Train of Clues Free Days

Mark your calendars - July 11 and July 12 will be free days for "Train of Clues".  I've decided to remove all books from Nook and Smashwords, not that "Train of Clues" was actually on either of those, and do some free promotional days for everything.  "Train of Clues" will go free again in August but I'll post and let you all know when.  Next Thursday and Friday, "Train of Clues" will be your first chance to download for free. 

For those of  you who don't remember, "Train of Clues" is my first ever story, first entered contest and a second place winning story, which actually was sent to an editor with the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) for her opinion on a direction to turn this into a series with each state being the mystery.  "Train of Clues" is a birthdary party, scavanger hunt on a party train to a mystery destination.  The idea to make each state the mystery came after winning second place. 

I am currently looking for a sponsor or sponsors for the state series so I can get that going again but right now, the series will remain on hold until I can get Heather caught up and be able to pay for future books.  If anyone knows of someone who would like to be a financial sponsor for the series, please pass my contact information, which can be found on the JGDS website home page.  I'm available any time to talk to anyone who has the finances to back a series like this.  I've got a couple of feelers out and will do some followup time next week but I also know that gaining a sponsor takes time, although I've been thinking of this the better part of 3 or 4 years now.  Putting this out in the universe and hoping a response comes in quickly.  Hope you all enjoy your free download of "Train of Clues" next week.  - See you all in the postings - Ma America :)

SCBWI Carolinas conference bound

SCBWI = Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. As a member of the local group, the Carolinas, we have a conference in the fall. This year's is in Charlotte, NC (my guess is this is fairly central to both states). The workshops will be held at the Marriott on Tyvola Road. I came up early so I wouldn't have to get up like at 5 in the morning and head up the road. I checked in sometime around 7ish this evening and was heading to the lobby to get my dinner microwaved since there are no microwaves in the room and none available to be brought to my room. Getting off the elevator, I met up with a friend - someone I actually know. I can't wait for the workshops this weekend. What I'm taking are geared for marketing to the educational market and marketing in general and the PAL (SCBWI has a group of members who are published and listed (PAL) and so that intensive will be geared more towards marketing too.

I'm open to new ideas on getting my books out there.

Sunday, two of the books in the series (State of Reservations and State of Sucesses) will be reviewed on J. Aday Kennedy's blog. She will also be running a marketing idea on the 29th, so come see what she has in store for us (even I don't know what she is planning to do on the 29th, other than to say she has an idea for getting something for free having to do with my series). Guess we will find out next week what she has up her sleeve. See you all in the postings - Mrs. E & the JGDS - :)

What started it all?

Several of you have asked where I got the idea to do all 50 states as mystery stories for the kids. Here is the short answer: The very first contest I entered was a mystery fan contest for the coming out of "Silence of the Loons". I won a shared second place and that spurred the idea to go forward with all 50 states being used as the mystery "destination".

The long of it is this: The orginal piece written for the contest was "Train of Clues". We were given eight unrelated items and had to incorporate at least four of the eight into the story as random clues throughout the mystery. (This was the same list the authors who were all in Silence of the Loons had and we mystery fans had to write a story that would use the same premise as the authors did.) So when I got the information for the contest, I thought about it and wasn't even sure I would write a story for the contest. I was just starting out in my writing career and so really was very unsure about everything. The girls in the church group went on a mother-daughter trip to Stone Mountain one weekend and I was talking up the contest up to one of the other mothers on the trip and the girls were kind of listening and piped up with the idea to make it a children's mystery, on a train, like a scavenger hunt and the items were the clues leading to the mystery destination. Thus, "Train of Clues" was born. (The items listed were: the sound of a train whistle, footprints in the snow (this didn't work for me), the scent of Obsession (again this didn't work for me at all because I don't know anything about perfume), a page from a dictionary, a headless Barbie, a wig, a tattoo, and a soiled ballet slipper.) I wrote a birthday party on a train using four of the items as clues to a mystery destination. Each group of kids were self-contained in one car with all the clues there. They had to figure out where they would end up before they reached the destination. My characters were Matt Patterson, the birthday boy (loves trains and is just a general good boy next door kind of kid), his kid sister Mary Beth (who had to be there because it was her brother's birthday), Guy Landrum (the kind of laid-back, standoffish, best friend of Matt), Jolene (have yet to give her a last name, best looking girl in 7th grade, who Guy likes but apparently as I've developed a few other things she likes Matt and she and Matt have been a thing for a while), Len (or Leonard, the geeky, computer/inventor of sorts guy). There were other characters because Matt originally was on a different team than Mary Beth, Jolene and Guy (all were on the same team with Len) and each team had four kids. So, originally there was Matt's team (birthday boy and three other kids who are no longer part of the JGDS), Guy's team (which is now minus Len because I think only four characters will be enough to carry the stories through), and the third team (which actually won in the original story but they weren't important enough to carry through to the series).

After winning the shared second place, I sent the story to an editor through SCBWI (The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), paid her to give me some pointers on how to expand the story out to a series, resources, et cetera. It was well worth the money spent for her input. The information she gave me was so wonderful, that I let it brew around my head for a while, kept tossing out different ways to either do one story or several stories or an individual series of each of the states (which is where I am now).

So basically Matt, Jolene and Guy are and have been best friends since grade school. Mary Beth has to hang around them because Matt is kind of stuck on watching his "bratty, whiny, younger sister, all the time" (even though shee seems to be pretty smart and knows a good bit). So now you know how the idea started.

Next time, I will post a character sketch, since these kids have been wandering around in my head for over two years. See you all in the postings - E :)