by Sparkle Abbey
Today we welcome a very special guest back to the blog and she’s chatting about the latest in her Dandy Gilver series – The Witching Hour. Plus let’s talk about in-laws…
Catriona take it away!
“Two houses both alike in dignity” says Shakespeare of the Montagues and the Capulets at the start of Romeo and Juliet. (Off topic, but “Juliet Capulet” has always bugged me; I’d have swapped their names in the edit.)
And I suppose two houses can easily be alike in dignity but not in much else. When you’re wee, you think your family is normal and quite possibly all families are similar to it. But when you grow up and especially when you join families in a marriage . . . Well, I can’t be the only one who reads Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post. Second only to destination weddings – a pox on all of them, right? – her column is full of in-laws as far as the eye can see.
As THE WITCHING HOUR (Dandy Gilver No.16) opens, Dandy and Hugh are gearing up to meet a prospective daughter-in-law. They’ve weathered one dynastic alliance (and survived the awkwardness of a corpse at the engagement-do) but now in the spring of 1939 their younger son is bringing a girl home and his track record is . . . not unblemished.
I love this jacket!
‘Cartaright?’ Hugh said. ‘Not Cartwright?’
‘Nor Carter-Wright,’ I assured him. ‘Teddy wrote it down for me to address the envelope.’
‘What address?’
‘London,’ I told him. ‘A 3F, I’m afraid. A flat. But north of the river. It’s so hard to tell these days. She could be anyone.’
‘Dolly Cartaright,’ said Hugh. ‘She sounds like a barmaid.’
‘I don’t care if she is a barmaid,’ I said. ‘Or a chorus girl, or even a . . .’ My imagination ran out.
‘An artist’s model,’ said Hugh. ‘Like What’s-her-name.’
‘I think she was a muse,’ I reminded him. ‘Although that might be the same thing, now I consider it at a distance. She was very . . . limber.’
Hugh rewarded me with a snort of laugher.
‘And I mean it. I don’t care. If she marries our son-’
‘If marriage isn’t too old-fashioned for her,’ Hugh chipped in.
‘And the call goes up for single men first-’
‘It won’t or only very briefly.’
‘-then she could pull pints of beer in the Atholl Arms for all our friends and I’d drive down to pick her up at closing time and offer a lift home.’
‘What friends of yours drink pints of beer in the Atholl Arms?’ Hugh asked me.
I rewarded him with a little snort of my own.
I remember meeting my in-laws. I was dressed all in black with a crew-cut and an attitude. They can’t have been thrilled, but Neil and I were only nineteen so they no doubt thought I’d soon be gone. Ha! How’d that work out?
We were infants!
I do remember a formal meeting of in-laws in advance of one of my sisters’ weddings. My mum prepared an elegant meal then my dad came home with a punctured tyre, brought his bike into the kitchen and turned it upside down in the middle of the floor. A lively debate ensued.
I also remember sitting awkwardly in the living room at home with a set of in-laws-to-be in advance of a different wedding when a knocking noise came out of nowhere and all four of us girls stood up and left the room. There used to be a door there, see, and the wall is hollow so, when dinner was ready, my dad would knock on the hollow bit instead of shouting through the house. Seemed perfectly normal to us; looked like The Village of the Damned to strangers.
Then there was the fact that my dad didn’t drink either coffee (normal for Brits born in the 1930s) or tea (outlandish for Brits born anytime) so when visitors, including prospective in-laws, came and orders for hot drinks were taken, he was missed out and passed over. It wasn’t until someone said “Your mum looks so innocent but she rules with a rod of iron, doesn’t she?” that any of us realised the impression being given of a downtrodden and thirsty husband.
This was offered to me at a library once.
But that’s nothing, when it comes to food and drink and new alliances. I’ve got an American pal, Jewish, from Boston (these details are because I have no idea where her norms come from!), who married a Turkish bloke and, upon meeting her prospective family-in-law, politely cleaned her plate making yummy noises. Her mother-in-law-to-be replenished her plate. She cleared it. It was replenished. It was cleared. It was replenished. It was cleared. Only when the bloke started paying attention, which was thankfully before his mother had to send out for more food or his fiancée burst, did he say, “Oh yeah, babe? She’s gonna keep filling your plate till you leave something on it. And, anne, she’s trying to show she likes the food by eating it up.” Relief all round.
My sister’s mother-in-law is no longer with us so I can tell tales of her legendary and misguided culinary confidence without causing upset. You’ve heard the expression “a plain cook”? Well, this lady took it to soaring heights. She once opened a storage jar in my sister’s kitchen, saw muesli, pondered a while, recognised the rolled oats in the mix and made porridge with it. (I realise that this story is very British. The US equivalent would be making grits with granola.) Another time, she looked in my sister’s crisper drawer and found a head of broccoli. She thought Well that can’t be right and put it straight in the bin.
It wasn’t even Romanescu!
All the weird and even annoying clashes of family norms become funny stories in the end, eh? I’d love to hear yours, Stiletto Gang. Can you remember meeting your in-laws? When did you realise you were in-laws? What’s the equivalent for single people? I know there’ll be one.
Here’s a little bit about The Witching Hour
It’s the spring of 1939 and Dandy Gilver, the mother of two grown-up sons, can’t think of anything except the deteriorating state of Europe and the threat of war. Detective work is the furthest thing from her mind. It takes a desperate cri de coeur from an old friend to persuade her to take on a case.
Daisy Esslemont’s husband Silas has vanished. It’s not the first time, but he has never embarrassed her with his absences before. It doesn’t take Dandy and her side-kick, Alec Osborne, long to find the wandering Silas, but when they track him down to the quaint East Lothian village of Dirleton, he is dead, lying on the village green with his head bashed in, in full view of a row of alms houses, two pubs, a manse, a school and even the watchtowers of Dirleton Castle. And yet not a single one of the villagers admits to seeing a thing.
As Dandy and Alec begin to chip away at the determined silence of the Dirletonites, they cannot imagine what unites such a motley crew: schoolmistress, minister, landlord, postmaster, park-keeper, farmworkers, schoolchildren . . . Only one person – Mither Golane, the oldest resident of the village – is loose-lipped enough to let something slip, but her quiet aside must surely be the rambling of a woman in her second childhood. Dandy and Alec know that Silas was no angel but “He’s the devil” is too outlandish a claim to help them find his killer. The detecting pair despair of ever finding answers, but are they asking the right questions?
Thanks so much, Catriona, for stopping by. We love stories set in Scotland and we love Catriona! So needless to say, we already have our copy of The Witching Hour. How about the rest of you?
Serial awards-botherer, Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: preposterous 1930s private-detective stories, including September 2024’s THE WITCHING HOUR; realistic 1940s amateur-sleuth stories about a medical social worker; and contemporary psychological standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comedies about a Scot out of water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California. She is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime. www.catrionamcpherson.com
A New Beginning that Feels Like Groundhog Day
/in Author Life, How to Write, Ideas/by DebraI’ve started a new work in progress. I’m only nineteen pages into it, but I’ve rewritten those same nineteen pages at least five times. My initial goal was to write 1000 words a day while I was at the beach. For the most part, I think I was close to making that goal. The only problem was that each day, I tended to delete six hundred to seven hundred when I revised what I had written.
A friend, another author, said “Stop it! Simply write the first draft and then go back and fix it.” That sounded like a great idea, but my brain doesn’t work that way. I’ve often said that I only write when the muse strikes me. That’s true for me staying stuck in the chair, but not for the way my mind works on what I’m trying to write. Quite a bit of my writing process is subliminal. The ideas work their way through me until they come to a point where they can’t be contained. That’s the moment of the muse taking control.
But then, I need to revise the paragraph, chapter, or complete manuscript that was created. I’m back to the bogged down aspect of my writing. In the end, what I produce, I hope, is the best work product that I can achieve. But, who knows?
What process do you use?
Creativity
/in Author Life, humor, Ideas, Inspiration/by Bethany MainesIs it Creativity or Goddess?
As someone who works in a creative field professionally, I’m endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration? Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a muse—a goddess who comes by to inspire an artist—makes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.
Well, how did you come up with that?
Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (can’t get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase “bad for business” which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot. Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser. Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kid’s mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.
I do! And I like it! I worry about people who can’t connect completely random dots. Don’t they get bored just going from A to B to C? It’s so much better to go A to Q to C to R. But that’s not to say that creativity is just something that happens. There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.
To be clear, I’m referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s. Who greenlit that?! Don’t Google it. You’re happier not knowing.)
The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.
What problem?
I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there weren’t a lot of female spies in the marketplace. So I solved that problem. I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Want to know what other problems I’ve solved? Check out my website to find out.
Or head over to the Stiletto Gang’s books page to see what the Gang’s creativity has produced: StilettoGang.com/books/
***
Surviving the Storm
/in Book Clubs, Cozy Mysteries, life, Mystery, Romantic Suspense, Samantha Newman Romantic Mystery series, Suspense/by Gay YellenEver heard of a derecho?
I hadn’t, until recently. It’s related to a tornado, and can be just as deadly. Instead of twisting up everything in its path and tossing it around, a derecho’s furious winds wreak devastation in a straight line, like a giant hundred-mile-an-hour freight train.
People died from falling trees. If you want to know what our derecho was like, these videos from the Houston Chronicle pretty much gives you a taste. Yes, it was scary.
In our neighborhood, it was mostly the trees, those majestic century-old oaks in our urban forest that suffered the greatest damage.
And then in July…
Hurricane Beryl hit us with howling winds and high water. Thousands of homes were ravaged. Thousands of businesses lost power—many, for weeks. People lost their lives from the sweltering heat.
After two previous summers of drought, the May derecho, and July’s hurricane, many more stately trees succumbed. Some, still standing, are leaning at ominous angles over homes and streets and sidewalks. Others are stripped down to mere skeletons of their former lushness. So many sad sights where once there was beauty and abundance.
We’re used to summer storms around here. The Body in the News, Book 3 in my Samantha Newman Mystery series, revolves around the aftermath of one of the worst hurricanes to hit these parts in recent history.
Clean-up and repairs from the May derecho weren’t completed when the July hurricane hit. We’re now two months beyond Beryl, yet a walk around the neighborhood still bears sad reminders of the destructive forces of nature. And now…
Here comes another one!
As I write this, the weather service is serving us updates on Francine, the tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico that’s expected to become a hurricane today. It, too, is headed our way, or somewhere between us and New Orleans.
In case it arrives ahead of schedule, and we lose power again, I’ll wrap this up and get it posted. But before I sign off, there’s one more thing…
I’ve come to understand the therapeutic benefit of immersing oneself in a leafy retreat, which is why I mourn losing so much of the neighborhood greenery. However, in the larger scheme of things, life can hit us with more serious hardships at any time, so, it’s important to keep this in mind:
Trees can be replanted. Lives lost are irreplaceable.
Let’s appreciate what we have with with renewed attention and open affection.
And, if the mood strikes, while you’re hugging those dear to you, it might also help to hug a tree. Turns out, they can be as fragile as people.
Have you ever weathered a scary natural disaster?
Please leave your comments below…
Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series: The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News.
Confessions of a dormant writer
/in Author Life, characters, Donnell Ann Bell, How to Write, Ideas, Suspense/by Donnell Ann BellI have three problems when it comes to writing fiction. Simplicity bores me, I have a perfectionist problem, and I write above my pay grade. Don’t get me wrong. I’m far from perfect. But I work hard to make sure my research is accurate. I also carry “What if?” and minutia to the extreme.
Combine this with life events over the last three years and writing has been a struggle. My Stiletto blog partner Debra Goldstein offered me sage advice when I expressed this problem. Familiar with my situation, she empathized and let me know my writing pause might take some time. Was she ever right!
I’m here to announce, “Times up.”
One of the things that brought me out of my funk was writing a short story. The excitement that comes with creating, plotting and follow through from beginning to end was in a word, “Thrilling.”
Somewhere buried inside me, yet dormant, was the writer I used to be.
And so I’m back to writing, which I consider progress. However, I’m still a perfectionist and still interested in topics I don’t fully understand. But to write something that doesn’t interest me would bore me silly.
Thought I would share some of the things I’ve been researching in case you’re interested. In my work in progress, the month is October
2019. My antagonist has escaped and he’s traveling on foot at night. Several issues crossed my mind while writing this scene, including: How will he get from Point A to his temporary objective of Point B when he faces all kinds of dangerous impediments? Namely, he doesn’t know the area or the terrain, all he’s wearing are the clothes on his back, law enforcement is in pursuit, he’s being tracked by a fellow escapee, and it’s dark!
Which led me to research:
How to hike at night – crazy as that sounds, avid outdoorsmen (and women) do this. But they hike aided by night vision tools, GPS and compasses, walking sticks, appropriate clothing, and the ability to slow their pace, if necessary (which my antagonist mustn’t do at the risk of apprehension.) There are several videos and articles dedicated to night hiking. I found this one particularly interesting and useful. https://greatmindsthinkhike.com/hiking-at-night/
The phases of the moon. (Remember when I said I carry minutia to an extreme?) Here’s an example. It occurred to me that October is known for Hunter’s Moons and Harvest Moons, which I could use to my antagonist’s advantage. Then again, what fun would that be? I’m writing a suspense. Another complication occurred to me because the year is 2019. I can’t remember that far back; can you?
There are times I love the internet. There is a site called MoonGiant, which allowed me to narrow down the exact days of my WIP. It also pointed out that the days I referenced were in the Waxing Gibbous phase, which I will reluctantly leave out because my antagonist probably wouldn’t know that. 😊 Want to learn more about MoonGiant. Check out https://www.moongiant.com/
Thank you for allowing me to confess my writing sins–the others you don’t need to know. While I’m trying to break this useless perfectionist quality, I am setting goals and word count challenges. How about you? Do you have any writing confessions you’d like to share?
Special Guest – Catriona McPherson
/in Guest, characters, Mysteries, Mystery, New Release/by Mary Lee Ashfordby Sparkle Abbey
Today we welcome a very special guest back to the blog and she’s chatting about the latest in her Dandy Gilver series – The Witching Hour. Plus let’s talk about in-laws…
Catriona take it away!
“Two houses both alike in dignity” says Shakespeare of the Montagues and the Capulets at the start of Romeo and Juliet. (Off topic, but “Juliet Capulet” has always bugged me; I’d have swapped their names in the edit.)
And I suppose two houses can easily be alike in dignity but not in much else. When you’re wee, you think your family is normal and quite possibly all families are similar to it. But when you grow up and especially when you join families in a marriage . . . Well, I can’t be the only one who reads Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post. Second only to destination weddings – a pox on all of them, right? – her column is full of in-laws as far as the eye can see.
As THE WITCHING HOUR (Dandy Gilver No.16) opens, Dandy and Hugh are gearing up to meet a prospective daughter-in-law. They’ve weathered one dynastic alliance (and survived the awkwardness of a corpse at the engagement-do) but now in the spring of 1939 their younger son is bringing a girl home and his track record is . . . not unblemished.
I love this jacket!
‘Cartaright?’ Hugh said. ‘Not Cartwright?’
‘Nor Carter-Wright,’ I assured him. ‘Teddy wrote it down for me to address the envelope.’
‘What address?’
‘London,’ I told him. ‘A 3F, I’m afraid. A flat. But north of the river. It’s so hard to tell these days. She could be anyone.’
‘Dolly Cartaright,’ said Hugh. ‘She sounds like a barmaid.’
‘I don’t care if she is a barmaid,’ I said. ‘Or a chorus girl, or even a . . .’ My imagination ran out.
‘An artist’s model,’ said Hugh. ‘Like What’s-her-name.’
‘I think she was a muse,’ I reminded him. ‘Although that might be the same thing, now I consider it at a distance. She was very . . . limber.’
Hugh rewarded me with a snort of laugher.
‘And I mean it. I don’t care. If she marries our son-’
‘If marriage isn’t too old-fashioned for her,’ Hugh chipped in.
‘And the call goes up for single men first-’
‘It won’t or only very briefly.’
‘-then she could pull pints of beer in the Atholl Arms for all our friends and I’d drive down to pick her up at closing time and offer a lift home.’
‘What friends of yours drink pints of beer in the Atholl Arms?’ Hugh asked me.
I rewarded him with a little snort of my own.
I remember meeting my in-laws. I was dressed all in black with a crew-cut and an attitude. They can’t have been thrilled, but Neil and I were only nineteen so they no doubt thought I’d soon be gone. Ha! How’d that work out?
We were infants!
I do remember a formal meeting of in-laws in advance of one of my sisters’ weddings. My mum prepared an elegant meal then my dad came home with a punctured tyre, brought his bike into the kitchen and turned it upside down in the middle of the floor. A lively debate ensued.
I also remember sitting awkwardly in the living room at home with a set of in-laws-to-be in advance of a different wedding when a knocking noise came out of nowhere and all four of us girls stood up and left the room. There used to be a door there, see, and the wall is hollow so, when dinner was ready, my dad would knock on the hollow bit instead of shouting through the house. Seemed perfectly normal to us; looked like The Village of the Damned to strangers.
Then there was the fact that my dad didn’t drink either coffee (normal for Brits born in the 1930s) or tea (outlandish for Brits born anytime) so when visitors, including prospective in-laws, came and orders for hot drinks were taken, he was missed out and passed over. It wasn’t until someone said “Your mum looks so innocent but she rules with a rod of iron, doesn’t she?” that any of us realised the impression being given of a downtrodden and thirsty husband.
This was offered to me at a library once.
But that’s nothing, when it comes to food and drink and new alliances. I’ve got an American pal, Jewish, from Boston (these details are because I have no idea where her norms come from!), who married a Turkish bloke and, upon meeting her prospective family-in-law, politely cleaned her plate making yummy noises. Her mother-in-law-to-be replenished her plate. She cleared it. It was replenished. It was cleared. It was replenished. It was cleared. Only when the bloke started paying attention, which was thankfully before his mother had to send out for more food or his fiancée burst, did he say, “Oh yeah, babe? She’s gonna keep filling your plate till you leave something on it. And, anne, she’s trying to show she likes the food by eating it up.” Relief all round.
My sister’s mother-in-law is no longer with us so I can tell tales of her legendary and misguided culinary confidence without causing upset. You’ve heard the expression “a plain cook”? Well, this lady took it to soaring heights. She once opened a storage jar in my sister’s kitchen, saw muesli, pondered a while, recognised the rolled oats in the mix and made porridge with it. (I realise that this story is very British. The US equivalent would be making grits with granola.) Another time, she looked in my sister’s crisper drawer and found a head of broccoli. She thought Well that can’t be right and put it straight in the bin.
It wasn’t even Romanescu!
All the weird and even annoying clashes of family norms become funny stories in the end, eh? I’d love to hear yours, Stiletto Gang. Can you remember meeting your in-laws? When did you realise you were in-laws? What’s the equivalent for single people? I know there’ll be one.
Here’s a little bit about The Witching Hour
It’s the spring of 1939 and Dandy Gilver, the mother of two grown-up sons, can’t think of anything except the deteriorating state of Europe and the threat of war. Detective work is the furthest thing from her mind. It takes a desperate cri de coeur from an old friend to persuade her to take on a case.
Daisy Esslemont’s husband Silas has vanished. It’s not the first time, but he has never embarrassed her with his absences before. It doesn’t take Dandy and her side-kick, Alec Osborne, long to find the wandering Silas, but when they track him down to the quaint East Lothian village of Dirleton, he is dead, lying on the village green with his head bashed in, in full view of a row of alms houses, two pubs, a manse, a school and even the watchtowers of Dirleton Castle. And yet not a single one of the villagers admits to seeing a thing.
As Dandy and Alec begin to chip away at the determined silence of the Dirletonites, they cannot imagine what unites such a motley crew: schoolmistress, minister, landlord, postmaster, park-keeper, farmworkers, schoolchildren . . . Only one person – Mither Golane, the oldest resident of the village – is loose-lipped enough to let something slip, but her quiet aside must surely be the rambling of a woman in her second childhood. Dandy and Alec know that Silas was no angel but “He’s the devil” is too outlandish a claim to help them find his killer. The detecting pair despair of ever finding answers, but are they asking the right questions?
Thanks so much, Catriona, for stopping by. We love stories set in Scotland and we love Catriona! So needless to say, we already have our copy of The Witching Hour. How about the rest of you?
Serial awards-botherer, Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: preposterous 1930s private-detective stories, including September 2024’s THE WITCHING HOUR; realistic 1940s amateur-sleuth stories about a medical social worker; and contemporary psychological standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comedies about a Scot out of water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California. She is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime. www.catrionamcpherson.com
Clicking Our Heels – Where We Would Live if Money Was No Object
/in Author Life, Clicking Our Heels, Inspiration, life/by DebraIf Money Was No Object – Where Would We Live?
Have you ever wondered what you would do if a fortune fell into your lap? Today, we share where in the world, if money was no object, each of us would live in the world?
Barbara J. Eikmeier – I’m pretty happy living right where I am in Kansas. However, I’d love living in a charming little craftsman style home with a big front porch. I have a floor plan I’ve kept for over 35 years and every time I come across it, I still think I could totally live in that house!
Saralyn Richard – Possibly New Zealand? But I already live in paradise.
Dru Ann Love – Paris, France.
T.K. Thorne – In a warm land with a small garden surrounded by trees on a mountain overlooking the ocean … with no mosquitoes. (Let me know if you find such a place.)
Lois Winston – Manhattan! That was the plan. It never happened. And now I’m living in Tennessee!
Gay Yellen – I’d have three houses: one on a lovely beach somewhere, one near Glacier National Park, and for the third, a cozy pied-à-terre in Paris.
Donnell Ann Bell – Oooh, I’m finding I really like warm weather. I’d probably stay where I am part of the time, and when the weather wasn’t cold, live in Colorado closer to my kids and grandbabies.
Debra H. Goldstein – The beach! I’d like an air-conditioned place big enough for guests that overlooks the water so that I could stare at the waves for hours without sweating.
Debra Sennefelder – Such an interesting question. I think I’d stay in the town where I am. I love it here. But I would love to have a summer house in Wyoming or Montana.
Anita Carter – I’d love to live in Australia! If for some reason if that couldn’t work out, I’d consider Portugal.
Mary Lee Ashford – If money were no object, I’d move nearer to the beach. I would need a lot of money though, as I’d have to move the whole family. Because though a lovely beachside home would be perfect. I couldn’t be that far away from my grandchildren.
Donalee Moulton – Nova Scotia will always be home. But a villa in Tuscany sounds wonderful. I would be okay with Portugal. Or Hawaii.
Bethany Maines – Hm… I really like where I’m at, but I guess I would like to try living in Greece for awhile.
Author Bill Crider, one of the loveliest people I ever knew.
/in Uncategorized/by Susan P. BakerThe other day I picked up a used book from the bookshelf in the little library at the 55+ community in which I live. The novel is one of the over 100 Bill Crider published during his lifetime. Bill was the head of the English Dept. at Alvin Community College, which is a few miles from Galveston where I am from. I met him at my first Mystery Writers of America, Southwest Chapter, meeting in Houston. He and his wife, Judy, were two of the loveliest people I have ever met during the ten years I was active in that chapter. Both encouraged me every time I’d be around them.
I was one of those writers who would start a project and about halfway through come up with what I thought of as a better idea, drop the current WIP, and start a new one. At one point I used to kid that I had ten (10) unfinished novels in my drawers. The joke would have been funny if it hadn’t been true.
Bill knew that. Every time I went to a conference at which Bill was speaking, I would attend his section. I usually sat on the back row. I swear, in Bill’s talk he would always say that in order to get a book published, you had to finish the book. And he would pointedly look in my direction and grin.
Judy told the story of Bill’s first successes. Bill was a runner. He would write two pages a day, stop, and go for a run. While he was gone, Judy would read those two pages and make any corrections or be ready with suggestions when he returned. She said the most frustrating thing about this practice was that Bill would stop at the end of the second page. He didn’t make any exceptions for what point in the novel he’d stop, end of a sentence or a paragraph, no, he would stop at the end of two pages no matter where he was, even in the middle of a sentence! Judy had a sweet smile and an infectious laugh. When she told that story, her listeners were always treated to both.
Bill and Judy are both gone now, sad to say. The world was made richer by those two loving people. I think of them often when encouraging new writers. And then tell myself, if I’d just follow Bill’s example, I’d be better off for it as well. (and would publish more books!)
http://www.billcrider.com/
For a topical and, possibly, a polarizing read, check out Susan P. Baker’s latest mystery, The Underground Murders, No 6 in the Mavis Davis Mystery Series.
Check Your Rearview Mirror
/in Author Life, Brooke Terpening, Mysteries, Mystery/by Brooke TerpeningI adore mysteries. As a reader, I carefully scour the page for clues and try to figure out “who done it.” Part of the fun is deciphering which are red herrings. If the ending has a surprising twist, I search out the breadcrumbs leading to the solution. If those tiny hints don’t lead me to an “A-hah” moment, I feel cheated. As a writer in this genre, I strive to balance a surprise conclusion without giving away the ending or misleading the reader. And sometimes that’s a hard thing to do.
Have you ever imagined an ingenious crime and know how the villain did it, but haven’t the foggiest idea of how to solve it? That’s where I recently found myself.
Now that I knew how the mystery was solved, I could envision what must have happened immediately prior to that point and write that scene. I repeated this process. By retracing the steps that must have been taken, and only could have been taken to arrive at the ending, I dribbled out the clues in previous scenes. The middle of the story magically filled itself in.
But what is a mystery without red herrings? Just like authentic clues, the false trails can be reverse engineered and sprinkled throughout. The same goes for the B and C plots.
This technique may not work for all writers, but I found it a handy tool. First check your rearview mirrors before shifting into high gear.
Killing It at Killer Nashville
/in Author Life, amateur sleuth mysteries, Book events, Convention, Cozy Mysteries, crafting cozies, How to Write, humor, indie publishing, Lois Winston, Mysteries, Mystery, Mystery Series, women sleuths/by Lois WinstonAt the Killer Nashville book signing
By Lois Winston
Most writers are introverts. We spend much of our days alone with only our laptops or computers (or paper and pen for those who are still old-school) and rarely step foot into the real world. We’d rather spend our time in the world of our imagination with the characters we’ve created. However, every now and then, we venture out onto Earth One and mingle with actual humans.
One of the best places to do this is at a writers’ conference. Hanging with our peeps is our happy place in the real world because they’re the only people who truly “get” us. Because they’re just like us. Writers’ conferences are a chance to spend time with others of our special community. We renew friendships, make new friends, network, learn from some, and teach others. Conferences also occasionally give us a pat on the back, validating that this odd life we’ve chosen, with all its solitary hours of clicking away at the keyboard, is worthwhile.
Such was the case this past weekend when I attended Killer Nashville. Once upon a time, I attended three or four writers’ conferences a year. Then, life changed. I made the decision to “go indie” and no longer had a publisher willing to pick up some or all the expense of attending conferences. Between the conference fee, airfare, hotel, and meals, conferences are not cheap. I cut back drastically, only attending local conferences.
And then Covid hit.
As some of you know, in the middle of the pandemic, my husband and I made the difficult decision to pack up and move to Tennessee to be closer to family. Within days of settling into our new home in July of 2021, I discovered that after a two-year hiatus, the annual Killer Nashville writing conference was about to take place less than two miles from where I now live. Serendipity!
With few exceptions, most writers are introverts. Hence, those writer caves. But I missed my writing peeps in New Jersey. Killer Nashville gave me a chance to connect face-to-face with many other writers I only knew from online writing communities. I also made some new friends and have continued to do so each year I’ve attended since 2021.
The 2024 Killer Nashville conference was this past weekend, and it was a blast, even for this confirmed introvert. On Friday, I was on a panel discussing Writing Compelling Synopsis, Back Cover Copy, and Design. Saturday, I was on two panels, One Trait at a Time: How to Build a Character and Not Just One Book: Writing a Series. I was also one of ten authors who allowed attendees to pick our brains for four minutes each during Speed Date your Way to Author Marketing Success. On Sunday, I was on the Creating an Irresistible Hook for Your Book panel and the Writing Strong Protagonists panel.
Vertically challenged Lois and Gay during an after-dinner stop for ice cream
And then there was Saturday night. Author Gay Yellen and I, along with our husbands, went out to dinner, something we’d also done last year. Upon returning to the hotel, our husbands headed for the bar while Gay and I ducked into the awards ceremony. Not ten seconds later, Clay Stafford, MC for the evening and Killer Nashville head honcho, announced the winner of the 2024 Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Much to my surprise, he called my name!
I never expected to win. With few exceptions, throughout my writing career, I’ve always been the bridesmaid, rarely the bride. I hadn’t prepared any remarks because the one time I had attended the ceremony back in 2021, no one made any remarks. Winners were handed their awards, shook Clay’s hand, and a photographer snapped a picture. Maybe it was because we were all still coming out of Covid.
With my Best Comedy medal the next morning
Well, at least I didn’t bore anyone in the audience by droning on and on by thanking everyone, going all the way back to my kindergarten teacher!
Writers, what’s your favorite aspect of conferences? Readers, have you ever attended a readers’ convention or other book event? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook of any one of the first ten Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery.
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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website where can also sign up for her newsletter and find links to her other social media: www.loiswinston.com
A Slow Down Period by Dru Ann Love
/in Dru Ann Love, Drus Book Musings/by Dru Ann LoveI don’t have much to ramble about this time.
Last time I posted in April, I was attending Malice Domestic Convention where our short story, “Ticket To Ride” I co-wrote with Kristopher Zgorski was a finalist. We won the Agatha for Best Short Story.
The accolades continue with our story being a finalist for Best Short Story for the Anthony and the Macavity Awards. The winner for the Anthony will be announced at end of August and the winner for the Macavity will be announced in September. Wish us luck!
Below are a few of the books I’ve read that are coming out soon.
I did a guest post at Jungle Red Writers talking about the transition from blogger to author. You can read it HERE.
This week start Bouchercon, the world’s mystery convention in Nashville.
Other than that, it’s been very quiet in my corner of the universe.
What do you do when life is simple?