Characterization and the Gift of Face Blindness

Today you can find me guest blogging at Laurel's Leaves. Laurel asked me to write on characterization, and I discuss how I use my face blindness as a strength in building characterization.

If you're not familiar with face blindness (prosopagnosia), it means that I don't recognize faces. Sometimes even my kids' faces. Yeah, really.

#6 Ranking!

Did you hear a gleeful shout this morning? That was me. When I woke up this morning, I discovered that Screwing Up Time was now #6 on Amazon Kindle's teen fiction bestseller list.

I know it can't last for long. But the moment is wonderful. A big thank you to everyone who's bought the book and told their friends about it!!

A New Character

In last week’s blog post, I mentioned that I’d begun writing book 3. I’m over 10,000 words into the novel (an average first draft for me is about 50,000 words and a finished novel is about 80,000 words). So, I’ve got a good start.

One of the most interesting things to me as a writer is getting to meet new characters. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mark and Miranda. But new characters always spice things up, both for me and the main characters.

The newest character is Nin. She is first mentioned in my new short story, “Screwing Up Mongolia,” which is part of the Winter Wonders anthology, and comes out next month. (Though she doesn’t show up in the story.) Her first appearance is in book 3, and I couldn’t wait to meet her. (I don’t plan out my novels in detail before I write them. I sort of put the characters together and let them tell their story.)

And now that I’ve met Nin…wow. She’s a woman with secrets. And attitude. She’s fascinating, but not someone you want to take on vacation with you. Not if you want to relax. I wish I could tell you more, but I’m only just getting to know her. Besides she craves her anonymity, and if I tell you too much, she might hurt me. Or worse, refuse to talk. Characters sometimes do that.

BTW, the other day, Melissa Pearl of YAlicious asked me to do a blog post on why I chose Babylon as my setting for book 2. Clickhere to find out the answer.

Screwing Up Babylon Thanks

In case you missed Friday’s blog post (not my normal blogging day), the big news is that Screwing Up Babylon is available at Amazon!! Click here.

I’m very excited! We had a book release party at home with all the trimmings. And let me just say that the Wensleydale cheese with cranberries was amazing, smoked salmon with cream cheese and lemon-pepper on crackers will make you drool, and blackberry-Cabernet dark chocolate is the ultimate dessert.

I want to thank to my beta readers Sharmon Gazaway, Ariel Keller, and Melissa Pearl (who just released a new book too—Betwixt—it’s great). And another big thanks to Kirsten Walker for proofreading. And a how-did-you-read-my-mind thank you to Tara Rimondi, graphic artist extraordinaire.

To all my readers, thank you for making writing worthwhile and I hope you enjoy Screwing Up Babylon.

One more thing, I’m already well into writing book three. Squee!!

Screwing Up Babylon Release!

Screwing Up Babylon is now available at Amazon! Click here.

Screwing Up Babylon, release date

Assuming my proofreader makes it through the confluence of storms without being flooded out, Screwing Up Babylon should be available by next Tuesday! (Probably sooner.)

As soon as the book is live on Amazon, I'll post it here.

It's getting exciting. I've bought a bottle of champagne, smoked salmon, gourmet crackers, and Wensleydale cheese with cranberries. (And, of course, chocolate--dark chocolate with blackberries and Cabernet.) So we'll be celebrating soon. I'll post photos.

In the meantime, here's a photo of my office wall.

Monkey Madness Blog Hop and Excerpt

With the release of Screwing Up Babylon coming quickly, I’ve been trying think of ways to promote the book that support other writers too.

One idea that caught my attention is doing a themed blog hop. (I’ve seen this done once before, and fellow blogger Katie from Creepy Query Girl mentioned it in one of her posts.) In Screwing Up Babylon, Mark meets a monkey who becomes his friend and nemesis. (And in a hint to future things, Mark has a bizarre experience with a peacock in the Screwing Up Time short story, "Screwing Up Mongolia," which will be coming out in December.) So I thought it might be fun to share strange animal experiences--funny, scary, or odd. In the hop, everyone who participates would write a post about an unusual animal experience. 

If you’re interested in participating, contact me at connie (dot)m(dot) keller (at)gmail.com (or just leave me a comment). If there’s enough interest, I’ll set everything up and get the details to you.

Here's an excerpt from Mark's experience with Charlie the Chimp:

The monkey grabbed a lime off a platter and threw it. It grazed my temple. If I hadn’t ducked, it would’ve hit me smack in the face. If the Yankees needed a new starting pitcher, Charlie the Crazed Chimp would fit the bill.

He grabbed another lime.

I’d had enough of this. The Crazed Chimp was going down. I would—

Hailey put an arm in front of me.

“What?”

She pulled a strip of candied orange peel from a pocket in her tunic. Charlie lowered his arm. Slowly, Hailey waggled the candy back and forth. The lime rolled from Charlie’s hand. He stepped toward us. 

“Come on, Charlie,” I encouraged. “You know you want the candy.”

He scurried toward us. His nostrils twitched, and his hand reached for the orange peel. The note fell to the floor.

I snatched it, trying not to gloat. After all, he was only a monkey, and Hailey was the one who outsmarted him, not me. Still, I couldn’t resist saying, “Man over monkey any day.”