Coming Events

With the release of LEAD PIPE CINCH in less than a month, I've got a trio of appearances lined up.  I'd love to see all Georgie's fans at one (or all) of them!

On April 3, we'll be doing a Sneak Preview event at North by Northwest Books her in Lincoln City.  Our last event - for the release of SINK TRAP - was a great success, and we're looking forward to a fun afternoon with local bookseller and mystery guru Sheldon McArthur as our host.  Watch this space for the details!

Then on April 17, there's a "meet and greet" event at Murder By The Book in Portland, Oregon, from 1 to 3 pm.  They promise books and snacks, and a relaxed, friendly atmosphere.  What more can an author (or a reader) ask?

Finally, April 29-May 2 I'll be at Malice Domestic in Arlington, VA.  This is the mack daddy convention for cozy mysteries, and I am delighted to be able to attend this year.  Especially with LEAD PIPE CINCH out just three weeks before the convention!  I'm really looking forward to meeting the fans and the writers, and having a whole weekend devoted just to mysteries.

So there you have it, three coming events that should be lots of fun.

Hope I see you there!

Secrets from Georgie's Past?

Well, not exactly. But guest blogger Carolyn Nicita has provided us with an incredible wealth of tips and tricks for keeping our data secure - exactly what Georgie used to do.

Carolyn Nicita writes fiction, screenplays, and occasionally does articles on data security for authors. Her passwords are longer than most men's. She says they hold up longer, too, and I'm just going to take her word for that!

In honor of Georgiana Neverall and Samurai Security, may I present top-secret intel on data security.

It may be useful.

Some of you might be authors yourselves, and you just got the news that in this market you have to have something called a Web Presence.

Or, you might be one of these people:

Lately one of my friends has gotten hacked, another has gotten credit card numbers stolen, and a third had her house broken into and her writing computer stolen. This along with all of her jewelry, but since she's an author, of course the computer was most important.

Seeing my friends' discomfiture, I called a member of my family who works as a data security expert for a government contractor--a satellite company. I asked her for advice.

She gave me toys.

These toys are Spy Decoder Rings on crack. They are tools to ensure government-level security.

I'm not even going into the elementary things you should already know, like "don't open email attachments" and "make sure they've set up the firewall on your router".

Instead, I'm going to introduce you to four of these toys.

TrueCrypt

How would you like to be able to put your files into a secret, invisible place on your hard drive or thumb drive? How would you like it so secret and invisible that professionals can't detect the hidden data, yet easy enough to access that it doesn't impede your work?

Most importantly, when someone steals your computer or you lose your thumb drive, nobody gets your data.

With TrueCrypt, you create a special file called a partition, and use it like a file folder. You can use the files in this folder all you want, add, change, right on the fly, and as soon as you close the folder your files are instantly protected.


So now, download this free program. Make a TrueCrypt container and, for practice, copy in all the files you're supposed to be backing up. You do back up, don't you?

Stegdetect

If you tell the owner of a blog "Never let guests post random pictures onto your site" he'll probably answer "It's just a picture. What's the big deal?"

But...

If you inspect some of those innocent pictures using Stegdetect, the answer will become shockingly obvious.

Download this free set of programs and use xsteg to inspect some of the web pages and pictures you've randomly downloaded.

The program will tell you that some of these innocent-looking pictures include something called jphide.

This threat doesn't even include the fakepicture.php.jpg type files, programs masquerading as pictures. This is about actual jpeg files where people have put code inside them. They can put the graphic up on your website as their forum picture or an illustration, or a picture that you "just got off the Web somewhere" and used without permission of the owner (but you'd never do that, would you?).

I found this bit of code in a jpeg file from a respectable web site -- here's a snippet --

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

I have no idea what they're trying to do with it. It's probably all very innocent. However, finding this did prove to me that you can indeed put code into a jpeg.

How do they execute that code? Sometimes a senile browser will do it for them. Sometimes you turn off javascript and then the code which asks "Hey this file isn't really a picture, is it?" doesn't execute.

Or they use outside code of their own.

How?

Read stegbreak.pdf, also enclosed in the stegdetect download.

It tells how to hack somebody's web site using those innocent-looking jpeg files -- by using the code in stegbreak to launch what's called a brute-force dictionary attack against your site or account.

A hacker successfully used this dictionary attack on one of my author friend's web sites.

If my friend ever finds said hacker, I will lend my friend the 1024-page 1990 edition of the Webster's New Dictionary and Thesaurus, which sits on my desk.

He could use it to launch a brute-force dictionary counterattack.

But I digress.

To help prevent dictionary attacks, at least of the digital variety, you can make long, gobbledygook passwords that the brute-force dictionary attack can't break. And you don't even have to memorize them.

You use....

KeePass

Despite its name, this program actually works to help you make and keep secure passwords.

It's like a briefcase for passwords. You use one password to open the briefcase program, open your browser, then quickly copy and paste the long, incomprehensible, randomly-generated password from the briefcase into the site. It will even let you generate passwords with non-alphanumeric characters. And KeePass makes it easy for you to change your password frequently, another safety tip you've heard often.

Your main password never goes online. It can be a password you type in, or the fact that you're using the program on your own computer.

I'm recommending this program although I know somebody's going to blame me when they get it set up and then forget their main password. Use some common sense. Back up the KeePass file. It's a bit inconvenient, but a lot less so than having to write to all three credit reporting agencies, finding the federal agencies necessary to report identity theft crime, and waking up at night wondering what they're going to be doing with your personal information in the future.

Or waking up some morning and finding that your blog has been magically turned into a Neo-Nazi Jihaad billboard.

Fedora on a Stick
One of my friends decided to do some online banking from a public hotel computer. Silly him. Of course, someone had put a keylogger on this oh-so-public computer and of course, every keystroke my friend entered got sent to the criminal.

Don't do that.

But what if, for some reason, you're on the Kona coast in the middle of executing a wedding and you have to do some last-minute online transactions with the photographer?

-Or-

What if you want to try to get files off a computer whose operating system has just crashed, without incurring a $150 tech support bill?

-Or-

What if you don't want to write any data to a strange computer? You've learned that even if you delete the data, it can still be read off the hard drive.

-Or-

What if you just want to use your own little computer to take notes on a project...and amaze your friends...mooch off their hardware....

True, you may not find the need for this very often, but dang it's a fun toy, so I'm including it.

I call it "Make Your Own Parasite." The techies call it Fedora on a Stick.

Use Fedora Live USB Creator to install a small operating system, complete with word processing, web browsing, and persistent file storage, onto a thumb drive.

Then plug your new baby parasite into a host computer.

Now you can surf the web, write some manuscript pages, and save the results. Afterward, pull your computer-on-a-stick out and take it home with you. Their disease-infested PC can't access the thumb drive because their operating system isn't running the hardware. And you've written nothing to their computer.

Oh, and by the way, this type of thing is why antivirus programs will ask you to unplug thumb drives before turning off your computer.

Lastly--


To figure out how to use these toys, read their instructions. It really isn't hard, and most important, it will train you in data security.

None of these toys will fry your PC. Much. They are real spy toys, though.


This blog will self-destruct...

COMING ATTRACTION!!

OK, much celebrating here in Christy-Evans-land. I am loving the cover for LEAD PIPE CINCH, and wanted to share. I don't have final cover copy, but that should come in the next couple days.


In the meantime, here's the blurb from the preliminary Amazon listing:

Georgiana Neverall never pictured herself knee-deep in a muddy trench building a moat-part of a state-of-the-art castle that would soon house a retired Microsoft engineer.


She also never imagined being a murder suspect, but that's exactly what happens when a floater in the moat turns out to be her ex-boyfriend.

Yep, we start digging into Georgie's past as she continues digging the moat for Chad McComb's castle, and dealing with her mother, her current sort-of boyfriend, and her two adorable Airedales.

Stay tuned here for more guest bloggers, upcoming appearances, and some fun surprises as we get ready for the release of LEAD PIPE CINCH on April 6th.

And thank you all for your support of Georgie, and of me.

What Is a First Reader?

Finding a good first reader can be a real tightrope act. You want someone who is an avid reader, who reads the kind of books you write, who can be honest with you when something doesn't work, who doesn't try to rewrite the book their way, and who is willing to read in fits and starts when necessary. And those are just the general qualities!

Each writer has specific issues and idiosyncrasies that they bring to the mix. For me, I cannot listen to any comment or discussion while I am writing. So if I have already given part of the manuscript to the first reader they cannot speak of it (sort of like Fight Club) until I finish the manuscript. The obvious solution is to wait until I'm done and hand over a full manuscript, but when I have a tight deadline I need to allow my first reader the opportunity to get started while I finish up.

On several projects I worked without a first reader, or I acted as my own first reader, because there wasn't anyone to ask. My writer friends were busy with their own projects, or they were far away, or they didn't read the kind of work I was writing.

Many writing couples act as readers for each other, but Steve and I quickly found that was not a good idea for us. That whole rewriting-the-book-his-way problem? Yep! I love him to death, but he can't turn off the creative brain enough to be a good first reader for me.

Then, a few years back, Colleen started working as a contractor at the hotel where I work. She was clearly a voracious reader, always carrying a book at lunchtime, and we struck up several conversations about what we were reading. She found out I was a writer, and we talked some about the kind of things I wrote. We compared favorite authors, and genres we loved, finding similar tastes

One day I suggested she read one of my favorite cozy mystery authors, Anne George. Her response was, "I love Anne George!" Sadly, Ms. George has passed away, but we both pull her books off the shelf and re-read them from time to time. (If you haven't read them, may I suggest you do so at once? Charming, laugh out loud funny, and characters you will fall in love with. I promise!)

So, when I got the offer to write the Georgie books, I excitedly shared the news with Colleen. When she confessed she had always wanted to "have my name in the front of a book," I decided to take a chance, and offered to let her read my manuscript.

We talked for a long time about how we would work, what I expected, what she felt qualified to do, and the mechanics of passing a manuscript back and forth. Then I gave her the manuscript for the first book and crossed my fingers.

The results were truly amazing! She completely understood what I needed, and gave me good feedback on the places where I slipped up - including one character who changed names partway through. But besides that, she had a good grasp of spelling and grammar, and was able to do a thorough copy-edit as well.

Over the course of three books, I have come to really appreciate her support. First readers don't get paid - except for the occasional lunch. They get an acknowledgement (sometimes) and they get to read the book months before it ever goes on sale. But that's about it. Mostly, it's a labor of love, and I'm very fortunate to have found a first reader who loves Georgie.

Thanks, Colleen!!

On Thursday, first reader Colleen Kuehne has a guest blog about her process and why she likes her volunteer job.

The Road to the Bookstore - Arrival!!

According to the publisher, today is the official release day for SINK TRAP. I will be reading and signing at North by Northwest Books & Antiques here in Lincoln City on Saturday, October 10, at noon. If you can’t make the signing but you’d like to get an autographed book, contact Sheldon McArthur at North by Northwest (mcarthurca@earthlink.net), or call the store (541) 994-6809.

The release of a book is a milestone – the culmination of that whole Road to the Bookstore that I’ve been talking about. It means that the manuscript you sweated bullets over, the careful cover design, the hard work of artists, designers, typesetters, editors, and copyeditors has finally produced the beautiful volume that’s on the shelf with your name on the cover. It’s a cause for celebration, and an opportunity to stand in the aisle and admire your finished product – and maybe squeal just a little.

But in a larger sense the release itself is anti-climactic for a working writer. The book that appears on the shelf today is a book I wrote last year. I did the revision many months ago. I’ve already seen the cover art, and the finished cover. I checked the copyedits and the galley pages, and distributed advance copies. I’ve even seen a few reviews – the source of the quotes at the top of this page.

For me, the book is history. I’ve moved on to the next book, or beyond. In the case of the Lady Plumber books, I have already written the second and third books in the series. At the moment I am working on the copyedited manuscript for the second book, and squealing with glee over the preliminary cover design. But as far as SINK TRAP is concerned, most of my work is done.

I’ll still promote the book, and I’m immensely proud of what I’ve done. I’m pleased with the story, and happy that the early reviews are favorable. It’s what I call the Sally Fields moment – “You like me! You really, really like me!” – and it’s a wonderful feeling. But writing is my job, and just like everyone else, my job doesn’t end just because one project is complete.

So I’ll be at the bookstore at the end of this particular road on Saturday, and I’ll enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that comes with the completion of the project. I’ve earned that moment.

But come the next day it will be time to go back to work, and start another journey on the Road to the Bookstore.

Who knows where the next one will end?

The Road to the Bookstore, Part 1 - Cover Art

One of the joys of getting a book published is watching each of the zillion steps along the way. There are so many milestones, and each one is a reminder that in the near future (for flexible values of "near") a book with your name - or your pseudonym - will appear of the shelves of a bookstore near you.

{Note: Because we live in a very small town that same flexible definition of "near" applies.}

Cover art is one of the first steps. Because the artist needs time to produce the artwork, which musts then go through the approval process at the publishing house, there is a long lead time on cover art. You'll notice that I had was able to post the cover in April, even though the book won't be out until October.

A couple weeks ago I got the name of the cover artist. And recently, on a whim, I looked him up online. Wow!! I mean, I love my cover, but his other work is incredible. If you don't know Brandon Dorman, take a look here:
http://www.brandondorman.com/

Is this guy great, or what?

So now you can all join me in geeking out over the fantastic artist who painted the cover for my book. Go admire his work, tell him how fabulous he is, and maybe buy one of his books. They're beautiful!

And keep your fingers crossed for me that I get the same artist on book #2, LEAD PIPE CINCH.

Welcome to Pine Ridge!

Hi, I'm Christy Evans!

Well, sometimes I'm Christy Evans. Most of the time, out in the so-called real world, I'm Christina York; but in the mystery world I'm Christy Evans.

Last year I signed on to write a three-book mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime: the Georgiana Neverall Lady Plumber series. The first two books are finished and turned in, and I'm working on the third book.

So Christy Evans Mystery is here to host discussions of mystery reading and writing, and maybe to give a few sneak peaks at Georgie, her friends, her family, and her home town of Pine Ridge, Oregon.

Come visit with us!