The recent book launch in now two weeks in the past. We’re onto a new month. Lots of ideas and opportunities are popping up now that I’m not neck deep in writing or launching or marketing.

And that is the most dangerous time.

It’s best to learn to say no. The next best thing for a writer is to always be writing the next book. To maintain a margin of safety—even when it’s going well.

Don’t let ambition or the shiny new bauble on the horizon ruin your current position.

Ok, let’s get to it.

Here are 3 crime fiction links, 2 quotes, and 1 question for this week:

3 LINKS

• Netflix is spending big money to bring back Benoit Blanc for another mystery (and maybe a third). Knives Out 2 will not be connected to the first film other than Daniel Craig. Quite enjoyed the first one. It felt like the first adult movie without superheroes I’d seen in a theater in years.
  
• The Big Thrill talks to David Baldacci about the accidental Archer series that re-sparked his writing enthusiast. Glad it’s not just us little guys that struggle with burnout and the blank page.
  
• CrimeReads urges readers to go beyond Wilkie Collin’s well-known classics and seek out other, just as good works. Some, okay, most, are potboilers, but if you let it go and just relax into it…

2 QUOTES

Two from Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone:

• “Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”
• “Your tears come easy, when you’re young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you’re old, and leaving it. I burst out crying.”

1 QUESTION

• What’s your favorite mystery or suspense book written before 1900?

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Until next Thursday, happy reading,

Mike

Author the Max Strong thriller series