MacGyver Report

In a previous post, I mentioned that I've had a few people comment over the years that Owen McKenna reminds them a bit of MacGyver, a show I'd never seen and a character I knew nothing about. So I decided to give MacGyver a look.

I'm not sure why my books might make people think of MacGyver, but I think it's mostly the fact that McKenna, like MacGyver, doesn't carry a gun and has to come up with clever approaches to dealing with bad guys. Another possible connection is that the names are vaguely similar.

An example of inventiveness comes to mind in Tahoe Trap, when McKenna is trying to save Paco, a young boy who the bad guys want for reasons that I can't say without giving away the story.

Although young, Paco is an expert when it comes to hot chili peppers. McKenna and Paco make up a batch of pepper spray, use Paco as bait to draw in the men who want him, and they blast the bad guys with pepper spray. Definitely a bit of MacGyver there.

We rented the first DVD of MacGyver from Netflix. I found the shows fun and light-hearted, if a bit goofy. They are also a good time travel back 40 years, which was before there were much in the way of computer graphics and fancy special effects. The acting is stiff, and the stories were low budget, but the stories had the basic components to generate interest. (Sympathetic characters in bad trouble.) The first show featured an underground lab in New Mexico that had been bombed. MacGyver had to work his way through a damaged facility to save the scientists.

The second show had a village in Southeast Asia that was under threat from a drug lord who makes the people grow opium poppies. This was set up like a classic Western, with MacGyver riding in to rescue the innocent villagers from the guy in the black hat. You get the idea.

Much of the shows were over-the-top dramatic. (The same could be said of some of my books.) But that was part of the point of the program. (And the point of the whole thriller genre!)

Conclusion? I liked MacGyver. I'm glad to have finally seen a program that was popular enough to have its character's name become a verb to describe clever solutions to problems. ("He MacGyvered his way out of the locked room.") And I'm pleased to have McKenna readers occasionally think of MacGyver when they read McKenna. After all, McKenna does "MacGyver" his way out of some difficulties!

Tahoe Moon (Owen McKenna Mystery #20))

 The 20th Owen McKenna is in the pipeline and due out August 1st! Yay! Who woulda thought when the first book, Tahoe Deathfall, came out 21 years ago, that I'd make it to #20. Was it dumb luck? Or dogged persistence? No. It was you readers supporting and cheering me on for two decades. Thank you so much!

In Tahoe Moon, Detective Owen McKenna finds a lost girl, 8-year-old Camille Dexter. She's waiting at a hotel near Northstar Resort for her grandfather, Grandpa Charlie, to come and pick her up. McKenna tries to talk to her but finds out she's deaf. McKenna and his friend Sergeant Santiago learn that her grandfather has died, crushed by a tree that he apparently felled as a job earning money as a tree cutter.

As McKenna pursues figuring out what to do with Camille, he runs into the meanest, sickest bad guy he's ever met, a man who may be a hired killer. 

The action in Tahoe Moon is as intense as Camille Dexter is sweet. I think readers will grow to care very much about her life, her hopes, and her dreams. Deaf from birth, she's never heard spoken language. But she's learned to talk very well. She's a brilliant kid and is also learning Spanish and French in American Sign Language. Having lost her only family, her heartbreaking dilemma is countered by her determination and grit. 

I will be doing a bunch of events at book stores and libraries. And it will also be available on Kindle. Here is the Kindle Pre-order page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09V33F6KF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p2_i7

Tahoe Jade Free On Kindle

Next Saturday is Christmas.

In celebration, Tahoe Jade will be free to download from December 25th through December 29th. If it's not in your Kindle, you can add it for free. Feel free to pass this on to your friends as well.

Enjoy!

New Owen McKenna Announcement - Tahoe Jade

 I'm excited to announce the next Owen McKenna (#19). It's called TAHOE JADE, and it will be published August 1st.

Here's the description:

A Letter From Abe Lincoln
In the fall of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to the new governor of California, Leland Stanford. Lincoln sent the letter by Pony Express, which went through Tahoe. The letter from Lincoln was intercepted, and it never reached Stanford.

An Assault, A Fire, A Kidnapping
160 years later, Firefighter Jade Jaso was assaulted in Sacramento. The next day she nearly died in a warehouse fire. A short time later, her rancher father was killed in a fall at Lake Tahoe. Then Jade disappeared.

A Coded Message
When Detective Owen McKenna is brought on the case, he finds Lincoln’s letter hidden in the personal effects of Jade Jaso’s father, who was a collector of historical memorabilia. The letter contains a coded message. McKenna learns that the message refers to a treasure Stanford had mentioned to Lincoln. Unfortunately, Jade’s father made the deadly mistake of talking about the letter. The information came to a brute of a man who would kill and torture anyone who got in the way of finding that treasure, including Jade and her father, as well as Owen McKenna and McKenna’s girlfriend Street Casey...

TAHOE JADE should be in bookstores come August.

If you prefer ebooks, Amazon just put up a Kindle preorder page, which you can visit to see the cover:

https://www.amazon.com/Tahoe-Jade-McKenna-Mystery-Thriller-ebook/dp/B092NKYLF7/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=tahoe+jade&qid=1618615519&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

What Does That Character Look Like?!

My wife is doing the first of four edits on my new book. In it, El Dorado County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Bains is featured, and what he looks like is described. My wife said, "I don't remember reading what Bains looked like in past books." 

"That's because I don't think I've ever described him before," I said. (If I have, I forgot about it, and I'll get emails from people telling me I got him wrong!)

When writers begin writing novels, we often assume we have to say what all the characters look like. But it isn't necessary.

The first book in the Owen McKenna series was the fifth novel I'd written (those books are unpublished). 

Owen McKenna's sidekick Spot

I'd described a lot of characters by the time I began Owen McKenna. With this new series, I decided I wouldn't describe what McKenna looks like other than to say he's 6' 6" and weighs 215. And, just once, Glennie, the reporter, refers to his blue eyes.

But mugshot stuff? Nada. Nothing  about his looks.

There's no rule about this. If you want, you can describe a character down to the hair on their knuckles.

What happens when you don't describe characters? Readers fill it in. I can't count the number of times readers have referred to McKenna's looks. When I say that I never described them, they tell me I'm wrong. They know I'm wrong because they know exactly what McKenna looks like. Which is, apparently, proof that I've thoroughly described him!

Same for Sergeant Diamond Martinez of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. All we know about him is that he's got brown skin (he's a Mexican immigrant). Yet readers seem to know exactly what he looks like as well. They even think he's handsome. I know this because I've gotten quite a few emails from women proposing marriage to Diamond. (I know - I didn't see that coming.) In their surprisingly earnest proposals, they make it clear he's an attractive guy.

Incidentally, I do describe other characters like Street Casey and FBI Agent Ramos and of course Spot, and many many bit characters. 

Stay tuned... The next McKenna (#19) is due out this coming August. You'll know what Sergeant Bains looks like then!

 

Free Reading For All My Books

 Where we live in Tahoe, we don't have broadband internet. So we get DVDs from Netflix. We never consider buying DVDs. Subscription "rental" works well. Pay a monthly fee and watch as many movies as we want, subject of course to the speed of the post office moving those DVDs back and forth from us to Netflix.

So I understand the appeal of the Kindle Unlimited program. Pay Amazon approximately $10 a month and read as many books as you want. The only qualifier is that publishers have to enroll their books in the program for them to be available. Publishers have now enrolled enough books in the program for thousands of lifetimes of reading.

I recently read that 160 million readers have joined the Kindle Unlimited program. That sounds like an astonishing number. But, as with Netflix watchers, and Spotify listeners, there are readers all over the world.

All of my books are now enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. So members can read them at no cost beyond the low monthly fee. If you belong, enjoy my books! If you don't belong, maybe you should give it a try.

You don't even need to buy a Kindle, as you can download the program for free onto you laptop or your iPad or even your phone.  (Trivia: People in Japan read more books on their phones than any other way!)

You can try the Kindle Unlimited program for free. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/hz/subscribe/ku?ref=ks_us_g_hK_kwd-314757834900_aE&_encoding=UTF8&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

If you click on any of the books to the left, that will take you to their Amazon page.

 Thanks very much for your interest.

Progress Report On Next Owen McKenna And Company

 In the world of writing novels, there are few axioms that apply all the time.

One of them, perhaps the most important, is that the first job of writing a novel is to finish the first draft. Wait, let me put in some emphasis: Finish The FIRST DRAFT.

This sounds easier than it is. Countless writers get well into the first draft of their new novel, whether it is their first or 50th novel, and hit so many dead ends and seemingly inscrutable problems that it's easy to give up and quit. Or you think, I'll just put this monstrosity aside until it seems more clear to me.

Putting it aside for a few days or even a week or two is fine. But you always have to remind yourself that it is only when you have finished a first draft that you can begin to really understand the shape of the thing you're building.

Another rule of writing novels is that good writing comes from rewriting over and over. Your first draft is just a draft. It will be filled with crapola (technical writing term). But of course, you can't rewrite and start making consistent nice sentences and paragraphs and chapters without first having a First Draft. You can't shape your characters into living breathing people who have hopes and dreams and fears and worries until they've been roughed out in your First Draft.

So I'm very pleased give you a progress report. I've finished the First Draft on Owen McKenna #19.

It is rough the way crushed limestone is rough. It is awkward the way a kid making his first phone call to ask someone out on a date is awkward. It is filled with unfulfilled hopes for future good writing. It is like the Winchester Mystery House, with doorways that open onto thin air, and staircases that go nowhere. It contains bad writing, adolescent writing, purple prose writing, melodramatic writing, boring writing.

But that is the nature of a First Draft.

Now that I've completed that daunting First Draft, I can move onto the easier stuff of making it a little better on each page and each day. I can identify all the exposition that simply needs to be deleted. I can fix the mixed metaphors or get rid of them. I can make the hero more heroic and the bad guy waymo bad. I can add some intelligence. I can get rid of my faulty attempts at cleverness. I can take out what Mark Twain disparaged as twenty-five cent words and replace them with nickel words. I can endeavor to have every bit of dialogue do double duty as both showing what the people said but also revealing their character.

Tune in come May or June after the book has been through four editors and endured seventeen rewrites. I'll send out an email as publication gets close.

Thanks again to all of my readers who care about these stories. I owe my career to all of you. 

Owen McKenna And Pumpkin Pie

It's axiomatic in writing fiction that if you want to create a believable character, you have to know EVERYTHING about that character.

Just when I might have thought I knew everything about Owen McKenna and his Great Dane Spot, I had a piece of pumpkin pie for the holiday.

I realized that I didn't really know what Owen thought about pumpkin pie. (Yes, of course, I knew Spot would inhale it with enthusiasm.) I would have assumed that Owen liked pie the same way he likes donuts. But I didn't really KNOW.

Most people would think that it makes no difference. But bringing specificity to a story is what creates what we call "the suspension of disbelief." While it might be sufficient to have Owen simply like pumpkin pie, it would help if we knew what kind of whip cream he used, and if he maybe sticks the whip cream spray nozzle in his mouth for a power shot and maybe does the same for Spot. That would be amusing. But more importantly, watching McKenna play whip cream games with Spot would make the scene absolutely believable. Once you've seen a Great Dane leaping into the air to grab a lofting, floating blob of whip cream that McKenna has shot from the spray can, there would be no more doubt about whether or not the event really happened. It would no longer be fiction in the reader's mind.

I guess I better get to know Owen and Spot even better!

Happy holidays.

Future Book Progress Report

While Tahoe Hit (Owen McKenna #18) is leaping forward in ideal book launch fashion and I couldn't be more pleased with its reception, the writing of Owen McKenna #19 is lurching forward like a literary ancient sloth trying to extricate itself from the La Brea Tar Pits.

Of the many presumptions about the life and schedule of a writer, one of the most persistent is that writers must first and foremost write religiously every day until they produce two or five or ten pages, whatever is their predetermined production level. This is assumed to be a given for successful writing.

However effective such a schedule is for many writers, it is inapplicable for perhaps most. There are too many other tasks for writers to do each week to always be productive. (One can't write well if one is in the car all day traveling to and from an event.)

So it seems that with most events shut down, this would be a boon for writing production. And to some small degree, it is. But the surprise for me is that while I'm not spending time giving talks and attending events and festivals, I'm spending much more time with correspondence and phone calls, communications that are often about accommodating the cancellation of all my events!

So my schedule is relatively unchanged. I can't write five pages a day when I'm doing ten hours a day of other tasks.

That doesn't mean I don't have a production schedule. I do. It just isn't a daily schedule but a yearly schedule. Every year, I have to have a book out if I want to continue to have a writing career. 

So the next McKenna, which I have had simmering in the back of my mind for a year or so, is gradually taking shape. I've developed what I think is a viable story line. And the pages are beginning to gather.

Stay tuned...

Amazon #1 Hot New Release

It's been estimated that one million new novels are published each year. That works out to nearly 3000 a day. Lotta competition for reader attention.

So wasn't I a happy guy to see that my new book, TAHOE HIT, rose to the top of Amazon's list, books that Amazon calls its "Hot New Releases." My heartfelt thanks to all you readers!

Tahoe Hit Is Published!

Tahoe Hit, 18th Owen McKenna mystery, is published today.

Tahoe Hit is now shipping to bookstores and, eventually, libraries. It will take some time to move through the pipeline. But you should be able to get it wherever you've gotten previous Tahoe mysteries. Please ask your librarian to put it on their order to the distributor Baker & Taylor.

If you read on Kindle, it is available today. If you read on another type of ebook reader such as Nook, it won't be available until next spring. Sorry about that! 

Thanks very much for your interest!

Yes, Tahoe Hit Will Be Available In Paper

Because so many people get book news from Amazon...

And because Amazon is only showing "Pre-order" status for the Kindle version of Tahoe Hit...

I want to reassure that Tahoe Hit will be available in the regular paper version. Come August, you should be able to find it wherever you normally get your Tahoe mysteries!

Thanks for your interest!!

Tahoe Hit Is Now Available For Preorder

The 18th Owen McKenna mystery is now available for preorder!

 A Sophisticated Killer With A Fixation On Shakespeare's Hamlet...

Deadly Past Secrets...

The Ultimate Revenge...

Check it out at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tahoe-Owen-McKenna-Mystery-Thriller-ebook/dp/B087ZVLS58/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=tahoe+hit&qid=1590946749&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

And check it out on my website: http://toddborg.com/

Tahoe Deep Is Now Available On Nook

My most recent title, TAHOE DEEP, is now available on Nook, (the ebook format sold by Barnes and Noble).

Thanks to all of you Nook readers who've been patient for so long. I appreciate your support!

Here's the link to TAHOE DEEP on NOOK.

Next McKenna Is In The Pipeline

After what seems like a dozen rewrites, the next Owen McKenna mystery is now in the hands of my first editor. After she has scoured it with her eagle eye and caught 1000 mistakes and problems, I will do another rewrite and send it along to editor #2. The process repeats for editors # 3 and 4. After that final rewrite, it goes into the publication process.

Because I've been through this many times, I sorta kinda know what the most common questions are. I will attempt to answer them here.

Likely question #1: What is the title of this new novel?
     Answer: Sorry, but that hasn't been finalized yet. The working title is Owen McKenna #18.

Likely question #2: Is Spot in this book?
     Answer: Yes. In addition to strong roles for McKenna, Street, Blondie, and Diamond, Spot will be in the book Lots. A big role. A star performance. (Can you tell that I've gotten lots of comments from readers about Spot?...)

Likely question #3: What is this book about?
     Answer: A deadly secret haunts a family that has a house in Tahoe. The result is the kidnapping of a teenage boy.

Likely question #4: Really? Is that all you're going to say about what the book is about?
     Answer: Okay, I'll also say that the book has a literary thread that many readers will have fun with. A thread that goes back almost exactly 420 years.


Thanks for the questions! One more thing. Those of you who read this blog will be the first to know the final title, the first to see what the cover looks like, and the first to find out the book's publication date and where I'll be to sign a copy for you.

A Dream Book Launch

I couldn't have been luckier than I have with my 17th mystery, TAHOE DEEP. It was an instant Amazon bestseller, rising to #6 on the Private Investigator bestseller list, then hanging out in the top ten for a while.

Lots of eager readers out there! My events have been overflowing. As this gets posted, I've already given talks to large crowds at Sundance Books in Reno and Shelby's Books in Minden, NV. Sunday morning I'll be at The Red Hut cafe in Carson City at 8:30. Come Wednesday, I'll see what is traditionally an SRO crowd at the South Lake Tahoe library at 6 p.m. Come join us if you can!

It's a dream for an author to have people want to read one's book.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

TAHOE DEEP Is Almost Here

My new book, TAHOE DEEP, is going to be published in four days.  This is #17 in the series. I've just gotten the first advance reviews, and they are raves. So I'm excited!

TAHOE DEEP will be available in both the paper version and the Kindle version.

I have lots of events coming up, and I just sent out an email with my signing schedule. If you aren't on my mailing list, you can see my events and signing schedule by going to my Events page. Here's the link:

http://toddborg.com/Events.htm

I hope to see you at one of my events!

Signing Schedule For Tahoe Deep

My new book will be out in a few weeks. Here is my initial signing/appearance schedule:

August 2, 2019 6:00 p.m. I'll be giving a Talk and Signing my new book TAHOE DEEP at Shelby's Bookshoppe 1663 Lucerne St. in Minden Village, Minden, NV 775-782-5484.

August 3, 2019, 11 a.m.,  Talk and Signing for TAHOE DEEP at Sundance Bookstore at 121 California Avenue, Reno, NV (775) 786-1188

August 3, 2019 3 p.m. Signing TAHOE DEEP at Geared for Games, Boatworks Mall, Tahoe City, CA

August 4, 2019, 8:30 a.m. I'll be signing my new book TAHOE DEEP at The Red Hut Cafe 4385 S. Carson, Carson City, NV

August 7, 2019 6:00 p.m. I'll be signing my new book, TAHOE DEEP, and giving a talk at the South Lake Tahoe Library, Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe, CA. NOTE: Room opens at 6 p.m. for signing, Talk is at 6:30 p.m.

August 8, 2019 5 - 7 p.m. Signing TAHOE DEEP at Truckee Thursday street fair, at the Word After Word tent in Truckee, CA

August 17, 2019, 8:30 a.m. I'll be signing my new book TAHOE DEEP at The Red Hut Cafe @ Ski Run Blvd and Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe

September 7, 8, 2019, I'm exhibiting and signing  books at the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival, Mountain View, CA

September 28, 29, 2019 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Exhibit books at the Candy Dance Festival, Genoa, NV

September 30, 3019 4 - 5:30 Minden Library Author's Day, I'll be signing my new book, Minden, NV

November 15, 16, 17, 2019 Exhibit and sign books at the San Mateo Harvest Festival at the San Mateo Event Center, San Mateo CA.

November 22, 23, 24 2019 Exhibit and sign books at the Sacramento Harvest Festival at Cal Expo Fairgrounds in Sacramento

Tahoe Deep (#17) Is Available On Kindle Pre-Order

The 17th Owen McKenna mystery is now available on Kindle Pre-order!

TAHOE DEEP is about the famous SS Tahoe Steamer.

Here's a short description:

"In 1940, a teen-aged blind boy named Danny Callahan witnessed the scuttling of the SS Tahoe Steamer, the grandest ship to ever sail Lake Tahoe. Eighty years later, a killer beats up old man Daniel Callahan, demanding to know the truth about a secret that went down with the ship. If Callahan doesn't tell all he knows, the people closest to Callahan will die..."

While the Kindle version is now up on pre-order, the paper version will soon be available as well.

Also, my events for the new book are being scheduled, and I will post those when the dates are set.

Thanks again for your interest!

Tahoe Skydrop Signing Schedule

Hi Everybody! My schedule for my new book release is now (mostly) set.

I've organized my appearances by area. So you can scan down to your area and see when and where I'll be waiting for you!

South Lake Tahoe, CA

August 3, 2018, 4:30 - 7 p.m. Signing for TAHOE SKYDROP, Artifacts 4000 Lake Tahoe Blvd (in the Raleys Village Center just southwest of Heavenly Village) (530) 543-0728

August 12, 2018, 8:30 a.m. I'll be signing my new book TAHOE SKYDROP at The Red Hut Cafe @ Ski Run Blvd and Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe.

August 15, 2018, 6:30 p.m. I'll be signing my new book TAHOE SKYDROP and giving a talk at the South Lake Tahoe Library

Reno, NV

August 4, 2018, 11 a.m., My first Talk and Signing for TAHOE SKYDROP at Sundance Bookstore at 121 California Avenue, Reno, NV (775) 786-1188

Tahoe City, CA

August 4, 2018 3 p.m. Signing TAHOE SKYDROP at Geared for Games, Boatworks Mall, Tahoe City, CA

Truckee, CA

August 9, 2018 5 - 7 p.m. Signing TAHOE SKYDROP at Truckee Thursday street fair, at the Word After Word tent in Truckee, CA

Carson City, Minden, and Genoa, NV

August 10, 2018, 6:00 p.m. I'll be signing my new book TAHOESKYDROP and giving a talk at Shelby's Bookshoppe, 1663 Lucerne St. in Minden Village, Minden, NV 775-782-5484.

August 11, 2018, 8:30 a.m. I'll be signing my new book TAHOE SKYDROP at The Red Hut Cafe 4385 S. Carson, Carson City, NV

September 29, 30, 2018 I'm exhibiting books at the Candy Dance Festival in Genoa, NV.

October 2, 2018, 4 - 6 p.m. I'm signing my new book (and the others) at the Minden Library's Author Day, Minden, NV

October 3, 2018, 11:30 a.m. I'm giving a talk at Nevada Talking Books, Carson City, NV

October 22, 2018, 5:30 p.m. talk and signing at Browser's Books, 711 E Washington St, Carson City, NV (Across from the Carson City Library)

Sacramento, CA

October 26, 27, 28, 2018 Exhibit and sign books at the Sacramento Fine Arts Show,  Sacramento Convention Center, Sacramento, CA

November 16, 17, 18, 2018 Exhibit and sign books at the Sacramento Harvest Festival at Cal Expo Fairgrounds

The Bay Area, CA

September 8, 9, 2018, I'm exhibiting and signing  books at the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival, Mountain View, CA

November 9, 10, 11, 2018 Exhibit and sign books at the San Mateo Harvest Festival at the San Mateo Event Center.

November 23, 24, 25, 2018 Exhibit and sign books at the San Jose Harvest Festival, at the San Jose Convention Center.