Monday, September 17, 2018

PNWA Conference

Just returned from the PNWA conference in Seattle! Had a blast attending and presenting my How to Apply Screenplay Structure to Your Novel workshop!

The downside was that I had to leave my almost two-year-old daughter for the weekend. Tears were spilled and tantrums were thrown...even she seemed a little upset.

The upside was that I got to signs some books, meet many talented writers--both published and unpublished--drink as much wine as I wanted, and spend time with my favorite agent, Elizabeth Kracht (I only have the one agent but if I had more, she'd still be my favorite.)

I'd like to thank everyone who attended my class and stayed, even after I accidentally said: "and this is obviously where the protagonist takes the victim down and saves the killer..."

I'd also like to thank my striped wide-leg presentation pants for obvious reasons.
Xoxo,
Mia

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Sacrificing Sapphire RELEASE DAY!

The day is here!

Sacrificing Sapphire, the fourth book in the Sapphire Dubois Mystery Series about the heiress who captures serial killers, is finally out and available! The eBook is available for all formats via most eBook retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Google Play, or Buy Direct.) And the print is available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble (order online or at the store.),

The journey to get here, from staring at the blank page to the book being published, has been as much of a roller coaster as ever. I'd like to thank my agent, publisher, (Diversion Books) and readers for getting me this far. Four books in, one more to go! It's be an adventure, that's for sure.
I'd also like to send a special thanks to the ARC reviewers, who have absolutely exceeded my expectations this time around with their kind words! See HERE!

Here it is guys:

Book 4 in the Sapphire Dubois Series, SACRIFICING SAPPHIRE!




Beverly Hills’ heiress and hunter of serial killers Sapphire Dubois is back in this ferocious, festive, and funny mystery—one where her marriage, her life, and the life of a little girl are at risk in a madman’s twisted sacrament.
Sapphire Dubois is about to celebrate her first Christmas in Beverly Hills with her new husband, Detective Aston Ridder. She has assured him that her days of defying death to save victims from serial killers are over. But after three months of marriage she hasn’t kicked the habit. Sapphire feels compelled to check out a lead—two women with similar descriptions have vanished from the same location. After breaking her promise, the daring crime fighter gets abducted by the very killer she was hunting.
While a distraught Aston scrambles to find his missing wife, Sapphire wakes up in a bizarre reality where she is now the victim, forced to play a part in her abductor’s sick ritualistic game. Soon she realizes she’s not alone; a little girl is imprisoned with her, and Sapphire is her only chance of escape.
Sacrificing Sapphire combines rich L.A. sass and smarts with thrilling psychological suspense.



Xoxo,
Mia Thompson

Monday, November 20, 2017

Sentencing Sapphire Book Club PART 2 up on Wattpad!

With the release of book four in the Sapphire Dubois Mystery Series, Sacrificing Sapphire, happening on  December 12th, I started the Sentencing Sapphire Book Club on Wattpad earlier in November! Part One, half the book, was put up and as of today, Part Two, the second half of the book is up as well! Both Book Clubs for Stalking Sapphire (book one) and Silencing Sapphire (book two) are still open on Wattpad, so if you haven't read them yet, now is a good time.


AND, I'm super excited to say this...at the end of the Sentencing Sapphire Book Club awaits a special announcement exclusively for my early Wattpad readers! Seriously, if you're a fan of the series, you don't want to miss it.

Without further ado, Part Deux...


SENTENCING SAPPHIRE Book Club on Wattpad Part Two!



Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Sentencing Sapphire Book Club Begins on Wattpad

It's that time again!
With book four of the Sapphire Dubois Mystery Series, Sacrificing Sapphire's December 12th release being just around the corner, I'm starting the Sentencing Sapphire on Wattpad! Yay!
Both Book Clubs for Stalking Sapphire (book one) and Silencing Sapphire (book two) are still open on Wattpad, so if you haven't read them yet, now is a good time.


The Sentencing Sapphire Book Club will work a bit different than its predecessors. This time around, I have divided the full book into two sections. Part One will end with a few food-for-thought book club questions. After a short break, Part Two will be posted and followed by a special treat JUST for Wattpad readers! Stayed tuned for details.

So, without further ado, here it is...
The Sentencing Sapphire Book Club on Wattpad is officially open!





Monday, October 23, 2017

Lessons of Revenge Writing

Revenge writing, it's a thing.
Not quite as gross and well known as revenge porn, or going Carrie Underwood on someone's car, but I promise, it's a thing. Ask the Swift.

I revenge write from time to time. Hell, I've even revenge written for other people (see Sacrificing Sapphire, out on December 12.) As a writer I work things out consciously or subconsciously through my writing, and revenge writing, I suppose is a part of that. It's seems, to me at least, like a very healthy way of dealing with issues that would otherwise have remained unresolved. And, since it's just storytelling, revenge writing, isn't something that ever comes back to bite you in the ass. By all means, it's absolutely bulletproof.

Or so I thought...

The first time I found myself revenge plotting (I always revenge plot before I revenge write, otherwise it leads to too much revenge editing) I had been in a long-running argument with my husband about...actually, to properly tell this tale of love and hate--mostly hate--I have to take you back to its beginnings.

2006

I was studying Screenwriting in Los Angeles at the time, and was involuntarily crushing on a guy in my class. It was involuntary because the last thing I wanted at that time was to be distracted by anything unrelated to writing. Nonetheless, I was crushing hard. So hard that I was too mesmerized by his charming smile and bright blue eyes to notice what was on the black T-shirt he wore every once in a while.

2007

I was now married to my crush, and though I was still mesmerized by his charming smile and bright blue eyes, I'd become well aware of what that black T-shirt, with the bold white letters, stated:
I don't take shit. I don't give shit. I'm not in the shit business. 

Not that bad, right? The slogan moderately annoyed me, but it could've been worse; he could've owned one of those FBI - Female Body Inspector shirts.
But the more he wore this shirt, the more it annoyed me. He wore it like it was any other shirt--to the movies, the grocery store, and once to a fairly nice restaurant in Beverly Hills. I'm generally not one who cares that much about how one should look, act, and speak, but this shirt was starting to rub me the wrong way. Every time he put it on I started feeling as if the shirt, along with its now majorly annoying slogan, initiated a Eastwood-like stare down, while singing I'm ba-aaack.
Over the coming years, my relationship with the T-shirt went from dislike, to detest, to hate. And my husband really couldn't see what my problem was.

2009 (maybe..?)

I was in the middle of my initial bout with writing my first novel, Stalking Sapphire, in which the male MC, Aston, starts out in the series as an assh**e. As I sat there typing away, the thought struck me and my fingers froze momentarily over the keyboard. What would an asshole wear, if not THE T-shirt hanging in the closet at that very moment, silently mocking me.
I saw it all play out in my mind's eye. It was top-shelf vengeance. I would write the novel, and one day so many people would read it that when my husband and I walked down the street, readers would stop me and say: "Gosh, that really was one terrible T-shirt in chapter 6."
After which my husband, who may be the most stubborn person on earth, would look at me and say, "Yes. I can see now. It is the second worst T-shirt (the first being the FBI one) since the history of T-shirts. Let's BURN it." 

Yes! I thought and smiled, that was exactly how it would happen. And then I typed.

2012

The T-shirt in question mysteriously (eh...) vanished while I was doing laundry.

2013

Stalking Sapphire got published earlier that year, and had just been put up on Wattpad because its sequel was coming out. For those who don't know, Wattpad=online Mecca for readers and writers. After a few months on there, and right around the time Stalking Sapphire reached a million reads, I decided to shut off my comment notifications to save my email inbox from filling up.

Present Day (-ish.)

A couple weeks ago, I went into Wattpad to check on something and ended up at the beginning of chapter 6 of Stalking Sapphire. That's when I saw them, the amount of comments that had been filling up over the past four years, all centered around this dialogue cluster.


My fantasy had (kind of) come true. I was Thrilled! Ecstatic!  People hated the shirt just as much as I did. Practically radiating with gloat, I clicked on the comment bubble and waited as the page loaded, the way Ralphie waited for the secret code to be revealed in A Christmas Story. The moment the comments appeared I would run up to my husband while pointing and yelling: "See! Seeeeeeee!"
After which he would immediately admit that yes, it was a terrible shirt, and it was a good thing it mysteriously (eh...) vanished in the laundry.
As the comments appeared on my screen, my victorious grin tapered off. The longer I scrolled, the further the corners of my mouth dropped, until finally, I looked like the saddest of all emojjis.
Here are just a few of the comments I saw:



They all loved it. My husband's shirt had not gotten a single negative comment. What else was I wrong about, I wondered. Did red and pink not really clash? Was the ending of Dexter not actually terrible? My way of viewing the world could be completely upside down.

"Oh my God," I said, baffled.

"What?" my husband asked.

"You win..." I said, in shock. "They love your T-shirt. I don't know why, but they love it."

He squinted. "What T-shirt?"

"Come on, the T-shirt. The one that mysteriously (eh...) vanished  in the laundry a few years ago."

No response.

"The one that I hated so much that I wrote about it in my book..."

Still nothing.

"The one that said 'I don't take shit, I don't give shit, I'm not in the shit business!'"

"Haha! Right...hilarious," he laughed, then his eyes grew wide with excitement, and he reached for his phone. "I wonder if I can find it again!"

F*******ck!

So...lesson learned. Will now proceed with revenge writing more cautiously as it appears not all of it is as bulletproof as I once thought. It seems it may actually come back to bite you in the ass after all...even if it's a decade later.

Xoxo,
Mia

Friday, September 8, 2017

SACRIFICING SAPPHIRE Cover

Just received the cover for Sacrificing Sapphire (Sapphire Dubois Mysteries #4) and I am so excited to share it with you all!

I can't believe the fourth book in the series is about to come out and that there's only one more book to go! Despite the fact that I wrote the first book when I was 22-23, and that I'm now 29 + 1 (this is the proper way of writing 30 because, as everybody knows, 30 is basically still 29) it feels like Stalking Sapphire just came out yesterday. 

For anybody interested in an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy), you can contact my publisher, Diversion Books via FACEBOOK or TWITTER and request a free copy of Sacrificing Sapphire in exchange for a review.

And so, without further ado, here it is, the official cover for SACRIFICING SAPPHIRE!


Xoxo,
Mia

Friday, June 30, 2017

SACRIFICING SAPPHIRE Release Date & Description

I'd like to thank all my readers for your patience while waiting for the release date of book #4 in the Sapphire Dubois Mystery Series, SACRIFICING SAPPHIRE.

I know it has been a long time coming and, I promise you, I will do everything I in my power to make sure book #5, the final Sapphire Dubois installment, will reach your hands at a more rapid pace.

As of right now, the release date for SACRIFICING SAPPHIRE is scheduled for December 12 2017.



For the full details, pre-order of the paperback, and the mini description, go HERE!  

Xoxo,
Mia