Book launches to botany classes
Things I have been loving lately
Hello and welcome to Making Crime Pay! I’m Nicki Thornton - I’m an author. I share my creative journey here and what I am learning along the way. I pass on my love of books by sharing what I am reading and review them so you can enjoy them too. I visit schools and other places to encourage a love of reading and help writing be more fun!
My latest novel is The Floating Witch Mystery, about three determined children, an eccentric witch and the world’s best magical detective who will stop at nothing to save everything they love. If you would like to hear me read the opening chapter you can head here.
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Nicki
A brilliant book group idea I want to share
I was delighted to attend the book launch of writing friend Kristen Perrin to celebrate her amazing book ‘How to Solve your Own Murder’. A traditional murder mystery with a brilliant twist.
FRANCES ALWAYS SAID SHE'D BE MURDERED.
SHE WAS RIGHT.
In 1965, seventeen-year-old Frances Adams was told by a fortune teller that one day she'd be murdered. Frances spent the next sixty years trying to prevent the crime that would be her eventual demise. Of course, no one took her seriously - until she was dead.
I love this book!
What I also love is that something really fantastic has happened to Kristen - her book has been chosen to be voted on to be the spring book club choice of the Fallon Book Group.
Jimmy Fallon hosts the Tonight Show (US) and is a big reader. To chose the book, viewers have been introduced to eight books and asked to vote. I obviously hope Kristen will win! But what a brilliant way to get books discussed on a really popular culturally important television show.
A much needed publicity boost
There has been much sharing on social media and gives books - from established bestsellers, to thrillers, to Young Adult books, support and a real publicity win for a love of reading. It’s all fun and is very popular and inclusive and doesn’t feel like a high-brow arts approach to reading and enjoying books.
I really love this idea!
Any UK primetime TV show wanting to do something similar would certainly get my vote.
Agent update from me
A couple of people have been kind enough to ask how my writing is going having recently signed with a new agent.
Writing and the publishing business in general is not simply tricky to fathom, but ridiculously impossible to understand at times. So mostly I am pleased to have an industry expert to discuss things with. What editors and publishers are looking for, what is in and out, is not easy to gauge as what hits the shelves would have been bought 2-3 years before (yes publishing is that slow).
So I have been coming up with some different ideas. And Kate has challenged me to come up with ideas that are totally different from what I have written before, ie no fantasy elements, no murders and not quite so dark. So this is where I am at and it has been difficult, I will admit.
But I am loving the challenge. And I am loving having help and a direction that makes me feel I stand a chance of keeping my writing career going.
My non-writing life
I love the writing part of being a writer. I do find it difficult to cope sometimes with the mysterious, unfathomable and contradictory nature of the book business! So last year I spent a bit of time talking to my future self about what I might look back and think I could have done differently.
And I concluded that I would like to develop other things I enjoy. I love plants and nature and being outdoors and for a long time I have wanted to get a little more expert on some of these things. With plants, I kind of knew this would be a large undertaking, as there are so very many plants! So knowing more about them is not a small ambition.
For some time I have been looking out for a course where I might get some expert guidance, so I have taken the plunge and this week joined my first session of my Beginners Plant Identification Course.
I have not been in a classroom for quite some years. It was definitely a lot more theoretical than I was expecting! And I spent most of the time with my head buried in a glossary in an attempt to understand what everyone was talking about. Rather than in a hedgerow looking at flowers. Not entirely a success for me.
I also completely failed in the homework, which was to scientifically prove that a primrose is a primrose. I feel maybe botany is not going to be quite my thing after all.
I will keep you posted. Next session is in a month. Think I need a month to recover.
What have you all been doing??
Nicki