A Fond Farewell by Suzanne Rossi

Hello, everyone.

This coming November I will celebrate my 72nd birthday. Even as I contemplate another year in my life, I have to wonder, where did the time go? Seems like only yesterday I was a vigorous thirty-year-old woman with  two kids. I had a lot on my plate, but managed to get it all done in the time required. When the boys were on their own, I turned my energies to writing--something I'd wanted to do for a long time. My father wrote short stories. I found them in a folder when I was a teenager. After he passed away, I made sure they were always in a safe place. By today's standards, his stories are pretty awful what with POV and dialogue, but the fact is they gave me the push I needed to pen my own. I had my first book published in 2010 and all I could think of was how proud Dad would have been.

Last week, my oldest son and his three sons came for their summer visit. Naturally, the final edits for Judge Not landed in my inbox and a few days later, the first round edits for Killer Country Club joined them. Not wanting to miss family time, I put off doing anything with them. Have to face the music now and get to work. But one thing stood out this past week. When my company returned home, I realized I was exhausted. It took two days to recover. And I had no inclination to do my job. Those two book edits are still waiting. I have to face the fact I no longer have the stamina I did even five years ago. And while my general health is good, I'm beginning to discover little aches and pains that weren't there last year. Plus, I've found I'm having a hard time focusing on what I should do, and instead squander hours on nonsense like social media and gaming.

In view of this, I came to a reluctant conclusion. After these two books are released, I will take a break from writing. So what if I only write five hundred words a week just to keep my mind active. I'm sure that one day I'll find my muse again and have at it. But for now, I'm sick of deadlines.

I also made another decision. This will be my last blog entry. I've had a ball this past five-plus years, but it's time to call it quits. I've struggled for several months on subject matter and honestly feel I've been lacking. I'm going to miss all of you. Smart Girls Read Romance is a terrific outlet for both readers and writers. I hope I've given you a few laughs and smiles along the way. To readers, I hope I've shown you a glimpse of what it's like to be an author. To my fellow writers, I hope I've imparted some of my knowledge and experiences to help you along the way--or to have you nod your heads in agreement and say, "Yeah, I can relate to that!"

I'll still read SGRR and make the occasional comment. Who knows? When my head is screwed on straight again, I may crawl on my hands and knees begging Caroline Clemmons for another go at blogging.

Finally, I'd like to thank you all for your support, comments, and readership.

So long, farewell, auf weidersein, adeiu, and good-bye--at least for now.

Suzanne

Serial Killer by Suzanne Rossi

Hello, everyone.

Well, it's happened again. Somehow, the end of the month has crept up on me and here I am with only two days left on my blog entry deadline. Naturally, I had no idea what to write. Then I remembered the advice of an author friend, "When in doubt, blatantly self-promote." Sounds like a plan to me.

I'm happy to say that I recently signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for Killer Country Club, book #4 in my Snoop Group series. I'm expecting edits to come through any day now. I have to admit that when I wrote the first book, I had no plans to turn it into a series, but a friend told me she wanted more from this bunch of diverse women, especially Anne and Gil. Since I'd left the ending concerning the relationship between my hero and heroine up in the air, decided to give it a shot.

I can't quite recall how A Novel Death first grew in my mind. I played the "what if" game like I often do. What if a critique group decided to help solve the murder of one of their members? The seed germinated and took off. I gave them all motives and secrets. I also gave one of the ladies a love interest in the lead detective. The covers are all below.

So, before I knew it, I was writing book #2, Killer Conference. I used my favorite conference, Moonlight and Magnolias, as the basis for the get-together. Same for the hotel where it's held. I've been to M & M many times and decided it was the perfect setting--a large attendance, lots of editors and agents, and enough suspects to keep cops and critique groups busy for the duration of the meeting. Nothing like the heroine finding the bodies of two agents only to discover herself facing the killer to get the old heart pumping.

In book #2, I introduced a couple of characters readers would love to hate--Fran, dictatorial and just plain nasty; and Susan, paranoid, opinionated, and just plain nuts. By introducing those characters I knew immediately I had book #3 on the plotting grid. A Taste of Death practically wrote itself. I've been involved with enough RWA chapters and other writing groups to have witnessed back-stabbing and power grabs first hand. What a perfect time to put that knowledge to good use. It seemed natural to have a victim drop dead in front of dozens of witnesses during a chapter meeting luncheon. And to know it was no accident. Someone knew about her severe peanut allergy, right?

Since the relationship between my recurring hero and heroine is moving forward with each story, it wasn't long before I found myself working on book #4, Killer Country Club. This one created problems from the start. The setting of a country club brought in a ton of new characters, personalities, and a more complex plot. I can usually bang out a book in three or four months, but this one took over a year. Let's just say a lot of revisions went into it. Good thing, too, since my editor didn't have too may of her own to suggest. I don't as yet have the cover for the book, but here is the blurb.

Anne Jamieson and the Snoop Group are on the prowl to investigate a murder linked to the local country club. Anne decides to take out a trial membership to track down the killer. Then she stumbles upon a second body in the club hot tub. Before long, Anne is the target of an attempted murder. The further she and the Snoop Group delve into personalities, the closer they come to the truth. The suspect list grows along with the body count. And can Anne's fiance, Detective Gil Collins, keep her safe. Will Anne and her friends find the killer before another murder occurs?

By now I was getting tired of the Snoop Group, so decided to end the series. (Does that make me a serial killer? I know--really bad pun, but I love bad puns.) However, once again my friend said, No! I want a wedding and more bodies for the group to find. Now, I find my twisted mind working on how to get the Snoop Group along on the honeymoon. I'm happy to say I think I have the solution. I know the inciting incident, the killer, and the motive. I even have a tentative title for book #5, Honeymoon to Die For. (And no, I'm not killing off the hero or the heroine.) Unfortunately, that's all I have at the moment, but give me some time.

I guess I have succeeded indulging in blatant self-promotion enough for today. Hope you have a great 4th of July and I'll see you next month with more thoughts and comments. Aren't you all lucky? LOL.

Suzanne

Social Media Ain't So Social Anymore by Suzanne Rossi

Hello everyone.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day. Our weekend was very quiet, which was how we planned it.

I think I've blogged about social media before, but now it's time to take another crack at it.

I've been on Facebook and Twitter for over ten years. I enjoyed catching up with old friends and relatives who live a thousand miles away. But that is slowly changing. The "hello, how are you" of Facebook is no longer there. The trivial and silly "Had bacon and eggs for breakfast" of Twitter is a thing of the past. And the reason for this is the sites have been politically weaponized. It's impossible to log into either of them without politics rearing its ugly head. And the saddest part is that both have encouraged the process.

Let's start with Twitter. What began as a simple avenue to let others know about you has developed into an arena of raging politics. Most of the tweets coming over my news feed are political in nature. Now, I don't mind people indulging in their opinions online. If I don't agree, I can scroll by and ignore it. The problem is the vitriol has gotten out of control. And the content of the tweets is questionable as to being the truth. It's hard to separate fact from fiction. Recently, even the site itself has come under fire for implementing its political inclinations into the mix. Many users have been suspended or banned for stating their beliefs. Twitter used the art of "shadow banning" wherein what you have tweeted is shown in your news feed, but not in others. Therefore, your statistics on retweets, likes, and replies take a serious dip. Twitter has also taken it upon themselves to delete some of your followers, so those numbers change, too.

To be honest, I no longer promote my books on Twitter and I notice fewer and fewer authors doing the same. I'll also admit that I'm politically opinionated and frequently use the site to air those opinions, but not under my author moniker.

Facebook became the social media darling. Users could connect with high school or college friends and distant relatives. It took the place of e-mail, which took the place of the telephone, which shoved an old-fashioned letter right out the door. It was instant communication on a large platform. It was fun. I have two FB pages--one professional and  one personal.

But in the last few years, Facebook has also has come under the gun for dubious business actions. When you sign up for Facebook, you list a lot of personal data on the site--e-mail, where you went to school, city of residence, even phone numbers. It turns out that FB was selling that data to others. Suddenly, the robocalls skyrocketed as did the unsolicited e-mails from various companies trying to sell their products. The sad part is, the ability for them to do this is laid out right in front of us with the "Terms of Service." You know, that unbelievably long statement in legalese that nobody other than a lawyer can understand. Does anybody really plow through all that and read it? No. We simply hit the accept button and move on. About a year or so ago, I went through my privacy settings and turned off as many as possible.

Facebook has another trick they play on their users--they regulate which postings you see. Yep. They use an algorithm to determine which of your "friends" postings are shown first. Now, I'm not sure what an algorithm is--it's got something to do with math and computers. I'm lucky I can turn my laptop on, let alone understand how all this works. However, I have about 350 "friends" yet often  only see the same 25 or 30 people popping up in my news feed. And some of those people have very strong political opinions that are opposite of mine. I rarely answer and scroll past, but every day, there they are again. If I haven't seen "Mary's" postings in a while, I go to her timeline and discover the section called, "Posts you may not have seen." She's posting--it's just not showing up on my page. Now, when I friend a person, I do so with the expectation of seeing their posts. Not seeing them leaves me feeling cheated.

As a result of all of this, I've cut back my time on Facebook, too. I try to post updates on my writing and my books, my everyday life, and of course, funny sayings. Occasionally, I post something political, but make the attempt to keep it general in nature.

There are other social platforms out there. One is gab.com. It was started by someone sick and tired of censorship on Twitter and Facebook. There are no rules. People can post whatever they like without fear of being reprimanded by the site. The only censorship is what the user feels is necessary. He or she can mute another user and not see their posts. But beware--Gab by its very nature of no censorship is filled with hate groups. You have to decide what to mute. I find I'm not using it as much as I did when I first signed up 6 months ago. Can't stand the negativity or the ugliness of the words.

I also recently heard about a new site called "Parler." I have no idea how it is set up, but will check it out soon.

On the upside, I just finished my final edits for Judge Not. I'll have a release date soon. I also am happy to announce I received a contract for Killer Country Club, book #4 of the Snoop Group series.

Hope everyone is sliding from Spring into Summer gracefully. I've been looking forward to warm weather for months. Have a good one and I'll see you in June.

Suzanne