Happy January! After the holiday break, I’m back on work on Book 2 of the new series. I’ve been using Aeon Timeline to pull all the series details into one place. The software has proven to be very helpful in keeping it all organized — character names, dates, and so on. I’ve mapped out the outline for the book in it and color-coded things nicely. I would post a screenshot, but it would include story spoilers!
For now Book 1 is still in a holding mode. Publishing does not move fast, and I do want to make sure that the series has the best possible launching pad into the world. I’m hoping to have a more concrete update in the next newsletter, but we’ll have to see.
Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle
Last few days of the Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle! Thirteen authors coming together to offer their books in a themed collection. Includes my futuristic mystery/thriller All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise. Find all the details here.
Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility. Science fiction. I flew through this one. The past, the future, pandemics, time travel. A beautiful and unsettling read.
I’ve also been enjoying Joe Moran’s First You Write a Sentence. Non-fiction. This is not exactly a craft book, more of an ode to the beauty of the written word. A book best read at an easy pace and savored.
Social Media Update
I’ve been poking my head out of my hobbit hole to check out the new social media options. I tried Threads for about 5 seconds, but there’s no way to turn off autoplay for videos, so that’s an automatic no from me. I do like Bluesky, and it’s becoming livelier, with a robust and growing book community, so much that I keep wanting to call it Booksky. It has the feel of Twitter before it was X, with a similar interface and a 300-character limit for posts. Like Mastodon, there are no ads on Bluesky (though that may change down the road) and it has some cool, unique features like Starter Packs.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, or a great week if Thanksgiving isn’t a thing where you are. December here in Minnesota has rolled in with frigid temperatures. No snow yet, just bare trees and nightfall arriving early.
Book Cover Update
My thanks to everyone who voted last month on the two options for the new cover of All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise. I decided to go with #2, which ended up with a slight lead over #1. We did, however, incorporate elements of #1 into #2, by tweaking the structure and look of the eye. (Incidentally, I’ve always wanted an eye on the cover, but not a horror-style, disturbing one. I think this one strikes that balance just right!)
Drumroll, please… The final cover! The designers at Miblart knocked this one out of the park.
I’m in the process of uploading the new cover for the ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, at the bottom of this email, and wherever else the cover makes an appearance. The print book will take a a little longer, as it requires waiting for a test copy to arrive in the mail.
To celebrate the new cover, I’m putting the book on sale for $0.99 across all retailers until the end of the year. If you haven’t read it yet and are in the mood for a dystopian murder mystery, now is a great time to pick it up! The full list of retailers can be found here: All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise.
What Have I Been Reading?
Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect. This classic-style mystery takes place on the Ghan, a passenger train that crosses central Australia in a 1,850-mile journey, sort of like an Australian version of the Orient Express. This is the second book in the series and it’s just as witty and entertaining as the first one.
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. Nonfiction. This was written in 2010 and focuses on the pre-Space-X era, but if you’re interested in the history of space exploration, it’s well worth a read. Funny, candid, and entertaining.
Social Media Update
Not counting this newsletter and the Monday evening writers’ chat on Mastodon, I’ve been taking a brief social media break. Five stars, would recommend. I’ll jump back in after New Year’s, but for now it makes for a quieter world, at least temporarily, and we could all use some of that.
An update on the book I’ve been working on, which has nicely settled into the title THAT MURDER FEELING. The most recent feedback has been that the story remains confusing in the opening pages and so I’ve been re-writing the early chapters, all of which has me thinking about beginnings.
There’s a lot riding on opening sentences. They need to grab attention, establish the setting, hint at what’s to come. It’s the front door, ajar. Come on in, it says.
I tend to write the whole thing, start to finish, then edit away until the ending’s just right, the middle’s not saggy, the unnecessary stuff has been trimmed away — BUT the first couple of chapters, they’re the last to fall into place. Maybe they’re too wordy, written before I settled into the character’s voice. Or there are threads set in motion that turned out to be unneeded by the time I typed THE END.
Mainly, though, it’s something else. When you write speculative fiction, the reader needs a sense as to what kind of unordinary world lies beyond that front door. The setting, the rules, the stakes. Best delivered not in a wordy information dump, but with a drip-drip of detail that moves things along while leaving some (hopefully intriguing) questions unanswered.
It’s a bit of a balancing act.
The Rube Goldberg Machine
A novel is a chain reaction, a Rube Goldberg machine, a marble run, one thing leading to another.
For example, not a story:
Jane followed the hooded figure into the woods. And then she caught up with it. And then the suspect confessed to being the thief and handed over the jewels in his pocket. And then Jane escorted him to jail.
Story:
Jane followed the hooded figure into the dark woods, treading softly. BUT, distracted by the argument she’d just had with her mother, she forgot to mute her cell phone and a loud ring broke the night silence. And SO, as she fumbled at her pocket to get to the phone, the thief fled off into the maze of trees. Yup, it was her mother, calling again. This was the kind of thing they didn’t teach you in private investigator courses; she’d just finished hers not two weeks ago.
Jane looked up and realized that the thief wasn’t the only one who’d heard the ring. “Mom,” she whispered into the phone, the wolf’s growl raising the hairs on the back of her neck, “I’m going to have to call you back.”
Links that add up to story: But. However. So. Therefore.
(Not and then.)
The next link in the chain? Maybe a nice park ranger who’s good with wolves — call him Rick — makes an appearance to chide Jane for disturbing his animals, and we’re off on a romantic subplot.
The Push
If a story/plot is a chain reaction, made up of but and therefore links, what starts that chain reaction? Put simply, a complication in an initial set-up. In the Rube Goldberg machine, it’s the initial push of the button, the tipping of a lever, whatever it is that says GO before gravity and momentum take over. Jane’s out there following a thief in her first official case and things go wrong: The phone goes off, she fails to catch up with her quarry, there’s a wolf, and she meets Rick.
The later stages of the Rube Goldberg machine have an incoming direction, a natural entrance point, a degree less of freedom. A commitment has already been made, momentum is happening, the story is going over there – catch it and keep going.
But that initial stage of the contraption, the first page, the opening scene, the possibilities are all still there.
In a sense, there’s too much choice. I can do this, or that, oh and other, well, that could work too to get the ball rolling.
The solution, I’ve realized, is to think of the opening scene as not the first stage but some n-th stage, with already moving gears. After all, Jane up there has a life before those woods — for one, there’s that ongoing argument with her mother — even if that’s where we join her story, author and reader alike.
The ball, pushed along by the gears, rolls in from somewhere out of sight of the Rube Goldberg, encounters a sudden gap in its conveyor belt — and drops, engaging the machine.
The previous drafts of THAT MURDER FEELING drifted too far across the keep-it-short line. And so I’m adding a new Chapter One, with more backstory.
To show those gears turning.
Thanks for reading,
Neve
p.s. This month’s promotions! The Narratess Indie Sale is today and tomorrow, the other two are ongoing until the end of April.
Hope everyone is having a good fall (or spring, depending on where on the globe you are!)
First, many thanks to those of you who kindly agreed to beta read If Your Problem is Murder and waded through the rough version of the manuscript. I received a lot of helpful feedback, digested it all, and gave the book one last good editing pass. It’s now ready for its next step – querying. That’s when it makes the rounds of literary agents — and I think I’ve thought of an even better title (to be revealed at a later date, if it sticks around!) as I send the manuscript out the door. The thing to know about querying is that it’s not a quick process — something I’ll have to remind myself of, as I’m very eager to get this book out into the world and share it with everyone. I had a lot of fun writing it.
In other news, back in September, I attended the yearly Writing Excuses retreat (WXR 2023), which takes place on a cruise ship. This year the destination was Alaska, where I’d never been before. My 19 year old son, Dennis, came along with me and there were about a hundred other writers. We departed from Seattle, with ports of call at Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, and Juneau. It was a busy week of classes, lively group dinners, great food, sightseeing excursions, and a bit of writing tucked in here and there. The photo at the top is of Dawes Glacier. I took it on my aging cell phone, in the drizzle, from the deck of the buffet restaurant at the ship’s aft. I hope some of the breathtaking beauty of Alaska comes through. All in all, it was a great trip. My only complaint is that the week went by too quickly!
Next, in the spirit of a rising tide lifts all boats (as I wrote that, I realized it was in keeping with the nautical theme!), I’ve joined a group of writers who cross-promote via a site called BookFunnel, so you’ll see me post an occasional link to there. This month we’re doing a Mystery/Thriller giveaway, including All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise. If you follow the link, you’ll see a list of books. You can get a free copy of any of them by signing up for the author’s newsletter.
The link will expire when the promotion ends, on October 31.
I’ll wrap up this month’s newsletter with a picture of the dessert menu on one of the cruise nights. My son had the Baked Alaska and liked it, but I thought, Chilled Banana-Cocoa Custard, how often do you see that? With tahini, maple syrup, and Medjool dates, no less. It was delicious.
The title says it all. Book 1 of the new speculative mystery series is done and looking for a couple of beta readers!
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a beta reader is a generous soul who volunteers to read a pre-publication draft of a novel and provide feedback. (Alpha readers see the manuscript at an early, still-in-development stage; beta readers see a close-to-publication draft.)
If Your Problem is Murder is a speculative mystery set in 1985, the first in an intended series. (Yup, this is the book formerly known as Dogwood, the one I was determined to find a one-word title for. As you can see, it…didn’t work. Maybe I’m just fated to have long titles?) The book is 77K words, about 275 pages. Here’s a brief pitch: In this small town mystery series, Redmond Marrs, a life coach with a big secret, tackles the personal problems of residents—all the way up to murder.
Let’s do a quick Q&A:
Does a beta reader need any previous experience?
No, just a love of reading!
What kind of feedback will be expected?
I like to keep it simple. The main question I have for you is this: Is the story working? If not, which parts?
The important thing to remember is that you can’t hurt my feelings. I’m eager to make the book be the best it can be. You would be helping me do that! The manuscript has not been copyedited yet, so at the very least you should expect to encounter typos and the odd goof (timeline or factual) here and there.
What do I get in return?
A signed copy of the book upon publication and my eternal gratitude.
What’s the timeline?
I can email you the manuscript immediately. I would need to receive your feedback by June9.
What’s the next step?
If this sounds like something you might be interested in, great! If you’re reading this in my newsletter, go ahead and respond to the email and let me know your preferred format. The options are .docx, PDF, epub, mobi. I can also do Google docs. I’ll reply with further details and the manuscript.
If you’re seeing this on Goodreads or elsewhere, sign up for my newsletter here to follow along with the latest writing and book news. As I always, I can also be contacted via the form on my website.
Happy New Year! For me, January 1 always brings with it the feel of a crisp new notebook. Pages yet to be written. Moments to be grabbed, new things to be learned, adventures and struggles awaiting just around the corner.
Blue skies ahead, what’s over the horizon as yet unknown.
The ocean water picture is one I took from my cabin on the Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat cruise, this past September in the Western Caribbean. It was an extraordinary experience. I’d never been on a cruise before, or the Caribbean, or a writer’s retreat. I can happily report back that I met and got to converse with some wonderful people, attended group dinners in a grand dining room, sat in on lectures by authors Brandon Sanderson and Margaret Dunlap and agents DongWon Song and Seth Fishman, went on three lovely excursions, watched a nighttime lightning storm from the ship’s railing, visited Rose and Jack’s “I’m king of the world” spot on the bow, and never got seasick!
I had planned to do a full edit of Book 1 of the new mystery series on the cruise, somewhat optimistically in retrospect. With all the other activities, I managed to get through about 150 pages, so just about half. I did attend an “unlocking” session, which helped clarify some issues I had been struggling with, mainly having to do with the big arc of the series.
By mid February, there should be a near-final draft of the book. The working title, Dogwood, is not here to stay, alas, but I’ll leave the unveiling of the new and improved title for a post down the road. When I’m happy with the manuscript, I’ll send out a call for beta readers. I’ll give out more details then, but basically the way it would work is I’d provide a Word document (or other format) with the 300-page manuscript and brief guidelines as to the type of reader feedback I need. In return you’d get a deeper look into my writing process than this newsletter, my eternal gratitude, and a copy of the book upon publication in your preferred format, ebook or print. Be on the lookout for the email if you’re interested!
On a social media note, going forward I’ll be taking a break from the merry-go-round that’s Twitter. I’m trying out Mastodon — you can find me in the Wandering Shop, a community of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers. I’m @neve there (@neve@wandering.shop). So far I’m finding it welcoming and less adversarial than the ‘birdsite’. I’ll still be on Twitter, just not as much.
Hope everyone is having a safe and enjoyable summer!
Can anyone help me identify a bird? It nested a while back on the light fixture right outside our front door. There were at least three baby birds, from what we could see of the beaks peeking out of the nest. When we got back from a week away visiting family in South Carolina, everyone had flown the coop! I made an attempt to identify the breed by its brownish-white chest on one of those websites listing bird species in Minnesota, but without much luck. If you’re familiar with it, do let me know!
In reading news, I’ve been trying Bookbub as a recommendation site for what to read next. (Amazon’s algorithms tend to suggest books that are popular but don’t catch my eye, or books that I’ve already glanced at but passed on for whatever reason…and, occasionally, the algorithms suggest my own books as well?) If you haven’t come across Bookbub before, it allows you to choose which categories you like to read and follow authors and be alerted when they have a new book out or when one of their books goes on sale. The site sends out daily emails with discounted books in your preferred reading categories, which is handy for discovering new authors. The only problem is that my To-Be-Read list is growing ever longer!
Speaking of Bookbub and other sites that feature discounted books, I had someone ask me whether waiting to buy a book until it’s on sale hurts authors and the answer is no. The point of the promotional pricing is to climb Amazon (and other) charts, and every purchase of a book helps push it up the charts just a little more. The reader saves money, which is always good, and the book gets a tiny boost in visibility, also good. In other words, everyone wins…which probably accounts for Bookbub’s popularity with both readers and authors.
And speaking of sales, All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise will be discounted to $0.99 the week of July 26 on Kindle and the Nook. I’m in the process of taking the book “wide” onto other retailers–the full list will be available here by the end of the month. It’s been a bit of a learning process and I’m curious if I have readers who prefer platforms outside of Amazon–my print books have always been available wide but the ebooks have been limited to Kindle thus far. So if you’re on Nook, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books or another retailer, do let me know!
Hope your summer is full of good books and good friends!
I’ve been a little lax about updating this blog, so here’s a quick look on writerly matters going forward. First, the book I’ve been working on for a while, a standalone novel (tentatively titled, ta da… THE LIST: A NOVEL) is FINALLY done (yay!) and has gotten the thumbs-up from my agent (double yay!). Stay tuned for details of the how and when of publication.
Meanwhile and second, I’ve started a NEW book, which is, somewhat unexpectedly, coming along at a good clip (assuming I haven’t just jinxed myself by writing that). I’m about a third of my way into the first draft.
(As an aside, someone asked me how I can say 1/3 with any certainty since I won’t know the book’s exact length until I’ve finished writing the full draft. The answer is that the more you write, the more you get a feel for these things — this one, I’m thinking, will end up being around 75,000 words and I’m at just about 26,000. Plus I’m getting better at sticking to my outlines…or, rather, I’m getting better at making the outline be CLOSER to the story I end up writing. The current outline is still turning out to be very fluid, but it helps provide structure to the whole project and road-side posts along the way.
I’ll have to see how it plays out, but I’m thinking this new one might make a good series starter and might end up being Book 1 of three.)
Thirdly and most importantly, I wanted to thank everyone who supports my writing by buying my books, reading my early drafts, giving me feedback, and engaging with me via email or social media. I am grateful for you all!
With that all said, I’ll wrap up this brief update by wishing you and yours a happy holiday season and a GREAT 2018! I hope the new year brings some calmer seas to the world as a whole and many good, exciting things your way!
If you receive these updates via email, as you can see, the newsletter has a new format! It’s now getting to you by way of Mailchimp rather than Feedburner. With any luck, the transition will go smoothly and the email won’t wither away in your spam folder…or, if it did go into spam, you’ve rescued it and are now reading this. As a side note, if the images aren’t displaying correctly, there is a link at the top with an option to view the email on the web. My thanks to everyone who posted a review of The Feline Affair on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites! Reviews help other readers find the story, and Amazon reviews are particularly important because without a certain number of them the site’s recommendation/also-bought algorithms won’t kick in. (Exactly how many reviews it takes no one outside of Amazon seems to know.) So whether you liked The Feline Affair, or thought it was just OK, or frankly not very good at all… please let other Amazon customers know by writing a line or two about the book.
In other news, I’ve been hard at work on a standalone novel (no title yet). This one is a little different in that it’s decided that it wants to be written not in the traditional past-tense narration (Once upon a time, there lived a King in the small kingdom of Wilderia…) but in the present tense (The king of the far-way planet of Wilderia sits on his throne. An unexpected visitor enters. The king, dispensing with a thousand years of protocol, rises to his feet in terror…) Examples of present-tense novels you may have read are The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The immediacy of the present tense works well for those (quite different) books and I’m finding that’s the case for my new novel as well. So it’s a little bit of an experiment, but hopefully a good one. (Also, so there’s no confusion—there are no kings in the new book!)
Finally, I leave you with a couple of photos of beautiful Minnesota autumn, taken at Applewood Orchard, just south of us. Most of the apples had been picked over this late in the season, but our small group–husband, son, and family friends–quite enjoyed the pumpkin-shaped corn maze!
There’s news to report on the Incident series novelette front. The official publication date is August 25 and the title is (ta, da!)…The Feline Affair. My multi-talented friend Cynthia L. Moyer has whipped up a simply wonderful cover:
The novelette has gone up for preorder on Kindle, but I’d like to send complimentary copies to my newsletter subscribers. (That’s you!) Just reply to this email letting me know if you’d prefer a mobi format (which can be read on your Kindle/iPad/tablet) or a pdf, and I’ll make a list and send the story along mid-August. If you don’t hear back from me by end of August, please ping me again. And if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, quick, do it now! There is a sign up box to the left (here on my website) and you can email me at neve@nevemaslakovic.com to let me know which format you’d prefer. The novelette takes place before the three books in the series and is about 50 pages long. And if you’re wondering where a cat comes into it…well, here’s the blurb:
A wager concerning a famous physics cat has everyone at St. Sunniva University’s time-travel lab choosing sides. Meanwhile, food has gone missing from the biology department fridge. Dean’s assistant Julia Olsen is on the case…or would be if the new chief of campus security didn’t stand in her way. Can Julia rise to the double challenge presented by one sneaky thief and one elusive historical cat?
Set as a prequel to Neve Maslakovic’s time-travel series (The Far Time Incident, The Runestone Incident, and The Bellbottom Incident), the novelette The Feline Affair is a lively jaunt into science, history, and academia.
Neve Maslakovic 