Author Marketing Website
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
This is the Mystery Novel Template I wish I had when I first started out. Many of the videos I watched on YouTube used the Hero's Journey and some other adventure plotlines to explain plotting, but I never saw anything referring specifically to mystery stories.
I don't have to tell you how hard it was trying to fit a whodoneit into a hero's journey novel template! This breaks down the mystery into four easy parts. In my humble opinion, using a four-part story structure prevents the book from sagging in the middle section that is twice as long as part one and part three in a three-act structure.
Below is the template that you can download from Google Drive. I hope this helps in visualizing the mystery broken down into four parts. I know this helped me a lot when I wrote my own mysteries, all of which can be found on my author page on Amazon.com.
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive.
I had found videos on YouTube about five years ago about van life, people living in vans. The channel that YouTube served up into my recommendations was CheapRVLiving featuring Bob Wells, who is the leader of the pack, so to speak.
He started his channel and has hosted so many other van dwellers, every one of which was more fascinating than the other.
My first interest was pure fascination. How can a person live in a van? Or why would a person live in a van? After only a few videos, I became obsessed by the van dwellers and started to think I would like this lifestyle. It was always presented as a lifestyle as so many people were living in vans full time, as Bob does, for financial reasons.
There was a young twenty-something guy, Will Prouse, who has a channel called DIY Solar Panels with Will Prouse. who lived out in California where housing was so expensive and he did diary entries about living in a RV at first, but then he moved into different types of vehicles.
He became an absolute expert at hooking up solar panels and creating converting systems. I used to watch him a lot because he lived right in the city at the time, and he shared a lot of crazy stories about street people he came into contact with. He was a world of information.
As I thought about doing this, I would at times scare myself out of it. I would see how much strength you would need to build out these vans and often they were men building them — young men. I’m retired and close to 70 years old. There’s no way I have the strength of a young man. I never had the strength of a young man, even when I was 20-something myself — but I have even less so now.
Another way I used to scare myself was to see these young girls who had build out vans and were staying free on BLM land, which stands for Bureau of Land Management. The translation is land owned by the government that anyone can stay on for free. HOWEVER, often, these lands are in areas that are far removed from suburbs and even local towns.
I would see these girls camped out next to their vans or minivans — some even in sedans — in an area that seemed so desolate. I must confess, I would be too scared to do something like this. Growing up in a suburb of New York City, and living in the same type of ‘first ring of suburbs’ outside other cities, I’m not comfortable too far outside this area. I’m always afraid of getting a flat tire on any dirt road I have to travel on, even short ones. So driving for miles into these BLM lands? For me, this is out of the question.
The other thing that I would allow to scare me was the constant moving around and driving that many van dwellers seem to do. Because they choose to live in their vans, they’re always on the move. Aside from a few days at a campsite here and there, they seem to always be on the go. This used to scare me too until I realized that they had completely different goals for traveling in this fashion than I did.
For example: The young singles who choose to live in a van to help them pay off their school debt and/or save for a real house or condo, I think these people are brave and brilliant. I could see myself as having done something like this too. I used to live in New Jersey, right outside NYC and the houses that our parents purchased in the 1940s and 1950s for under $15,000 were selling for $250,000 and more. And this was happening in 1988! So any dream of owning property in that area made me move to south Florida where houses were still affordable.
When I realized that everyone had different goals for traveling, it made me realize that I was interested in a campervan to be a temporary and occasional traveler. I could travel to see family without flying — which I hate now. I don’t like flying because the pace of it is too much for me at my age. The bustle at airports like Miami and NYC, are just too much.
My last experience going through security with the TSA agents was also a nightmare. I had to find the tram that brought you to the gates, manage and lug around my suitcase and large purse,keep my IDs handy to flip out on command, figure out how to get the boarding pass from a kiosk, keep my tablet and laptop separate and ready to put into their own tubs, and then take off my shoes during this process, only to have to put my hands up and spin around in the x-ray machine, I was a nervous wreck by the time I got through it. I know I’m done with flying except for emergencies, and I now think of driving a campervan at my own pace as much easier.
I had to find my own reasons for wanting a campervan: I want to visit family without the stress of flying, driving at my own pace, and enjoying the journey.
The second motivation I found for traveling this way was having seen conferences that I would have loved to go to, but adding the expense of a flight and hotels and car rentals on top of the conference fee, it was too much and I would opt not to go. But if I can plan to take 3 days to get there, I can go to many of these conferences for less than half of the expense.
The other motivation that I found about traveling in a campervan is that I can still write as an author during my rest periods. For example: Traveling four to 6 hours a day is about as much as I can take of pure driving. So if I can find a campground that I can stay in for the afternoon and evening, I can write either in my campervan or I can even go to a local library and write in AC or heating comfort before settling in to go to sleep at the campgrounds.
By traveling with my own sleeping arrangements, I can also visit old friends that I haven’t seen in years. If you visit someone on a plane, you’ve made your decision who you will visit. If the other people you would love to see live more than an hour away, it’s hard to get to see them on the same trip.
Once I find my own motivations for why I wanted to travel this way, I was able to watch the videos of people camping on BLM land and not allow it to scare me out of the idea. I was able to watch for their travel tips.
I’ve just begun planning to become a part time minivan dweller and want to document the process. I’m not an expert for sure. I’ve learned everything from the people who have done this already. However, I haven’t seen any videos on the thinking, planning and execution stages of making this happen. That’s what I want to focus on. I hope you’ll join me by subscribing to my channel and I’ll see you in the next video.
I have been writing novels since about two years before I retired in 2020. You can see them all if you click on the picture of them to the left. My life has been very stable and this, of course, makes writing very easy. Writing novels gave my life a certain structure and routine that can disappear when one retires from the workplace.
I moved to central Florida to get away from the craziness of Broward County, Florida, and had two family members close by. My brother lives in Orlando, which is only an hour away, and my cousin Michael moved up to live in my town and only lived two blocks away. My cousin and I had been close my entire adult life, and had gotten closer in the last five or six years. He was my anchor in this area of Florida. I have always been a "family person".
My other relative living close by is my brother Bill who lives in Orlando. It's only about an hour or so away and we met at least monthly for lunch and to catch up.
In the first week of April, my cousin Michael showed signs of not being able to finish his sentences. This happened overnight. I was with him the week before this and he was fine; better than fine. His speech was perfect and his memory was still 10 times better than mine.
After having to wrestle with him to go to the emergency room, he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and had 5 tumors that were inside his head. The prognosis was not good. My heart was broken for him, but I had to jump into caretaking mode, and that is a physically and mentally demanding role. In other words, there's no time for crying or falling to bits and pieces. I was raised as an Irish stoic of the highest order, and we don't collapse into tears until the mission, whatever that is, is completed.
So I and Michael's sister -- who immediately flew down from the northeast -- started preparing his house to have in-home hospice. His house had fallen to bits and pieces over time. A few weeks before this diagnosis, he had banned me from coming inside. He said it was because it was messy and he didn't want me to see. I am a bit of a neat freak, so I said I understood. However, the house showed signs that it wasn't just a mess; he had lost the ability to take care of himself and his cat. He just hid it well.
Living two blocks away from where Michael would be with hospice, my house filled up with cousins and spouse-helpers. We ran all over town preparing to have Michael discharged and brought home for in-house hospital.
While signing up my cousin for county services, he fell while walking with us and hit his head. This fall suddenly changed everything. He was taken by the paramedics and arrangements were made to have him go to a hospice facility. Instead of needing in-house hospital, he would spend the next two and a half weeks in the hospice facility before he passed away.
The hospice he was in was beautiful, clean, and everyone who worked there was wonderful. We found it through Marion County Services, E.W. & Lucille Cates House, and it was wonderful. The people who worked in the hospice system were all compassionate people who had been called to this type of work -- which is not easy. I am eternally grateful to them for how lovingly they took care of Michael in his last weeks.
During this time, my creative mind shut off. I don't think this is unique to me. I assume this would occur with anyone, especially when you are dealing with caretaking and/or grief. Writing was put not only on the back burner, but the pot was set off on a resting pad for an unknown time in the future.
I did continue my marketing, as my marketing is on semi-autopilot and it is as easy as copying and pasting onto the sites and takes less than 30 minutes. This routine at least kept me tethered to the book author in me.
Raised Catholic and having embraced the faith myself many years ago, this has given me a softer view of death because I know it's not the end. My cousin, as well as the other family members who went before him and who I still miss, are with the Lord and I believe that I will see them all again. I liken it to being in the world, which is like Disney World, and they got tired and went back to the hotel room. I'm still in the park but I know they are not that far away and I will see them again.
We had our priest come and pray with Michael before he passed, and my cousin and I said a Rosary at his bedside the night before he died. So I take great comfort knowing that we were with him until the end. He drifted off to Heaven without any pain. I consider this, even in spite of the shocking and sudden diagnosis and loss, the blessing of a painless death.
About a week after Michael's passing and cremation, my brother announced he will be moving down to Hollywood, Florida to be closer to his children. That's about five or six hours from where I live. Suddenly, my second family anchor is disappearing. This made me feel more unanchored than I felt losing my best buddy and cousin, Michael.
I know from past losses that there will always be a new normal. I also know I have to be willing to go through the painful and scary feelings of being lost and untethered before I can find that new normal.
I spent two weeks after Michael passed away running around and taking care of the 'business side of death' which involves lots of calls and running around.
During this time, I opened my last book, and wasn't even sure where I was with things. I write in Scrivener, so it didn't take long to find my place and figure out where I was in the story. I managed to pick up where I last was and wrote a few chapters on the same story. This restored my faith in being able to continue on with my writing.
As an author I am plugging along, but things are still slow and I'm still quite distracted by the grief and losses. Losing my two family members, one to death and one to Hollywood, Florida, led me to buying a minivan to build out as a camper van. I am intending to become a part time campervan traveler. This way, I can visit my other family members who reside in different places all up and down the east coast.
I'm still in the planning and layout stages, but I want to build a minivan where I can continue writing and visiting family. I still feel heavy with grief, but I feel hopeful for the future. I can see the glimmer of a new normal. I'll keep you all posted!
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive.
Click here to download an 8.5" X 11" pdf from
Google Drive
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive.
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" coloring page
from Google Drive
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
This blog post is done to accompany the video that is posted below. This will give you the instructions that may be helpful to keep open as you create your own 3D Book Series Bundle Cover like the one on the left.
These instructions will allow you to make any size bundle cover, going in any direction.
At the end of the video, I will also give you instructions to make the thumb cut or the finger pull that is popular on book series as well.
want to represent the book seriesLET'S MAKE THE 3D BORDER DIAGRAM:
In gimp, the first thing we will do is open a document that is 2500 pixels wide and 1,000 pixels high. This will make sure you have lots of room to work.
The next step is to bring in a 3D bundle model cover that you found on Amazon, like the picture on the above left.
Next, draw lines around the cover so that you create this shape. Our final cover will be transformed into this final shape by using the perspective tool. The example of this is above right.
Open a new document that is 2082 x 1000 pixels and 300 dpi. This will turn out to be too large, but better too large than to run out of room. This will give me a good platform to make the book series mockup.
Bring in your ebook cover and place on the right side of the space. Leave a space between all the books spines and the cover. Add the titles and the author name.
My best tip is to start with the book title that is the longest. This way, you will choose the right size font to use. You will also need a picture to put on the background of the book spines. You can either add a color wash layer or fiddle with the opacity to make sure you can read the book titles.
Once this is done, you will then want to add a 5 pixel line between the books and then on that same layer, add a filter, gaussian blur and blur it out until it looks like a slight bend between books.
The final step is to choose a light color and dark color from your front cover. The create a gradient in the space between the front and back. Anyone with digital graphics skills will be able to put this together with just these few instructions and pictures. However, if you are new to graphic design, just watch the video below where I demonstrate how to make it using gimp, which is a free program.
The video below will be available when it is posted:
https://youtu.be/uU0xM48Cou4
Click here to download the entire series for free -- for a limited time!