Today I was on a writer's panel at the Clark County Library in Las Vegas. I presented a mini-version of the workshop Phyllice and I will be giving at the Las Vegas Writer's Conference, "From Novice to Novelist...Good Critiques are Valuable."

About fifty people attended and the entire audience was very engrossed in the talks given by the three panelists. In addition to mine, Jo Wilkins talked about the importance of belonging to writer's groups and Gregory Kompes discussed how to get the most out of attending conferences.

As I was speaking, I realized that a good portion of my advice not only applies to writing but many life experiences in general. For example, I urged people to check their defenses at the door when receiving critiques. Open up and listen to what people are actually telling you. Then analyze what was said and decide which advice is valid and which you choose not to follow.

Does that only have to do with writing? No. If you stop trying to defend what you have done, created, said, etc. and listen to the opinions being offered you might gain some valuable insight. Think about American Idol and the contestants who receive and apply the valid critiques of the judges, and those who stand there qualifying what they have done rather than trying to figure out if this advice will be helpful in their careers. Multiply that by the things you do, say and hear every day and you will see how powerful this is to your life experiences.

Smart people listen. You can never learn enough.

Anyway, after the presentation a man and his young daughter came up to me. The daughter, a young teen, is interested in writing and told her father she hoped I would take the time to talk to her. I was delighted to do so and we spent about ten minutes talking about writing and other things. She was excited, and I loved seeing the light in her eyes. I gave her some advice as well as sharing some of my experiences along the road to becoming a writer and a novelist. She made my day!

MORGAN ST. JAMES
www. silversistersmysteries.com
A CORPSE IN THE SOUP
A zany romp through the world of TV chefs in search of a killer.

Check our website. The audio book is out now and we have a limited number available at a very special price only on our website. $17.95 instead of the normal $23.95.

DEADLY DANCE is a book that I started so many years ago we didn't even have e-mail. I think it's been at least nine years since it was first conceived as Dance with the Devil. The biggest problem with the first, second and third version was that at that time I didn't know how to write fiction. Wow, have I learned a lot.

I was a magazine article writer who thought that in order to have a good novel it had to be long. I also thought that a writer is a writer is a writer... That first manuscript was 750 manuscript pages. My goal now is to cut it to about 400 or 450 pages maximum. 350 would be even better, but I'm not sure I can do that without sacrificing anything relative to the story. My sister Phyllice Bradner and I learned so much writing the Silver Sisters Mysteries, that we are giving a workshop called "From Novice to Novelist" at the Las Vegas Writer's Conference in April.

For the Silver Sisters, we created Goldie Olivia DuBois, an advice columnist from Beverly Hills and Goldie Silver, an antique dealer from Juneau Alaska, identical twins with a nose for sleuthing. They are helped by their 80 year old mother and uncle, former vaudeville magicians, who love to dress in costumes and go undercover. After four rewrites, we had A CORPSE IN THE SOUP, now available in paperback and e-book, and it will be released as an audio book in April by Books in Motion.

I realized that I was ready to rewrite Deadly Dance yet another time because now I know all about things like point-of-view, tightening my writing and adding tension. Back then I didn't have a clue.

I feel myself sucked into working with "Dance" instead of other projects. I really want to finish it this time. I changed from using a third person narrative and telling the story in "what happened before" to first person telling it in real time. It really makes a difference and the story has gotten very powerful. There are still various characters who tell bits of the story from their point of view, but as I'm writing, I am each of those people. I guess that's why I'm so hooked. While writing one scene featuring the main character, Sandra Barton, a young ballerina who is kidnapped, raped, beaten and left for dead, I actually found myself crying as I wrote. I have been having chapters critiqued as I write and so far I have gotten lots of good suggestions, no negative comments yet and lots of praise from other writers. People say they want to keep reading more to find out what happens to her and that the scenes are very believable.

This book was inspired by some real incidents that happened back in the late 1950's. Parts of it may not have been 100% accurate because I learned about these incidents from letters to my mother written by the mother of the girl these things happened to, and she did tend to get facts mixed up sometimes. But I know for sure enough of it happened. I wanted to write this story for years and finally started it in the 90's. Her horrible experiences made a great starting point to create a story of mystery and romance.

This IS NOT A TRUE STORY. It is definitely fiction with some incidents based on what really did happen but the rest is pure fiction. I have posted parts of it on www.urbis.com, but I'm not taking reviews through urbis at this time. If you do read any of it and want to comment, please e-mail me at silversistersmysteries@yahoo.com.

MORGAN ST. JAMES
www.silversistersmysteries.com
A CORPSE IN THE SOUP
A zany romp through the glitzy world of TV Chefs
in search of a killer. Some of them will do anything
to win the Greatest Gourmet Gladiator medal...maybe even MURDER!