Let me Propose a Toast ...

Public speaking: Terror. Nausea. Failure.

Can I get a show of hands?

How many writers are ridden with anxiety at the idea of getting up to speak before a crowd? Fearful they'll open their mouths and nothing will come out ... terrified their voice will issue forth as a squeak, they'll forget what they wanted to say, they'll have to run to the bathroom and hurl?

I know. If we were meant to be speakers, God wouldn't have given us the ability to write.

I have one word for my fellow scaredey-cats: Toastmasters.

I've been attending for about three months. Last night, I walked into a new club where I didn't know a soul, and gave a speech about how I'm learning to sell myself. Didn't throw up. Did get some laughs.

Find yourself a local club (there are almost 12,000 in the USA and 90 other countries). Pay a visit, with no obligation. You'll learn something about public speaking, I guarantee it. You'll get the chance to practice -- before you have to stand up at a convention or a signing and speak in order to sell your books. Believe it or not, you may even enjoy it.

But just in case, they keep the barf bags beneath the podium.

Nah, just kidding. They stash them under the seats.

Mama Gets Hitched

I'm deep into Book No. 3 in the Mace Bauer Mystery series, Mama Gets Hitched.
In this one, Mama's about to get married . . . again. She's planning the Wedding of the Century in little Himmarshee, Fla. Of course, things wouldn't be Mama without some mischief and some murder.
The mischief involves the God-awful bridesmaid dresses Mama inflicts on her three grown girls. Seeing no reason to forego the pomp, even if it is the fifth time she's tied the sacred knot, Mama wants a Gone with the Wind themed wedding. Parasols. Ruffles in the extreme. And her pet Pomeranian, Teensy, in a satin ring-bearer's vest and top hat to match the gals' sherbet-colored gowns.
The tomboyish Mace, of course, is horrified.
But the over-the-top nuptials aren't the worst of it: Mace finds Mama's caterer stabbed to death in the kitchen of the VFW. And there are almost as many suspects as Mama's had husbands.
Here's the question: Can Mace keep the villain from killing again? Or will both Mama and her wedding be Gone with the Wind?

Blurb Me

I'm in the clouds! Just heard good things from two of the authors I asked for "blurbs.''

It's really scary to approach writers you admire, hat in hand. These are busy people, with deadlines, commitments, books of their own to promote. Plus, what if they hate my book?

So here I come, Jane First Time Author, and ask them to not only read a 300-plus page manuscript, but to attach their good names to it by saying something nice on the cover: Blurb Me.

"Deborah Sharp's MAMA DOES TIME deserves the Nobel Prize for literature,'' (if they gave out the Nobel prize for funny, down-home mysteries about a bunch of country folk in the ranches-and-rodeo belt of Florida.)

Anyway, Nancy Martin and Elaine Viets couldn't have been nicer or more generous with their praise. I hope I'm famous enough some day to do the same for some first-timer looking for a blurb.

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!

Spring Break!

The calendar says it’s spring, and most of the nation is a'tingle.
As a native of snow-free Florida, I don't see the big whoop. I
never got the crucial concepts:
Spring Fever. Spring Thaw. Spring Cleaning.
I am, however, intimately familiar with one seasonal tradition:
Spring Break.
And let's just say I'm grateful the cameras from "Girls
Gone Wild'' weren't around in the distant decade of my misspent youth.
Combine a tiny bikini with a quart of Harvey Wallbangers, and almost
anyone might be prodded into entering a Hot Bod contest.
Well, anyone who was born in Fort Lauderdale, that is. My
hometown set the original standard for all the sun, sin, and
booze-soaked Spring Breaks that came after. Partaking was a family
tradition. My older sister was an extra in the 1960 movie, "Where the
Boys Are.'' That picture conferred Lauderdale's Spring Break Crown.
And we kept it, too, for more than a quarter century. At least until
civic leaders, as if awakening from a long hangover, finally shut down
the party. Last call for Fort Liquordale. Next stop Cancun.
Now, Fort Lauderdale's college-kid glory days, like my own, are
long gone. It's been 20 years since the campaign to kill Spring Break
finally succeeded. And longer still since I retired my string bikini.
I took a stroll along the beachfront the other day. A single cop
leaned on his motorcycle at Las Olas and A-1-A. Once, there were
legions in riot gear, trying to contain a crowd of 350,000 beer- and
hormone-addled spring-breakers. So many were arrested, kids started
wearing t-shirts: "Come on Vacation, Leave on Probation.''
Now, families picnic where the world's largest inflatable beer
bottle once swayed. The crowd is positively sedate at the Elbo Room,
where spring-breakers used to take a running start outside to slide on
their bellies across a beer-flooded floor. A banner on the bar's
balcony promotes the Humane Society's "Walk for the Animals.''
In the old days, spring-breakers didn't walk for the animals. They
WERE the animals!
Finally I arrive at the biggest symbol of change: The ultra-posh St.
Regis hotel. It opened last year where the Candy Store once stood. In
case you missed 1983's cinematic masterpiece, "Spring Break,'' the
Store's poolside bar was Fort Lauderdale's Bikini Contest Central.
"Good evening, ma'am,'' the doorman nods politely.
I look at him and realize he wasn't even born when the Candy Store –
and I – had our heyday. There's no way he could know that almost
thirty springs ago, that was me by the pool in a purple string bikini.
And, on that long-lost Spring Break, nobody was calling me ma'am.