’re doing MORE than enough. And, in fact, you may be doing too much. Is self-promotion and social media interfering with your writing time, exceeding your advance, or making you miserable to the point that you hate writing? If the answer is yes, you need to step back and focus on the one thing, the only GUARANTEED thing you can control: the quality of your story.

It’s a scary time in publishing for everyone — but readers are still reading, and they want great books to read. Go write them.

I didn’t have a blog idea for today because my daughter Kelly was supposed to write a blog about the whole Wall Street Journal opinion piece calling (practically) for the censorship of a glut of YA books, including several that Kelly read and enjoyed. And she wrote it, but didn’t finish it, and she’s sleeping now (because it’s one in the morning) and while I debated waking her up to meet her deadline (I gave her five days!) I decided to let her sleep. (Who says I’m not a considerate mom?) I’m going to make her finish it and I’ll post it this weekend. But in summary: we both think the WSJ article stinks. You can read up on responses to the piece at Twitter by searching on the #YAsaves hashtag. Or go read my blog about it at Murderati.

So because I don’t have Kelly’s blog (which, what I have read, is very good and decidedly sarcastic), I’m just going to embarrass her for the next 750 words I’ll talk about one of my favorite subjects: Breaking Rules.

I’m working on my presentation to the San Francisco RWA chapter this weekend, revising my BREAKING RULES workshop. I created this workshop in 2007 (I think) to respond to all the so-called “rules” some people toss around as Gospel, as if the “writing rules” were the Ten Commandments. (I’m restructuring my workshop as a tongue-in-check “Ten Writing Commandments You Can’t Break.”)

The reason I created the workshop was because I was tired of well-meaning writers–both published and unpublished–telling people (read: me) what I HAD to do and what I COULDN’T do.

I’There are some publishers and lines who have more stringent “rules” about what can and can’t be in their books. It benefits you to listen. And, if you’re like me, you’ll twist those rules and give them exactly what they want while breaking every single one of them just because they had the audacity to tell you “you can’t do this.” Okay, maybe not. . . . Confession time: When someone tells me something can’t be done, I will usually go out of my way, lose sleep, work all night, and do whatever it takes to accomplish the goal because, well, I don’t like being told “it can’t be done.”

On any writing loop, inevitably, once a week, someone will post a “rule.” It’s not only in romance, but romance writers tend to talk about the “rules” more than thriller and mystery writers. I’ve heard most of these commandments before. You can’t write in any POVs other than the hero and heroine. The hero and heroine have to meet by XX point in the book. Blah blah blah.

Then this week, I heard something I hadn’t before: that one of the Harlequin lines (I can’t remember which) doesn’t like love triangles. This brand new author who is nearly done writing her first book heard this rule and decided she had to go back to the beginning and rewrite it, though she was torn because the love triangle was so integral to the story.

My advice to her (and anyone else considering doing something like this) is STOP! Finish the book. Edit it until it shines. Maybe this book isn’t for that line. Maybe it’s for HQN. Or MIRA. Or another publisher all together. If the story is good and you love it and your characters come alive, why change it?

Maybe a love triangle is a harder sell. But if it’s done well, it could be the top seller for the month. If it’s done well, it could hit lists. It could make your career … or not.

Playing it safe is one strategy, and I’m sure there are many authors out there who have carved out successful careers for themselves by playing it safe with their stories.

For me, I like bold, both when I write and when I’m reading. Shake things up, do something different, give me a great story. Sell me on the love triangle. Tear me up inside because of the emotional power of the situation. Is it hard? Hell yes. But writing safe isn’t easy, either. In fact WRITING isn’t easy, it doesn’t get easier over time or after ten books or twenty books.

Now, it may be that your voice fits a specific line and the editor of that line said no love triangle, we won’t even read it, don’t send it, and then you can decide to write something completely different for the line that they want, or polishing your doesn’t-fit story into a submission to another house. That’s your choice. We all have to make choices in our careers that, at other times in our career we might have chosen different. Don’t let people tell you you’re wrong. You might screw up and make mistakes, or you might be a huge success. Or both. What’s important to remember is that this is YOUR BOOK. Your story. Be bold and daring and sometimes that means breaking a few rules. Those are the books that stand out to readers, and they also stand out to editors and agents. (Most of the time. There are of course some people who want to play it safe. Bear market and all that. So you always have to consider what’s happening, your voice, your career, your goals, and make your own decisions.)

Then yesterday another “rule” popped up. This one I have heard before, but not too often. Don’t have travel scenes.

Well, this is kind of vague. But the person who mentioned it said that her critique partner said absolutely no scenes where the characters are traveling from point A to point B. And I start scratching my head and thinking, damn, another rule I’ve broken in every book I’ve written.

My rule about travel scenes? Don’t be boring. Actually, that’s a good rule for every scene: Don’t write a boring scene. Something needs to happen. People need to react.

What the rule-monger SHOULD have said is, “Travel scenes are hard because they can be boring if you show too much about the traveling that isn’t related to the story. So make sure the scene is tight and essential to the story, that there isn’t another way to show it.”

Again, good basic writing rule: Make sure every scene moves the story forward.

These kind of rules pop up time and time again. Most people mean well. I originally thought they were all rules by unpublished authors, but shockingly, that is not the case. Many come from published authors who found success by adhering to certain rules, and they generously want to share their method with you.

Except. What works for them might not work for you.

The #YAsaves situation illustrates rule breaking in a bigger, more general sense. There are YA authors who are shattering story rules. Creating worlds that had been reserved for the adult fantasy market, but putting in teen protagonists. Creating mysteries with a contemporary framework. Creating stories with characters who have suffered — through rape, drug abuse, cutting, bullying, and a myriad of other problems. I’m 41 and there were no YA books. At 13, I moved from Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie and Judy Blume (who’d I’d already outgrown, along with Trixie Belden) right into Stephen King. Sure, there were a bunch of “classics” I had to read in school, many that I adored, that were written to be accessible to YA readers but weren’t truly “YA” lit. I’m thrilled with the selection out there today. Kelly had even read books–full-length fiction–written entirely in verse. YA has exploded because this new crop of writers is being bold, breaking rules, and giving readers something they want, and–most importantly–doing it well.

So as I said, I’m updating my workshop for my Saturday presentation. I’ll go through some of the “rules” I broke in my earlier books, and why. (For example, a love triangle, killing off a major character, multiple POVs, flashbacks, prologues–yeah, I break a lot of “rules.”) Please share some of your experiences with rules–keeping them, or breaking them. Do you have an example of something new and different and bold that caught your eye because it threw conventions out the window, but did it so well you loved it? Share!

P.S. I’m behind in getting out books and such to blog winners from the last six weeks. Between deadlines and the kids getting out of school, everything got pushed aside. I’m working on getting everything out this weekend. Bear with me! (My mom’s coming over today to help me organize my office and get this stuff done. Thanks mom!)

I have a confession.

I love television more than the movies.

I never knew why until I started writing this blog tonight and realized that I also love reading a book series more than a stand alone.

Sure, on occasion there is an amazing movie that transcends the plethora of so-so productions. THE DEPARTED, for example. Or INCEPTION. Or CASABLANCA, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and THE SIXTH SENSE. But more often than note, the movie is “good” but rarely “great.” (Had THE MATRIX or PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN ended after the first spectacular movie, I would have included them in outstanding feature films.)

There have been many great films produced throughout the years, but when you have one stand alone movie that’s it. It’s over. It has to be amazing, awesome, want-to-see-again thrills. The same thing goes for books. There are many great stand alone books that I count among my favorites: THE STAND by Stephen King; REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier; WELCOME TO TEMPTATION by Jennifer Crusie; and several of Nora Roberts big summer stand alones. (My mom just finished CHASING FIRE and thought it’s one of her best to date–how DOES that woman keep getting better after so many books? Amazing.)

But as I was glancing at my shelves of keepers, trying to find stand alone titles that are my faves, I realized that most of my favorites are because of a character in a series. Robert Crais’s Joe Pike. Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller. J.D. Robb’s Eve and Roarke. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles. Lisa Gardner’s D.D. Warren (and of course Quinn and Rainey!). My shelves are full of series. Karin Slaughter. Ridley Pearson. Even my favorite of Dean Koontz’s books are part of a series– the Odd Thomas books.

You might say most romances are stand-alones, and in one sense they are–the reader follows one couple who has an HEA by the end of the book. But even in romance, writers tap into the human need of connection–writing trilogies or connected series with recurring characters. We (the readers) don’t want to let them go. I get more email about what’s going to happen with Patrick Kincaid, a recurring character who hasn’t had his own book than I do with simple, “When’s your next book coming out?” Our own Rocki has created two amazing worlds with first her Bulletcatcher series, and now her Guardian Angelinos. Different heroes and heroines in each stories, but within the same world so you can follow them over multiple books.

Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. But I equate my love of series characters with my preference of television to the movies.

With t.v., the viewer doesn’t have to have a complete “story” in the macro sense. Yes, we need a resolution to the immediate one-hour situation, but we know we’ll be visiting the characters again next week. We look forward to finding out what’s happening, even against the backdrop of whatever genre we’re watching.

Some television shows have limited character growth. Most of the crime shows are limited in this scope. Though I love LAW & ORDER: SVU and over umpteen seasons Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler have grown as characters, but the show is primarily about the one hour story, not the characters who populate it. In this regard, it’s the one exception in my television preferences. I’ve given up on CSI and CRIMINAL MINDS and many other shows because there was little to no character growth–or if there was, it was a sudden change necessitated by a cool plot in one or two shows.

When I first seriously started writing, I had three kids and worked full-time. The only way I could make the time to write was to give up television. I did–for three years. Television had become a habit, because there was a lot of crap on. The early 21st century hadn’t yet seen the explosive growth of cable television series. The good shows (like DEADWOOD) were on paid television, which I didn’t subscribe to. I found that series on DVD. Or they weren’t promoted or supported (like FIREFLY) which I discovered only after I saw the movie SERENITY.

When I started watching television again, I did it first by watching a complete season on DVD. I’d missed a lot in giving up the tube for three years, that I needed to catch up on what was popular. I watched VERONICA MARS on DVD with my teenage daughters and LOST and DEADWOOD with my husband. I fell in love with television all over again, but on my terms.

When I got my Apple TV and started downloading seasons from iTunes, I realized there was still a lot of crap out there — but cable was coming into its own. I discovered LIFE (thanks Toni!) which unfortunately was cut short to only two seasons by short-sighted television executives who didn’t know a good thing–oh, wait, LIFE was NBC. Network. No duh, they were making a lot of crap, no wonder they didn’t see a good thing! And JUSTIFIED (FX), SUPERNATURAL (W/B) and now THE KILLING (AMC). And more.

What do all these shows have in common? Character. Not only characters, but characters who matter. Characters who are flawed. Characters who screw up and do the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for the wrong reasons. Characters who are growing and changing in each and every episode. Characters we connect with. And one more critical factor: story.

You can’t have a solid series, even with great characters, even with Timothy Olyphant, without the backbone of a good story.

Nothing stood out more clearly to me than the blend of story and character than when I saw LUTHER.

Philadelphia Inquirer reviewer Johnathan Storm summed it up best:

“With the tormented Luther, it’s sometimes tough even to identify who is the cat and who is the mouse. Writing and acting come together to produce characters, more than stories, who are powerful, surprising, ambiguous, and all that other stuff.”

While I disagree that it is the character MORE than the story, I think that because the characters were so real that they BECAME the story. It was seamless.

LUTHER is a BBC show that I would never have discovered if not for my cousin Ginny mentioning it when I was visiting her and my great-aunt. So thank you Ginny!

LUTHER best illustrates my point because it is a limited mini-series. Six episodes (though I read they are producing two two-hour episodes for later this year) that have a complete story arc within the episode, and a continuing (and complete) story arc over the six-episode season.

Maybe Matt Roush with TV Guide is more succinct:

“This bold British import is among the best TV I’ve seen in a mediocre (on network TV, anyway) fall season. Fast-paced, constantly surprising and darkly entertaining, Luther is about as far as you can get from a cookie-cutter procedural.”

I wouldn’t say that LUTHER is better than JUSTIFIED … it’s different. I went into the series knowing it would end in six episodes (it was only later I discovered the two future shows.) It hooked me from the beginning, when Luther is chasing a child predator who had molested and killed many young girls. He’d left one of his victims in a box and she would die if Luther couldn’t get the bastard to talk. Luther chases him and the killer falls and is hanging precariously off the edge of a catwalk. Luther stands over him and demands to know where the girl is. He knows that the killer will not tell him if he’s safe, so he lets him hang. And keeps him hanging until he knows the girl has been found and is alive.

And keeps him hanging a beat longer. Another beat.

He falls.

Brilliant, daring television.

LUTHER isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. What it must do, and does better than most shows I’ve seen, is draw the viewer into the lives of not only the main character but the people who surround him. Alice Morgan, the brilliant sociopath who John Luther knows killed her parents but can’t prove it, is the mouse to his cat . . . or is it the other way around? (Honestly, she is better than Hannibal Lechter. Just as smart, but subtle.) And Luther’s estranged wife (no, I didn’t like her any more than I like Winona in JUSTIFIED) was perfectly played (for a weak-willed don’t-know-what-I-want female who did, fortunately, redeem herself in the end.) His partner Justin Ripley, a rookie I adored–young, idealistic, with a conscience that both supported Luther and criticized him when warranted. He played by the rules, but at the same time believed in his senior partner. And Ian Reed, Luther’s best friend and staunchest supporter and . . . more. I don’t want to give anything away.

And while Idris Elba as John Luther was the core of the show, it only worked because everyone rose to the challenge. The writing was sharp, the acting top-notch, the stories psychologically terrifying and interesting, and the character development deep and real.

Perfect? No. But without watching it again, I wouldn’t be able to point to the flaws. As an American, some of the British rules were a bit different. Cops don’t all carry guns, for example. And sometimes they talked so fast that, with their accents, I couldn’t quite understand everything they said. But I got the gist, and didn’t need sub-titles

What I loved most of all, however, was the relationships. Between Luther and his estranged wife, Zoey. Luther and Alice. Luther and Ian Reed. Luther and his partner. Luther and his boss. And how they all interacted. How each episode stood alone, but built the foundation for the last two episodes.

Writers, mark this down as the next series you watch. Less than six hours of time, it’s worth it. Crime show fans? Mark this down as a thrill ride with great characters you won’t want to end.

After watching LUTHER, I knew exactly why I preferred series to stand-alones, and television to movies. Character depth and growth against the backdrop of a great story.

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

So tell me — what television series stood out so much that it reignited your love of t.v.? What book series is a must read as soon as the book comes out?

As an aside . . . this weekend we’re starting a new hopefully monthly feature of guest bloggers. So come visit us on Saturday and say hi to my friend Misa Ramirez!

I’m sure most of you have seen the T-shirt with a mountain of books and the words, “So Many Books, So Little Time.”

We all have our own towering TBR piles. I’ve decided that when you get unread books together, they procreate, because that’s the only explanation I have for my growing TBR piles. I wouldn’t actually buy any more books when I have so many unread, would I? (cough)

But it’s not books I haven’t read that give me fits. It’s books I haven’t written.

I will never say I have too many ideas for fear of jinxing my muse and ending up with nothing. In fact, after I sold THE PREY, I feared I’d never have another good idea. Or if I did, I wouldn’t be able to write another publishable book. Or if I did, that would be the last, because I couldn’t come up with more than two good ideas for stories. I think part of me was scared of assuming I’d always have a book idea, and part of me was scared to think I wouldn’t recognize a good–or bad–idea.

I probably shouldn’t be scared of losing ideas. I have a pretty good knack now for knowing what will work and what won’t in my genre and with my voice. I have some ideas outside of my genre and some outside of my natural voice that scare me, however. For example, on one of my published author loops this week we were talking about Westerns. You see, I actually have a Gold Rush era romantic suspense idea very loosely based on the first known serial killer in America. (The first known serial killer, a killing pair, was far earlier than the Gold Rush era, and nowhere near the West. But since I’m a fifth-generation Californian, I’m more interested in California history and the Gold Rush and turn of the century San Francisco, so I thought I’d just bring the psychology behind those killers into the 19th century.)

I have another idea for a YA trilogy. It’s something I want to write someday, more because it’s a story I’ve been thinking about since before I even sold my first book (though I hadn’t thought of it as YA back in 2003, it has younger protagonists so would fit the YA mold very well.) The problem? It’s SF/fantasy. Yes, heavy on the suspense, because I don’t think I can write anything without suspense at its core, but still an epic fantasy.

Again, outside of my genre.

Then there’s my idea for a straight-up mystery series with a heavy dose of dark humor. I already can picture my hero and heroine, a married couple, and then I have to slap myself. I don’t write funny.

And those are just the ideas that don’t mesh with what I write now.

Daily, I have a snippet of an idea for a future Lucy Kincaid book. Usually I know if the idea is small (part of a bigger story) or the key plot. A couple weeks ago I wrote one paragraph for each of the next three Lucy books and sent them off to my agent. Two were fleshed out into full paragraphs; one was a single sentence.

When I first thought about the Lucy Kincaid series, didn’t have any ideas for her, just that her character would fit in a lot of different stories. Her past, her family, her personality, her intelligence, the way she looks at the world gives me a lot to play with. I thought, I have a couple vague ideas.

As I wrote LOVE ME TO DEATH, more ideas popped up. Some I dismissed pretty quickly, but others stuck with me.

And then there’s Sean Rogan, the hero of the series, who has a mysterious backstory of his own, bringing in more ideas that I wasn’t expecting.

I originally told my publisher that I could write three Lucy books, or more. There’s a natural turning point after book three so that if I didn’t write any more, my readers should be happy. But as I jotted down the next three core ideas, I realized I want to tell many more stories from Lucy’s POV. Now I have six core ideas (the first two books that are done, the third that I’m writing, and the three I’m proposing) and there are still other snippets that my muse is picking out of the creative well. Is she going to make it into the FBI? If she does, where will she be assigned? What squad? How will that impact her and Sean? Who will she work with? Will her past be more a help or a hinderance? What about her relationship with her brother Patrick and the guilt and regrets that remain even after seven years? Can she make it on her own, without her family? Is her growing friendship with Noah going to become an issue with Sean? And then there’s Sean’s brother Liam. Exactly why hasn’t he come back to the US in more than a decade? Why does Noah hate the Rogan family? Is it Liam . . . or Kane, the mercenary in South America? Or is it something else?

So many questions, so many ideas, so many possibilities!

KISS ME, KILL ME, book two in the Lucy Kincaid series, will be out on February 22. Here’s a little teaser from pages 41-42, right after Lucy begins to help Sean with his missing persons case:

She sent Sean the message, then realized she was still in her bathrobe and it was well after noon. She quickly dressed in jeans and a sweater, then jogged down the stairs to make a sandwich. She’d just taken her first bite when she heard the postman drop the mail into the box outside the front door. She retrieved it, sorting through bills and junk mail. In the middle of it all was a letter addressed to Ms. Lucia Kincaid from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Heart racing, excited and nervous, she quickly opened it.

Lucy stared at the single page. She didn’t blink; she didn’t move; she didn’t even read it twice. Her eyes were fixed on one phrase in the middle of legalese:

your application is denied

She refolded the single piece of paper, slipped it back into the envelope, and slowly walked up the stairs to her room, each step a small mountain, hands shaking, sandwich forgotten.

She’d failed. The FBI didn’t want her.

She fell onto her bed and stared at the ceiling, hope washed away along with her future.

She wasn’t going to be an FBI agent. Everything she’d been working toward for nearly seven years, gone. She was twenty-five years old and she had no idea what she was going to do with her life.

It’s not fair!

She squeezed back tears. How dare she even think about fairness! Her life had never been fair, but who in the hell had promised her it would be? Lucy could blame no one but herself. Kate and her friends and family had been fully supportive, doing everything they could to prepare her for the FBI. She’d taken mock written tests, gone through practice interviews, used the recommendations of high-ranking FBI agents to get her in the door—she had more advantages than most applicants, and she’d still failed.

They’d rejected her.

It was on her, only her.

Today I’m giving away any book in my backlist, winner’s choice. Comment and pass it on! Writers . . . do you have too many or too few ideas? Readers . . . how many books are in your To Be Read pile?