I'm huge in Canada

My book is now available (virtually) north of the border.

Of course, it looks like I could use a few stars there...

The road ahead

I don't know, you know?

I don't know what readers want to read.

I don't know how to save the planet.

I don't know what I'm going to write after I finish book three.

All I do know is...

I know what I want to read.

I know what I'm doing to save the planet.

Now I just have to figure out what to write after I finish book three.

You know?

And now for some good reviews!

Wouldn't you know it.

Right after I publish a rather snarky post about bad reviews my publisher ups and points me to two very good reviews:

"I loved The Ghost Runner as much as I loved the first book, Out of Breath," reads this 5-star review of The Ghost Runner."
-- Bookingly Yours

The Lithia Trilogy, which blends adventure and the paranormal with environmental awareness and Shakespeare, offers an exciting new series in young adult fiction.
-- Books, Books & More Books

Thanks to everyone who loved books one and two. It inspires me to finish book three!

Bad reviews suck

I try.

I try not to look at them.

The reviews.

And for the most part I've succeeded in avoiding the reviews.

But the Internet is the devil's playground. One minute you're doing some innocent research on Wikipedia and the next minute you're reading a particularly painful review of your book.

And I get upset. I stomp around. I curse the reviewer's name and wonder why she or he didn't "get it."

But then I cool down and remind myself that books are like people.

Some people you like and some you don't.

As a writer, I want my book to be liked, though I know not everyone will "get it."

And that's fine. Many people don't "get" me.

But bad reviews still suck.

Fortunately, some people do "get" me. Like this reviewer.

Okay, no more reading reviews! Time to starting writing again.

PS: If you've read either Out of Breath or The Ghost Runner -- and liked it -- please consider writing a review. We authors may say publicly that reviews don't matter -- but they do.

My last free book of 2012

It must be the holidays.

Or my generous spirit.

Or maybe I've just got too many books taking up space on my desk.

Nah, it's my generous spirit.

Which is why I'm giving away one more free copy of The Ghost Runner on Goodreads.

The deadline is Dec. 31, so signup now!

Happy Holidays...

Here's to anonymity

I am the anonymous writer.

Blair Richmond is my pen name, or alias. It is my ticket to freedom. And, true, I shouldn't care what people think, but I do. I can't help it. And, under the veil of Blair Richmond, I don't worry about my neighbor secretly judging me because of what I wrote about the cute but slightly creepy town of Lithia.

I just write.

I realize I can't exactly go on a book tour or do a radio interview, and this may get in the way of the book's success.

But I think the tradeoffs are worth it.

And it was nice to see in this article that I'm far from alone in the pen name department.

Here are some other pen names you may recognize (and their real names):

• Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
• George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
• Pablo Neruda (Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto)
• Lewis Caroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
• George Sand (Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin)

Maybe someday I'll come clean. But given such good company, why the rush?

They Lighted the Way

A second chance at a free copy of The Ghost Runner

I'm giving away another copy of The Ghost Runner on Goodreads.

Here's the link.

Just five days to go people.

And for those of you who purchased a copy so far -- thank you!

I'm hard at work on book three.

Read the first chapter of The Ghost Runner

The first chapter of The Ghost Runner has been posted at Bookingly Yours.

BEFORE YOU CLICK, be aware that you'll get a heavy dose of how Out of Breath ended.

So consider yourself warned!

Shameless Screen Grab

Actually, I'm not ashamed. This is my blog darnit and I'm excited. Here's the review.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”
— William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

This is the quote I use to begin The Ghost Runner.

I saw Measure for Measure two years ago at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and I couldn't get that play out of my head.

Actually, I have trouble getting any Shakespeare play out of my head.

In each book, well, in each of my first two books, I focus on one Shakespeare play in particular.

In Out of Breath it was Hamlet. I saw a lot of Hamlet in my character Roman, and that's one reason I wanted to work this play into the book. So I had Roman actually play the role of Hamlet for his job at the theater, letting readers connect these two troubled souls. They're troubled for very different reasons, of course, but in my mind they were very similar.


And in The Ghost Runner, it's Kat herself who finds herself in a spot like Shakespeare's Isabella -- caught between her own beliefs and a family situation that may cause her to give up what she believes in the very most. Again, they're in totally different situations, but I definitely saw the parallels. This is probably why I can never get Shakespeare out of my head -- all his characters deal with the same things we still do every day: love, loyalty, family, duty, and on and on. I'm adding animal rights to the mix, but I think even Shakespeare might have touched on that. I discovered this quote, from Twelfth Night:

Sir Andrew: "I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit."
Sir Toby: "No question."

(William Shakespeare,Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene III)

Just one more reason to love Shakespeare.

Now, I have to decide which play to work into Book Three.