2014 May : Camille Minichino

Archive for May, 2014

A Star is Born

Filed Under : Books by Camille

May.29,2014

Here’s what happened when my first book, The Hydrogen Murder, came out in 1997.

I set up a signing at a market close to my home. The manager had always dreamed of owning a bookstore and having author signings, and I was only too happy to be her first.

My friend went all out, with a special carpet on the floor, coffee from the café next door. The local paper devoted a couple of column inches to the event. I got all dressed up and lugged a crate of books to the store.

Imagine my excitement when the first customer walked in and headed right for me.

“I saw the announcement. Are you the author?” he asked.

A resounding “Yes!”

The man handed me his card. “I’m an artist. I’d love to talk to you about doing your next book cover.”

Cue the low notes.

That was 17 years ago. Things are about the same; I’m just not shocked any more.

Raise your hand if you like to sell. I mean, sell anything—cookies, your book, a product you’ve created, or yourself.

My hands are by my side. Not a good posture in today’s world of 24/7 marketing and promotion.

For authors, it’s essential to keep our names out there, they tell us. A recent article in a popular writers’ magazine suggests that authors doing signings at bookstores start by “easing a copy” of their book into the hands of anyone who seems curious, and tell them what a “terrific book” it is and how “people are talking about it.”

hahahahahahaha.

Here’s how I started my sales career.

In the early 80s, I formed a company around products I made. The idea was to put images and quotes from science and engineering on common items such as potholders, mugs, note cards … anything that had a design. I wanted to replace the mushrooms and butterflies that dominated kitchen towels with an educational theme.

One of my first products was a calendar of dates in science and engineering. Pre-internet, it took nearly a year of evenings and weekends to come up with at least one entry for every day. For May 29, for example, I typed in Hoover Dam set in concrete, Solar eclipse confirms Einstein’s theory, 1919.

I thought a good market for the calendar might be the many bookstores around the UC campus where I lived. I made a list and ventured out. (Pre-internet, remember.)

I walked into the first bookstore, stepped to counter and said (and this is pretty much verbatim), “Excuse me, I hate to bother you. I have something here and you’re probably not interested. It’s a calendar and I know you already have a lot of them and maybe don’t want another one.”

The response was something like, “Yup. No, thanks.”

I was shocked when the business failed.

I’ve gotten a little better in “promoting my books,” but the phrase still has a slightly grating sound to me. I don’t like people who promote (anything) aggressively; I don’t want to be like them. Yet we’ve seen how often aggressive promotion “wins.”

P. T. Barnum, a pioneer in the art of promotion said, Without promotion, something terrible happens … nothing!

So it’s not enough to make a good product or write a good book, you have tell everyone it’s good; even better if you claim it’s the greatest show on earth.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do that without blushing.

PUNCTUATION CHECK

Filed Under : Writing by Camille

May.22,2014

My guest today is my good friend Jo Mele. Here’s what she says about herself:

DEPLANING AF 1

Jo Mele, Executive Director, Emeritus College, world traveler, caregiver, mother, grandmother, published author of The Asperger Alphabet, Parents Magazine; Flowers, Fauna & Firearms, Our Trip to Bolivia, The Sun Newspaper; and author of many yet unpublished pieces.

She left out the part about being an inspiration to her students (and mine), and an all-around credit to her native New York.

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PUNCTUATION CHECK by Jo Mele

It took me decades, to get over mentally diagramming, and correctly punctuating each sentence, before I put a word to paper. The result, I stopped writing.

In grammar school (that’s funny) I was the queen of perfect sentence structure, and punctuation. Of course, I only wrote short simple sentences. See Jack run. See Mary run. Boring, but correct! (My computer says that last line is a phrase and to consider revising. Who asked it?)

In a college creative writing class, my papers would often come back marked – grammatically correct but boring sentences.

Another time the prof scrawled in red, you must have gone to parochial school – get over it! (Not quite sure how I should have punctuated all that.)

It was difficult to break away from the rules, and write badly – with confidence. But I did it.

The result, I’m enjoying writing, and doing it without overthinking each word, comma, or exclamation mark. I have a lot of run on sentences, but that’s how I talk. I come from a large NY Italian family; if you pause for breath, you lose the floor (to someone with more lung capacity).

I’m taking a writing class, and my instructor says my writing is creative, but my punctuation is awful. (Was that a run-on sentence?) I’m delighted with my work; the writing teacher is not as delighted. The first time I wrote; I’m delighted with the work – the teacher not so much; she took it personally, so I changed it.

I’ve recently resolved the problem, while maintaining my creativity. Someone else reads my work and corrects the punctuation. I should have thought of this sooner. I would have written more.

I know I could learn to punctuate again, but I’d rather be grammatically incorrect than boring. (I wanted to say ‘totally boring’ but I was told not to use ly words.)

Thankfully (Oops, ly again), we now have spell check, and grammar check; where is punctuation check?

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Note from instructor, CM: I’m more and more delighted with Jo’s work each day. Totally.

Blinstrub’s and a Chesterfield

Filed Under : Personal by Camille

May.15,2014

Are you here?

It’s about time I used my computer the way it was meant to be used: to find old friends.

I found this photo in a box of old black-and-whites. It was in a folder marked “Blinstrub’s,” which I remember as a Boston nightclub where everything was happening. If you could afford a night at Blinstrub’s and a pack of cigarettes, you were among the chosen. How you came into such wealth was never questioned.

I searched Google and got its history, but it didn’t help in identifying the men in this photo.

If I don’t find out soon 1) why there are only men in the photo, 2) what they were celebrating, 3) what schemes they came up with — I’m going to make it all up and publish it.

Are you in here? Is your grandfather the third from the front on the left side of the table?

Give me a call!

Tags : blinstrubs, Boston

Weed Killers

Filed Under : Personal by Camille

May.8,2014

A good friend has offered to stop by with some tools and fix our lawn. I’m grateful, because then all my other friends will stop complaining about how it looks. Here’s how it looks. What’s wrong? From what I understand, weeds need to be killed. Poor, unsuspecting weeds, that look like all the other green things that grow—but I know my friend will be able to target the ones that are “weeds” and shoot them. Or maybe stab them or poison them.

I’ve never understood the concept of rearranging the dirt that surrounds a house.

Dirt is, well, dirty. And lawns are nothing if not dirty.

Aren’t we always trying to remove dirt from our lives?

We bathe, wash our hair and our clothes, and in some cases even our kitchen floors. We suck up dirt with vacuum cleaners, flush it out of our eyes immediately upon contact, scrape it from under our fingernails, and hope the kids and guests don’t drag in too much of it.

When you say, “I’ve got some dirt on her,” you don’t usually mean you’ve heard she’s won an Edgar or that she’s asked you to be her maid of honor. You mean you’ve got something, well, dirty.

And consider dirt’s synonyms: crud, dreck, dregs, filth, gook, gunk, mire, muck, scuz, sleaze, slime, smudge, smut. Peace, love, and beauty are not among them. You see my point.

Back to the weeds. How can you tell a weed from a plant? Darned if I know, except gardeners and keepers of lawns have it in for weeds. They’re like serial killers of any green things they didn’t plant themselves. We have weed killer, but not fern killer or boxwood killer. What’s up with that?

I’ve seen my neighbor pull up one perfectly good-looking green thing and plant another that looks pretty darn close. I don’t get it. You’ll never catch me weeding. Live and let live, I say.

And did I mention, worms live in lawns? Worms are even worse than dirt because they can follow you around if they choose, like a wormy guy.

Meanwhile, a message to my weeds: Duck! Someone is on the way to kill you. And she’ll bury you in that green container/grave that’s waiting.

MANAGING A CRAFTS ADDICTION

Filed Under : Miniatures by Camille

May.1,2014

This blog is Chris Verstraete’s fault. I guested (new v.i.) on her site last month. I presented some tips on how to use up crafts supplies that accumulate and seem to take over your crafts corner, no matter how big or small.

To save face, I had to practice what I preached there. I started with Tip #1: DONATE! This week, I invited two women who run the wonderful Good Sam Showcase of Miniatures to come and carry off supplies for their children’s programs and white elephant sales. They drove away with the back of their SUV packed to the limit, including the toaster oven, for crafts clay only. (Thanks Barb and Phyllis!) Here’s the before and after proof.

Before the purge

1. DONATE. (More ways to donate.) Every year I donate a furnished dollhouse to a local school. I work on it through the summer and have it ready for their holiday raffle. Instead of furnishing the house completely, I include a bag of materials—odds and ends of wood, plastic, fabric, paint—with ideas on how the lucky winner of the house can make her own accessories.

After (this will last ~2 days)

I also prepare small scenes for auctions. Recently a mini scene brought in one nearly $300 at a silent auction to benefit a library literacy program. Donating not only helps a worthy cause, but it allows me to Buy More Stuff. (I warned you this might not help trim down your inventory!)

2. Scrapbooking supplies—not just for scrapbooks. I promised myself that I wouldn’t buy a greeting card until I had no more paper left in my house. I’m not very good at those professional-looking cards some of my friends make—the ones with several layers of paper, cutouts, brads, and stamped messages placed exactly in the center where they belong. But expertise is not necessary to make a personalized card by simply arranging a collage of stickers or stamp images on a piece of stiff paper. Use the kitchen-themed stickers for a friend who’s a good cook, flag stickers for a vet, or cut the shape of a boat from a scrap for the friend who sails. The large scrapbooking sheets that have a design on them can be folded twice, into card size and often used as is. Most people prefer something hand-made, even if it looks a little like a day care effort.

3. Fabric scraps. Besides dressing up and giving texture to greeting cards, fabric can be used as wrapping paper and to make small items like pouches for travel and luggage tags. (For these, just fold and press the fabric into a sturdy block; stick around the edges, leaving an opening to insert a business card. At the tip of the opening, thread yarn to make a loop for attaching to luggage.)

4. Out of the box. Sometimes it’s fun to pick a piece from a crafts drawer at random and make something from it. Today, I found a partially used page of red glittery sticker letters. I took the H, B, and S, and made a Happy Birthday gift tag for Steve using an odd piece of gold cardstock.

I think of my crafts “corner” as my playground—and everyone knows playgrounds are usually overstocked and a bit messy, and always a lot of fun. I hope you have fun playing with your crafts!

More miniature scenes are on display in the gallery.

Add a tip in a comment and win a chance for a copy of the newest Miniature Mystery, MADNESS IN MINIATURE by Margaret Grace!