The Magic of the Internet

I received an email yesterday from a friend of mine, Margaret Reyes Dempsey, thanking me for my friendship and the support I'd offered her over the past year and sending me a link to a recent post she'd made on her own blog. I will admit to getting a little choked up when I read the email and the blog post. What a nice and unexpected thing she did! (To see why I had this reaction, read her blog post at Conjuring My Muse.)

The thing is, but for her generosity and taking the time to reach out to me, I would have never met her. She first contacted me after seeing a blurb in our alumni magazine about my first novel, Tell No Lies. (We both attended Washington University in St. Louis at about the same time, though we never met). She wrote me, a complete stranger but for our Wash. U. connection, to offer her congratulations. She went on to buy my book, read it, and then tell all her friends about it. As she explains in more detail in her blog, we stayed in contact by email, and then also through Inked-In, an online social network for writers, artists and musicians started and run by Joseph Hayes and Jennifer Greenhill-Taylor. I won't go into much more detail, because Margaret has explained it all in her post, but suffice it to say, you never know when one small email to another will lead to a much deeper friendship. By the way, Margaret's first novel, The Benefactor, is being released this November.

Another example of this is the email I received from a reader in Scotland, shortly after Tell No Lies was released in the UK in February 2008. Nick Klepper wrote to me and told me how much he liked my novel. Nick is the author of two nonfiction books about Romania, and at the time, he was working on his first novel, Serendipity, a psychological thriller. We continued to correspond by email. This August, after my husband and I had made plans to vacation in Edinburgh with a group of friends (again, see Margaret's post above!), it dawned on me -- hey, Nick lives in Edinburgh. So I contacted him and invited him and his wife to join all of us for dinner one night. He, in turn, invited me to be his guest at a Society of Authors luncheon during the Edinburgh Book Festival. All this because he happened to write to me after reading my book . . .

Writing at the Beach

Yeah, yeah, I know I promised a Thrillerfest post, but the draft post has become long and unwieldy and I want to make sure I mention everyone and everything, so it just hasn't gotten finished . . . Now I'm at the beach (Daytona Beach Shores) with my laptop and my draft is at home on a Word document on my PC . . . Hopefully, next week.


I had a note from Jennifer Greenhill-Taylor (a wonderful lady and the co-founder, along with Joseph Hayes, of one of my favorite sites, Inked-In), asking me how my week at the beach is going. I quickly rattled off a response because I was so excited by everything I'm getting done on Book 2, and then it dawned on me: Hey, I could blog about this.

Some of you know that I've just begun working on my revisions to my second novel. I'd turned in the manuscript in May, and a few weeks back I received comments from my editors. I spent some time thinking about the comments and then, talking them over with both editors (UK and US). Though I'd already fiddled a bit with a few edits, this week is the first time in a while I've been able to spend long days doing nothing but writing and revising. I love it. THIS is the reason I write.

My girls are here with me around the clock, and Rick drives out each evening after work and then leaves early the next morning to head back to his office. I get up when he leaves, make my coffee, and get to work. I love the silence of the mornings, and the temperature is still nice enough to sit outside for a while. Eventually I wake my younger daughter and get her to surf camp. The older one and her friend (who is here with us, too) sleep in. On Tuesday, I set myself up on the beach near the surfers and made revisions to my manuscript by hand. Except for the campers, the beach is still pretty empty at that time of the morning. Because a large part of my story takes place in Florida, I find the writing just pours out of me when I'm immersed in the setting.

On Wednesday, I did it a bit differently. My skin needed a break from the sun and my writing needed the laptop, so I came back to the house after dropping off my surfer. Spent most of the day writing at the kitchen table.

Thursday was our anniversary -- 21 years married and a few months shy of 26 years together -- so Rick took off work and we played at the beach. Later, when surf camp was done for the day, the whole family went jet-skiing on the river. The jet-skiing was fun, but the best part was the dolphins! We must have seen about 10 of them, swimming right next to our jet-skis and showing off for us. Later, Rick and I drove down to New Smyrna for dinner at a place recommended by my friend and book club buddy Diane, The Garlic. Beautiful setting and the food and service both were excellent.

I also did some reading this week. Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan was first. It was this month's book for my book club. Hard to believe this was the author's first novel. It's beautifully written and even if you've never been interested in Frank Lloyd Wright in the past, this book will get you interested. It's a great love story, and an even better book club pick; LOTS of stuff to talk about.

Next was a completely different type of novel, Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben. This was my first Harlan Coben novel and it was so different from what I expected (though I understand that this book might be a bit of a departure from his other stuff?). Though it's a mystery, it's so much more. It touches on a lot of "big" issues: the parent/teen relationship, how we really don't know our kids (and can't), whether spying on them is (or ever can be) justified, etc. I really enjoyed it, perhaps because my children are at that age (cough, cough). But a warning: it leaves you with more questions than answers . . . This is another one that would generate lots of discussion at a book group.