There Goes the Neighborhood

I'm jazzed that Mystery Scene magazine ran my essay about why I created a fictional town as the setting for my Mace Bauer Mystery series. Just got the issue (Holiday Issue, # 107), and it looks terrific.

Here's a snippet:

As soon as I saw the hand-lettered sign propped outside a remote country store, I knew it was a bad omen for Okeechobee, and for my new book, Mama Does Time, set in down-home Florida.

I circled back in my pickup truck. Nope, I hadn't read it wrong:

Boiled P'nuts/Cappuccino.

Cappuccino?

In a spot where cowboy is used as a verb, where barbecue is a religion, and where the local high school mascot is a 1,500-pound Brahma bull named Bubba?

There goes the neighborhood . . .

And here's a picture of me, writing along the Kissimmee River near Okeechobee, which is the real-life counterpart to my made-up town of Himmarshee.

I'm Validated!

How cool is this?

I'm on Amazon, which means my upcoming mystery novel, MAMA DOES TIME, finally feels real. Funny thing, I didn't even know it was there, until the guy who's helping me design my website added an "Order Now'' link to my Coming Soon page. I clicked, and there it was.

Who knew?

Since Amazon sells the world, and my book's now available on Amazon (or, at least it's available to pre-order and then ship when it's published in October), I'm validated. I'm a participant in the world of commerce. An odd feeling, since the only thing I've EVER sold are raffle tickets and Girl Scout cookies.

It's kind of the same feeling I had all those many, many (many!) years ago, the first time I saw my byline in a newspaper over a story I reported and wrote. My words, right there in black and white (and read all over, as the grade-school riddle went).

Then, I was a tiny cog in the daily paper. Now, I'm the coming attraction. A commodity.

Step right up, folks! Check out my new website:

http://www.deborahsharp.com/

Get your mystery novel here!

Butt in the Seat or Ear to (Someone Else's) Phone?

I'm a disciple of the butt-in-the-seat writing school, though kind of a lapsed disciple at the moment. A long weekend in New York for a family wedding, and I didn't even crack open my outline for MAMA RIDES SHOTGUN.

It's so much easier to pick up the thread of your story when it looks and feels familiar. Too many days out of the seat, and you're like, "Is this my thread? I thought my thread was blue. All I see here are a bunch of red and yellow threads. ''

Granted, the eyesight's not what it was. But I should at least be able to FIND the thread, no?

So, I'm in the seat, yet I'm wasting time here at the public library . . . blogging, checking emails, listening in on people's cell phone conversations. (Note to self: Start a campaign to ban cell phones from public libraries.)

The outline's sitting there at my right elbow. And I'm SO close to the end of the book: Chapter 39 out of 45.

But this woman next to me is fighting with her boyfriend on her cell. I have to keep eavesdropping to find out how it turns out. Who knows? Maybe she'll end up murdering him, and I'll have the first thread of my next mystery!