Free/99c book celebration!

To celebrate the launch of my latest Ghostwriter Mystery, Words Can Kill, and to thank my many devoted readers, I'm giving you all a fabulous gift! For a limited time, the fouth book in the series will soon be FREE through Smashwords (that's iPad, Nook, Kobo and Sony) or just 0.99c at Amazon. (Sorry, Kindle lovers, but Amazon won't allow me to charge less than that, the party poopers!)

Still, you're getting a pretty cool deal. It now costs very little to download Dying Words via your favourite eReader. This way, if you haven't got 'round to reading it, you can quickly catch up before you get the latest installment. If you have already read it, download it anyway and offer it to your flatmate, hubby or BFF.

We're spreading the Roxy magic this month, and the more readers who share in her adventures the better.

Thanks again for all your support. Don't forget to drop me a line, below, send me an email (see above), or pop a quick review on Amazon if you have the time.

Happy reading!

xo Christina

She's baaaaack!

Good news for Roxy Parker fans. Australia's favourite Ghostwriter is back, this time traipsing all over Europe—from the snow-capped heights of Mt Pilatus to the craggy cliffs of the Italian Riviera—in her quest to track down her estranged boyfriend Max. He's vanished from a luxury Swiss resort and his flatmate, Jake, has just shown up murdered back in Berlin. The cops think Max did it, but Roxy knows better ...

To find out more about the fifth Ghostwriter Mystery, Words Can Kill, head straight to Amazon where it's now available on Kindle. You can also download a copy through other readers, including iPad and Nook, in a few days.

In the meantime, I do hope you enjoy the read and, if you do, please jot me a quick review. It helps to spread the word and enable more Roxy Parker adventures to come.

Happy reading, everyone.
xo Christina

$1.99 Ghostwriter Mystery Sale!

Fast-talking, merlot-swilling, fashion savvy Roxy Parker is back and better than ever. In her fifth, death-defying adventure, Australia's favourite ghostwriter finds herself on the hunt for her estranged boyfriend Max. He's disappeared while working in Berlin and all she has to go on is a cryptic text message and some unsettling Facebook photos.

Has he run off with a married bimbo? Are the Swiss Army hiding something? And why has his flatmate shown up bludgeoned to death with his 1920s Gibson guitar?

Before you get a chance to find out, why not catch up on Roxy's previous adventures? Exclusive to Amazon, and in the lead up to the release of Ghostwriter Mystery #5 (out soon), I'm offering the first four books for the discounted rate of $1.99!

The sale will only last a short time so get in quick. (And a word of advice: if you haven't read book #4, Dying Words, be sure to download that now. It helps pave the way to Berlin!)

Happy reading.
xo Christina

Your chance to name Roxy's 5th book!

Fans of my Ghostwriter Mystery series will be happy to hear I have finished the latest Roxy Parker adventure, and my children are still in one piece—see blog below. Of course the fact that they've spent the past few months being ignored by their mother, staring at far too many screens, and generally learning that writers are a grumpy bunch on deadline, is neither here nor there.

We're alive and we're happy. Well, actually, not everyone is. There are at least three very unhappy people in my latest novel. One of them has just fallen off a cliff on the Italian Riviera, so that's not so much fun. Another has been bludgeoned in his Berlin apartment, and it's ruined a perfectly good guitar (not to mention his head). And the third? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out what happens to the third. It's Roxy's boyfriend Max and he's gone missing while working in Europe.

Why has Max vanished?
Is he still alive?
Can Roxy Parker find him, even with his annoying, self-absorbed sister by her side?

Before you can find the answers to those questions, I need YOUR help. The manuscrpt is currently with my US editor and will be online in a few weeks, but I'm looking for a creative title.

What would you name it?

If you can think of a good title you get to name the book and be credited in the Acknowledgements section. How good is that? All you have to do is think of a snappy title that encapsulates what the Ghostwriter Mysteries are all about: writing, murder, adventure, fun. But this time we need to add a spice of travel.

I've been playing with the titles: Lost in Translation or Globe Plotting. My cover designer tells me the former is a film, the latter an embarrassment. Can you do better than that?

I'd love to hear from you. Don't forget it HAS to include some kind of reference to writing, words, books etc, just like the previous four titles (but also mystery and travel, tricky huh?):

    

You have one week to complete your task. Good luck!

xo Christina

UPDATE: A big THANK YOU to all my readers who got in touch with cover titles (all via email, although a comment here would have been just as good). There were some fun, inspiring and just plain loony suggestions, but sadly, none were quite right. Special mention to Hannah P's contribution: Dead on Arrival. (Very clever, Hannah, and I might store that away for another time.) So what did I end up calling it? You'll have to wait and see when the book gets published, very soon!

Writing with kids is murder

So I've just bashed a man across the head with his 1920's Gibson guitar, there's blood spurting everywhere, bits of his brain are bubbling out through his skull. We're in a dark Berlin apartment, I'm spouting Italian and he's looking very confused as he takes his final gasping breath. He'd just given me a lift from Riomaggiore, he'd thought I was a good guy, so why ... why ...?

"Muuuum! Can you come here?"

Huh? What? Who?

Damn it, there goes that thread again. Writing with kids in the house can lead to murderous thoughts, but not a lot of actual crime writing. I'm two-thirds of the way through my fifth Ghostwriter Mystery and now that the summer holidays have hit, it's all starting to go AWOL. Sort of like attempting to drive a manual vehicle when you've only ever driven automatic, it's a case of spits and spurts, bunny hops and splutters and you occaisonally make ground but you never really get anywhere. Not in a hurry, anyway.

"Mum, Felix can't find his money."

There he goes again. Except that's the other one. There's two of them, you see, so it's twice the battle and half the luck.

"It's your fault for having us," he says now, reading over my shoulder as I write this. That's the older one again, the cheekier one, the one who should know better. "It sounds like you absolutely hate us," he adds.

"Muuum, I can't find my money," says the younger one now, wandering into my office. "What are you writing?"
"Mum hates us."
"No I do not."
"Yes you do, says so right there on your blog."
"I'm just explaining to my readers why it's so HARD to finish novels with you guys on holidays. Now, if you'll let me get on with it, I'll stop writing about you."
"But what about my money?" demands the younger one.
I sigh, stop typing and turn to face him. "Why do you need your money, sweetie?"
"Because I want you to take me shopping to buy Ratchet & Clank. It's on special at EB Games."
"Shopping? Really? I was hoping to finish a few chapters today."
"But Mum, I'm really bored."
"And then we'll have something to do and we'll leave you aloooooone!" adds the other one, the older one. Did I mention he was cheekier?

At some point, this point actually, I start screaming like a hapless murder victim and they rush out of the room knowing they've pushed me too far, and I'm left alone for a blissful paragraph or two before ...

"Muuum, I can't find my socks!"
I try breathing deeply. "Why do you need your socks?"
"Because I have to put my shoes on if we're going to go shopping."
I growl quietly to myself, I save the pathetic three pars I've managed that day, I push away from my desk and I search for the money, the socks and my car keys.

It looks like we're going shopping.

xo Christina

Nothing routine about it

Want to be an artistic success? Smoke and drink like an undergrad, take a daily walk/swim/nap, and have someone on hand to feed your every whim while keeping noisy children/guests/neighbours at bay. These are just some of the 'rituals' that are common amongst many great writers, composers, philosophers and artists, according to Mason Curry in his book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (AAKnoff; 2013).

A recent gift from my thespian brother, James, it's been a fascinating insight into the way some of the past century's 'Greats' create. It's also been a welcome wake-up call to give myself a break while writing the follow-up to my last Ghostwriter Mystery. Not only do some artists only work a few hours a day (Gertrude Stein thought 30 minutes was more than enough!), many sat, frustrated for hours in front of their typewriters, pianos, etc, achieving bugger all.

Of course many others were terrifyingly prolific, and Henri Matisse says he loved his work so much he rarely took a break, working all day every day, including Sundays, much to his models' great annoyance.

Everybody had a different body clock, some getting up at the crack of dawn, others only picking up their pencils at midnight, and almost all seemed to rely on my drug of choice, coffee, to see them through (although absinthe, cigars and amphetamines get a regular mention).

The one common factor for all, though, was ritual or, as the author points out, really just boring old ROUTINE. No matter when they start or what gets them cracking, most of the great artists had a routine that worked for them and that they stuck to, and it clearly brought results.

It got me thinking: what's my writing routine? Seems, I, too, have one, and it rarely varies, at least while I've got a book on the hop. I get up with the kids at 7:00 a.m. and get them off to school (something none of the artists had to worry about, I might note) then I have a little breakfast and coffee with my husband before he heads to his recording studio at the top of our property, and I take to my sunroom/office to answer emails, check the online news and generally faff about. By 10:00 a.m. I am into my latest novel, reading through yesterday's words, correcting a few things, then continuing on.

I break regularly for cups of coffee and tea, down a (DIY) sandwich at some point, and then wind it all up by school pick-up time at 3:00 p.m. After that, I steal the odd half hour when the boys are being calm (read: rarely), then I do a walk and some yoga, watch the TV news and enjoy dinner at the table with my family. I don't write again at night unless I'm at the end of a book and so engrossed, I simply can NOT let it go. Generally, though, too much plotting close to bedtime keeps me awake all night, so I have to release it by 5:00 p.m. to allow my brain time to chill out.

It's a routine, it seems to do the job, and it's not a bad life when I think about it. But, gee, it'd be nice if someone brought me breakfast in bed so I could loll in the sheets and dream the day away as Descartes did ...

I'd love to hear about your daily rituals or routines. Get in touch below, or drop me an email: christina.larmer@gmail.com.

And happy creating, everyone!
xo Christina

Plotting my way out of writer's block

I've never really experienced 'writer's block' but have to admit, while working on my fifth Ghostwriter mystery recently, I struggled to get the story out, labouring over every sentence, feeling bored, floundering, wondering why I bother and was there a less talented writer anywhere on this dark earth.

Then I picked up a book I bought at the last Byron Bay Writers Festival that I'd neglected to read. An anthology of Australia's leading crime writers with the disappointingly cliché title If I Tell You ... I'll Have to Kill You (edited by Michael Robotham) and relief flooded through me like a cold shower in the middle of a Melbourne heat wave.

Forget about just 'Australia' and 'crime', 20 of the world's top writers have revealed that they, too, stumble and fall, flounder and feel like frauds from time to time. Experts like Gabrielle Lord and Kerry Greenwood, Peter Corris and Shane Maloney. Gee I'm in good company!

These wonderful, candid writers offer excellent advice on getting started, on keeping going, on plotting or not plotting (to each their own), on flow, character development and how to handle the ugly ego that sits on each of our shoulders laughing regularly at our 'ineptitude'. Every writer struggles occasionally. No writer thinks it's a breeze. Not even the best of them.

Of course, deep down I know all this, I've heard it all before, but to see it at this time, as I struggle with a series that, just between you and me, has been a breeze, was a welcome buoy in what's been a turbulent and unproductive month. (Well, if you don't count the spotless kitchen and one very tidy desk.)

Just promise yourself you'll write 500 words a day, suggests Katherine Howell (writer of pacy ambo thrillers). If that doesn't work, make it 250. Before you know it, you'll be on a roll. Others advised I just put the pen down (keyboard, iPad...) and go for a stroll. Thinking, or not thinking, is just as pivotal to plotting as getting letters onto a page. (Sadly, most of us see this as a waste of time, but oh no it's not!) Almost everyone stressed the importance of character and I wondered whether I'd not developed mine enough. Was that my stumbling block?

Then I read that perhaps it's not me that's struggling. It's the plot. Yes, I thought, yes! Let's blame the blasted plot!

I put my keyboard aside and I sat out on my veranda, watching the wallabies mow the backyard as the catbirds screeched like manic babies in the poinciana above, and I looked again at my plot. Of course. That was it. My plot was all wrong. It just wasn't doing its job. There were not enough suspects. There were certainly not enough dead bodies. It was all a bit of a yawnfest. No wonder I was bored senseless, it was a senselessly boring plot. So I grabbed pen and paper and reworked the entire novel. Then I returned to my keyboard and the story began to flow.

I haven't stopped writing since.

Thanks, fellow writers, for your candour and your encouragment, but most of all, thank you for your failings, because without them, I'd still be scrubbing every square inch of my office.

Happy reading (and writing) everyone.
xo Christina