Two Types of Beach Trips

Karen McCullough Posted on by

It’s almost old news now but back in May I spent a week at the beach with a large group of family members, including my husband, sister-in-law, oldest daughter, her two kids and her daughter’s current boyfriend, and my youngest daughter, along with her husband and three small sons.

Beach_1

Three small boys playing at the beach

Let’s count – a husband, a sister-in-law, two daughters, a son-in-law, five grandchildren (two grown and three under the age of five) and one boyfriend. Yup, including me that’s twelve people.  Fortunately it was a big beach house with more than enough room for everyone to sleep comfortably, but that’s still a lot of people.

Most years my husband and I do two kinds of beach trips. The late spring version with all of the family who can come, which is what this one was. In the fall, though, we do a quieter, just-us version, usually with just the two of us and my sister-in-law.

Need I say that they’re two completely different experiences even if the location remains the same?

A beach trip with the whole family is a riotous and noisy affair, filled with non-stop action, including a lot of time spent chasing after toddlers and playing with them in the sand.  (None of the three small boys would go near the ocean.  We had to get a small wading pool and fill it up in the yard of the house or on the beach but just below the dune to get them into water.)

Beach_2Meals are huge and complicated as we juggle feeding small children and a horde of adults with different tastes and food preferences. Everyone pitches in to help, but the kitchen, while large, will only accommodate so many people at a time. But we’re fortunate to be a family that has good humor as the default setting and tends to take everything in stride.

On the other hand, our adults-only version is much of a restful and restorative experience. With just the three of us, there’s time for long walks on the beach, reading, sitting around staring at the ocean with a glass of wine in hand, more reading, some writing (for me), lingering over good food, and just unwinding. I come away from it refreshed and recharged.

Both are good times. Both include plenty of sand, surf, and good food. I’m grateful to have the opportunity for each.

Setting for the Market Center Mysteries

Karen McCullough Posted on by

I discuss why I chose the setting I did for my Market Center Mysteries mystery series at Brenda Whiteside’s Discover Yourself blog. Come over and take a look!

Drupa_2012_Canon_by-RaBoe_14
An electronics trade show.

Photo Credit: Ra Boe / Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 de

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Blog Hop Winners

Karen McCullough Posted on by

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).

 

My Garden Doesn’t Look Like Those Magazine Photos

Karen McCullough Posted on by

DianneVenetta_AIB-Logo_2015This 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.

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.

AGFM_125Blurb: 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.


Life After Disappointments

Karen McCullough Posted on by

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.

 

Little Things Blog Hop

Karen McCullough Posted on by

Blog Hop Face Book PostHi 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.

AGFM_125Although 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:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Last Week’s Writing Total

Karen McCullough Posted on by

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.)