But the nice motivational part beyond just finding this opportunity is in discovering writers who are doing high-quality work in this market without the traditional gatekeepers getting in the way.

While I’m still discovering Kindle authors, one who has stood out to me already is L.J. Sellers, author of three Detective Wade Jackson mysteries set in Eugene, Oregon. Her novels are sharp, to the point and fun to read. Plus, she’s prolific, with three novels out in not quite three years, and about three more on the way within the next year or so.

That’s exciting, of course; while I’ve found out Sellers has a traditional print publisher, it’s a small indy press and the quality of her work tells me that Kindle is home to many good writers, even though there’s no traditional gatekeeper to separate the wheat from the chaff; for my money, being able to sample the first chapter kind of serves that function, anyway!

I found PubIt while surfing at random, everything from www.mensvitamin.org to Audible.com. It was a nice little discovery.

I must say that the potential of this market has really motivated me to get serious about writing to completion. Driving home from Torah study tonight, I finally solved the ever-present problem of how to introduce my main character to my readers.

There are, of course, several methods. Harry Kemelman, for example, showed Rabbi David Small interacting with his fellow Jews, defining how he saw his role as the rabbi. His first chapter ran for well over ten pages and the murder didn’t happen until a few chapters in, as Kemelman used the first few chapters of FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE to establish character under normal circumstances before introducing peril into the situation. However, Kemelman’s debut was publishing nearly fifty years ago, and audience preferences and expectations have changed. How radically? That’s the question.

With Fletch, Gregory McDonald used a light-hearted but character-revealing approach, using very little descriptive text but placing Fletch into a witty, quick, give-and-take dialog that hints that something odd is up. I love the bare-bones approach, but have sometimes felt that while it worked for McDonald, it might not be quite right for me.

With Along Came a Spider, James Patterson chose to use a tantalizing prologue from a killer’s perspective to entice the reader’s interest; the first chapter narrated directly by Alex Cross contains a lot of self-explaining first-person narration – something my creative writing teachers always used to say is a no-no, but it sells. However, overall, Patterson’s method introduces the peril quickly as a plus, but as a minus it reduces Alex Cross to a somewhat reactive character.

Which way will I be taking with my new book and potential series?

I’ve decided to mix some of the elements of all three in an attempt to forge my own storytelling style. We’ll see how well it works.

The difference with Amazon’s Digital Text Platform for Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s forthcoming PubIt for Nook is that there is no up-front costs like that associated with the self-publishing effort. That’s good news.

You see, while my mystery novels have potential to catch on with a major print publisher someday, there’s another part of my writing life that probably never will, and that’s my religious writing. As part of a very small religious movement, there would be almost no publishers willing to take a look at my religious writing unless I compromised and expanded my theology to be more “inclusive.”

Not with digital publishing; I can remain true to my theological beliefs and find my audience for it much more easily, and without either a publisher or me placing a huge up-front investment into printing up paper books to see what kind of audience it attracts.

Love this new form!

With all the go here, go there confusion in the world of writing, it’s kind of nice to know that if you write things that are of too niche an interest area to draw the attention and risk of book publishers, there is an affordable alternative. Heck, even Barnes and Noble has an option coming for the Nook device! What could be better?

Sure, I would love to have Simon and Schuster take an interest in me someday. But until someday comes, well…

I’m thinking that one clever way to do this is to have it be his first day and when he arrives, there’s a check sitting there for quite a bit of money… with the catch that he has to step down immediately to cash it in.

That might grab some attention.

The problem now is this: I’ve vowed not to share the title of my new series on this space until the novel is written, in the hands of my agent, and my sister is the proud owner of several garden windmills.

OK, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but I do want to keep the title under wraps until I’m protected, at least.

Yet I’ve found I don’t work as well when I’m not sure what to call my story. I need a title to motivate me toward writing. It gives me focus. So that’s what I’m working on; understanding my novel’s plot enough to come up with a title that will inspire me to finish it.

There are so many questions when crafting a main character, that must be answered. Should it be a guy or a gal? Thin or in need of Clinicallix? Young or old? Wise or a bit of a buffoon? All these and many more questions ought to be answered.

The main thing, of course, is to make sure that however one presents the main character, it is a person they want to spend 250 to 400 pages with. Hopefully, that will be something I can come up with, if I go the route of a Messianic Murder Mystery series.

Rough language is also out.

I’m comfortable with both of those restrictions.

It’s still a mystery series, and murders are rough business; so there will be some violence. That, of course, doesn’t mean violence has to be the solution. The nice thing about this kind of protagonist is that he should be able to use what he’s best at – Torah knowledge, Biblical insights, etc. – to aid him in solving the cases.

That’s a whole lot more interesting than a character who’s just quicker to use his gun than the bad guys, I’d wager, and you can take that to the 7dfbx bank!

Not only that, but the Torah commentary in question was well received by the congregation, which is always a good feeling. Writing something that people get something meaningful out of carries a certain sense of accomplishment, not to mention being a bit humbling.

It doesn’t take apidexin to figure out that it was a grace of the L-RD that I was able to do so well on such short notice, though, so thanks be to the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob… and the Messiah Yeshua.

It’s not as ritzy as, say, some Philadelphia jobs, but I enjoy the challenge. I decided to get across the general concept of why names and titles are important as the first order of business. To make it understandable to kids, I talked about them meeting a strange kid on the streets to introduces himself as Bobby, and acts like he knows all about them, but they don’t recognize him. Then Bobby says, “Oh, you know me as VikingsFan2000 on Facebook” and suddenly they know who that kid is. Why? Because of the name they know him by.

It’s quite a bit removed from Stan’s material, but I think an illustration like that can introduce kids to the concept of why names and titles are important in a way they can relate to.

I’m speaking of my return to writing a Torah commentary this past Shabbat. I had only a week’s advance notice, but all I needed as a few hours to review the parashah one night, and a few hours to write the commentary the next night.

I recycled only a couple paragraphs from last year’s commentary on the same portion; my goal is to have three or more commentaries for each parashah so that once I do begin repeating myself, it won’t be that noticeable to folks.

I revealed on my blog some time ago that the title for my supernatural murder mystery dramedy was Thirty Minutes Or Less: A Pizza Delivery Mystery. I worried about making it public, but I also knew it was rather obvious and if I didn’t move quickly, someone else would think of it, too, before too long.

And, as predictably as life insurance quotes, that is exactly what has happened; I was reading Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood blog and found out some big shot Hollywood type is prepping a comedy called, you guessed it, 30 Minutes or Less, centering around “the misadventures of a hapless pizza delivery guy.”

Well, at least it’s not a pizza delivery guy accused of murder and haunted by a victim he didn’t kill.

Or, more probably… it’s not until they read this post, right? The trick is to aim the gun carefully so you are sure to shoot yourself in the foot… and not a more vital organ. Ugh.