Pseudonyms!

Like the bard said,...unless you were expecting the smell of coffee and what you got was the smell of roses, then your coffee just smells like soap. I don't want soap in my coffee!

I just created a character who is hiding behind a pseudonym and there in is his dilemma. Will the people who mean the most to him still like him if they know he's this other person?

So what gives with writers and all the names? "Sofie Couch" is a nickname I acquired in middle school and various friends, mostly from my childhood, still use that name. It's also on some of my books, but not all of them, then I'm "Annette" to most of my family, some of my friends, (except for that one friend from elementary school who just thought "Sofie" and "Annette" were identical twins. LOL! I cannot believe he thought I was identical twins for all those years!!) Then "Annette" with different last names for different business ventures? It's so confusing... even for me!

I was part of a panel discussion last week, the topic--“The Business of Art: Writers on Writing” and there I goofed no less than three times in referring to one of the writers on the panel by her real name instead of one of her two writing names. It’s Madeline. Madeline, Madeline, Madeline… until we’re chatting over a cuppa coffee, then it’s… that other name that I won’t disclose for a fourth time.

So, as the moderator of this panel, I stuck in a surprise question: “what’s with the name game?” although I play the name game myself. I have reasons that I thought were the same for everyone else, but I don’t care if someone uses the other name. I answer to both readily. It turns out, there are some other very, very good, valid reasons a writer might use multiple different names and keep the different identities separate.

You see, Madeline’s in-laws don’t know she writes! (Even her photo in the flier is pseudonymous.)

Another writer friend’s co-workers and employer don’t know she writes. 

Sometimes, its for credibility reasons when what you write may not fit the brand of your full-time job, or the expectations of in-laws.

Then there was one friend’s pesky on-line stalker. Say it ain’t so!!! Or the car-full of strangers that pulled into a friend’s driveway wanting to get their books signed. Probably harmless, but you never know! Or those who just send you letters with return addresses like “Sing-Sing, Alcatraz, Folsom Prison… (Okay, I’m being funny with those references, but you get the picture. It happens, apparently. Not to me, but to other people I know.)

Those are all of the sensational reasons that I had never expected. The motive I did expect, and that which is more common, is brand.

The number one rule in this biz is to stay on brand. If you have readers who enjoy your cozy mysteries, they may be disappointed in your less cozy thrillers, or sweet romance vs. sci-fi paranormal schtuff.

How disappointing for the reader of sweet romance to pick up a book that is, er, not-so-sweet, but with the same author’s name? I’ve done that. I handed a book to my teenager from an author we knew and loved. She read the first ten pages, then handed it back to me, suggesting that it might not be thirteen year old appropriate. Yowza! It definitely was not thirteen-year-old appropriate.

And then there’s the whole problem with your friends calling you and you not recognizing your name, or your friends using the wrong name at the wrong time. (Soooo sorry, Le…., er, Madeline.) So please bear with me while I figure out this name thing. In the meantime, It’s “Sofie Couch” for sweet romance AND cozy mystery with a sweet romantic element and I'll print some form of disclosure on the new covers for anything that falls outside of that mix. I’m re-vamping my backlist, but there are still a few YA paranormal novels out there with the "Sofie Couch" brand. I'll fix that with the new covers. Whew. Wish I knew then what I’m figuring out now.

My next cozy mystery with sweet romantic elements, JAIL BYRD, (probably coming out in the next month and a half), is set in the recurrent small town of Poropotank, and features a missing manuscript, a secret baby, and a pseudonymous writer struggling with the name game. I hope you’ll read it to learn his motivation for hiding behind a pseudonym! In the meantime, you can follow me at my blog, “The Paperback Writer” at www.sofiecouch.com for regular updates and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog where this group of savvy women are always on brand - Classic and Cozy!

April Showers Bring...

...Mud, and moss, and mess, oh my. But also spring flowers!!! I want flowers. I want grass. Nope. I've got moss. It's pretty. Beautiful in fact, but it ain't flowers. This seems a simple enough goal, but then, you don't know my gardening history. :( The phrase, "shrinking violets"applies to a plant's reaction to seeing me in a garden center. I think the violets can smell the death.

It all began harmlessly enough. My goal: Clean up the patio so I could sit and read a cozy mystery or a sweet romance novel in relative comfort on our on-again-off-again temperate spring days. I live in Virginia and Wednesday saw a 30 degree temperature change in about three hours. Next week? Who knows? Maybe 90s? So I’ve got to take advantage of the temperate days while we’ve got them.

So I started tackling the seating area in the back. It’s like the children’s story, “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie”. Do you know it? Well, this mouse starts out just wanting a cookie, then wanting milk, then wanting to draw a picture for the front of the fridge, etc., etc.

I started raking leaves, which led to tripping on the patio pavers, which led to pulling them all up, which led to grading, re-paving, decorating, planting plants, creating a focal point, which led to tearing down an unsightly tree house, to finally looking back at my patio, remembering my purpose here and…

Today, it’s raining. Oh well, why don’t you check out one of our Classic and Cozy writers, and enjoy them outside while the temperate spring days last. I sure wish I could.

To Do, or Not To Do... 'It'

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

I think we all agree we live in a sex-saturated society. Everywhere we turn there is sex - social media, movies and television, books, even advertising. Yes, we all know sex is used to sell everything from coffee filters to motorcycles and just about anything you can think of in between.

These days it's difficult to find books or movies that don't drip with explicit, graphic and sometimes gratuitous sex, but it is possible. The writers of this blog write what some call 'clean' books that don't have excessive sex or violence... but be careful of saying that. The word 'clean' is a trigger for lots of writers and maybe even some readers, especially those who like their reading explicit. It implies, they say, that sex is inherently 'dirty.'

Well, that argument is way above my pay grade! Besides, what constitutes 'sex' is really a very grey area, open to all manner of interpretations. To some readers, a kiss before an engagement is salacious, while to some others getting to know the other person's name before the characters have sex is not really necessary. Most readers - and writers - fall somewhere in between.

So as writers what do we do about sex? Ignore it? Allude to it? Something else? There are those who say that sex is an integral component of romance and of life itself, and that to ignore it is dishonest. There are also those who say that some things should be private, and not everyone regards premarital sex or even descriptions of marital sex as an indispensable part of romance. And many mystery readers believe that sex - except perhaps as a motive - has any place whatsoever in a mystery.

What's a poor writer to do?

First, we must accept that whatever we do there are some people who won't be happy about it. Second, we must always remember that it's our story and our people, and what they do is at our decision and command.

There are all kinds of options open to us. We can write a story where sex is not only not mentioned, it's never even thought of. We can write a story where a couple (married or unmarried) have sex, but it's most definitely off-screen, with nothing but the most careful allusion to it having happened. Some writers get so graphic in their descriptions of The Act that it might as well be advertised as an instructional manual.

So - do your characters do 'It'? Or not? It's up to you - and your readers.

Coming Home

by Sandy Cody

I'm home. That's how it feels to be writing a post for this blog. I've been away for a while as a poster, but I've continued to read ClassicAndCozy and, always, I've been grateful to be a part of this family of writers. I was reminded of that recently when I started a new book. My first published works were the Jennie Connors mysteries, published by Avalon Books, and the Avaloners group was my introduction to these talented, generous people.

I've been writing other things for a while, but always knew I would come back to Jennie. That's where I am now - writing the sixth Jennie Connors mystery. Feeling the need to renew my acquaintance with Jennie and the characters who share her crime-solving adventures. I decided to re-read the books in that series. I began with LEFT AT AT OZ - amzn.to/2chHD5A  When I opened the book, the first thing I saw was the acknowledgement:

"Writing for Avalon makes me part of a very special group of writers. Whatever our genres, we share a belief that "happily ever after" is possible and that good will triumph over evil. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, many of us have become friends, though we have never met face-to-face and our physical addresses span the globe. I am truly grateful for the encouragement given me by my fellow Avaloners."

A bit about Jennie: She's an optimist by nature and an unrelenting champion of the underdog. She has two young sons and works as Activities Director of Riverview Manor, a retirement community where the residents are feisty, mobile, alert, and just bored enough enough to stir up trouble. If there's a murder to be solved - Whoo Hoo and Hurray! They're in.

So, here I am again - blogging on Classic and Cozy and writing a Jennie Connors mystery. I've come home. More than ever, I want to share my belief in "happily ever after" and to show good triumphing over evil. It's good to be back.

A Cozy is What???

By Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

What’s a cozy mystery? Well, it depends on when – and who – you’re asking.

A cozy mystery used to mean a mystery without overt, on-screen violence, sex or gore. Since murder (which the vast majority of mysteries are) is inherently violent, a cozy had to soft-pedal the explicitness so prevalent in the noir or hard-boiled ‘traditional’ mystery. Instead of a lengthy and loving description of the knife point parting the yielding flesh or the fountain of spatter as the bullet tears through the body, there is just a scant mention of a lip of blood seeping out from under a covering sheet or the sight of a crushed and mangled body – nothing more. Sex (if any) is treated the same way – a glance, occasionally a quick kiss, but the focus is nearly always just about the puzzle and nothing else. Oh, one of the main hallmarks of the true cozy is that the sleuth who always triumphs in the end is without exception an amateur.

That’s pretty much still true for many today, but in the last few years there has been a revolution within the cozy genre itself. If possible, it has gotten ‘cozier’ if not downright cloying.

Not long ago I was talking with an industry professional and he mentioned that I should try my hand at writing a cozy mystery. Since he was familiar with my work I was startled, as my mysteries have always been considered cozy – amateur sleuth, no overt anything, focus on the puzzle. Not any more, he said. You are now writing a traditional mystery; now a cozy is much fluffier – an amateur female sleuth, who usually owns a bakery/café/needlework shop/bookstore or works in some other traditionally feminine field of endeavor, who occasionally has an incredibly intelligent pet (some of whom talk and even detect by themselves), who has both a steadfast but quirky family/best friend and who always has a hunky policeman or detective friend about whom she inwardly obsesses standing around waiting to help her. Oh, and if food is involved, there must be recipe(s) at the end. Today, the industry professional added, it’s becoming almost de rigeur for the heroine/sleuth to be young, gorgeous, witty and usually adorably clumsy, especially around the hero – and sometimes so stupid it makes my teeth ache. Most recently it seems she has to have some sort of superpower, too. Psychic abilities. Be a witch. Or, if she is ‘normal’, have a ghostly companion whom only she can see.

That, he said, is today’s cozy mystery.

My response was nothing I want put out on the internet.

Now don’t get me wrong – I read stories with varying degrees of the above elements. Some I have enjoyed, some not – just like with any genre. What alarms me is that there is such a tsunami of them. I’m waiting with fatalistic patience for a story about a psychic witch who can fly (with or without broom), can shapeshift or turn herself invisible (maybe both), and has a ghostly companion who runs her bakery/café when she’s zipping around searching for clues with a saturnine detective who doesn’t believe in paranormal phenomena. It’s inevitable.

I guess I’m old-fashioned, but I don’t see what’s wrong with a perfectly normal human sleuth who follows the clues and solves the puzzle with nothing but her (or his) brainpower, tenacity and curiosity. However, everyone has different tastes, and that’s fine.

Deciding for Joy

I was cutting flowers to bring inside to decorate the house when the thought intruded. Why bother? Yes, they’ll look pretty for a few days; then they’ll shrivel up and die and I’ll have to go out and get some more. Why do all that work for something that won’t last?

Flowers fresh from the garden

But I do. And each time I bring in a fresh set of flowers I remember why I do it.  I love the way they look and smell, the way they bring a bit of color and beauty from outside into the house. It brings me joy to look at them. And those moments of joy are a rare and beautiful thing.
We need those moments, but they don’t always just happen. Sometimes you have to decide to make them happen. Decide it’s worth the effort to cut and arrange some fresh flowers even though they’ll be sagging and brown in a few days.

I’ve come to believe that it’s not just nice but necessary to allow ourselves some time to appreciate beauty even if it takes a bit of work to achieve it. Our souls need to be fed just as our bodies do, and beauty, things that delight our senses, are its nourishment.

Sometimes I have the same feeling about my books.  I put a huge amount of blood, sweat, and love into writing them, editing, rewriting, and formatting them.  Then I send them out into the world and…?  Well, it depends where I send them.  If to a publisher, under contract, they get edited again and finally released into the world, where they’ll sit on a shelf for a few weeks, then get remaindered.  These days they’ll continue to be available online where they’ll sell maybe a few copies a month for the next year or so. If they go to an agent or editor after a query, then most likely they'll be returned with a "Thanks, but no thanks," response.

Sigh. Is it worth it?  I hope so.

Now I’m venturing down a new highway. Since Five Star ended its mystery line before the second in my Market Center Mysteries series was published, I’m publishing it myself.  I’ve paid for editing, have a new cover for the first book (A Gift for Murder) and one for this one (Wired for Murder) that share a new look, and I’m working on the formatting.

I can’t help but wonder if I’ll sell enough copies to make it worth all the work and expense. But I love this series and writing it has brought me joy. A joy I want to share with everyone.  So even if it only sells ten copies, it will be worth the effort.

And now Wired for Murder is available for pre-sale at Amazon.  I'm fearful and excited to see how this venture will work out.