Pat Bertram's Blog (25)

Excerpt from “Deadly Traffic” by Mickey Hoffman

Girls are disappearing from Standard High while the local sex trade flourishes. Their absences are barely noticed in the worst school in Arbor City, CA, where turnover and truancy are facts of life. Kendra Desola, the only faculty member likely to care, is on a leave of absence.

After a student’s lifeless body turns up in a seedy part of town, an…

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Added by Pat Bertram on December 17, 2011 at 11:30am — No Comments

Interview with J. Conrad Guest, Author of Backstop and One Hot January

How much of a story do you have in mind before you start writing it?



I start with a protagonist and his conflict; most times I have the ending in mind and simply write to it, although often the ending is amended depending on what happens prior to my getting there. Everything before that -- the digressions, the journey -- are discoveries that, hopefully, translate as discovery for the… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on February 19, 2011 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Interview With Mickey Hoffman, Author of School of LIes

What is your book about?



School of Lies is a funny mystery novel about a bunch of teachers who work in a dysfunctional, urban high school. The stressful environment is a perfect catalyst for the murder that takes place. My new book, Deadly Traffic takes a teacher out of her comfort zone into the word of… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on February 14, 2011 at 7:32am — No Comments

Rubicon Ranch is Days Away!! Read It As We Write It.

After months in preparation, Rubicon Ranch, a collaborative novel that will be written online by authors of Second Wind Publishing, is just days away!



Recently widowed writer/photographer Melanie Gray finds the body of an eight-year-old child in the desert. Was it an accident? Or . . .… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 23, 2010 at 3:08pm — No Comments

Daughter Am I Blog Tour -- Final Week!

My Daughter Am I blog tour is winding down -- I have seven days to go (eight if you include today) and I don't know whether to be sad or to rejoice. Since my promotion motto is "Promotion is just another word for party," I decided to rejoice and have an end of blog tour party on the 22nd and 23rd. You are all invited, of course.



The most interesting aspect of the tour has been coming up with… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on November 15, 2009 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Live Chat and Dead Darlings

This seems to be a slow weekend here on the Internet. I can never figure out where people disappear to or why. What could possibly be more fascinating than roaming cyberspace? :) I realize in some places the weather is too nice to stay inside, in other places it's too nasty to do anything online. Many writers are involved in National Novel Writing Month. Many others are busy procrastinating. And me . . . well, here I am, still virtually book touring.



Today's stops:



Beth's… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on November 9, 2009 at 7:45am — No Comments

Raking the Leaves of My Mind

The other morning I was staring out the window at all the leaves on the ground, marveling at how so much come from almost nothing. A bit of water, a bit of soil, a bit of sun, and something exists where nothing did before. I cherish those leaves. There’s no lawn here, just native grasses, so I don’t need to rake the leaves. I let them finish out their natural cycle of replenishing the soil from which they came.



Looking at those leaves, I was reminded of written words, and how they… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on November 7, 2009 at 11:38am — 1 Comment

Writing Without a Reader Is Like Kissing Without a Partner

One of the guest stops on my Daughter Am I blog tour is the Second Wind Publishing Blog. I talk about a fan letter (well, fan email) I received, and cite a quote by John Cheever, “I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.”



Many writers don’t consider readers -- they write solely for themselves, or at least they say they do -- but often as I am writing a… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on November 3, 2009 at 2:42pm — No Comments

Plagiarism?

I had a bit of a scare this morning. I checked my blog as usual found a comment on my "Origin of the Grim Reaper" bloggery from someone named Robert Weniger, who said: You Plagiarist. I posted the exact words and you copy/pasted it from my website.



Um . . . What??



I love Wordpress and all the statistics and information one gets! Besides email addresses from commenters, wordpress… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 31, 2009 at 12:40pm — No Comments

Writer Am I

I did not come up with that great title for this bloggery, my host today, L.V. Gaudet, did. (Since you are all familiar with the title of my new book, Daughter Am I, I know you get the gist.) I'm hoping everyone goes to pay L.V. a visit. She says such wonderful things about me, that I want everyone to know! And, oh, yes -- she's also posted an article of mine in which I say that it does not matter how long it takes you to write a novel or how many words you write each day. All that… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 29, 2009 at 6:51am — No Comments

What Hooks a Reader

Though it is actually night here, it's still day ten of my Daughter Am I blog tour.



The reference to night and day reminds me of one of those standardized tests I took when I was in second grade. The question was, "How many hours are in a day?" I knew, of course, that there were twenty-four hours in a day's span, but for some reason, I took the question to mean day as opposed to night. I knew that there were… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 28, 2009 at 12:26pm — 1 Comment

Daughter Am I Blog Tour 2009 Update

Day nine of the Daughter Am I blog tour, and I am still going strong. I actually went to bed before midnight last night, and I’m a bit more rested. Good thing -- there is a lot going on today! First, check out “After the Writing Comes the Work.” Great discussion going on at that unscheduled tour stop, and a wonderful compliment about Daughter Am… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 27, 2009 at 2:38pm — No Comments

Blog Tour Interviews

I made it through the first week of my blog tour!! I’m getting to the hard part, though. I have several interviews coming up, and it’s challenging to keep from making identical responses to identical questions. There really is only one story behind the writing of Daughter Am I -- I wanted to use the true tales of the Syndicate an historian friend used to tell me, and I wanted to do a mythic journey, so I combined the two… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 25, 2009 at 12:38pm — 2 Comments

Haven't a Clue About Cluculz

My blog tour is really starting to heat up! Lots of activity, more than I'm used to, that's for sure. To start out, I am a guest at the blog of my good friend Joylene Nowell Butler author of Dead Witness. We first met when she submitted a character interview to my Pat… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 24, 2009 at 4:32am — No Comments

Dialogue with Pat Bertram

The Internet is such a wonderful place. Today, day five of my blog tour, I am in Florida with author Nancy J. Cohen talking about dialogue. Virtually speaking, that is. Physically, I am in Colorado, listening to leaves falling like rain. In Florida, it's a sunny day at the beach. At least I hope it is. I sure would hate to get caught in a hurricane while I'm visiting!



Yesterday someone commented that a virtual book tour seemed like a lot of work and asked if I would do it again. My… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 23, 2009 at 7:21am — No Comments

Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies

Mary stared open-mouthed into the hole in the wall. Instead of the dining room, which should have been on the other side of the wall, there was a windowless room not much bigger than a walk-in-closet.



"A secret room," she breathed. "It's like something out of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys."



That brief excerpt from Daughter Am I has nothing to do with my blog today. It's a clue for a Halloween contest at the Second Wind Blog starting on October 26.… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 22, 2009 at 4:51am — No Comments

Following The Quest of 'Daughter Am I'

Again I will be at Malcom's Round Table discussing Daughter Am I, but this time we will be focusing on the quest angle. The hero's path, the mythic journey, the quest -- these are all different names for a particular form of story, though the format is so infinitely changeable, that unless you search for all the elements, you might not see the similarities in such diverse… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 21, 2009 at 4:59am — No Comments

Pat Bertram, Gangsters, and 'Daughter Am I'

Day Two of my Virtual Book Tour, and I am still going strong. This is like saying: I've just run the second block of a marathon and am still going strong. Most of the tour is still ahead of me, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, to meeting new people, and visiting new blogs.



Today I am at Malcolm's Round Table for a discussion of gangsters and Daughter Am I. I'd hoped to include more of Malcolm's book, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, in the… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 20, 2009 at 4:31am — No Comments

Daughter Am I Blog Tour 2009

Today is the first day of the Daughter Am I blog tour, and frankly, I'm a bit nervous. Although I always intended to post to my own blog every day, I've only managed to average three or four times a week, yet here I have committed myself to thirty-five days of guest blogging, together with at least a brief post here to keep everyone up-to-date on my touring activities. That is a total of 70 bloggeries in 35 days! Do you think I can do it? Of course I can -- I will have… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on October 19, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Introducing Lazarus Barnhill, author of THE MEDICINE PEOPLE and LACEY TOOK A HOLIDAY

Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing! Something happens almost two years ago, and there it sits like a time capsule for all to see.



I met Lazarus Barnhill during a writing contest on Gather.com in October 2007. Entrants posted the first chapter of their work for people to comment on and vote for, and the fifteen top-ranked chapters, plus ten chosen by Gather management went on to post the second chapter. I read some chapters, including Laz’s The Medicine People, but I never… Continue

Added by Pat Bertram on July 26, 2009 at 3:48am — No Comments

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