Thursday, January 30, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Criminal Minds at Work: The Drug Dog and I - Part I
Criminal Minds at Work: The Drug Dog and I - Part I
You know you are a crime writer when... the top-most thing on your mind when pulled over for a border security baggage search is to
watch where the officers DON’T look so you know exactly where the smuggler in
your next novel is going to stow his stash.
You know you are a crime writer when... the top-most thing on your mind when pulled over for a border security baggage search is to
watch where the officers DON’T look so you know exactly where the smuggler in
your next novel is going to stow his stash.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Katrina Buckhold: Fall under her spell
I was mesmerized by her the moment we met. Like many before
me and everyone after, I fell under the spell of her blue, blue eyes. It would
not be until much later that I’d realize how dangerous that could be.
She’d go on to topple North America’s most notorious biker
gang, run circles around the media. Almost take down an entire police
department. Out-maneuver the Supreme Court of Canada. She was exceptionally wealthy.
Conniving. A genius. She was fourteen when I first met her. Katrina, the young
heroine of my BackTracker Series.
She came to me during the witching hour when I ought to have
been asleep but when troubles were keeping me awake. I saw her there, tiny and
trembling on an autumn ridge—her belly pressed to the ground, listening.
Watching. Below her in the valley, tattooed men in leather jackets with THE
TRAZ biker gang patch moved slowly
between rustic cabins and Harleys, M16’s slung across their backs, unaware that
off on the horizon a tactical team was moving in. However, she could see the police
vehicles careening into the compound, safely making it past the
perimeter sensors she’d surreptitiously disabled just hours before.
She was listening for the thud of the police chopper. She
was going to be rescued. Leave the gang life behind. Forget everything bad
that had ever happened to her. Except...
Except what? I had to
find out. I had to get out of bed, pop open my laptop and begin typing this story that
was unravelling in my mind. I had to.
As dangerous as Katrina was, as obsessed as I became with
her, as powerful as she was to prove—the most important thing to me about
Katrina is that she opened the door for me to fulfill my childhood dream.
Because of her, I became a published novelist.
________________________________
Website: http://www.eileenschuh.com
________________________________
Her story, her secrets, her desperation filled my cold and
lonely night times for months. It was her, who she’d been and what she might
become, that kept my fingers pounding the keyboard. It was her incredible tale
that forced me to eventually concede that she hadn’t dictated me THE TRAZ and
six sequels simply for my own benefit during that tough, very tough winter.
She made it clear that her story was meant to benefit the
world.
Known on the street only as Sarina, she’s Katrina Buckhold and
later on, under Witness Protection, she’s Constable Felicity Randal. She’s
powerful, manipulative, grieving, intelligent. She’s young, vulnerable, a
millionaire twice over. She’s stubborn and arrogant and abrasive. She’s alone.
She’s hurting.
She’s the main character in THE TRAZ, FATAL ERROR, and
FIREWALLS. She’d love to have you, too, helplessly
fall under her spell.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
The New Year: Looking back, looking forward
New Year’s Day is a great time to look back on the previous
year and take stock of where one’s been. Life looks quite different in
hindsight. When one is going through an experience, the immediacy of the moment
holds one’s attention, concealing the broader aspects of the event and the
overall pattern of one’s life.
Able to now to ignore the moment-by-moment challenges and
worries of the past year, career-wise 2013 was an impressive one for me, and a
fairly smooth trip on the personal front as well.
The year opened with me promoting FATAL ERROR Book 2 in the
BackTracker Series as my latest release. This included a visit with the kids at
the St. Paul Alternate Education Centre (SPAEC). I began working on Book 3 FIREWALLS and also polishing the SciFi novella I’d been working on for a couple
of years.
I crowd-sourced the titles for both books on my social
networks and the overall favourite for the SciFi was DISPASSIONATE LIES.
WolfSinger Publications, who offered me my first-ever publishing contract three
years ago for SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT, noticed the online discussion and solicited
the manuscript for consideration. Once thoroughly edited and proofed, I submitted
it and soon had a contract in my inbox.
With that work-in-progress taken care of, I proceeded with
revamping FIREWALLS and preparing it for self-publication. This meant hiring my
own editor, cover-designer, proof reader, formatter... It meant soliciting my
own reviews and blurbs for the cover. My intent was to have the novel ready for
the Christmas sales season and everything was moving along smoothly toward that
goal when I got that phone call...
Extensive author tours are usually reserved for New York
Times Best Selling authors, for authors signed on with big publishing houses,
authors with agents. So you can imagine my feeling of unreality when the
Northern Lights Library System (NLLS) phoned with an offer to sponsor an author
tour throughout their system.
NLLS is one of Alberta’s largest library system,
encompassing 52 communities within a 250 km radius of my home. Many of the
libraries in the system operate as both school and public libraries, enhancing
my opportunity to speak to teens about my young adult BackTracker series.
In November, with FIREWALLS in the final stages of
production, I visited twenty-three of those 52 communities. Before it was all
over, FIREWALLS eBook edition was up on Amazon and Smashwords and shortly
thereafter, available in paperback.
Then came December and Christmas—always a lively, busy time
for our family.
The New Year is also a good time to look forward. And with
one of the coldest winters ever gripping my neck of the woods, a brief January
respite in Jamaica to attend a friend’s wedding will be a great start. Then I
must work on revisions to DISPASSIONATE LIES and help with cover design and
such as we work toward a summer release of my thriller near-future SciFi.
There’s some more touring I want to undertake—revisit my
SPAEC kids and introduce them to FIREWALLS and perhaps another visit to the
children at the North Slave Young Offenders Facility. Writing-wise, I’m not set in my plans as to
what I want to work on in the second half of 2014. I’m tossing around ideas—perhaps
find an agent, market my middle-grade novel, revise and edit the next book in
the BackTracker series. Perhaps submit my adult novel that runs parallel to
that series to potential publishers.
Maybe even start something brand new—like another SciFi...
Whatever I end up doing I know I’ll be happy doing it!
All the best to you and yours in 2014!
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