As I approached the final edit of ‘Bed, Bath, & Blackmail’, I loaded my manuscript into a website called ‘Wordcounter.com’, a most useful tool.This website came back with a list of my most-used words, along with their quantity. Imagine my surprise to see how often I used ‘when’, ‘about’, ‘back’, ‘down’, and ‘time’.
This tendency to use the same words over and over is a trap that writers groups won’t catch, because they see only a chapter or two at each meeting.
Most often, these redundant words … and the phrase that goes with them … can simply be eliminated. On occasion, another word brings more clarity to the context. My total word count for the story has been reduced by 3,000 words, resulting in a tighter story.
For the writers reading this post, I encourage you to give wordcounter.com a try. You’ll be amazed at the result!
There is nothing sweeter than setting up an author table at a holiday craft fair, then waiting for the browsers to wander past, stopping to chat about my characters, the setting, the storyline. If the two of us connect over my mystery series, another reader will walk away with one of my books, anxious to meet my amateur sleith Gwen Andrews.
As the author, I developed my B&B replacement based on a 3-floor center hall colonial design. I’m thrilled that the Colonel Blackinton Inn has given me permission to use a photo I snapped of their establishment to represent my B&B in the cover photo. My publisher will adjust the sign to read ‘Harbor Falls Bed & Breakfast.’
There is nothing more satisfying than to walk into a bookstore and see both of my mysteries displayed on the shelf in the local author section.
A few months ago, I was contacted by the host of “Be My Guest”, an interview show on the Upton local cable station and scheduled for May.
After two years of sharing my writing journey with audiences in New England, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Florida, I received a return invitation from the friends group of my local senior center to speak to them again about the current status of my writing life.
For the past two years, I’ve been presenting my Author Talk centered around how I learned to write a mystery. I was thrilled recently to receive an invitation from the Friends group for my local senior center to speak to them again this April with an update on my writing career and my work in progress.
Debi Graham-Leard 