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.
My first author talk to these volunteers explained the ins and outs of creating my debut mystery ‘The Uninvited Guest.’ Now that I’ve published my second story, ‘Where There’s Smoke, There’s Trouble’, my author talk needed to focus on the challenges of writing a series. My talking points had to be updated.
To this end, I pulled out my crib notes for the original talk, opened a new file titled ‘Author Talk, The Sequel’ and updated each step of the process from the viewpoint of the second story.
- The fictitious seaside town of Harbor Falls remains
- My amateur sleuth Gwen Andrews again solves the mystery
- Creating Characters becomes ‘Who Stays, Who Goes’
- The season switches from autumn to spring
- The location within the town switches to the local bookstore
- The plot has to be totally unique… no repetition from the first story
- Research and local experts change as needed to support the new storyline
- Decision to omit expensive outside editor
- Cover creation based on new storyline
- Publication remains with same independent house
- Marketing is adjusted during approach to previous venues for follow-up talk
After I share this new Author Talk the first time, I’m sure I’ll find sub-topics that need to be tweaked, but that is simply the nature of a presentation.
My writers life in my retirement years remains a fulfilling activity. I continue to meet new and interesting people, keep my brain active, and hopefully provide enticing stories to my readers and ever-expanding base of fans.
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 