by Lorie Ham

At the Café today we have mystery author Beth Groundwater, whose latest book, A Real Basket Case, was released by Thomson Gale/Five Star Publishing in March of 2007. Her new book, To Hell In A Handbasket, will be released in May of 2009. So grab a cup of Celestial Seasonings herbal tea in her honor and enjoy. If you'd prefer to pick up a bag of her favorite coffee beans and make your own coffee, head on over to B B Bean Coffee in Colorado Springs.

Café:
Tell us a little about your latest book.

Beth:
When police accuse gift basket designer Claire Hanover's husband of killing her massage therapist, she becomes a bumbling amateur sleuth. Will she free her husband and save her marriage before the killer gets her next? As Booklist Review said, "This will appeal to Desperate Housewives fans and those who like cozies with a bit of spice."

Café:
I love Desperate Housewives. How long have you been writing?

Beth:
I wrote my first fiction stories in fifth and sixth grade about a boy named Freddie who had wild adventures such as visiting an underground mole city after burrowing down in a giant screw-mobile. During my high school senior year, I took an independent study in English and wrote fiction and poetry, which was critiqued by a college professor. Then I buckled down and focused on the technical writing I needed for my college work and career until the late nineties when I began experimenting with fiction again. What inspired me to begin writing fiction again is that I was no longer enchanted with being a software engineer after more than twenty years in that field. I was ready for a career change, so I started dabbling in short stories, then wrote my first novel-length manuscript in 1999 after I retired.

Café:
Have you always written mysteries? If not what else have you written?

Beth:
I first tried to write a futuristic romantic suspense novel, and that finished manuscript will probably never be published. I also tried my hand at science fiction and wrote a novella that received an Honorable Mention in the prestigious worldwide UPC competition for SF novellas. However, I decided SF required way too much research, which was hard work! I've published seven short stories, and I often used them to explore new genres, voices, points of view and characters. For instance, New Zealand was the first piece I wrote in first person, and Flamingo Fatality was the first time I tried all-out comedy. Both were successful, so I'll be writing more first person and comedic stories and may even try a first-person novel. A writer should never be afraid to explore something new, because otherwise your writing can get stale. After writing A Real Basket Case, I realized that mystery was my genre. I'm a puzzle freak — jigsaw, crossword, sudoku, you name it. In fact, when my family went on a recent trip to a condo, my husband hid the jigsaw puzzles the owners left there, so I wouldn't be tempted to stay up until the middle of the night working them! I enjoy writing the mystery form, because you're basically laying out a puzzle for your sleuth, and the reader, to solve.

Café:
The first book I tried to write was a Star Trek novel and you're right. I'd rather write mysteries. What brought you to choose the setting and characters in your latest book? Tell us a little about the setting and main character.

Beth:
The setting is the city where I live, Colorado Springs, CO, so I followed the old adage, "write what you know." It's also fun for those who live in or have visited Colorado Springs to see if they can recognize places they've been in the book. As for the main character, Claire Hanover is similar to me. Like Claire, I'm middle-aged, live in Colorado Springs and have two children, though hers are older than mine, with the sexes reversed. Unlike her, however, my marriage is very happy, as evidenced by all the hard work my hubby has put into implementing my website. And Claire is a lot braver than I am, but I'm smarter than her. I had to construct these ridiculous situations to put her in, after all, then gently steer her toward finding a way out. Claire is WAAAY under-qualified as a sleuth, as amateur sleuths should be. I wanted the reader to be able to identify with her as someone who was far from superhuman, had many faults and made lots of mistakes, but with heart and determination, she pushed on and solved her problems. A reader should be able to think, "I could do that." One of my critique partners liked to call Claire "Lucy," from the I Love Lucy show. Even though she screws up all the time, you can't help loving her.

Café:
What is the main reason that you write?

Beth:
I write because I love to tell stories and I enjoy escaping into my characters' worlds. When I'm "in the zone," I'm just a secretary, recording my characters' speech and actions as they interact with each other in my head, while I madly try to keep up as they move through the scene I placed them in. Often my characters will surprise me, which I find delightful, and they become very real to me.

Café:
Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to take away from your work?

Beth:
I usually explore some underlying theme in my novels and short stories, not to preach to the reader, but to get the reader to think about an issue and how they feel about it. In A Real Basket Case, the external story is the murder mystery — who done it? The internal story is about how Claire and her husband Roger's marriage is impacted by the murder, how the murder was a catalyst to make them see their marriage was in trouble, their struggle to decide whether or not it was worth saving, and if so, how to do that. My hope is that the middle-aged reader with a stale marriage may see the book as a "wake-up" call and start to do the hard work it takes to keep that relationship alive and mutually-supportive.

Café:
Do you have a schedule for your writing or just write whenever you can?

Beth:
I wish I had a schedule! I do set weekly writing goals to keep myself on track, and I report on those goals every weekend to an online goal-setting group. Often that means sitting down to write on Friday night and Saturday morning, so I can show some progress! Life happens, and I try to wedge in those writing or editing sessions wherever I can fit them. When I'm deep into writing the first draft of a novel, I usually try to schedule one or two writing sessions a day of two to three hours in length, with the goal of 5 pages a day or 20 pages a week. When my children were younger, I wrote while they were in school and made myself available to them when they were home. Now, with my youngest being a senior in high school and fairly self-sufficient, I have more flexibility.

Café:
I should try that goal setting group. Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what's going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Beth:
Yes, I outline. I'm a retired engineer, after all! Obsessive-compulsive, that's me. When I'm planning out a new novel, I spend about 3 months doing research, developing detailed character profiles, and producing a scene-by-scene outline. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't veer from the outline when I'm drafting, but if I do, I re-plan and stick in a new scene or modify existing scenes in the outline, so I know where I'm going, then continue on. I've found that often in a mystery, the hardest things to keep track of are 1) who knows what when and 2) what's happening off-scene to the other characters at the same time your on-scene characters are acting. So, I often include notes about these things in my scene outline.

Café:
If you had your ideal, what time of day would you prefer to write?

Beth:
Mid-morning and late afternoon. I often take a 15-minute power nap in the early afternoon and I'm usually wiped out by the evening. And I'm useless in the early morning before my first cup of coffee!

Café:
Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Beth:
Oh yes! I have a collection of hundreds of rejection letters for my short stories and novel-length manuscripts. If there's one thing a writer MUST have, it's persistence and the willingness to take a hard look at your writing weaknesses and work to improve them. You have to be willing to submit a short story to 20-30 markets, at least, to make a sale. And, you have to be willing to submit a novel-length manuscript at least 100 times, while listening to and applying any feedback you get from agents and editors. A Real Basket Case was rejected by 89 literary agents before the 90th one signed me on as a client.

Café:
You are so right. Sometimes persistence is more important than talent. Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you'd like to share?

Beth:
I was so excited when I hit the "big time" with my short story, "Power Play," which was accepted by Wild Blue Yonder, the in-flight magazine for Frontier Airlines. I ran upstairs to shout to my husband, "Frontier Airlines wants to pay me hundreds of dollars for a story!" And, of course, there's nothing like the thrill of signing your first book contract. Even though my agent and I had been involved in verbal and email negotiations with the acquisition editor, I kept thinking the deal would fall through, that Five Star would realize they'd made a huge mistake in selecting A Real Basket Case for publication. But once my signature was on the page, it was time to pop the champagne cork! My husband took a photo of that moment, and it's on the "Press Kit" page of my website, www.bethgroundwater.com.

Café:
How fun. What kind of promotion do you find most effective?

Beth:
My website and my monthly e-mail newsletter have been the most effective at getting the word out about my book and upcoming appearances, I think. I also tried to speak at a few mystery fan conventions to get some name recognition with mystery readers. And, the good reviews I've gotten, including gems from Booklist Review and Kirkus Reviews, have greatly increased my sales, especially to libraries.

Café:
Most interesting book signing story — in a bookstore or other venue?

Beth:
When I have a book signing at a bookstore, I like to have a "greeter," if possible, and have asked friends and family members to do it — even paid my kids. When I sign with other authors, we take turns. At my signing in my hometown in Virginia, my father was my greeter. He would hand my tri-fold flier to customers as they walked in and say, "We have a mystery writer signing her books in the store tonight." Then he'd point to me, lean over, and with pride glowing in his face, say, "and she's my daughter." How could people resist?

Café:
Future writing goals?

Beth:
The sequel to A Real Basket Case is on the acquisition editor's desk now and I'm hoping for an early 2009 publication date [see above for release date - LH]. It's titled To Hell in a Handbasket. Claire and her family take a ski vacation in Breckenridge, CO a few months after the events in A Real Basket Case, and Claire's daughter's boyfriend's sister is killed on the slope there. I'd also like to sell paperback and audio rights to A Real Basket Case. Lastly, I've just finished the first in what I hope will be a new series, Wicked Whitewater, with a whitewater river ranger as the protagonist.

Café:
Heroes?

Beth:
The published writers who have generously helped me along the way. Diane Mott Davidson gave me excellent promotion advice tailored to my book. Margaret Coel, Maggie Sefton, Kathy Brandt and Christine Goff gave me wonderful blurbs for A Real Basket Case. And there have been others, listed in the Acknowledgement page of A Real Basket Case, who have given me advice, critiqued my work and aided me in innumerable ways along the path to publication.

Café:
Person you would most like to meet dead or alive?

Beth:
If I could invite three people to dinner (living or dead), I would choose Jimmy Carter, Mother Teresa and Jesus Christ. From this list you might think I was a very religious person. I do attend church somewhat regularly, but I'm not an over-the-top evangelist. Instead, what intrigues me about these people is the combination of their peaceful, loving demeanor and their power to cause tremendous change for the better in society, resulting in the foundation of a new religion, a huge relief effort for the poor and the spread of democracy. Both Jimmy Carter and Mother Teresa are Nobel Peace Prize winners, to me the most important award in the world, and they were both motivated by their strong beliefs in Christianity. I'd love to have the opportunity to discuss faith and God with Jesus, his son, and to observe what Jimmy Carter and Mother Teresa would ask him.

Café:
Oh wow, I'd love to be at that conversation too. What do you read?

Beth:
I read a wide variety of books. I'm in a Book Club that meets monthly to discuss literary and women's fiction. Some of my favorite reads from that group were The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I read a lot of mysteries, of course. Some of my favorite authors are Western writers who I've gotten to know at conferences: C.J Box, Kathy Brandt, Christine Goff, Maggie Sefton and Margaret Coel. I also enjoy light-hearted series by Alexander McCall Smith, Donna Andrews and Tim Cockey. My all-time favorite mystery writer is Sharyn McCrumb, and I'm collecting all her books. I read romance and science fiction occasionally and have enjoyed Diana Gabaldon, J.D. Robb, Anne McCaffrey and Douglas Adams.

Café:
What are your hobbies?

Beth:
I garden and read. Also, since heart disease runs in my family, I exercise religiously 5 days a week, combining the elliptical machine and lifting weights at the YMCA, walking the dog, swimming, biking, or using the Nordic Track machine at home. I like to downhill ski in the winter and to go on trips to tropical places where I can snorkel. I enjoy travel and my husband and I have a long list of places we want to see. His top choice is Angkor Wat in Cambodia and mine is Machu Picchu in Peru. Fun family trips in the past included a two-week trip to New Zealand. Rafting in a glow worm cave and hiking on a glacier were the highlights. Our three-week trip to Alaska was a close second.

Café:
Oh I love Alaska! Favorite TV or movies?

Beth:
I don't have time for much TV. Usually my husband and I pick one or two shows to watch through the season. Past favorites have been The Amazing Race, 24, Six Feet Under and Northern Exposure. My movie tastes are as eclectic as my reading tastes.

Café:
Pets?

Beth:
We have a family dog, a Black Labrador mix, that we adopted from the Humane Society. The kids named her Blackie. Before that, we had two cats, Pippin and Merry, named after hobbits in Lord of the Rings. So, I'm both a dog and cat person.

Café:
Family?

Beth:
I have a very supportive husband, who is my website and email newsletter guru, and two children, a 20-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son.

Café:
Any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

Beth:
Network, network, network! That's how I got published. I met both my agent and editor through writer friends that I had made. Join a critique group to help you polish your prose. Join a local writing group in your city or state and go to their programs to learn the craft and the business. Join your genre writing organization. Attend writing conferences, meet other writers and do favors for them.

Café:
Anything you would like to add?

Beth:
I love to talk to Book Clubs either by phone or in person. Please contact me at my website, www.bethgroundwater.com, if you'd like me to discuss my book with your club.

Café:
Where can people purchase your books?

Beth:
Order A Real Basket Case from your favorite independent or chain bookstore, buy it online from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or even Wal-mart or Target, or check out the Appearances page on my website and if you attend one of my events, have a copy personally signed by me.

Café:
Thanks so much, Beth, and thanks to you for joining us here again at the Café. Happy reading and good coffee!

©2008 Lorie Ham. All rights reserved.