Congratulations to the winners of my prizes from two recent blog hops:
Authors in Bloom Blog Hop – Lori H.
Little Things Blog Hop – Missie Ellis
You should be getting an email from me about your prizes, but if you don’t, please drop me a note at Karen @ kmccullough . com (no spaces).
I’m doing a guest blog gig over at the Romance Books 4 Us blog. My topic is What Makes a Series Appealing to Readers?
Please drop in and offer your ideas!
This post is part of the Authors in Bloom Blog Hop. Read to the end to find out how you can win some terrific prizes.
It’s no secret that I love my garden. Seeing little shoots poke up out of the ground, grow, and develop into strong plants with glorious flowers makes my soul rejoice.
And I enjoy reading plant catalogs, gardening magazines, and those fabulous home glossies that show my dream plantings. I can’t get enough of those spreads of vibrant azaleas, sunny zinnias, marigolds, and daisies, and flowing beds of pastel impatiens. I drool over pots full of just the right assortment of tall, short, and trailing plants, mixed with variegated greens and colorful floral highlights. Dreams.
Reality is my garden looks like those glossy, landscaped masses of color for about three minutes, usually sometime in mid-June.
Part of the garden on one of its better days.
I’ve never mastered the art of designing plantings that will produce those flowing waves of vibrant glory. I end up with clumps of happy red zinnias here and smiling yellow marigolds there. The roses put on a splendid display for a couple of weeks before the heat drives them back in somnolent leafiness. The irises and gladiolas will rise up in May and June for a magnificent but short-lived blaze of petal-pretty glory.
My pots of geraniums spend a couple of months looking dinky until they grow into their allotted space. They’re fabulous for a week or two until they start to wilt in the blazing North Carolina July heat. They’ll have another renaissance in late September when cooler temperatures encourage another spurt of growth and bloom.
I’ve come to terms with it. My garden is never going to pose for a magazine photo shoot. It doesn’t matter. It gives me pleasure and feeds my soul. That’s what counts. Not much of a tip, I know, but really, really important. You don’t want to give up on gardening because you can’t reach perfection. You CAN get very good, though.
Just like I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll likely never write a book that sells millions of copies. I enjoy writing and it feeds my soul just as gardening does. So I’ll keep on doing both.
This post is sponsored by the first book in my Market Center Mysteries series, A Gift for Murder.
Blurb: The Gifts and Home Decoration trade show provides Heather McNeill with the longest week of her hectic life. As assistant to the director of Washington, D.C.’s, Market and Commerce center, she’s point person for complaining exhibitors, missing shipments and miscellaneous disasters. It’s a job she takes in stride—until murder crashes the event.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CGKYNT6
Read an excerpt and get other order links here: http://www.kmccullough.com/Murder.php
Note: the cover at left will soon be replaced with a new one that reflects the series branding since book two, Wired for Murder, should be available in a few months.
Now, about the prizes:
Contests:
I’m giving away a gift pack including a print copy of one of my books plus some other swag to a random commenter, so leave your email address in your comment to be eligible. Sorry, but shipping is limited to the US and Canada. If we have an international winner, I’ll offer you a package of ebooks instead.
GRAND PRIZE: We are giving away a Kindle Fire or Nook (winner’s choice) along with a 2nd prize of $25 gift card.
So… It happened to me again. Not a new story for anyone who’s been in the publishing business for a while. Not even a new story for me. But it bites every time, anyway.
My Market Center Mysteries series has been orphaned.
Five years ago Five Star/Cengage published the first book in the series, A Gift for Murder in hardcover and large print trade paperback. Harlequin Worldwide Mysteries reprinted it in mass market paperback 18 months later.
It took me a while to finish the second book in the series, Wired for Murder, but I did finally finish the first draft in 2014, had it read by a couple of beta readers, revised it based on their suggestions, and submitted it. In March, 2015, it got approval from the editor, who sent it to the contracts department.
I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Inquiries met with silence. Fortunately I’m on an author’s list for Five Star authors, where I learned that a few other authors were in the same position. And some authors with contracts were having their releases pushed back multiple times.
I began to get a bad feeling in my gut. I’ve been published for twenty-five years and I’ve seen publishers come and go. I’ve been orphaned before. Not just once, not just twice. I’ve seen this pattern and it rarely ends well.
In January, the expected word came down. Five Star had decided to close its mystery line. They would publish books already under contract but that was it. No new contracts. All the books they were holding were released back to the authors.
So I had an orphaned mystery series. I queried a few other publishers about it, with the expected result. They don’t want the second book in a series that started with someone else.
After a lot of rumination and discussion with other authors, I’ve decided to self-publish the remaining books. As of right now, Wired for Murder is with an editor and the third book, tentatively titled A Perfect Home for Murder, is in progress. A fourth, untitled as yet, is the preliminary thought stage. I haven’t decided whether to wrap it up there or make the series five books.
Self-publishing involves a lot of work and expense, so I’m going to be interested to see how this goes. But I really love the characters and the setting and I want to write these books very badly. So onward and forward. I hope to keep you updated on my progress.
Hi everyone! I’m Karen McCullough and I am one of over 100 authors/bloggers/ on the Little Things Blog Hop! Make sure you visit each stop and enter the posted giveaway and be sure to enter the amazing rafflecopter, which has a ton of prizes to be won!
For those of you don’t me I am the author of the Market Center Mysteries series and a number of other romantic suspense, mystery, and paranormal stories, which you can find on Amazon. Be sure to look around my site. You’re sure to find something you will love!
The title of this blog hop led me to a meditation about little things. Lots of songs talk about how “it’s the little things” and how “the little things mean so much.” What does that mean?
On the personal level, I totally get this. I have a wonderful husband and a wonderful family, plus a small group of very good friends. I know they have my back, always. They’ve supported me through all of life’s ups and downs. Those are the big things and I know I’m very blessed and fortunate to have the security knowing I can rely on them. Not everyone does.
Even so, the times that really make my heart take flight are the little moments that shine like diamonds in the everyday hum-drum-ness of my life. A Hug from one of my grandchildren, seeing the first flower of spring, a beautiful night sky—any of those things or other moments of beauty, sparkle or warmth can make my day. Relationships are defined as much by the small things people do for each other as by the big decisions.
A few days ago, being my somewhat klutzy self, I managed to spill the entire cup of coffee I’d just poured. It was the last cup in the pot and I’d really wanted it. My husband heard my cry of distress, and helped clean up the mess, then he made another small pot of coffee for me.
That’s love.
For an author it’s not just important, it’s critical to get the details right.
Although we give our characters big problems to solve and watch how they conduct themselves, it’s the details, the little things, that make them come alive.
This is how A Gift for Murder opens:
“If I’d known how bad Wednesday would get, I would’ve—what? Stayed in bed? Not likely. The show must go on and all that. But I would’ve at least asked for another shot of espresso during my morning stop at Starbucks. Maybe two.”
I hope its details give you an idea about the character of my heroine, Heather McNeil.
Join the Little Things Blog Hop Event for more fun https://www.facebook.com/events/562506680576207/
Here you can visit all of the Blog Hop sites:
http://theclubbookpromotions.blogspot.com/2016/02/LittleThingsBlogHop.html
Contests:
I’m giving away a gift pack including a print copy of one of my books plus some other swag to a random commenter, so leave your email address in your comment to be eligible.
And here you can enter the grand prize giveaway:
These two beauties were Christmas gifts from grandchildren. The one of the left is from my oldest grand-daughter, Melanie, and the other from oldest grandson, Jonathan.
I hope that making a commitment to posting my output weekly will help motivate me to keep the words flowing!
So last week, I managed to get only 300 words written on my work in progress, A Perfect Home for Murder, part of the Market Center Mysteries series. But I’m already doing better this week!
I still don’t have anything to report on the status of Wired for Murder. It got editorial approval last March, but I haven’t received a contract as yet so no release date. (I’m not the only author at this particular publisher still waiting for a contract, though.)
I don’t make resolutions, but at the beginning of each year, I do make a list of general goals. This past year I have started warning clients of my website design/development business that I will be winding down the business over the next couple of years. I’m taking on just a few new clients, and none that involve doing regular content updates.
I’ve already noticed a definite decline in the business as more of my work becomes designing WordPress sites, which allow people to update the site themselves rather than having to contact me for every change. That’s okay with me. I like designing new sites and will continue to do that on a limited basis as needed. I’m also open to designing book covers.
I will also continue to work with my existing clients for as long as they want me and I’m able to do it.
But going forward I plan to spend more time on my writing, something that has been somewhat neglected over the past few years.
I haven’t been very good about blogging regularly here this year, but one of my goals for 2016 (more on that in a later post) is to post at least once a week, on any topic that happens to engage me.
To start off, though, I need to do a Christmas recap. It was a relatively quiet Christmas this year, compared to some years when we’ve had a lot of family visiting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just different.
The season still held some wonderful things that provided treasured memories.
Although the out-of-town parts of the family weren’t able to be here this year, I’m fortunate that my oldest daughter still lives nearby. Her oldest daughter is away at college, but her son lives with them. And he likes to bake and cook. Early in December the three of us got together on a Sunday afternoon for a cookie baking marathon. With football games in the background, we mixed, rolled, stirred, decorated and baked for three hours, and emerged with ten or so bags worth of cookies that we split.
Bags and bags of cookies!
A small gathering with my local Sisters in Crime chapter provided a lovely buffet lunch and a chance to talk about moving forward without our co-presidents, Jim and Joyce Lavene, following Joyce’s untimely death last fall.
My neighborhood does something unique and magical to celebrate Christmas. This year, The Today Show came down and filmed some of it. The tree balls are notoriously difficult to photograph, but the video helps.
My own effort is below, showing the decorations on my house, a few of the tree balls we’ve hung and more in the neighborhood down the road.
Another fairly new tradition for us, but one that we all love is having high tea with my “girls” on Christmas Eve at the O’Henry Hotel.
My “girls” on Christmas Eve, my step-granddaughter Ashley Thompson, good friend, Julie Stemkowski, daughter Elizabeth Thompson, granddaughter’s friend Rachel Gideon, and my oldest granddaughter, Melanie Thomspon at the O. Henry hotel for tea.
Finally on Christmas day, we went to our oldest daughter’s home for gift opening, then we came back to our place for dinner. I’d thought we’d have a small group, but it turned out to be eleven. There was still more than enough food and even if it was a bit crowded at the table, everyone still enjoyed the meal.
My daughter washed a ton of dishes for me since the good china and silver don’t go in the dishwasher. It was a huge help.
The tree has been taken down now and most of the decorations packed away, though I’m still doing some clean up. Now prepping for 2016.
I’m doing dinner for a small group this year, but there are a lot of friends and family in my life for whom I am very thankful!
The table set for dinner.