MISERY LOVES COMPANY

Do bad reviews of your latest novel upset you? Do you dread reading suggestion from an editor? Here’s a way to feel better - at least if the old phrase “misery loves company” is true.

FDA example

In June 2011, the FDA posted a preliminary list of their  27 regulations up for review (www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/transparencyinitiative/ucm251751.htm).

This might not sound like much revising and editing until you read the topics. For example, they will revise and update food labeling regulations to make nutrition information on packaged food label more useful to consumer. Sounds like fun? What do you think – fifty or a hundred typewritten pages of editing and re-editing in response to comments?

The other thing scary about their revisions is a lot more than sales of books rests on their decisions. For example they state “that existing rules for GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)  are inadequate.” So they are going to establish preventive controls for food facilities to reduce morbidity and death from food borne illness. Bet that takes of hundred of pages of revisions too.

Feel better?

Doesn’t the FDA task make your next editing project sound easier? I’m going to keep reminding myself as I read galleys for Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight and revise a third book in my medical medical mystery/suspense series.

Here’s a peek at Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight:

Linda Almquist, who seldom even smiled, laughed.

Richard Varegos had done it again. He had arranged books and a computer on the front counter of the hospital pavilion for a photo shoot. In the resulting glossy, full-color flyer, he sat with at his make-believe teak desk in his supposedly marble-walled office. She read the flyer’s title: THE DIET DOCTOR HAS ANSWERS FOR YOUR WEIGHT PROBLEMS.

Was there no end to his ego?

I hope you want to read more. It’s out later in March. Until then, why not read Coming Flu?

Janet and Bug

MAKING A BLOG COUNT

Thousands of people blog daily. Most of us are less dedicated, but we still hope others find our blogs useful or interesting. Some of us even envision our blog as publicity for our other creative activities. In my case my medical mystery suspense novels: Coming Flu and Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight (due out in March 2013).

Is the publicity generated by a blog a form of advertising?

I’m obviously no marketing expert so I’ll quote two.

Advertising is something you get by paying for it. Publicity however, is something you hope you'll get. (Benchmark Communications at www.bmcommunications.com).

Advertising and publicity are two very different communication tools, even though both employ the mass media as a vehicle for reaching large audiences… Advertising buys its way into the media… Publicity is presented by the media because it's "newsworthy." (Michael Turney in Online Readings in Public Relations at www.nku.edu)

I guess the answer is:  No, blogs should not be considered a form of advertising.

How do advertising and publicity influence our behavior?

Although publicity and advertising are different, I thought if I understood the psychology of advertising, I might do a better job at publicizing my novels. I’m guessing (if you’re still reading), you might think so, too.

Dempsey and Mitchell (Journal of Consumer Research [Dec 4, 2010] Vol. 37) found advertising sold products not by providing factual information but by surrounding the product with other things shoppers liked, thus creating positive attitudes about the product. At least that was true 70-80% of the time. I wondered if this ‘attitude adjustment” worked for more abstract products than toothpaste and cereal.

Could I sell more of my novels if I associated them with something pleasant in potential readers’ minds?

That’s hard to do when you write realistic thrillers. Somehow I don’t think posting a picture of a decorator box of tissues when I write about my novel Coming Flu will help sales.

Maybe I did a better job when I titled my second novel Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. The heroine Linda Almquist in the book loses ten pounds in fifteen days when she investigates a “diet doctor” for two murders. I even show readers how she does it without consciously dieting. That’s something positive.

Bottom line?

I believe in research so I’ve included positive images in this blog - pictures of my dog Bug when he’s trying to ignore me and when he’s trying to please me. By the way Bug is the only nonfictional character in both my novels.

JL Greger

Coming Flu (paper back and e-book formats) is available form the publisher Oak Tree Press and Amazon. Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight will be published in March.

CAN A HORMONE MAKE READERS LIKE MY BOOKS??

The title is meant to be funny. However, new scientific discoveries show levels of certain hormones (substances synthesized in one tissue but affecting the function of another tissue or organ) can affect social behavior. Don’t become too enthused (like I was when I titled this article). The ramifications of the studies I’ll mention are unclear.

A hormone that may make you more social?

The brain synthesizes the peptide oxytocin, which facilitates childbirth and lactation. Since 2000, scientists have observed that oxytocin also tends to promote trust and decrease fear in animal models and humans in research studies. Now some psychologists are planning to test whether an oxytocin nasal spray helps autistic children become more attuned to social cues (Science 339:267-269 – January 18, 2013). Others are speculating oxytocin might facilitate trust and cooperation among humans. Side effects have been noted.

Undoing psychological harm in the future?

Psychologists know that some children and adolescents exposed to aggression show long-term symptoms, such as social aversion and increased anxiety, during adulthood. In 2013, two groups of researchers reported glucocorticoids, so called stress hormones, mediated these long-term changes in behavior in mice (Science 339:332-335 and 335-339 – January 18, 2013). The responses were noted only in animals with a genetic predisposition and involved epigenetics (changes in how genes functioned that didn’t involve alteration in the DNA sequence). Theoretically in the future, scientists may be able to identify sensitive children and lessen the effects of stress on them by blocking their sensitivity to glucocorticoids.

I debated whether to mention this research because it is easy to misuse the data. I decided this blog had three potential functions:

1. Might give ideas to science fiction writers,

2. Might arouse interest in neuroscience,

3. Might give hope to everyone as we read the headlines daily.

JL Greger and Bug

IS WRITING A BLOG LIKE ENACTING LAWS?

 

Probably million of words are published daily on blogs. How many are read by anyone but the author and a few friends. Similarly millions of words appear in the Congressional Record each year. Have you ever read even a paragraph from the Congressional Record?

What impels you to take time and read a blog? Or for that matter anything?

Think about these questions as you read or write your next blog. And it you’re so inclined, please tell me what you think.

Yes  No  Maybe

__    __     __           I read blogs with catchy titles.

__    __     __           Does humor make a title interesting?

__    __     __           Do personal questions in the title draw you in?

__    __     __            I read blogs that provide me with useful info, i.e. I’m a writer and find writers’ blogs helpful.

__    __     __            I like blogs that mention science.

__    __     __            I like blogs that mention politics.

__    __     __            I like blogs that mention the paranormal.

__    __     __             It’s a habit. I generally read this blog.

__    __     __             I read blogs, which were cited elsewhere.

Maybe writing successful blogs is like writing legislation that is eventually enacted. Otto von Bismark is credited with saying: “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”

In any case, I’m interested in your thoughts. Please make a comment.

JL Greger

Not knowing how to interest others in my blog bugs me.

What Do Science and Novel Writing Have in Common?

Many Americans consider science to be collection of boring facts, as dry as the stuffed animals and bones in natural history museums. That’s an unfortunate misconception, which probably reflects poorly taught classes in school.

Science should be thought of as a verb not a noun. Science is the collecting of information on the natural world in an organized and systematic way and the applying the accumulated knowledge to solve problems or test hypotheses.

Aha, you say. That definition of science sounds a bit like crime solving and mystery writing, actually novel writing in general.

Writing is a lot like doing a science experiment.

1. Writers and scientists make observations. (Granted scientists try to quantitate their observations more than writers.) 

2. They organize their observations into a whole (i.e. writers develop plot; scientists – hypotheses).

3. They test and refine their “whole,” (i.e. writers edit their prose; scientists run experiments.)

Science and writing both require a lot of hard work to gain occasional flashes of insights. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, they’re  “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Science and writing are both dynamic. Both, when well done, generate further thought. So, I think our society needs more of both.

JL Greger

Oak Tree Press will be publishing my new medical mystery Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight in March 2013.

New Year's Resolutions

Every shopper likes a good deal; every writer a good idea. Most of us see lots of great ideas, but forget most of them. That’s why I “coupon” them.

Is “couponing” a real word? I'm not sure, but there are certainly lots of “guides to couponing” found on the WEB and in popular women’s magazines.

Maybe couponing should be one of your New Year's resolutions. I substituted the word ideas for coupons into a composite guide for couponing. My examples will focus on the development of my two novels Coming Flu, a medical thriller published by Oak Tree Press in July 2012, and Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, a medical mystery to be published in April 2013.

         1. Look for ideas everywhere. Printed materials, TV, ads, etc. I like to include bits of science in my novels to add authenticity. So when I read Science and other scientific journals weekly, I pull pages that look interesting. I save maps and menus when I travel. Now for the hard part. 

2. Identify a use for ideas. Write on each saved item an anticipated use when you clip it. For example in April 2010, I read an article “The Microbes Made Me Eat It” (Science 328: 179-180) and labeled it, in my messy scrawl, “novel on obesity.

3. Focus your collection activities. Random collections are difficult to use and bulky to store. That’s one problem with computers, most of us save too much unsorted (or poorly sorted) fluff. 

Throughout 2010, I looked for and found interesting articles in medical journals on how the trillion microorganisms in our guts influence us, including our weight control or lack of it. The result was Dr. Izzy Roth and Dr. Richard Varegos, the diet doctors in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. Unfortunately for them, Izzy is killed in the first chapter of this medical mystery and Richard is suspected. 

          4. Don’t save stuff that is easily available on the Web. To emphasize how difficult it is to lose weight, I set many scenes in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight in popular restaurants in the Albuquerque area. I used the menus published on the web to give descriptions of food.

           5. Review ideas regularly and purge. In 2006, I started saving articles on mutations in the flu virus, the development of vaccines, epidemics, and the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act with the intent of using them in a novel. Re-examining the file when it was a half-inch thick finally gave me the incentive to start writing Coming Flu. Yes, I did use this information to create a realistic (certainly not optimal, but not a worst case scenario either) of what could happen if a new and deadly mutation of the flu virus hit a community before vaccines to the new virus were available.

You know what bugs me about my couponing system? It's easier said than done, especially the regular purging part. That's why my office is a mess and I have two file  cabinets of semi-sorted ideas waiting to be used.  

BEST WISHES IN 2013.  

JL and her faithful Bug

Are You Ready for COMING FLU in the Winter Book Blast?

Which neighbor would you fear more: a friendly neighbor infected with a new flu virus or a
not-so-friendly neighbor who is a drug dealer? 

Think about the relative amount of column space that newspapers devote to crime and to science. Most of us would fear the drug dealer more. Readers of Coming Flu are challenged to rethink their priorities. 

Don't worry if you don't like a lot of science. Coming Flu is action packed with lots of surprising twists and turns. The realistic characters are like you and your neighbors, just quirky enough to be lovable. 

One reviewer said, "Contagion move over. Coming Flu has realism and heart. I can’t wait to see the movie!" 

Here’s a peek into Coming Flu. A new flu strain – the Philippine flu – kills more than two
hundred in less than a week in the small walled community near the Rio Grande.
The rest face a bleak future under quarantine. One of the residents Sara Almquist, as a medical epidemiologist, pries into every aspect of her neighbors’ lives looking for ways to stop the spread of the flu. She finds promising clues – maybe too many? 

Coming Flu makes a great Christmas gift for men and women. Select it and other books in this Winter Book Blast.

JL Greger and Bug 

Genres:  Crime and Mystery

Purchasing links:
Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Flu-J-L-Greger/dp/1610090985?
Oak Tree Press http://oaktreebooks.com/Shop%20OTP.htm#ComFlu

">

">