Never Enough Books!

I’m in the midst of preparation for Malice Domestic and the Festival of Mystery right afterwards. Just before this, I was giving book talks and driving to signings, mailing bookplates and books readers had won in giveaways. I’m fried.

Then I updated my website with this picture:


I felt a bit silly when it was taken—it seemed so “posed.” But when I look at it, I realize that this encapsules the goal I started reaching for in 2005. I’m at a bookstore about to sign my books.

That’s what this is all about, really—books. I almost lost sight of it what with everything that needs doing. So I went upstairs and stared at my bookshelves. There are five of them, they’re all packed to bursting like this, and I’ve read every single book on every shelf; some more than once. Some several times.

Then I took off the shelves this selection of books:

Every one of them is written by a writer friend of mine. It makes me proud to bursting when I see them. We’ve all been on very long roads to achieve this. JD Salinger, in Seymour; An Introduction, put into words what my friends and I wanted to do: “Ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world [you] would most want to read…. [Then] sit down shamelessly and write it yourself.”
So we did. Because we love books.

Writers, please share if you would: What was your lightbulb moment? Was it a quote from a book? Was it staring at your own bookshelves? Something else?

Readers, please share if you would: What book do you most want to read? Do you already own it? Are you waiting for someone to write it? You never know—it might be the WIP on an Inker’s laptop.

Cover Up! You're Naked

By Deborah Sharp

Here's my latest worry in a long list of worries: Am I over-exposed?

Not in the naked sense. More in the Paris Hilton sense . . . well, considering the sex tape, maybe Paris isn't the best example of the distinction. What I mean is am I too out-there? Between Facebook and Book Tour, my website and blogging, have I already mined even the most mundane details about me?

In the old days, authors used to keep a modicum of mystery. Look to J.D. Salinger for the extreme: No published work and nary an interview in a half-century or so, and they're still talking about him.

I started thinking about this when a small arts & culture magazine in my home state of Fla. assigned a writer to do a profile of me. Great, right? Publicity! I was suitably thrilled.


Until the writer asked me to share ''some details no one has heard ... something new.''

I'm only on Book 2. But already my back-story --- Former USA Today reporter, burned out on the news biz, started writing funny mysteries blah, blah, blah --- has become a bore.

So, either I dig really, really deep for something more interesting; or I start making things up. I'm leaning toward the latter:

Me: ''Did you know I was launched into orbit as part of NASA's Journalist in Space program?''
Reporter: "Really?? Wow!''
Me: ''Yep, the earth looks like a blue marble from way up there.''

As members of the Florida media for many years, my TV reporter hubby and I know journalists around the state. I've been lucky to get some stories out there on my funny, Fla-set Mace Bauer Mysteries. But in the process, have I become eye-rollingly predictable? Oh, please. Not her again!

When I was a cub reporter in Fort Myers, Fla., one local artist (nameless here) was a relentless self-promoter. He managed to get the News-Press to write about him even in the absence of anything newsy: "Artist X has begun to think about a new project . . . ''

Finally, the editor enacted an X-ban: ''Unless X is shot during a crack deal gone bad while he's dressed in drag, we're not writing another word about him.''

Which gives me an idea of ''something new'' to share with that writer for the art mag:
''Did you know I used to be a crack dealer?''
''Wow! Really?''
''Yep. I shot a man in Fort Myers once. I was dressed in drag . . . ''

What about you? Are you out there promoting, Paris Hilton-like? Or are you holding on to your mystery, Salinger-style?