Mystery Adventures: A Writers Guide

This is a work in progress and a rough draft of my third novel in the Jonas Watcher Series. You get an opportunity to read the Novel as it is being developed. Please leave any comments, like all writers I appreciate honest feedback. My desire is to be the best writer I can be. I hope you enjoy the book. If you prefer to leave a private comment, you may email me at grposchman@gmail.com. The chapters that do not have a link attached have not been completed. Table of Contents An Incident at Central Station .............................................................. Chapter 1 The Challenger to San Francisco .......................................................... Chapter 2 No Good Deed Goes Unpunished .......................................................... Chapter 3 All Roads Lead To China Town ............................................................ Chapter 4 An Empress, an Artisan, a Thief and a Dragon  ................................... Cha...

What Kind of Writer are You? Writers come in all sorts of categories. And categories have a broad range also; There are Genres  Fiction and Non-Fiction, those who wordsmith in Poetry or Prose, Screenwriters and Novelists, Journalists and Fabricators, and there are a plethora of other ways to identify a writer. They all have one thing in common, they write. How is that for stating the obvious? My interest in this article breaks writers into three groups; those who have gone the traditional route of getting published, independently published authors, and everyone else. Everyone else as a group is either not interested in getting published or they have found another route to getting their work noticed. Writers in this group may eventually join one of the other two groups or not. They simply haven't made the move because they do not know how they want to go. Independently published authors may eventually enter the traditional route, but once they're there is no going back. I d...

Full Disclosure I am a self-published author and I am not rolling in money because I know the secrets of how to self-publish. I have completed four novels, two have been self-published and two are sitting in my drawer, perhaps for another day. I am working on my third novel and I may self-publish it or not. It depends... I am retired living on Social Security and while I do not require an income from my writing, it would be very nice if I could develop enough of a following to provide me some additional income. I am working on a series of detective stories circa 1930, I characterize them as being light film noir with adventure, some mystery highlighting the style of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The series is Jonas Watcher. I have been actively writing for about three years and while writing, I have designed my own book covers and done my own promotion online, with newspapers and posters for book signings. And whether I was involved with traditional publishing or se...

The Case of the Jade Dragon Book Cover I am about two-thirds of the way through writing my first draft of The Case of the Jade Dragon. I started working on a book cover when I had started working on the outline for the novel. I had a number of pictures to choose from. The story is a third in the series with Jonas Watcher being hired to transport a bride from St. Louis to San Francisco. Two Chinese families who have been feuding for generations have finally come to an agreement that was going to be sealed with a marriage between the two families. There are a number of people who both support and oppose the agreed end to hostilities with the two families uniting in wedlock. When creating a cover there are a number of considerations I take into account. I try to create an element of the story on the page. I try to tie the cover graphically to the title, and an arbitrary decision upon my part to include a shadowed image representing Jonas Watcher. For this cover, I used a movie...

CreateSpace Cover Creator I have two articles here that are dealing with book covers. The first I was looking for feedback on book covers for "The Case of the Jade Dragon" the third book in the Jonas Watcher series. The first five chapters of the book in rough draft mode are on my Goodreads blog . I had a number of book covers that I was thinking about for  "The Case of the Jade Dragon". While a couple of covers were very popular, a fifth one I had come up with was even better received, but it was lacking. I have improved upon the cover (I think) and I would like your feedback. Here is the cover below. The primary complaint in the previous article was that the image was not complete. So I offer up this cover. If you click on it will expand to the full size.

Trying to Solved My Book Cover Dilemma If you are James Patterson, Steven King, or John Grisham, book covers probably don't really matter that much. As I have been working on the book cover for my third novel in the Jonas Watcher series, I have been sharing my cover choices and activities with other writers and readers. One woman sort of clarified the matter for me. She said that for unknown writers, the book cover was the first thing would draw her to a book. But if she saw the name of a writer she liked and read, the cover could be a brown wrapper and she would buy it as soon as she saw the author's name. What that meant for me, an unknown writer, was that an intriguing Title and an engaging Cover were the two elements that I needed to have that would catch a reader's attention. Getting those tow things in front of eyes is another issue I hope to conquer. A great title is subjective, and not the subject of this series of articles. Creating a cover is. I am no...

While I have been working on writing "The Case of the Jade Dragon", I have also been active in two other areas. The first has been developing a following and an interest in the Jonas Watcher Detective series. There have been a lot of false starts and some that show promise and I will share in future posts. The second area of activity has been in developing a professional looking book cover. I have four possible options and I am looking for feedback.  Readers and writers are the best people to provide the kind of help I am looking for, so please share you thoughts. I am using the CreateSpace book cover creator and providing my own images. The first cover has an image I manipulated after purchasing the rights to use it. The author description is light for the moment and I will add to it later. The image is an artist's view of a street scene of China town in San Francisco. When you click on the image it should enlarge to give you a better view. this is "Cover 1...

The link below will take you to my Goodreads page with the second chapter of the third book of the Jonas Watcher series. "What's New in My Life" I use to share my non-writing activities geared towards getting my name and the name of my product out there as much as possible. But I also want people who have access to this blog to also have quick access to my Goodreads blog. I hope you enjoy reading the non-edited version a chapter at a time, and I would like to get any feedback you have. If you haven't read the first book, you can eMail me at grposchman@gmail.com and let me know what eBook format you would like PDF, Nook, or Kindle and I will email it to you so you have some indication about the series. Gene Poschman Goodreads blog       Jonas Watcher Chapter 2

I have already posted this chapter in my GoodReads blog, and this is the link that will get you there. This is a Work In Progress, it has only had minimal grammar and spell checking  through Grammarly. Even so I am looking for feedback about the story. Every couple of days I will put up a new chapter until I am finished or unless my posting catches up with my writing. I do recommend that you read the first book at least, and the second book also. Of course, I do. If you haven't and would like to, you can get a free eBook of the first book, by liking my Jonas Watcher page and sending me an email telling if you want a PDF, Kindle, or nook formatted eBook. The link to the First Chapter of The Case of the jade Dragon . The link to Jonas Watcher FaceBook page . My email address grposchman@gmail.com.

Space Debris from 3D Models at Renderosity  No, it is not about science fiction, but about when you are relaxing and you come across something and your muse jumps out at you and hits you across the head with a two by four and yells, "Wake up and check this out!" I am a customer of Renderosity  and I get regular posts about what is available. Part of my relax and get started writing process is I will play a single round of a game and I will go through the Renderosity newsletter and see what is new. Then I will put on some music, mostly instrumental, sometimes from the Big Band Era, and sometimes more current like CCR. Then I settle in and I write. Today in a Renderosity Newsletter there was a reference to a 3d model "WaterFront 1930s". I had thought about using a waterfront picture for "Jonas Watcher: The Case of the Running Bag", after all that is where Jonas is almost murdered and the story starts. I never could find anything I liked. Blue Tree...

I have recently come across a number of people talking about the failing of Self Publishing. What they are really complaining about is marketing and selling of books. While I am not an expert in the field of Self Publishing, it is what I do at the moment. Why do people self-publish? There are a variety of reasons, but I can really only judge as to why I Self-Publish. I don't have the time to find an agent, and I don't have time to wait for someone else to discover what I already know. I am a damn good writer. Should you self-publish? Beats the hell out of me. ComicBook Creator I can tell you what I did. I wanted to publish a satirical comic book. I got online and found a marvelous software package called Comic Book Creator, which unfortunately no longer exists or works. However, I was able to use this software to create “The Shrub Chronicles”. But creating a comic book does not publish it. I wasn't looking to mass produce the book, but I did want to get it out...

James Patterson Master Class Gets Thumbs Up James Patterson Master Class in Writing When I enrolled in the James Patterson Master Class for writing fiction, I also started this blog. Initially part of the reason was because I wanted to share what I was doing in the class and offer up whether or not I thought it was worth the price of admission. I wasn't sure what to expect, I had taken a number of classes in writing fiction and I always did well in the classes. This was an opportunity to get information from a very successful writer, even if it wasn't really first hand, though there was the possibility of him reading something I did and commenting. I have completed the course, and I continue to review lessons and I still participate in the Facebook group. What I like is that I can review the videos as often as I wish. There are only a couple of hours, but it is after all James (Bloody) Patterson and he is an extremely successful writer. It was $90 to take the clas...