Birthday week!

I'd sort of gotten into the habit of declaring an entire birthday week (the first week of July), instead of limiting the cake and ice cream and fun to just one day.

This year, though, I'm only taking one day (okay, maybe two) to play and eat chocolate and just generally have fun. Apparently, I need to finally grow up and act like an adult, because I've got deadlines.

I can't complain too much, because the deadlines are for finishing more stories featuring Helen Binney. The next installment, A DENIAL OF DEATH, just went to the publisher a few days ago, and I'm taking a week or two to clear my head before starting on the third in the series, tentatively titled, A DEAL OF DEATH. Both are under contract now, with DEAL due to the publisher in January 2015.

But I'll still be working during the weeks between DENIAL and DEAL. Yep, I can finally announce that I have a secret project.

After years and years of reading about my favorite authors working on secret projects, and yearning to know what they were, I now know what it's like to be on the other side of the veil.

It's kinda' fun, actually.

All I can say right now is that it involves Helen Binney. And chocolate.

Doin' it Rong (or Rite)

Less than a week until A Dose of Death hits the virtual shelves, and I'm having whatever the opposite of post-partum depression is. Pre-partum hyperactivity?

What if no one likes Helen Binney? I love her, but she is a bit cranky and opinionated. What if no one understands Tate's dry sense of humor and thinks he's just a hard-hearted, evil lawyer? What if all the wonderful nurses I've met over the years blame me for what happens to the nurse in this story?

In other words, what if "Ur Doin' It Rong" applies to everything I've written?

Wait, wait. That's only one side of the argument, and I'm a lawyer, so I should be able to play devil's advocate, right?

Here's the case for my not doin' it Rong. My publisher likes Helen Binney, and she's not the ONLY person to do so. My friends and colleagues are all thrilled for me. My hairdresser fusses over every cowlick and every last strand of hair, because now that I'm a published author, I have to be perfectly coiffed all the time. (Don't tell him what a mess I am when I'm not in his chair.) My local independent bookstore is making a fuss over me (although, to be fair, the owners are great folks, and have always made a fuss over me). I haven't seen a nurse recently, but I'm optimistic that they won't get out their bluntest needle when it's time for my flu shot this fall.

In the end, perhaps some people will indeed think that I did everything Rong in the story and some people will think I did everything (or much of it) Rite, but that's how it goes with a subjective art like storytelling. Some people will like Helen, and some won't. (Although, I do hope there are more who like her than who don't. She's really a very good person beneath the cranky.)

For now, I'm holding onto the fact that reading is an incredibly personal experience, that once you get past the fundamentals of grammar and story structure, there is no definitive Rong or Rite.

Still, I'd feel a lot less nervous if I were confident that Helen's story is as tasty as chocolate. Everyone likes chocolate, right? At least a little?

Don't tell me if I'm Rong about that. I need to believe in something, and chocolate is about the only thing I'm sure of right now.

A rash of titles

My upcoming release started its life with the abysmal working title of Helen Incriminates Herself. 

It's an accurate summary of the premise for the story (amateur sleuth who tries to prove she DID kill someone, instead of trying to prove she didn't do it), but not exactly catchy. It's more a function of my analytical, legal brain than my storytelling brain.

When it came time to send out queries, where every word matters and needs to be catchy, I had a brilliant inspiration. The protagonist, Helen, is a tad cranky (with good reason), and she's got a nurse who really annoys her (and who subsequently ends up dead). I got to thinking that Helen was nursing a grudge against the nurse, and voila! a title was born: Nursing A Grudge.

Catchy and representative of the story, so we were all set to go with it.

And then came disaster.

It's not uncommon for multiple books to share the same title, but it can get confusing if they share other features that make them difficult to differentiate, like genre and date of release. Generally, it's best if the title hasn't been used in the last year or two, and if the books are in different genres.

At the moment, there are three books on Amazon with this title. One looks to be a legal thriller released in September of last year, another is a traditional mystery released in 2012, and then there's a cozy mystery, released just a few months ago.

The last one rang the death knell for my using the title: same general timeframe for release, same genre, same SUBgenre, and even a similar style of cover (cartoony, rather than a picture or realistic painting).

There's just no easy way to distinguish the two books. I can't say "it's the one released this year," or "the one without any blood on the cover," or "the one that's lighthearted instead of grim." I'm more than happy to support my fellow authors, and I'm sure it's a great book, but I don't want to confuse my readers.

So, brainstorms happened. My faithful betas helped, even when I sent them after a red herring. For a while, I was obsessed with getting the word "pill" into the title, and came up with "A Pill A Day Keeps the Nurse Away." My publisher wisely vetoed that one, and the whole "pill" theme.

And finally we came up with the real title. I'm thinking it's kind of like the trope in fantasy novels, where everyone has a given name and a "real" name, and knowing the "real" name for someone (or something) can be powerful.

So, promise me you won't abuse the power, and I'll introduce you to the story formerly known as Helen Incriminates Herself, briefly referred to as Nursing A Grudge, and now openly celebrated as A Dose of Death.