Sheila Lowe's Blog

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August 3, 2021–Oh, what a night! About 90 people got together outside on the stunning patio behind Orozco’s de Ventura Mexican restaurant at the beach in Ventura, California. They were there to help me celebrate the release of Dead Letters, Claudia Rose novel #8. Click on the video above for a one-minute tour of the party (Slate Start Productions). The talented Amy Herron documented the evening with her photography.

Everyone who came received an Eye of Horus decoration for protection and good luck (we can all use some), handpainted by my clever and artistic sister, Sara Taylor, who also made a load of yummy chocolate caramel pretzel rods (she’s a chef). And if that wasn’t enough, she brought her artwork to give away as door prizes. Mary Gabriels supplied a bunch of golf shirts and backpacks, in keeping with the Egyptian theme, embroidered with ankhs. If you’d wanted to know what you’d look like as a mummy, you could do that, too (see photo below).

My book launch parties are networking events, which means that everyone who brought a prize got a turn at the mic to talk about whatever they wanted. There were prizes galore. After enjoying delicious Mexican food made from our host Guillermo Orozco’s mom’s recipes, we enjoyed cake: chocolate with raspberry filling and vanilla with chocolate frosting and custard filling (my mouth is still watering). And on top of that, Connie Hood brought Egyptian cookies to die for (which is appropriate for a mystery novel party, wouldn’t you say?).

Local authors, James Gray and Connie Hood, had their books available, too. Anna Crowe, the voice of Claudia Rose on 8 of my ten audiobooks was there, along with folk from various groups I frequent, including Ventura County Professional Women’s Network, Hillside Book Club, Candlelighters. Lots of others people, too. Bobbie Cimo–I’m talking about you. Thanks for the help in setting up.

Charles Talmadge provided music. Debbie Mitsch of Mystery Ink, assisted by Nanette Heisen, drove the 100 miles north from Huntington Beach to handle book sales. Thank you! And thank you to our charming (and good-looking) host, for transforming his patio into a beautiful venue for the fully vaccinated or fully masked to spread out and enjoy one of the first social events most guests had attended since you-know-what started last year (like Voldemort, it shall not be named).

More thanks due to very dear out-of-town friends: Carol Brown, Nina Nelson, and Linda Larson, who couldn’t be present but sent gorgeous flower arrangements. Christine and Rita, and Liz drove all the way down from the Bay Area (more than 300 miles). Can you tell I have some amazing friends and readers who support me through the throes of book publishing? It’s a lot like having a baby, and the gestation takes as long.

Finally, the Very Important Person who made the publishing process less painful than it might have been was Victoria Rydberg-Nania. She acted as midwife the whole way through and did all the hard stuff. There can’t be enough thanks for all she did. The last picture in the gallery is of her sweet little boy, Jay, who was the recipient of my feeble attempt at appreciation. Looks like he was ready to enjoy the cookies.

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Do you ever wonder if there’s a story behind the cover of a book you love? In the case of Last Writes, there is.

The first edition of Last Writes was my fourth book published by Penguin. As every book got close to publication, I got the same email: “Here’s your new cover. We hope you love it as much as we do.” If I didn’t love it, the response was, “Sorry, it’s too late to make changes.”

Penguin cover

To say I was horrified by the cover they gave Last Writes is a vast understatement (that’s it on the right). It’s a perfectly fine cover for a cozy, but that’s not what I write. My readers are looking for mystery/suspense. This cover would attract cozy readers, who wouldn’t like the story, and would not attract suspense readers, who would.

A move

Shortly thereafter, I moved to Suspense, a smaller publishing house. There, I had artistic license on the redesign. The story of Last Writes answers the question, “What does an old stuffed bunny have to do with a missing three-year-old in a religious cult?” Shannon Raab, the cover designer, and I were having a hard time coming up with something just right.

On a whim, I googled “stuffed bunny, little girl,” and Voila! I could hardly believe what I found. Following the image took me to a newspaper story about a British family on holiday in New York. Their three-year-old daughter, Ruby, was devastated because she had lost her stuffed bunny there. The article asked anyone who found it to contact them.

Sadly, the bunny was never returned to them, but that picture was absolutely perfect for my cover. With a bit more detective work, I tracked down Ruby’s mother through her Facebook page, and guess what–she’s a photographer. But as it turns out, she hadn’t taken that photo, a photographer friend of hers had. So, cutting to the chase: her friend and I negotiated a fee and I was more than thrilled to get the rights to use it.

Thanks to Terry Rydberg for a terrific job on my new covers. Please check them out here.

What She Saw

What She Saw was also just re-released after a complete rewrite. The new editions of both books came out today and are available through in e-book, print, and audiobook through Amazon or wherever you buy books.

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Stephen King had it right when he wrote, “to write is human, to edit is divine.” I’ve always said, I don’t like writing, I like having written. It’s after getting the words down on paper (or screen) that the real work begins. Knowing where to slash; where to ‘kill your darlings’ can be utter agony. And, it can be the best thing since…well, since Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or insert your favorite book title here).

Since I last blogged about jumping off a cliff, I’ve established my own publishing imprint, Write Choice Ink, and, with the help and direction of the completely amazing Victoria Rydberg Nania–it’s she who is doing all the heavy lifting–I’m reissuing all of my books. Doing this has given me the opportunity to look at them with fresh eyes.

Way back when

Way back when I wrote Poison Pen, I had to learn how to write in an entirely new way. After having written countless technical articles and monographs on handwriting psychology, and two nonfiction books, I discovered that writing fiction was, quite literally, a very different story. Poison Pen was published by Penguin in 2007. Since then, I’ve written nine more fiction (and four nonfiction) books. With every one, I worked hard to hone my craft. With every one, I learned something new about novel writing. And with every one, it felt as though I had clawed my way up to the next level (i.e., I wrote better).

When it was time to send the books to Victoria for formatting and publishing, I thought I’d better have a look. After all, Poison Pen was my first mystery. It was good enough for a major house to publish, but OMG! Suffice it to say, I did a whole lot of rewriting, which included chopping more than six-thousand words! (that’s nearly 20 pages), which made it way better.

The first four books needed the most work. I had learned a lot by the time I’d written them all, so there was less to do on the next four. That brought me to the two Beyond the Veil books. I loved getting back into What She Saw–one of my favorites; improving the opening, smoothing it all out. Now, I’m halfway through Proof of Life, which is benefiting from that divine editing. This is all leading up to the release of the next Claudia Rose book, DEAD LETTERS, in August (I’m hoping by then to have an in-person launch party).

Poison Pen and Written in Blood are on sale now and the others are up for pre-order. They’ll all be released in the next few weeks. And, btw, thanks to Terry Rydberg for some fantastic new covers.

Join my Street Team

If you enjoy my books, you might want to consider joining my Write Choice Inkers Street Team. For helping me spread the word, you’ll get early access to new books, our private Facebook page, and other perks. Send me an email if you’d like to be an Inker. sheila@sheilalowe.com

Poison Pen will be out in audiobook any day now–stay tuned! I’ll have free codes to spread around.

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Can handwriting be faked to make murder look like suicide? That is the question facing forensic handwriting expert Claudia Rose. When powerful Hollywood agent Lindsey Alexander is found dead, police are all too willing to believe it’s Lindsey’s handwriting on the scrap of paper they’re calling a suicide note. But not everyone is ready to accept this easy conclusion.

Claudia knows first-hand the publicist’s ruthlessness and cruelty, so when Lindsey’s business associate begs her to prove the suicide note a fake, her instincts scream at her to run the other way. She hasn’t forgotten how it felt to be humiliated by the best. But Ivan leans hard, and when she accepts the case, Claudia becomes trapped in a far darker scenario than she bargained for.

 

Buy it on Amazon

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To jump off a cliff is Very Big Decision; one I recently made: I am going to independently publish my new book, Dead Letters (#8 in the Claudia Rose psychological suspense series). After publishing my nonfiction books on handwriting psychology for a while now, I find this choice infinitely more daunting. I waffled over it for a few weeks, not entirely sure it was the right thing to do. Then, this happened…

The day after making the VBD, I intended to go grocery shopping in the morning. But, procrastinator that I am, I put it off until well after lunch. Just before I left my keyboard, I emailed my friend and fellow author Peg Brantley to share the news. The subject line was: I just jumped off a cliff.

Sir Patrick Stewart

Words of wisdom

Driving across town to the local Winco, I tuned the radio to NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Thanks to my lagging, I’d caught the last few minutes of what had clearly been a great interview with the venerable actor, Sir Patrick Stewart. When I heard what he said, I confess to promptly bursting into tears. Speaking of his early days in the business, he quoted a teacher who had told him something he said he never fully understood until much later:

“Patrick, you will never achieve success by insuring against failure.” I thought, huh, that’s so true. But it was his next words that made my mouth drop open.

“You have to take risks,” he said as if directly speaking to me. “You have to be brave; you have to step into the unknown.”

Then: “You have to step off the edge of a cliff.” OMG, that’s what I had just written to Peg! But wait, there’s more…

Patrick Stewart said, “I always make sure I’m dead letter perfect.” OMG, OMG, OMG!!! Dead Letters is the title of my new book!!!

To make sure I wasn’t misremembering or putting words in his mouth, I looked up the interview online and transcribed exactly what he had said. I don’t know about you, but I believe in spirit guides and angels, and I believe that when we ask for help, we get it. Oh boy,  had I been asking! Just think–had I gone to the store in the morning, rather than procrastinating, I would have missed the interview. If I had been a half an hour earlier I would have missed the interview.

No coincidences

Look, I know that everything Sir Patrick said could be applied to any author. But I don’t believe in coincidences. If it had been just the first statement, well, that was encouraging. But the second, and the third—at that moment, those words were meant for me.

2020 was a super-rotten year for all of us, some more than others suffering intolerable losses of many kinds. But all of a sudden, a bright ray of hope carried me into 2021. Soon, I’ll have more to tell you about this adventure, but for now, I wish you a very Happy New Year. I hope that by my tale of jumping off a cliff, you will feel empowered and encouraged, too.

A version of this blog was published on 1/4/21 at Blackbirdwriters.com

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On January 23rd every year, we celebrate National Handwriting Day. Why that date? In the early 1980s, the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association began using John Hancock’s birthday to promote their members. Then, handwriting professionals jumped on the bandwagon. The American Handwriting Analysis Foundation, with members around the world, extends the date to make it International Handwriting Week.

Put your John Hancock here

Why John Hancock’s signature? It’s the biggest, boldest signature on the US Declaration of Independence, and Hancock was the first to sign. An apocryphal tale says he signed it that way so King George would not need to wear his spectacles to read it. So, when someone says “put your John Hancock here,” they are asking you to sign something. Sadly, in the 21st century, many young people don’t know how to sign their own name.

Cursive, it’s not subversive

Why is it that so many kids don’t know how to write in cursive? What happened to handwriting training in schools?

I am frequently asked these questions when I speak to various groups about handwriting and personality. The short answer is the Common Core Curriculum. In 2009, the requirement for public schools to teach cursive writing was removed from the CCC, leading many schools to simply drop it. Their shortsighted view was, kids just need to learn keyboarding. Well, that ain’t so. In 2018, the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation published a white paper on the topic and translated it into 7 languages. Click on the link above to download your free copy.

The white paper lists more than 80 peer-reviewed, published studies that demonstrate why handwriting training is still important in an electronic age. Bottom line, it helps in brain development. Children who learn to write in cursive remember information better, read better, and spell better than those who just learn printed writing. Cursive training can even help improve behavior by calming the excitable right brain and developing the more controlled left.

If you need help getting your school district to teach your kids this vital lifelong skill, check out www.cursiveiscool.com for resources.

Contest!

And finally, National Handwriting Day, January 23rd, kicked off the 8th annual Campaign for Cursive contest. Every elementary age child is invited to enter. This year, there will be random prize drawings and grand prizes, too. To enter:  www.campaignforcursive.com

Campaign for Cursive is a committee of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation.

Penmanship and personality

Any teacher can tell you, even kids all taught by the same person at the same time do not write the same. That’s because many internal and external factors affect handwriting, one of which is the child’s personality. If you’re interested in learning why, I’ve published a bunch of books on that topic. Reading Between the Lines: Decoding Handwriting is a basic course in what you need to know to understand other people by the way they write.

Happily, handwriting training is starting to make a comeback. Currently, at my count, 25 states have requirements to teach penmanship in the early grades. Six states have legislation pending. Nine states leave it up to the school district, and eleven states have no requirement to teach handwriting (CT, AK, CO, HI, IN, MO, NB, ND, NH, VT, WA).

 

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I've been a Goodreads member for a long time but not very active. I aim to rectify that, so posting this is part of my commitment; sort of an early New Year's Resolution. If I say it publicly, I have to follow through.

So, I'll leave it there and wish you the very happiest of holidays, such as they are in this forgettable year. May 2021 be ten times better than 2020 to make up for it.

Be well!
Sheila
www.claudiaroseseries.com

I just spent the best nine days overseas. My younger son, Ben, the avowed bachelor, got married. He was a pop star, performing around the world. But after meeting Tuba, a Turkish-German woman who is utterly gorgeous inside and out, he said he was trading his leather pants for a polo shirt. Here’s an article telling the tale.

The wedding in Bad Hamburg, a quaint little town with 500-year-old buildings, could not have been more perfect. My ex-husband and I even got along for four whole days. That was a 40-year record.

The UK leg

Life imitating art, like my character Claudia Rose in Outside the Lines, I was invited to present a lecture at the prestigious British Institute of Graphologists. So, the day after the wedding I flew to the UK, my home country. My first solo international flight. Woo hoo!

That first night, when I opened the door to my hotel room at the meeting venue I had to laugh. It literally was the size of a walk-in closet. In this photo, which I took from the doorway, you can see that the headboard and footboard of the twin bed touched each wall. The bathroom fixtures didn’t quite work the way they should, but it was all part of the adventure. There was lovely English tea, and a chocolate bar on the desk. I woke up in that tiny bed on Sunday morning, thinking to myself, “I’m in London!!! I’m home!”

Happily, the lecture went as well as the wedding. It was lovely to see old friends and colleagues, too. Adam Brand, the Director of BIG, was kind enough to see me to the train station. I was off to Sidcup, Kent.

If you’ve ever traveled the London Underground (the Tube) you will have heard the “Mind the Gap” announcements as you board the train.

On to Kent

I stayed there a couple of days with my friend Janet, whose bangers and mash are the best. She went back to London with me, where I was meant to do research for my work in print whilst in the UK (look how my English accent came back straight away). I’ve written elsewhere about the importance of going to a location to give a story verisimilitude. But it was not until I was right at Charing Cross Station that I ‘got’ why the bomb scene I’d written was not going to work. Being there really does make all the difference. Luckily, I saw how to fix it.

Later, we were in Eltham High Street, gorging on sausage rolls and scones when I got a text from Lufthansa. My flight the next day had been cancelled. The pilots had gone on strike. Arrrgggghhhhhhhhh.

Screaming Baby Airlines

Long story short, I got the last seat on a flight to the US. Had I known I was booking on Screaming Baby Airlines (otherwise known as Norwegian Air), I would have stayed in the UK another day. Who knew that a one-year-old baby girl could shriek at the top of her lungs for most of 12.5 hours straight? I’m not kidding.

First, though, we sat on the runway for an hour at Heathrow. The captain announced that a passenger was “not fit to fly” and needed to be escorted off the plane. It turned out that meant he was “stinking drunk.”

The minute we took off, the baby started. Why was she screaming? It wasn’t that the cabin pressure was hurting her ears–that would be understandable and draw sympathy. But no. She’d just learned to walk and thought it would be fun to run up and down the aisle. That’s not allowed while airborne, so everyone within earshot got to know how irate she was. For the entire flight and beyond. Here’s a bit of irony: at the ticket counter, the very nice agent had said, “Let’s see if we can find you a better seat.” Little did we know that the “better” seat would be right next to said screaming baby.

So, I plugged in my earphones and watched Gone Girl for the second time. After that, The Interns. Then a show about animals. By then, my ears were bleeding (okay, it felt like it). The young man next to me had his fingers stuck in his ears.

Back in L.A.

Arriving at LAX after the 10 hour flight (plus the hour waiting on the drunk passenger) we were stuck at the gate for 90 minutes more, waiting for an Air France flight to move. By 8:45 PM when we deplaned (oh, that’s when the baby stopped screaming and went to sleep), I’d been awake 24 hours and was close to freaking out. The very last shuttle home to Ventura (60 miles west of LAX) was at 9:30. After a lengthy walk to Customs and Immigration, I found that because I’m not a US citizen, there was not one, not two, but three loooong lines to go through. Can someone tell me the point of having to show the same documents three times in the same facility? Then the fingerprint reader wouldn’t accept mine. Thank goodness I only had carry-on luggage.

I threw myself on the mercy of the Customs agents, who were nice, and made it to the shuttle with 10 minutes to spare. And since I got home safely, I was happy. Hey, at least I wasn’t on the BEA flight that burst into flames in Las Vegas just before take off the day before! Any safe landing is a good landing.

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I’m working on the next Claudia Rose book, Dead Letters, part of which takes place in Egypt. I’ve always been fascinated with Ancient Egypt. It probably started when my cousins went to live there and brought back a fez. Or maybe it was from a past life. After all, I have been told by psychics that I was a scribe. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Handwriting analyst, mystery writer…

Friends and family know what to give me for birthdays and Christmas, and I haunt the new age shops and eBay for statuettes and copies of other artifacts. I admit it, I’m an Egypt junkie. The photo below shows two shelves in my living room–not the entire collection, mind you.

I’ve never been to Egypt but this handsome dude, my younger son, Ben, (aka “Stoli” the rock star), has performed in Cairo. Doesn’t he look like a pharaoh? I’m not as brave as Claudia, traveling to the middle east in these difficult times. But between Ben, my editor, Ellen Larson, who used to live there, and several other friends who are intimately acquainted with this amazing country, plus my own driving need to do it justice, I believe I can make Dead Letters work.

Who is Monica?

If you are familiar with my Forensic Handwriting series, you’ll know that Monica is Claudia Rose’s teenage niece. She’s the innocent foil to her friend Annabelle’ darker personality–Snow White and Rose Red, as Claudia calls them. In Dead Letters, Monica gets her turn at the forefront when she goes on an archeological dig and…well, things happen.

Monica’s dad, Pete, has his own big problem when he’s arrested for a crime he did not commit. That means he can’t go to Egypt to rescue his baby girl, so of course, Claudia must go in his stead.

Now that I’ve told you about it, I guess I’d better get writing. But first, an announcement: Book 3, Dead Write, was just released in audiobook. If you’d like to listen for free, I have a few promo codes. First come, first served. Email me: sheila@sheilalowe.com Meanwhile, here’s a sample, narrated by the fabulous Anna Crowe. Links to all the audiobooks can be found here.

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I just came across this 1992 video of The Elvis Conspiracy, in which I gave an opinion about some handwriting. I was young, had big hair and big shoulder pads–those were the days! The host, Bill Bixby was investigating claims made several years after Elvis Presley’s death. There was no shortage of people who thought they had seen Elvis. This time, though, handwriting was involved.

You can watch the whole show if you’re interested, this video is set just before I come on around 30 minutes in.

A man had received a handwritten letter signed “Jon Burrows,” which was a pseudonym Elvis had used when signing hotel registers and other items. If he was correct in his belief that the letter was genuine, that meant Elvis was still alive.

I was on a trip to Hawaii when I was informed they wanted me to appear live on the show. So, instead of getting to meet Bill Bixby, of whom I was and am a fan (My Favorite Martian and the Incredible Hulk were must-watches at our house), I went to the studio when I got back home and tape my segment. Bixby introduced me and I explained what I had done and my conclusions.

If you believe Elvis Presley is still alive, maybe you believe Bill Bixby is, too. You might not want to watch my “testimony.” But if you’re curious to see how I reached my conclusions, watch and, I hope, enjoy.

Procrastinating

That’s the kind of thing I do when I’m procrastinating–look for old Youtube videos of myself. Or at least, it was today. What I should have been doing is working on the ending of Dead Letters–20% left to write.

Finally, you might like the podcast of a radio I did the other did day. It’s with Coach Ron Tunick and Scott Harries on The Edge Radio. The show is on mental toughness. I’m on for the whole second hour.

 

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