Karen Sandler

Category: Books

  • Deadline Hell

    ZakYour regularly scheduled blog will return when The Denking Book is Done. And whoever stole my rewrite fairy wand had better return it NOW.

    Meanwhile, a kitten to soothe you.

     

    Full CoverAwakening Final cover-s

  • Happy Book Birthday to Me-e-e!

    Full CoverHip, hip hooray! After all the waiting-waiting-waiting, the book birthday for Clean Burn has finally arrived. Here’s a short blurb:

    Wry, smart, tough private eye Janelle Watkins swore off investigating child abductions four years ago, when she left the San Francisco PD. But when two clients with missing children beg for her help,  Janelle can’t say no. Even though it means returning to the scene of her nightmares – her hometown of Greenville.

    Forced to enlist the help of her ex-partner and ex-lover, Greenville County Sheriff Ken Heinz, Janelle soon finds herself playing with fire in more than one way, and in a race against the clock to find the missing children before it’s too late.

    Here’s what some bestselling authors have said about Clean Burn:

    “Karen Sandler’s Clean Burn is a taut, timely thriller ripped from today’s headlines. Blisteringly paced, authentically told, here is a novel that demands to be read in a single sitting. I can’t wait to strap on a side arm and join Watkins for her next case.”
    – James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of the Sigma series

    “Clean Burn is a guilty pleasure. Curl up for a snappy pace, and an ex cop P.I. heroine with attitude, and a haunted past.”
    – Lynn Hightower, author of The Piper and The Debt Collector

    “Chilling, engrossing and addicting from page one! Karen Sandler weaves a tight, tense mystery, and with Janelle Watkins gives us an honest, tough, and flawed heroine – I can’t wait to read what comes next for this exciting character.”
    – Brenda Novak, author of When Snow Falls and When Lightning Strikes

    Published by Exhibit A Books in the UK, distributed in the US by Random House, you should be able to find copies in chain stores like Barnes & Noble as well as your local indies.

    If you’d like to save yourself the petrol and the footwork, you can order Clean Burn online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or other online bookselling establishments. Or try these great indie bookstores: Sacramento’s Avid Reader, Reno’s Sundance Books, or DC’s Politics & Prose. If you know of other fab independent bookstores in either the US or UK, please share them in the comments.

    And watch out for the confetti and the helium balloons. They’re getting pretty thick in here. 🙂

  • Taking Responsibility for Your Pets–Or Your Fictional Characters

    ZakAlmost three-and-a-half years ago, I had to say goodbye to my orange long-haired cat, Charlie. He was a wonderful cat, and sorely missed. But after a few months, I started thinking about how much I like having three cats and decided I would be open to the possibility of adopting another kitty.

    As circumstances would have it, a feral cat had kittens right outside my son and daughter-in-law’s apartment. My son and dil coordinated with a local cat rescue organization and planned to capture the kittens and bring them in. Sadly, they could only grab one before the rest of them scattered.

    Zak CuddlingStill working with the rescue group, they got the little kitten fairly comfortable with humans, then arranged for me to adopt him. Rather, they arranged for me to adopt her–there was a little confusion about gender, even after the kitten arrived at my house. It took me calling the vet and confirming that yes, she did a neuter and not a spay, to establish that the new addition was Zak, not Zoey.

    It had been a long time since I had adopted a kitten and a feral kitten was a…well, a cat of a different color. He lived in my office for a few weeks, and whenever something startled him (which was often), he would race into the corner under my printer, completely out of reach. He would burrow under the covers at night, keeping me awake. He would play fetch with a toy mouse. And sometimes he would hide somewhere in the house, terrifying me that he’d gotten outside and was lost.

    He’s now one of the best cats I’ve ever had, although at 13+ pounds, he can be quite a lapful. He still dips a paw into his water dish to lick it off and test it before drinking. And although he doesn’t play fetch, he’ll still run around the house carrying that mouse in his jaws.

    Awakening Final cover-sWhat does this have to do with fictional characters? Well, they may not be living, breathing beings, but they can be as complex and problematical as a finicky feral kitten. You have to consider characters them from every angle, and take as good care of them as you would that pet cat.

    How do you “take care” of a fictional character? You get to know them inside and out. You write dialogue for them that fits them, give them actions that are realistic for their personality, write a storyline for them that allows them to achieve the goals you carefully set up for them. You make them seem as real as that wide-eyed kitten I adopted.

    You don’t make them a prominent character at the beginning of the book, so your reader thinks they’re important to the story, then drop them partway through, never to be seen again. You don’t introduce them a hundred pages in, as if they’re an afterthought. If it’s a minor character that’s intended to have a small role, that’s okay. But even minor characters must be necessary to a story, and have their part to play out. They can’t just be dropped in and dropped out at a whim, any more than you would adopt a kitten for no particular reason, then return it a week later.

    Full CoverOkay, maybe I’m stretching the cat analogy a bit. I am this close to being a cat lady and could go on and on about felines until your eyes glaze over. But I’m also a fanatic about characters, about every one having a purpose, and each character behaving in such a way that makes sense. When a character acts out of character in a book, it spoils the story for me.

    So, cats or characters, make a commitment. Take responsibility. Give them the care and feeding they both deserve.

  • Imaginary Friends

    Awakening Final cover-sCreating characters is probably my favorite part of writing. Imagining fictional people seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. Maybe it’s because of where I came from, the world I grew up in.

    Lots of kids have imaginary friends. They’re lonely and need someone to keep them company or have vibrant imaginations that can’t help but create the perfect buddy.

    In my case, we had an imaginary family friend. As best as I can remember, my mother made him up. I don’t know if he was her imaginary friend when she was a child or something she created for her  four daughters. My mother is gone now, and I have no way to ask her.

    But Henry, our imaginary family friend, was a part of our family for quite some time. I recall once when my mother chided my father, asking him, “Don’t you see Henry standing over there?” My father was less fanciful than my mother, but still willing to play the game. Dad said, “Sure, there he is, right there.” Mom, still testing, asked, “What color is his hair?” Dad answered, “He has brown hair.” Mom, ever the trickster, said, “No, his hair is red.” Without missing a beat, Dad said, “Oh, he has a brown hat on, that made me think he had brown hair. Now I see it’s red.”

    Full CoverWe kids all knew Henry wasn’t real, but we loved the pretend. That’s something I am so grateful for about my mother—she encouraged us to pretend, to tell stories. I’m certain that’s a key component of my compulsion to tell stories now, to write books like Awakening and Clean Burn. And just as valuable is that go-with-the-flow lesson taught to me by my father. That attitude helps when a story gets blocked, and just by letting it flow in a different direction, the creative juices bypass that barrier and start moving again.

    So, did any of you have an imaginary friend as a child? Or maybe your own kids have or had one. I’d love to hear your stories.

  • A Broken Ankle, a Writing Career, and Playing the Long Game

    Fracture Both Feet CropA few weeks ago, I fractured my right fibula (the smaller bone on the outside of your ankle). I wasn’t doing anything particularly fun or dangerous. I was kind of trotting toward a local pet store, planning to ask to use the bathroom. I leapt up onto the sidewalk, and when the outer edge of my boot hit a groove in the concrete, my foot rolled under. Crunch.

    I’d hoped it was just a sprain, in fact had to be talked into going to the doctor. I’m now in an attractive (not) “cam boot” that keeps my ankle stable. The boot is far better than a cast because I can take it off to shower, or to scratch an itch.

    But here’s the thing–I’m a fairly active person. I’m in the habit of working out at the gym 3 times a week, dancing at least once a week, and before I sold my mare, I was riding 3-4 times a week. I was in the middle of horse-shopping for a new horse (which I blogged about here). In fact, that day I broke my ankle, my trainer and I were about to head out to try a horse. My trainer thinks it was fate that it happened since the horse we were going to check out wasn’t a good match for me.

    Even still, it’s maddening not to be able to continue my usual level of activity and to see my calf muscle shrink. I’m exercising as much as I’m allowed to (I can go to the gym if I wear the boot and can do some strengthening exercises without the boot on). But I have to balance letting the ankle heal with my desire to get back to normal. In other words, much of the process is a waiting game.

    Awakening Final cover-sWaiting is also a huge part of any author’s career. Take the Tankborn Trilogy. After the long process of writing the first book, Tankborn, I had to wait to hear back from agents. Once I had representation, I had to wait through the process of marketing the book to publishers. Once the book sold to Tu Books, I had to go through the complex process of the rewrite, then wait to see the gorgeous cover art, then wait again until the first book was released in September 2011.

    The decision to go to the second and third books of the trilogy took some time, then more writing, more editing, more waiting for release dates. Awakening came out in April 2013, and I have to wait until spring 2014 for Rebellion, the final book of the trilogy.

    Full CoverSame deal with the Janelle Watkins mystery series that starts with the book Clean Burn. After all the waiting, it’s hard to believe that it’s going to be released in the US in less than a month. Back when Exhibit A first gave it the thumbs up was nearly a year ago. Which is kind of blisteringly fast from first offer to release. But it doesn’t seem that way when you’re dying to see the book on the shelves.

    But just like I can’t make that ankle heal any faster, no matter how much I will that bone to knit, I can’t make the cycle of book to shelf happen any quicker. Writing and publishing is a long game, whether it’s via the traditional path that the Tankborn Trilogy and Janelle Watkins mysteries have followed or the indie-pubbed trail that my other books have traveled. And just as I can support my healing by eating right and exercising properly, I can support my writing career by writing the best books I can, polish them in as many rewrites as necessary, and do my best to get the word out so those books land in the hands of as many readers as possible.