Another One?

I’m happy to say I recently completed my twentieth book, titled People Lookin’ Half Dead – A Bogey Man Mystery. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I’d have twenty books to pick from, although I know a number of authors who offer more than that. The book is now available in both ebook and paperback format, but enough about the number of books.

 

I moved from Arizona to Washington State in 2015. Not long before I moved, during packing, I hightailed it to a fast food restaurant for a takeout dinner. I sure didn’t feel like cooking, and I’d already packed all my pots and pans anyway.

I was waiting for my food when a homeless man walked in. He was tall and extremely thin with long hair. His skin was ashen, and so was his hair. He looked grey from head to toe. Obviously he hadn’t bathed in a very long time. He slowly walked to the counter and asked for a glass of water. He was soft-spoken and polite. The young lady at the counter handed him a paper cup and pointed toward the water. He thanked her and filled the cup. Remember, Arizona is hot and dry and water is as important as food. I’m not going to tell you the rest of the story because it’s not pertinent to this post, but let me say there was a good ending. Oh, and I appreciate the fact that the young lady behind the counter treated him with respect. That said a lot for her character.

Anyway, I’ve never been able to forget this man. He was on my mind so much that I knew he needed to be in a book. The title I’ve chosen, People Lookin’ Half Dead, doesn’t refer to the man’s appearance, but to a heatwave in Los Angeles.

“It’s one of the hottest summers in memory and Chris and Pamela Cross are gearing up to open their new supper club, Gin Mill Grill.

Tillie Babcock, Chris’s grandmother, has moved to town and she’s ready to take over – everything. She loves a good cause and wants nothing more than to help a few homeless people come in out of the heat and gain a second chance in life. Unfortunately, a few of these people are disappearing right out from under her nose.

At Tillie’s insistence, Chris and Pamela now have a cause, or case, of their own -- to find the missing people before it’s too late.”

I could write about the plight of the homeless here, but unless you never watch the news or read a newspaper, you know it’s a worldwide issue, and I’m not here to preach about it.

I generally try to include at least a little humor in my books, and this one is no exception. How did I insert humor in a book about disappearing homeless people? You’ll have to read the book to find out. I’m one of those people who believes you can find something humorous in almost any situation. Sometimes it’s the main characters and the situations they find themselves involved in, and once in a great while a homeless person might make you smile, if only for a second. No, there’s nothing funny about being homeless, but even they sometimes have a sense of humor. (My daughter told me the funniest sign she ever saw a homeless man holding up said, “Bet you can’t hit me with a quarter.”)

So thank you to the homeless man who wouldn’t let me forget him. I hope that at some point he had a second chance at life.

On the other side of the coin, there was once a homeless man who started attending a writers group I belonged to in Nevada. One morning I was the first one in the parking lot. An old van pulled in next to me and it was the homeless man who started telling me about a story he was working on. The story involved killing other homeless people and he went into great detail about the killings. I found myself slowly taking steps so I wasn’t hidden by the van.

Another car pulled into the lot and I took a deep breath and thanked him for sharing his story with me. He laughed, got into his van and drove away. He never attended the group again, but as a writer I couldn’t help wondering if there were homeless people buried nearby.

There are two sides to every story, but the man from the writers group didn’t make it into my book. Or did he?

Until next time, I hope you have a good week and that your life is filled with blessings.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website (Recently updated)

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

What's BSP?

Someone asked me how I feel about having another book out and, believe it or not, the question surprised me. I’ve actually had two new books released this year: Black Butterfly – A Bogey Man Mystery, and Entrance to Nowhere – A Sandi Webster Mystery. This amazes me because I now have seventeen books out, and I still feel like I did with the first one.

How do I feel? Like I just gave birth to the oddest-shaped child in history (think book). A child that I slaved over and created to my own specifications. A child that will never change, nor will it grow. The child will be around as long as someone takes care of it, which could be a few hundred years under the right conditions. (Okay, let me fantasize.)

I’m obviously getting carried away here, but authors care about their work. We do the best job we can, and then we work to get the word out there. Once the book is available, we feed it by marketing and promoting it, but thankfully we don’t have to change its diapers. We do hope it will win the “cutest child” contest, figuratively speaking.

There’s an acronym writers use – BSP. This means Blatant Self-Promotion for those who’ve never heard the term. Many of us have been accused of blatantly self-promoting our books, but that’s how the word gets out there when there’s a new book in town and it’s looking for a home. We do need to be careful about where we do our BSP. There are places that it’s not appropriate, but many more places let us sing our little hearts out about our story.

When I have a new book released, and after my feet come close to touching the floor, and when I find I can sit in my chair without bouncing up and down, I alternate between wanting to laugh, cry, smile, do a cartwheel, worry that it won’t sell, do some more laughing in the hopes it might do well – and then the dog barks at me and brings me back down to earth. My daughter asks me what’s for dinner. I realize that I haven’t dusted the furniture in weeks. I (ugh) need to clean the toilets. Life must get back to normal. Uh huh. Like that’s going to happen anytime soon.

I order my copies of the new books. When they arrive, I’ll take the first one out of the box and stare at it. Then I might sigh and open it – carefully though, because I don’t want to crease the cover. I’ll sit down and I’ll smile, and I’ll continue to grin like a fool until my jaws ache.

When the first book I ever wrote came out, I cried like a baby. Seeing it in print was indescribable. The price for it was blood, sweat and tears. Okay, so I’m exaggerating, but that’s what it felt like. I reveled in the miracle of the book’s birth. Shoot! I wasn’t smart enough to write a book, was I? And yet, there it was in glorious black and off-white.

You’d be amazed if you could read an author’s mind each time a new book comes out. Some will be absolutely sure of its success, and others will moan and groan, feeling so unsure in their heart.

So to every author who’s ever had a book come out, I want to say Congratulations! You may not feel the same way about it that I do, but you’ve accomplished something wonderful. You have a new book and my admiration. Awesome!

If you’d like to share the title of a new book, or how a new book coming out makes you feel, please do.

Until next time, if you pick up a book this week, remember that some author is bouncing up and down in their chair and possibly inviting a concussion from hitting their head on the ceiling.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw's website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com