by Linda Rodriguez
One of my favorite places on the planet is the Flint Hills of Kansas. The Flint Hills is the largest surviving Tallgrass Prairie in the country, 4.5 million acres of bluestem and wild animals and cattle and tough people, all survivors. I went to school there, and my parents are buried there.
My computer operating system keeps showing me scenes of landscape from around the world that are supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful, and they often are. Still, I know people who drive I-70 west or east through the Flint Hills and insist that the Kansas landscape is just flat and boring. I insist that they must be lying or blind. The Flint Hills inspire me so much that I’ve written a number of poems about them, and I thought I would offer this one to remind us all of the quieter beauty that often surrounds us while we are seeking after what we consider the exotic or fashionable.
TALLGRASS
The prairie is a tough place.
Formed when the Rocky Mountain
rainshadow killed off the trees,
millions of buffalo grazed its big bluestem,
turkeyfoot, sideoats, switchgrass, grama, Indiangrass,
sweetgrass, prairie dropseed, buffalograss,
for millennia, but, big as a nightmare
when you encounter one up close,
the buffalo never defeated the prairie.
Summer in tallgrass lands is harsh—
blazing hot sun, only occasional rain in torrents.
Summer turns the plains into grassy desert,
But those grass roots plunge deep, deep into the earth,
some twelve or more feet under the surface.
The soil under a prairie is a dense mat
of tangled rootstock, rhizomes, tubers, and bulbs.
Those roots hold out against drought
and preserve the soil against thundering
gullywashers and toadswampers.
Summer never defeated the prairie.
Sometimes lightning strikes,
and fire races across the landscape
like water poured out on concrete,
spreading out with amazing speed and inevitability.
The prairie compensated by making seeds
that need to pass through flame to germinate.
Fireproof seeds, what an invention!
The tribes learned to set controlled fires
to bring back gayfeather, blazing star, prairie clover.
Now, ranchers burn the prairie each spring.
Fire never defeated the prairie.
As for winter, the waist- and shoulder-high grasses
triumph over the snow, spreading
large swathes of sun-colored grasses
across the scene, only occasionally punctuated
by a spread of snow along the meandering paths
where animal and human feet have trodden.
The prairie just absorbs the snow,
swallowing it down to build stronger, deeper roots
to withstand summer’s hot, dry onslaught.
Winter never defeated the prairie.
Buffalo, white-tailed deer, antelope, pronghorns,
gray wolves, coyotes, bobcats, cougars, red foxes,
black-footed ferrets, badgers, shrews, skunks,
raccoons, possums, black-tailed prairie dogs,
jackrabbits, prairie chickens, bull snakes,
and the occasional human for centuries
made trails and paths through the grasses
by trampling them down or cutting their stems.
If paths are not continually maintained
by a great deal of manual labor,
they disappear like smoke.
The prairie will always take them back.
The only thing that ever defeated prairie
was a man with a steel plow.
Published in Dark Sister (Mammoth Publishing, 2018)
Linda Rodriguez’s fourth Skeet Bannion mystery, Every Family Doubt, the follow-up to Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, Revising the Character-Driven Novel, and her co-edited anthology, Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, will publish in 2023. Her novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and books of poetry— Dark Sister, Heart’s Migration, and Skin Hunger—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book, Midwest Voices & Visions, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.
Rodriguez is past chair of AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus and Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and member of Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.
Clicking Our Heels – The Gang is Reading!
/in Author Life, Clicking Our Heels, The Stiletto Gang/by DebraAuthors are writers, but they also are readers. As diversified as the Gang is, we recently decided to see what genre or genres we read in, what some of our favorite authors are, and what we are reading.
Saralyn Richard – I enjoy books from all genres, but my favorites are mysteries and historical fiction. Some favorite authors are John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver, Donna Tartt, and Michael Connelly. Right now I’m reading books by Amor Towles and our own T.K. Thorne.
Linda Rodriguez – I’m a big believer in ranging across genres when I’m reading. My favorites, aside from mystery/thriller, are science fiction and fantasy, historical fiction, literary fiction, of course, always poetry and surprisingly enough during this Covid lockdown, romance. Authors? Outside of the mystery/thriller genre, CJ Cherryh, Diana Wynne Jones, NK Jemison, Ursula K. LeGuin, Linda Hogan, Louise Erdrich, Steven Graham Jones, Deborah Miranda, Gerald Vizenor, and I’d better stop because I could keep on going all day.
Lois Winston – I’m a very eclectic reader. I enjoy mysteries (obviously!) as well as women’s fiction and historical novels (mysteries and non-mysteries.) I’ll pass on mentioning my favorite authors because that tends to be a revolving door, depending on my mood and what I’m reading.
Debra Sennefelder – I read mostly mystery, suspense, romance and women’s fiction. I have way too many favorite authors to list. I’m reading Kate White’s The Second Husband.
Dru Ann Love – I read mostly cozy mysteries but will dabble with suspense or domestic suspense. Everyone knows I love J.D. Robb.
Lynn McPherson – I read mostly crime, but not all mysteries. I love Vicki Delany, Jenn McKinlany, and Jennifer J. Chow for mystery. I also love Hannah Mary McKinnon and Lisa Jewell for suspense. My other favorites? Liana Moriarty and Sophie Kinsella. Anything they write, I love.
Donnell Ann Bell – This question is too difficult. I have so many favorite authors and I read more than one genre. I’ll just say I read a lot 😉
Shari Randall/Meri Allen – I’m in several book clubs, which gives me an everchanging choice of genre every month. That said, my favorite kind of book has a heavy dose of gothic atmosphere, and so two of my favorites from the last year were Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James, both of which fall into the horror category. Kate Atkinson is one of my all-time favorites along with Louise Penny, Jacqueline Winspear, Emily St. John Mandel, Alan Bradley…I could go on!
Kathryn Lane – I read all sorts of fiction and non-fiction though my favorite genre is mystery. I love stories set in other countries and I’m currently reading Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. I’m in the middle of The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. I’ve almost completed Bill Browder’s non-fiction Red Notice. And Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr is the latest book I finished. My favorite mystery writer is Harlan Coben.
T.K. Thorne – I read (as I write) all over the genre map. I love writing of any genre that makes me think, as well as feel. Recently I read a Southern Gothic debut novel, The Cicada Tree ,by Robert Gwaltry, which just blew me away. Also, Oliver, a novella by Mandy Hanes that echoes To Kill A Mockingbird in style and characters.
Debra H. Goldstein – Although I’m willing to read all genres, I tend toward mystery and biographies/memoirs. I just finished Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbii Weiden and am reading Shaking the Gates of Hell by John Archibald.
A Spark that Inspires a Novel
/in Author Life, Barcelona, Hemingway, Inspiration, Mystery, Nikki Garcia Mystery Series, Spain/by Kathryn LaneA miniscule thought that crosses my mind or an article I’ve read in a newspaper can light up like a distant sparkling star and inspire a story. If the spark grows and gains momentum, the concept might become a novel.
The spark in Revenge in Barcelona (my Nikki Garcia Mystery #3), was the city itself, its unique architecture, colorful history, rich culture, physical beauty, and its independent-minded people. The spark grew in my mind until I knew that Nikki should experience action, mystery, and danger in Barcelona.
The process of following a spark of inspiration is similar for many writers. Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, was inspired by a trip to Pamplona, Spain, to witness the running of the bulls and bullfights at the week-long San Fermín festival. He’d intended to write a non-fiction book about bullfighting, which had become a passion for him. Instead, the book became fiction based on Hemingway and his friends. In it, he explored the themes of love and death, a total reversal of what he’d originally intended.
This reversal of original intention happens to many authors of fiction, me included. The spark starts out with one concept, and it morphs into a totally different one. Yet the original spark, such as Hemingway’s bullfights, are often woven into the novel either as a theme or subplot, while the full storyline becomes much broader, richer, more scintillating.
Last week, I started my 5th Nikki Garcia mystery. The spark that lit up my imagination was a belt buckle that a man was wearing. It featured a mule.
I knew at that moment that I had to weave a mule or two into Nikki’s next novel. And where can I put a few mules? In a wilderness adventure, of course!
***
What sparks your imagination?
All photos are used in an editorial or educational manner.
Photo credits:
Sagrada Familia Steeples – Kathryn Lane
The Belt Buckle with a Mule – Pinterest
It’s Falloween and I’m Here for It
/in Uncategorized/by Debra Sennefelderby Debra Sennefelder
Happy September! It’s beginning to look and feel like autumn around here even though today feel like a mid-summer day with a ridicously high percentage of humidity. I promise, I’m not going to let this deter me from enjoying Falloween.
Falloween is the combination of autumn and Halloween decorations. Autumn is one of the longest decorating seasons we have. It can start as early as August with a few touches around the house of the upcoming season (yes, this is me) and go through to Thanksgiving (I’m a purest, there’s no Christmas decorations in sight until Black Friday). That’s a long stretch of time and it makes perfect sense to combine the cozy vibes of autumn and the spooky vibes of Halloween together.
This is truly my most favorite time of the year. I’m looking forward to making soups, baking with apples and pumpkins, pulling out my sweaters and swapping out my sandals for boots. And of course, I’m looking forward to curling up on the sofa with Connie to read. Right now, I’m enjoying spooky reads. Give me a cozy mystery with a ghost, haunted house or a hot-mess of a witch and I’m in. Of course, I’m looking for book recommendations because my spooky TBR pile can never have too many books!
I love this time of the year so much, I had to write a book set during Halloween. I had a blast writing the novella and it’s one of my favorite stories. WHAT NOT TO WEAR TO A GRAVEYARD is a fun, quick read that can be read independently of the series it’s a part of.
A socialite’s missing dog has made front page news in Lucky Cove—complete with a hefty reward. But between renovating the consignment shop, planning her costume for a 1970s themed Halloween party, and scouting a location for a fashion shoot, Kelly doesn’t have time to search. Yet a visit to the local colonial-era cemetery—ideal for the moody atmosphere she’s after—soon turns up the precious pooch. Kelly’s looking forward to collecting the check—until she makes a gruesome discovery in an abandoned farmhouse: The dog’s owner, stabbed through the heart.
Kelly can’t help wondering why Constance Lane was traipsing around the farmhouse in stilettos. But as Kelly gets decked out in a vintage disco caftan, that isn’t the only fashion misstatement spooking her. Hidden in the dead woman’s past is a secret that could be the motive for the murder. And as the Halloween party gets started, even a menacing clown and a threatening bearded lady can’t keep Kelly from trick or treating for the truth—even if it means her last dance . . .
exercising and taking long walks with her Shih-Tzu, Connie.
IN PRAISE OF HOME PLACES—TALLGRASS, A POEM
/in Uncategorized/by Linda Rodriguezby Linda Rodriguez
One of my favorite places on the planet is the Flint Hills of Kansas. The Flint Hills is the largest surviving Tallgrass Prairie in the country, 4.5 million acres of bluestem and wild animals and cattle and tough people, all survivors. I went to school there, and my parents are buried there.
My computer operating system keeps showing me scenes of landscape from around the world that are supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful, and they often are. Still, I know people who drive I-70 west or east through the Flint Hills and insist that the Kansas landscape is just flat and boring. I insist that they must be lying or blind. The Flint Hills inspire me so much that I’ve written a number of poems about them, and I thought I would offer this one to remind us all of the quieter beauty that often surrounds us while we are seeking after what we consider the exotic or fashionable.
TALLGRASS
The prairie is a tough place.
Formed when the Rocky Mountain
rainshadow killed off the trees,
millions of buffalo grazed its big bluestem,
turkeyfoot, sideoats, switchgrass, grama, Indiangrass,
sweetgrass, prairie dropseed, buffalograss,
for millennia, but, big as a nightmare
when you encounter one up close,
the buffalo never defeated the prairie.
Summer in tallgrass lands is harsh—
blazing hot sun, only occasional rain in torrents.
Summer turns the plains into grassy desert,
But those grass roots plunge deep, deep into the earth,
some twelve or more feet under the surface.
The soil under a prairie is a dense mat
of tangled rootstock, rhizomes, tubers, and bulbs.
Those roots hold out against drought
and preserve the soil against thundering
gullywashers and toadswampers.
Summer never defeated the prairie.
Sometimes lightning strikes,
and fire races across the landscape
like water poured out on concrete,
spreading out with amazing speed and inevitability.
The prairie compensated by making seeds
that need to pass through flame to germinate.
Fireproof seeds, what an invention!
The tribes learned to set controlled fires
to bring back gayfeather, blazing star, prairie clover.
Now, ranchers burn the prairie each spring.
Fire never defeated the prairie.
As for winter, the waist- and shoulder-high grasses
triumph over the snow, spreading
large swathes of sun-colored grasses
across the scene, only occasionally punctuated
by a spread of snow along the meandering paths
where animal and human feet have trodden.
The prairie just absorbs the snow,
swallowing it down to build stronger, deeper roots
to withstand summer’s hot, dry onslaught.
Winter never defeated the prairie.
Buffalo, white-tailed deer, antelope, pronghorns,
gray wolves, coyotes, bobcats, cougars, red foxes,
black-footed ferrets, badgers, shrews, skunks,
raccoons, possums, black-tailed prairie dogs,
jackrabbits, prairie chickens, bull snakes,
and the occasional human for centuries
made trails and paths through the grasses
by trampling them down or cutting their stems.
If paths are not continually maintained
by a great deal of manual labor,
they disappear like smoke.
The prairie will always take them back.
The only thing that ever defeated prairie
was a man with a steel plow.
Published in Dark Sister (Mammoth Publishing, 2018)
Linda Rodriguez’s fourth Skeet Bannion mystery, Every Family Doubt, the follow-up to Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, Revising the Character-Driven Novel, and her co-edited anthology, Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, will publish in 2023. Her novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every Last Secret—and books of poetry— Dark Sister, Heart’s Migration, and Skin Hunger—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book, Midwest Voices & Visions, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.
Rodriguez is past chair of AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus and Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and member of Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.
So You Want to Write a Book – Part 5: Bumps in the Road
/in Cozy Mysteries, How to Write, Uncategorized/by Mary Lee Ashfordby Sparkle Abbey
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
~ Thomas Mann
Welcome back to another chapter of So You Want to Write a Book!
This month we’re going to review where we’ve been and then discuss potential problems with getting those pages written and arriving at the finish line.
A quick recap. We started with an idea notebook and began the work around determining what kind of book you wanted to write and exploring that chosen genre. Next, we moved on to some creative brainstorming and last month we covered strategies for how you will approach the actual writing. Remember plotters, pantsers, and plansters? We hope the steps so far have helped to put you on the path to a finished book.
So, now you’re moving forward getting words on the page, right? But sometimes the writing goes great and other times it feels like you’re slogging through a swamp. Don’t get discouraged. It happens.
The reasons why writers get stuck may vary, but here on some things we’ve found helpful when you are struggling.
Hopefully, the words flow and you rarely get stuck as you work on your project, but if you find yourself not moving forward try one or more of the above ideas to put you back on the path.
We’d love to hear from you on what other techniques you’ve found to get you (or keep you) moving forward. And as always, if you have any questions, please let us know.
Next month, we’ll discuss what’s next After the First Draft. Until then, happy writing!
Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. (But don’t tell the other neighbors.)
They love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. Also, if you want to make sure you get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website
How Mowgli Made a Marine – T.K. Thorne
/in Uncategorized/by TK ThorneA learning disability imprisoned him as poor reader and student to the point that all his tests had to be read aloud to him. He didn’t fit in. He knew it and acted out. Naturally, he hated the sight of books, and all my efforts to read to him were spurned.
One day, a misbehavior earned him time-out, and I offered him his choice—either an hour in his room or sit with me while I read him one chapter of a book. (I know, I know—it’s contrary to all behavioral advice to make reading a punishment, but I was at wits’ end.)
He considered it and asked how long it would take to read a chapter.
“Probably about 15 minutes,” I said.
Fifteen minutes versus an hour. He wasn’t bad at math and chose the chapter. I went to my collection of childhood books, my heart pounding. It thumped away in my chest, warning me that this could be my only chance with him.
The books, stiff and dusty in their rows, whispered of cherished hours. Which to choose? I stopped at one, remembering pulling it from my mother’s bookshelf, hopeful from the title though the company it kept was grownup stuff. By the first chapter, I knew I had found treasure.
Once again I pulled it out and took it back with me, clutched to my still thumping chest and sat with my stepson on the hard cement of the porch (part of the “punishment”).
“Here are the rules,” I said sternly. “You have to sit still and listen. I will read one chapter. After that it is up to you if you want to hear more or go.”
He agreed, and I opened the book. I read my best, in honor of all the hours my Granny read to me, her voice cracking with the effort to bring the characters to life. I hoped to reach a young mind with the gift she had given me. I read and did not look at the boy beside me, afraid to see on his face the boredom of a prisoner doing his time.
When I finished the last word of Chapter One, I snapped the book closed, deliberately keeping my voice matter-of-fact.
“That’s it,” I said. “What do you want to do?”
There was a long hesitation—maybe it wasn’t so long, but I remember it that way—a silence so deep, you could fall into it, and then one intense word from him—“Read.”
In the years ahead of us, he would repeat that word many times. We finished the book, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and moved on to many others.
He began to sit next to me, at first to see the pictures, but when there were no pictures, he stayed to move his eyes over the words as I read. Eventually, I feigned a sore throat and asked him to read a sentence or two, and then a paragraph, and then a chapter, never criticizing as he stumbled and only offering help when he needed it.
One day, I poked my head in his room and asked if he was ready to read Part III of “our” current book. “Already read it,” he said.
And once again my heart pounded, this time with mixed joy. He was reading on his own, voraciously, but we were never again to have those special moments together.
Bitter-sweet.
He read a lot about ordinary young boys becoming heroes, and I think it helped give him the courage and inspiration to sign up for the Marines. Though not a physical boy—he played in the band and was ho-hum about sports—he thrived there, and today is a successful career Marine (Master Sergeant) with a beautiful, kind, talented wife and two wonderful sons he reads to.
Semper Fi.
T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her. More at TKThorne.com
Juliana Aragon Fatula’s book review of Leslie Larson’s Breaking Out of Bedlam
/in Uncategorized/by Juliana Aragon Fatulahttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/69332/leslie-larson/
Leslie Larson grew up in San Diego to a working class family. After earning a degree in literature at the University of California, San Diego, she moved to London and began working in publishing. She eventually moved back to California and began freelance writing. In 2006, she published her first novel, Slipstream, which won the Astraea Award for Fiction.
Dear Reader,
I have been working with a great writer and editor through Macondo Writers Foundation this July and have just finished reading this amazing book written by my new mentor, Leslie Larson. I want you to trust me when I recommend this book for belly laughs and interesting characters and storyline. I laughed out loud and had to stop for breaks but read this page turner cover to cover in one day. I am a mystery reader snob and this is a great book, not a good book, hear me? A great book. Please give Breaking Out of Bedlam a read and you can thank me later.
Leslie will be helping me to fine tune my mystery, the Colorado Sisters and the Atlanta Butcher and teaching me how to write a page turner.
Breaking Out of Bedlam is written with humor and suspense. The main character reminds me of my mom. Cora is a senior citizen living in assisted living. She has her flaws but I fell in love with her from page one. She writes in her journal, “I got a plan. I’m going to write down everything I ever wanted to say. I’m not holding nothing back and I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks…” She continues in her journal, “I’ve done things I’m not proud of, I lied to keep myself alive because life is hard and there’s things you got to do. But now I got nothing to lose. I’m going to tell the truth once and for all. I hope those that put me in this place read it when I’m dead, which I have a feeling won’t be long. Maybe then they’ll see…”
In her journal she writes about her past and present, “Sometimes I think I should never have had kids in the first place.” Her adult children send her to The Palisades, assisted living. She calls it the shit hole, snake pit, hell hole, lock em’ up and throw away the key jail. “I got another reason for keeping this book…Something fishy’s going on in this place and I want a record in case anything happens to me…There’s whispering, and shifty looks, and things gone missing.”
Larson’s writing literally lifted my pandemic blues and gave me new enthusiasm for finishing my novel. She inspired me and I’m thankful for her and her novel, Breaking Out of Bedlam. I realized that I have the skills I need to finish my novel and with a little help from my friends, it can be just as great as Larson’s story of a woman who just wants to go home and die in her own bed, not in assisted living.
Her characters are zealous and hilarious. Cora has magical mad ideas and an eye for investigating the mystery, who is the thief? She writes in her journal, “I’d lost track of a lot of those pills I saw piled in front of me but I do know I worked hard to get them, going around to different doctors and scraping and bowing and acting innocent–and I couldn’t bear to see them takin’ away from me.”
She becomes addicted to her drugs and spends her golden years in a stupor of popping pills, sleeping, and wishing she would die. She stays high as a kite and talks about being called lazy by her Missouri relatives and writes, “The God’s honest truth that a lot of the time I just can’t get out of bed…I’m here to tell the truth. I’m sick and tired of pretending I’m happy.” She trades sticks of chewing gum for Percocet and buys residents’ prescription drugs for a quarter a pill.
She has feuds with a resident, Ivy Archer, who she calls Poison Ivy. “Someone I hate more than the devil himself…She accused me of something I got nothing to do with…I got to show that I’m innocent as a lamb.”
She refers to the residents in full care, Ward B, as pissers, droolers, and moaners until she meets Vitus Kovic. He charms, cons, coerces her into sneaking with him to smoke cigarettes even though she is forbidden because of her health issues. He brings with him a European style of speech and manners that captivates her. A romance develops and Cora finds herself swooning and energized.
She observes and speculates about what the residents and staff are up to and who is stealing patients personal items from their rooms. Her only friend, a technician/nurse named Marcos tells her, “Senora Sledge, you have no shame, For this, I love you.” and tell’s her, “Devil! You are very naughty.” But agrees to smuggle her cigarettes and other forbidden items. His flaming gayness intrigues her and she asks him to explain his sexual preference in a way she can understand. She calls him a Mexican fruitcake he calls her a goddess, my queen. They watch Telemundos and sneak smokes in her bathroom. It’s a love of necessity, he adored and misses his mother, she misses her cigarettes.
Reviews of Breaking Out of Bedlam from the San Francisco Chronicle: “Larson is a master of details, coloring in her precise and increasingly jittery scene with tight specificity.”
Sandra Cisneros, author of House on Mango Street writes, “Larson is a writer of tales that are hilarious and heart breaking at once–no easy feat, but the mark of great storytelling.”
I workshopped with the Macondo Writers Workshop via Zoom last July and reunited with my Macondista famiy, the greatest group of writers in the U.S. It brought new energy and zest to my writing. Ooohwee!
In October I will be inducted into the Return of The Corn Mothers Celebration in Denver, Colorado at the Colorado History Center and hope you can attend if you are in the vicinity. I am humbled to be included and accept on behalf of my ancestors: Corn Mothers who went unrecognized for their work in all that is sacred and holy and unites the people with hope and love.
How to Keep a Longstanding Cozy Mystery Series Fresh
/in Author Life, Cozy Mysteries, How to Write, Mystery, New Release/by Lois WinstonBy Lois Winston
Have you ever fallen in love with a series only to discover that the author stopped writing it? Some writers get tired of writing about the same characters and move on to writing other books. Others fall victim to the fickleness of the publishing industry. Authors are dropped if their sales don’t continue to increase or increase enough, others because the editor who championed the series changes jobs or is laid off. Lines folds. Publishing houses merge or goes bankrupt. The reasons are myriad.
Those of us who have walked away from traditional publishing to “go indie” no longer have to worry about holding our breaths, waiting to hear if our current contract will be extended or a new one offered. We’re free to keep alive the characters we love for as long as we want to write about them. The challenge that confronts us is how to keep a longstanding series from getting stale.
Guilty as Framed, my eleventh Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, will release in less than two weeks on September 6th. Keeping a series fresh after that many books (plus three novellas), is a challenge. After all, there are only so many ways the victim can die, especially in a cozy mystery where you need to keep the gruesome stuff off the page. There are also just so many ways an amateur sleuth can insert herself into a crime without readers becoming incapable of suspending disbelief.
To keep my series fresh, I decided early on that I’d periodically introduce new characters into Anastasia’s world. I began in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, Book 3, where I introduced Ira Pollack, Anastasia’s deceased husband’s previously unknown half-brother, and his brood of spoiled kids. Also, in that book readers first meet Lawrence Tuttnauer, Anastasia’s future stepfather. In the following book, Decoupage Can Be Deadly, I introduced ex-Special Forces, IT expert, and bodyguard Tino Martinelli. All three men have had recurring roles in subsequent books.
In Drop Dead Ornaments, Book 7, I gave Anastasia’s son Alex a girlfriend. She and her father also play pivotal roles in Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide and A Sew Deadly Cruise, books 8 and 9.
Not every character makes an appearance in every book, though. Sometimes only a passing reference is made to them, sometimes not even that. Other times they once again become major secondary characters in the story. It depends on the book. But these additional characters I’ve created throughout the series enable me to come up with interesting character arcs and fresh plots.
I also didn’t want my series to succumb to Cabot Cove Syndrome, something the writers of Murder She Wrotebegan to become aware of as the popular series continued. Given the size of the town and the rate of murders, eventually Jessica Fletcher would wind up the only citizen left in the tiny hamlet. So the writers wisely decided to send Jessica off on various adventures. Of course, the dead bodies kept piling up no matter where Jessica went, but at least the murders were no longer all occurring in Cabot Cove.
I’ve done the same with Anastasia. Some of the books in the series center around her workplace, others around her home. In Death by Killer Mop Doll, Book 2, the setting is a television studio in New York City. A Sew Deadly Cruise is a “locked room” mystery with the murders taking place when Anastasia and her family are on vacation. Stitch, Bake, Die! is another “locked room” mystery, taking place at a conference center during a storm.
In Guilty as Framed, the story once again centers around Anastasia’s home, but in this book, the plot involves an actual unsolved crime that took place in Boston in 1990. Not only do I need to keep my stories fresh for my readers, I need to challenge myself with each new book. As much as I enjoy spending time with my characters, I need a creative challenge to keep from falling into the same old/same old abyss.
Guilty as Framed was quite the challenge! Not only does the plot center around a thirty-two-year-old cold case, but the crime occurred more than 250 miles from where Anastasia lives, and most of the persons of interest and suspects have long since died, from either natural or unnatural causes.
Mysteries provide a challenge to the reader to figure out whodunit before the end of the book. Guilty as Framed proved a huge challenge to me as the writer. I hope readers find it as satisfying to read as I did to write.
Guilty as Framed
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 11
When an elderly man shows up at the home of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack, she’s drawn into the unsolved mystery of the greatest art heist in history.
Boston mob boss Cormac Murphy has recently been released from prison. He doesn’t believe Anastasia’s assertion that the man he’s looking for doesn’t live at her address and attempts to muscle his way into her home. His efforts are thwarted by Anastasia’s fiancé Zack Barnes.
A week later, a stolen SUV containing a dead body appears in Anastasia’s driveway. Anastasia believes Murphy is sending her a message. It’s only the first in a series of alarming incidents, including a mugging, a break-in, another murder, and the discovery of a cache of jewelry and an etching from the largest museum burglary in history.
But will Anastasia solve the mystery behind these shocking events before she falls victim to a couple of desperate thugs who will stop at nothing to get what they want?
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Setting dates
/in Drus Book Musings/by Dru Ann LoveAs a longtime fan of Prince, I’m hoping, mobility issues will hamper this, to visit Paisley Park. If it does, I was told there is a Prince store at the airport.
So I’ve read and scrutinized the schedule for what panels I hope to attend. It looks like I’ve penciled in two to three panels that I want to attend throughout the four days. There are also publisher’s events where you can get free books and meet the authors. I look forward to this event.
One of the activities I can’t wait to do while attending this convention is seeing my friends and meeting new ones. Some, it’s been two years since I’ve last seen them. Some I saw at one of the last two conventions I went to this year.
But the most important activity is setting dates for meals. Yep, I am almost booked.
What do you look forward to when attending reader/fan convention or writer’s conference?
Musings on a Tuesday
/in Anthologies, Author Life, New Release, Short Stories/by Robin Hillyer-Miles