Friday, November 14, 2008

THE CHARMSTONE DREAM TEAM



I'm here to tell you I have the best readers in the world!

I had a great time meeting Donna, Sherry and Sandy who came all the way from Pittsburgh to stop and say hello on their way to Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation. There were hugs and smiles all around as we settled in for a chat about THE CHARMSTONE and the book's very sexy hero Durango Yazzie. They loved him as much as I did, and were interested to know that last year he topped an Internet list of "Hero's to Die For."

I suggested they stay at the San Juan Inn in Mexican Hat, Utah. That's usually where I stay when I go to the Navajo Reservation. It's on the San Juan River, a big river rafting site, and centrally located. And I meet the most interesting people when I go there. (Hi Carol and Lawrence.)

So, I signed the Dream Team's copies of THE CHARMSTONE, and my new one, RUNNING FROM STRANGERS, which they tell me they'd pre-ordered before it was released. We laughed a lot, took pictures, and had a great time.


Thanks, ladies. You're the best! Really!




Wednesday, October 29, 2008

2008-2009 SIGNING SCHEDULE




2008 SIGNING SCHEDULE


November 15 – Fall Writer’s Workshop panel – TBA

November 21 – Sedona Public Library, Sedona, AZ – 6 pm

November 22 – Gilbert Library author’s panel, Gilbert, AZ – 1-4 pm


December 3 – Barnes & Noble, Kierland Commons, Scottsdale – 7 pm

December 6 – Borders , Mesa – 2 pm

December 8 thru 10 – Arizona Library Association conference, Phoenix


2009 SIGNING SCHEDULE

January 7 – Anthem Library

January 12 – Anthem Book Club


March 14 & 15 – Tucson Book Festival


More to come

Sunday, August 10, 2008

2008 OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONIES

Almost everyone I know is talking about it - that powerful Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing. Wasn't it amazing? I don't know which part I liked best - the fireworks footprints walking to the Bird's Nest Stadium, the 2000 ancient drum percussion light show, the calligraphy dancers, the dancers with the electric suits, or the airwalkers around the globe!

My daughter called me first thing the next morning to talk about it. I'm STILL thinking about it. Thankfully she Tivoed it so we can watch it again.

I love to see the athletes march in, too, with their big smiles, their eyes sparkling with excitment and anticipation, their spirits so full of hope. And I'm always amazed to see countries I never knew existed. I swear they didn't exist the last Olympics. I guess I have to study up on my world geography.

And aren't those athletes good looking? Every one of them is absolutely gorgeous. That really speaks to the benefits of a healthy lifestyle of exercise and eating well. There's a special place in my heart for those little countries who only send one or two athletes. I always hope they do well.

I make a point to try to watch the events people don't normally pay attention to. I watched the women's fencing - wow! that sabre event was fast and exciting. I watched the rowing, the badminton, the women's beach volleyball - they said that last one is one of the most watched sports. And I know I won't get through this Olympics without shedding some tears. There are always so many inspiring moments, I can't help but well up.

But I'm really torn with indecision. I'm addicted to the Olympics and suffer withdrawal when it's over. I like to watch everything. But I also have a book to finish. I'm so close to the end, I don't want to lose my momentum. And people are waiting for it.

But, well, there's gymnastics and bicycle road racing today. And, oh yeah, water polo, so I think I'll just check my email and start those last three chapters tomorrow.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Fresh Fiction Blog

I was recently invited to blog on the fabulous Fresh Fiction website. My comments are reprinted below:



STRONG WOMEN

I admire strong women, don’t you? I’m not talking about famous women who have made important world changing contributions to science, literature, medicine or other areas of our culture. I’m talking about the young women of today who set goals, plan their lives, and make intelligent decisions for themselves. Women like Amanda, Tricia and Melissa, the three college students who were with me on the Navajo Indian Reservation as VISTA volunteers. They were smart and sharp, knew what they wanted, and deliberately set out to get it.


But I’m also talking about fictional women. My favorite is Scarlett O’Hara. I read GONE WITH THE WIND scads of years ago, but I will never forget the feeling of empowerment that came over me when time after time, Scarlett stood firm and met seemingly impossible challenges while everyone around her was going to pieces. Remember when she stood in that weather-ravaged potato field swearing she would never go hungry again? It gives me a thrill even now.


And I loved all the fictional heroines of those wonderful gothic novels of the seventies written by fabulous authors like Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, Norah Lofts, and Phyllis Whitney. When the women in their stories heard all those creepy noises and thumpy bumps in the attic, did they slam the door and run away? NO! They went up that creaky staircase to check it out! I loved that! People joke about it, call those women TSTL (to stupid to live), but I thought then and I think now it took guts to do that. To me, courage is being afraid but doing it anyway.
I’m also talking about the women in my books who I hope readers find inspiring in the courage they show over the course of their story.


In THE CHARMSTONE, set in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation, Amanda Bell leaves the comfort zone of her ordinary life in Beverly Hills when she is called upon to travel to a place she’s never been, and where she didn’t know anyone in order to fulfill her estranged father’s last wish. When she arrived in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation, a place as foreign to her as if it were in another country, she felt uncertain, out of place, and, yes, afraid. Over the course of the story, she made mistakes that she learned from, overcame doubts and fears, faced mysterious threats, and despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, persevered.


In RUNNING FROM STRANGERS (due out from Five Star in September), child advocate Allie Hudson finds herself running for her life with a child in her care. She raced across the country to the only person she could trust, hoping he’d forgive her for leaving him practically at the altar. Once there, she endured scorn, uncertainty, rejection, and danger, but she never backed down. She had a child to protect.


In SAGE CANE’S HOUSE OF GRACE AND FAVOR (written as Christy Hubbard, scheduled for release in July 2009 from Five Star), lack of finances propelled Sage Cane, a prim and proper city woman, to relocate to a rough and rugged mining town in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains. She had to learn to survive in a whole new — and to her, impossible — environment. It wasn’t easy, but she found a way to empower herself and the other women in town, and together they turned the entire place on its collective ear. Sort of Girl power in the Old West!


Before beginning that book, I did a lot of research on women who traveled into the historic frontier, and I am in awe of them for the colossal courage they showed in going to a place that was not only new and strange, but dangerous too. Sage Cane is my tribute to them.


Who are some of the strong women you admire, fictional or otherwise?

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

SECRETS WORTH KILLING FOR

I've been absent from my blog for so long because I've been buried in a work in progress.

I'm back to Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation in this story. This time my heroine Keegan Thomas is searching for people in an old photograph. She's a journalist and thought it would be interesting to find these people and interview them for a magazine article.

Well, it got interesting all right. She discovered secrets that had been buried for over fifty years. Shocking secrets. Dangerous secrets. Secrets worth killing for.

I'm almost finished. I've outlined the last three chapters, I know what's going to happen and who did what and why, but I've taken a few weeks off to let the story settle in. The ending is going to be action packed, so I need to work out the details and let them fall into place in my mind. When the final scenes are bursting out of my head, I'll sit down and put them on paper. It will only be a few more days. I still have some research to do.

I'd like to tell more about the story, but it's so tightly plotted almost anything I say will be a spoiler. But I think you'll like this book as well as you all liked THE CHARMSTONE.

CHARMSTONE'S A WINNER!



Well, so much for my New Year's resolution to keep up my blog! I haven't checked in since January. But THE CHARMSTONE has won some awards so I'd like to brag a little, if that's okay.


2008 Desert Rost RWA Golden Quill - DOUBLE WINNER! Best First Novel and Best Romantic Suspense

2008 Colorado Award of Excellence - FINALIST!

I was so pleased and surprised to be honored with these awards. Thank you, judges.





New in my music collection:

Back to Black by Amy Winehouse

Debussy Nocturnes by the London Symphony Orchestra

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Interview at Poe's Deadly Daughters Blog


I was recently interviewed by Sandra Parshall for her 1/09/08 blog at Poe's Deadly Daughters. Sandra is the author of a fabulous book called, "The Heat of the Moon." With permission, I've reproduced the interview below.


Writers use pseudonyms for many reasons. Would you mind telling us why you chose not to use your real name for fiction writing?

I decided to use a pseudonym because I didn’t want my real name all over the Internet, and my reason for that would make a good plot for a suspense novel (which I will write some day.) But it’s nearly impossible to remain anonymous in this day and age, and within a month of my book’s release, a writer friend mentioned me in her blog using my real name as well as my writing name. There were some consequences as a result of that which, so far, and happily, were minor and quickly resolved. But C. C. Harrison is a registered legal trade name and I think it looks great on a book cover.

The down side of using a pseudonym is that friends and family don’t know what to call you. My daughter now introduces me as C. C. Harrison.

Romantic suspense is perennially popular, drawing readers of both mystery and romance. Did commercial prospects play a role in your choice to write in this subgenre, or are you simply writing what you love to read?

Basically, I’m writing what I love to read. When I was young, I loved the early romance novels full of mystery and intrigue by Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt, Norah Lofts, Mary Stewart. By the time I began writing my first novel, that style of romance was long, long out of fashion. But I’m greatly influenced by them, and by Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind.” Today, the female leads in those books are seen as weepy, wimpy and naïve, but I saw them as courageous. Courage is being afraid but doing it anyway. In every story, the heroine was thrown into unfamiliar circumstances to face mysterious and unpredictable events that were out of her control, but she always found a way to survive. And isn’t that what romantic suspense is today? Despite Scarlett O’Hara’s flaws and weaknesses in some areas of her life, I thought she was a kick-butt, take-charge survivor.

You teach a workshop titled "Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?" Which are you? How did The Charmstone develop?

Oh, I’m a plotter, compulsively so! I need to know where I’m going. I don’t even leave my house without a map, and if I’m going over 100 miles, I need a Triptik!

Seriously, I’ve always been interested in the process of writing a book, how novelists actually did it. I’d been widely published in nonfiction, but that was easy. I just took information someone gave me, did a little more research, and wrote an article. Fiction was something else. I truly thought there was only ONE way to write a novel, and I needed to find out what that one way was. I’m embarrassed to admit that misperception blocked me for a long time. At the time, I didn’t have any writer friends, didn’t belong to any writers groups, so had no one to ask. Joining an RWA chapter opened up a whole new world when I learned that every author had a different way of putting a book together, and that they pretty much made up their own process.

My workshop on Plotters or Pantsers is geared to beginning and early career writers who may be struggling with finding a process that works for them. I talk about the many different ways published authors actually put a book together. It’s about process, not technique.

THE CHARMSTONE developed out of my experiences living in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation as a VISTA (now called AmeriCorps) volunteer. That was truly a life changing experience for me, and the characters and plot just sort of came together. I knew a week after I arrived on the reservation that I was going to write a book set there and pretty much what the main plot points would be. I didn’t begin the actual writing until some time later, when my assignment was over. After I left the reservation, I worked on an archaeological dig at an ancient Anasazi site (which gave me more plot ideas), bought a house in the Four Corners area and lived there for a few years. During that time I drafted three novels, one of which was THE CHARMSTONE.

You've written many short stories, but was The Charmstone the first novel you attempted? How long did it take you to write it, from idea to finished book? Would you tell us about your road to publication, once you had a completed manuscript?

THE CHARMSTONE was my first novel. (Okay, I’ll admit I do have one in the closet that hasn’t seen the light of day, but I plan to resurrect it at some point.) The road to publication for THE CHARMSTONE was quite circuitous involving multiple lost or misplaced submissions, a change of acquiring editors, you know, the usual. But it all worked out for the best in the end because I used the time when nothing seemed to be happening to tweak it into a better book, and outline or draft two others. Life is what you make of it and things always happen in their own time.

Both The Charmstone and your second book have Navajo characters and provide a look at life on the Navajo Reservation in Monument Valley. How were you received by the residents when you visited the reservation to do research? Has anyone there read your first book and commented on your portrayal of Navajo life? What advice would you offer to other authors who want to write about cultures not their own?

Actually my second book, RUNNING FROM STRANGERS due out in September 2008 from Five Star, doesn’t have Navajo characters, but the story is set in Durango, Colorado which is in the Four Corners area just off The Rez. It’s the story of a child advocate who finds herself on a run for her life with a child in her care.

My work in progress, working title NAVAJO GIRL GONE, takes the reader back to the Navajo Reservation with heroine Keegan Thomas as she searches for people in a fifty year old photograph, one of them a child who she’s told was kidnapped by missionaries and never returned. In the book, she meets a lot of resistance from the Navajos for poking around in the past. They tell her that people who dig up the past end up digging their own grave.

However, in reality, the Navajos are at heart very hospitable people. When I first went to the reservation as a VISTA volunteer, I think they were a bit leery of me, because historically, the intent of some of the white people who came to the reservation was to exploit the Indians despite their promises of help. In the end, I made some wonderful friendships that have survived over time, and I go back to Monument Valley often. And, yes, my book has been very well received there; at least I haven’t heard any complaints so I guess I got it right. My biggest fear was not getting the culture and history correct.

I think it’s very difficult for authors to write about a culture not their own, and the only way they can do it and get it right is to live it. I could never have written about life on the Navajo Reservation if I hadn’t actually lived there and interacted with people on a daily basis. Even so, I have to spend a lot of time on research.

Your second book was inspired by your experiences as a CASA (court-appointed special advocate) in the child welfare system. To an onlooker, this kind of work looks emotionally draining, but it must have rewards for those who do it. What have you learned from working with underprivileged and abused children? Have you seen many positive results of your work?

For me, being a child advocate was extremely emotionally draining. I had to limit the kinds of cases I worked on. I wouldn’t take any case that involved child sexual abuse of any kind. What did I learn by working in the child welfare system? Nothing good. It’s shocking and unbelievable what people do to their children. Looking back, I guess I could say there were a few moments of joy and reward, but only a few. Lack of money, staff, and effective management are huge problems in most child welfare systems.

Has being a published novelist changed your life? Did you know what to expect, or have you had some surprises (good and bad) along the way?

No surprises, not really. It’s pretty much what I expected. The biggest change it’s made in my life is I can’t go to the supermarket in sweats and grubbies anymore. I have to dress halfway decent because people in my community now know who I am and recognize me from signings and seeing my picture in the paper. Basically, I’m living the kind of life I’d always hoped to live - a published author, living alone, secluded, surrounded by my books and papers, writing more novels.

Your second book has the same setting as the first, but the two aren't part of a series. Do you think you'll write a series in the future, or do you have more fun with stand-alone novels?

Every book I write I think I want to be part of a series because I fall in love with all my characters and don’t want to let them go. So far, instead of writing a true series, I try to bring a few characters from previous books into my new books. In the book I’m working on now, I brought in at least one character from RUNNING FROM STRANGERS. The next book after that will be set on the Navajo Reservation and I plan to bring in several characters from THE CHARMSTONE.

Do you plan to attend any mystery conferences in 2008 where readers can meet you?

I don’t have as much time for conferences anymore, but I will be at the Desert Rose RWA Desert Dreams Conference in Phoenix on April 4-6, 2008, and also RWA National in July. So please everyone, I’m very approachable. It’s okay to stop me to say hello. Also, check out my website at http://www.ccharrison-author.com/ and read my blog for news and updates.


New to my music collection:

All the Lost Souls - James Blunt

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Amazon Reviews


There was a lively discussion on the Five Star Authors email list recently about reviews posted on Amazon.com. How helpful they are, how accurate, how fair, and whether or not Amazon reviews influence readers to buy. I think Amazon reviews influence most reader buying decisions, but they are helpful to me in another way.

Here's how I use Amazon reviews:

I never (hardly ever) buy a book based on good reviews. (Book covers don't persuade me to pick up a book either, but I know I'm in the minority on that.) I buy a book based on the summary of the story. If it sounds like something I'm interested in, I buy the book.

Then I go to Amazon for the reviews, BUT I read the one and two star reviews first. Why? Because I want to see if they are constructive reviews or merely general bashing. I ignore bashing. Then I browse the positive reviews. After that I read the book.

If I find myself losing interest in the book, or not liking it for whatever reason, I go back to the Amazon reviews and read them again. If the reason I am not liking the book is mentioned by at least one other reviewer, I usually don't finish the book. (If it's not, I give the book another chance and read more to see if it eventually engages me.) The reason for that is because I have more books in my bookcase, on my "to be read pile", and on my Amazon Wish List than I have time left on this earth to read them.

This wasn't always the case. I used to read every single word of a book out of respect for the author's hard work and effort. Then I amended that to reading at least the first 50 pages before giving up on it. Now I don't waste time plowing through any book that isn't holding my interest.

Here are some of the really good books I've read lately:

The Heat of the Moon by Sandra Parshall
Half Broken Things by Morag Joss
Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger