The Mystery Starts Here

I may not be famous or have a lot of money but, today was a good day to be a writer.

I have been taking a water color art class since last fall, and am enjoying it very much, even though most of my work looks like it was done by a five-year-old. My teacher is fabulous and a very generous woman. She makes jewelry as a hobby, then gives most of it away. I got several pieces at Christmas time and enjoy wearing them. Because of her genorousity, I gave her four of my published books for Christmas. She was delighted, read them all and is now in the process of sharing them with the rest of the class. I love that. I write mainly because I want people to read my stories.

Today one of my fellow classmates gave me two hand-made bookmarks as a way of saying thanks for reading my books. She loved them all and wanted to give me something to say thank you. She said, “They aren’t special so if you don’t want them, just throw them away.”  Throw them away? I wouldn’t think of it. I won’t even use them to mark my place in books because I might lose one! No, they will go in my box of special treasures.

As if that weren’t enough, my teacher told me she’d lent one of my books to a friend. The friend thanked her profusely and said, “That’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.”

A good day to be a writer? You bet! It was one of the best.

Do you ever go to www.amazon.com and check the book reviews before you buy a book? I sure do and find it to be an invaluable source. I get most of my reading material from the library and used books stores – hey, I’m poor. But, because I’m a writer I do invest in nonfiction books that will be helpful to my writing career. For instance I have four thesaurus – and I use them all. I have a lot of books about crime solving, detecting, etc. Authors keep writing new books so every couple of years, I bite my tongue and get rid of a few to make space on the shelves for new ones. One book that been gathering dust for years is, “How We Die,” by Sherwin Nuland. I know it will be interesting – I’ve had it for years but, I just cannot make myself open the book. Someday I will.

But I digress. As a writer I find it particularly interesting to read the bad, one and two star fiction reviews on amazon. Why? Because some of the more intelligent reviewers give reasons why they didn’t like the book, i.e., poor character development, bad plotting, stupid dialogue. That helps me when I’m writing a book. I don’t bother with the good reviews – they simply gush and that doesn’t help me.  Sometimes when I’m reading a library book and can’t get through it I wonder, is it me? Or the book? Then I go to amazon and almost always find a majority of readers found the book to be uninteresting or hard to read. Helps me know I’m not THAT unusual.

How about you? Do you read amazon reviews?