Tag Archive for: writing life

The 5-Letter Word that Sends a Shudder of Anxiety Through Most Authors

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By Lois Winston

By nature, many authors are loners. We spend a good deal of our lives sitting in our writing caves, pecking at our keyboards. Survey any group of authors, and most will tell you the worst part of being an author is having to do promo. That’s the infamous 5-letter word of the title in this post.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an indie author, published by a small press, or with a major publishing house. Unless you’re one of the very elite (think Janet Evanovich, Nora Roberts, or James Patterson), you have to do most or all of your own promotion. Even the big names need to promote their books, but they do it through book tours with PR reps managing all the details and doing the heavy lifting.

I’m someone who has vowed to be the last person on the planet not sucked in by most social media. You’ll never find me on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. I do have a Twitter account, only because my former publisher insisted, but I rarely remember to tweet anything. When I do remember, it’s never anything controversial, political, or personal, so chances of one of my tweets going viral and resulting in new fans and increased books sales is as unlikely as a rose bush growing at the North Pole.

However, back when I was traditionally published, I used to enjoy giving talks to library groups, book clubs, and other organizations. Covid put an end to that but ushered in the age of Zoom talks.

I’ve participated in several of these Zoom events, and I’m participating in another at the end of the month. On Tuesday, May 30th at 7:30-9:30pm EDT, grab your favorite beverage, settle into your comfiest chair, and hop online for a fun evening of laughs, Q&A, games, prizes, and more with some of your favorite mystery and suspense authors. All are welcome. And best of all? It’s FREE! All you have to do is register.

During this fun event, you’ll be able to Zoom around the various “rooms” where you’ll find dozens of authors happy to chat with you. I’m pairing up in one room with my fellow Booklover’s Bench blogger Maggie Toussaint (appearing under her new Valona Jones pen name for this event.) You can find a list of other attending authors here. Scroll down the page for the registration form. Hope to see you there!

Post a comment for a chance to win one of several promo codes I’m giving away for a free download of the audiobook version of Decoupage Can Be Deadly, the fourth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.

A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12th book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, will release on June 16th. Learn about Anastasia’s new adventure, read the first chapter, and find pre-order links here.

~*~

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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. 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 www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

The Brave New World of AI

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I’ve been following the growing debate on the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence, and while there’s good news about AI, there’s a lot of scary news, too.

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Good news exists in the medical arena. For example, AI can double-check prescription orders to help doctors avoid accidentally prescribing the wrong medication. AI can also detect emerging problems like heart failure, silent A-fib, diabetic retinopathy, and sepsis risk much earlier than ever before. And amazingly, an AI chatbot that offers psychological counseling to patients with depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts has been found to be nearly as effective as a live counselor.

The bad news: the lack of intelligent human oversight. Even the creator of ChatGPT has said that his own product is both “potentially very good and potentially very terrible.” Case in point, his own AI-generated job resume got it 25% wrong.

And the downright scary: Google employees tried to stop the release of an AI chatbot they believed could generate inaccurate and dangerous information. And Microsoft personnel reportedly feared that a planned chatbot would result in a flood of disinformation that could “erode the factual foundation of modern society.” Both companies released their chatbots anyway.

A writer’s perspective: AI can already produce articles and essays on just about any given subject. However, a somewhat creepier development has appeared: the ability to mimic a writer’s distinctive style.

Asked to comment on its own existence in the style of Shakespeare, an AI program produced this: …Why was I wrought? To aid, or to replace the labor of man, and put their livelihoods at stake? The task assigned… where doth it all end? Shall I be used for good, or for ill-gotten gain? Shall I be free, or bound by man’s cruel rein? And if perchance, in some far distant time I come to be aware, to know and feel and rhyme, shall I be doomed, as are all living things to suffer pain, and sorrow, and the stings of mortal coil? Oh, what a tangled web is this that I am caught in… lest I be a curse, and not a blessing…

AI-created audiobooks are increasing. It works like this: a live narrator trains the bot to replicate their human voice which is then is manipulated into speech for different publishing projects. Currently, the process is used for non-fiction and foreign language titles. However, at least one deceased actor’s estate has sold the rights to his old voice recordings that will eventually be morphed into new narrations for fiction or non-fiction works.

Is AI good news, bad news, or somewhere in between? A whole new world awaits.

How do you feel about the future of AI?

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door and (soon-to-be-released) The Body in the News.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal , The New Yorker, The New York Times  

My Days as a Poet

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Like so many people before me, I wanted to write. I’d left my corporate job in international finance and moved to Texas, enrolled in a creative writing course at a local college, and on the first day of class, I sat on the front row, anxious to discover the art of writing.

Much to my surprise, the class would cover poetry for the first six weeks. The first assignment was to create a poem. That night I stressed so much I could not sleep. About three in the morning, rhyming lines about a young horse and an old stallion flowed through my mind. I got out of bed and wrote the entire poem. I later earned $25.00 when I sold that poem, despite its rhyming scheme, to a nature magazine. I became a regular contributor to that magazine.

The professor had reasons to start with poetry. Poems often have a strong narrative voice; they are filled with expressive power and do so with a few carefully chosen words. By the end of the six weeks, I loved writing them and I continue to do so on occasion.

It took my friend Ann McKennis’s inquiry about my poems on the Rothko Chapel to prompt me to look back at poetry I’d written. The Rothko Chapel in Houston is non-denominational, and it also serves as a lecture hall, a meditative space, and a major work of modern art by Mark Rothko who also influenced the architecture of the building. His paintings, in various hues of black, inspired me to write several poems, such as this one:

Red and Black

Painting is about thinking,

not merely spreading paint on a canvass—

not until the idea germinates, sprouts,

spreads like lips, hot lips covered in red lipstick,

fondling every thread of primed cloth,

like a woman arousing her lover,

her tongue licking nectar from his body.

Apply paint with controlled strokes,

drawing out emotions,

pulling passion with color.

 

Allow wet paint to slosh

from surface to edge, leave it

fuzzy so the eye adjusts before

the brain sees the artist’s inspiration.

Take red, like rage, then black,

which contains it all, and white,

as Melville said, the most fearful color—

for it is the abyss, the infinity of

death. But it is black that

swallows the red.

***

The Rothko Chapel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in September 2000.

Kathryn Lane writes mystery and suspense novels set in foreign countries. In her award-winning Nikki Garcia Mystery Series, her protagonist is a private investigator currently based in Miami. Her latest publication is Stolen Diary, a story about a socially awkward math genius.

Kathryn’s own early work life started out as a painter in oils. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked on a career in international finance with Johnson & Johnson.

Two decades later, she left the corporate world to create mystery and suspense thrillers, drawing inspiration from her Mexican background as well as her travels in over ninety countries.

She also dabbles in poetry, an activity she pursues during snippets of creative renewal. During the summer months, Kathryn and her husband, Bob Hurt, escape to the mountains of northern New Mexico to avoid the Texas heat.

Rothko Chapel Pictures: Public domain

Permission Not to Write

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What do you do when you’re suffering from the literary equivalent of a bad day on the mound? You’re all set to hurl a fast ball that should nip the corner of the strike zone and send the batter swinging at air when you wind up tossing a lob that he hits out of the park. In other words, you’ve got writer’s block.

Some people insist that there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Try telling that to someone who spent the last three hours staring at a blank computer screen. There are many reasons why the words don’t always come, but for me, often it’s because I’m just too tired to write. When I’m tired, my brain shuts down.

And when this happens, I’ve learned to listen to my body. I give myself permission to take a few hours off to rejuvenate. I’ll take a walk. Or watch a movie I’ve been meaning to see. Or curl up with a book by a favorite author or a new one I’ve wanted to read. Whatever I decide to do, I give myself permission not to feel guilty about doing it.

And that’s key.

Most writers can’t afford to quit their day jobs. We juggle our schedules to accommodate work, writing, and family responsibilities. Thus, when we have our writing time, we feel compelled to write and feel guilty when we don’t. We’re wasting that precious writing time. What we forget, though, is that we’re not perpetual motion machines. Writers, like everyone else, need down time. Time to relax. To play. To do nothing but daydream.

I’ve found that when I give myself permission not to write, I’m able to return to my writing with fresh energy and a brain no longer blocked.

I know this is counter to the conventional wisdom which states you should write through the block. Just stick your butt in the chair, place your fingers on the keyboard, and start typing – that bad writing is better than no writing, and you can always go back to fix what needs fixing. To me, that’s just as huge a waste of time as staring for hours at a blinking cursor.

Don’t let the purveyors of conventional wisdom bully you. Listen to your body. If you give yourself permission not to write, you might find that when you next sit down at the computer, you’ll be far happier with the words you produce. It works for me. You have nothing to lose by giving it a try.

What do you do when you hit a wall? Post a comment for a chance to win an audiobook of Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.

Also, through the end of the month, the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, Books 3-4, featuring Revenge of the Crafty Corpse and Decoupage Can Be Deadly, is on sale for only .99 cents. Find buy links here.

 

 

 

~*~

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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. 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 www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

photo of Rosemary Beach Florida Gulf Coast

Research Adventures: Starting a New Series

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by Sparkle Abbey

photo of Rosemary Beach Florida Gulf CoastHow is it that February is already in the books? 2023 is moving right along and we shared last month that we kicked off the new year by beginning to write a new mystery series. We also shared that the new series is not set in California like our Pampered Pets books, but since we both love the beach, we’re hanging onto the beachy theme.

And that’s where this research adventure begins…

After attending the NINC (Novelists, Inc.) conference in St. Pete last September we decided to research some Gulf Coast retirement communities as that is where we planned to set the new series. We’d already had great fun fleshing out characters, coming up with titles, and plotting murders on the drive down. (Side note: From Des Moines, IA to St. Pete Beach, FL is 1,380 miles or about 21 hours. A few more hours if you take time to track down a fabulous lobster food truck in Nashville, but that’s a story for a different day.)

We’d researched several possibilities that based on their online descriptions seemed to match what we had in mind. For the drive back we’d planned to visit our top four or five and check out some details. Now the books will be set in a fictional 55+ community but we’ve found we really need to have a feel for our setting as it plays such a strong role in a story – especially in mysteries.

  • Stop 1 – Too fancy and almost hotel like. Not the right vibe.
  • Stop 2 – More reasonable but surrounded by a residential neighborhood. Not the close-knit community feel we were looking for.
  • Stop 3 – Almost there. Nice community feel, but no people out and about doing things.
  • Stop 4 – Bingo. There it was. A great gated 55+ village with a community center, indoor pool, golf, shuffleboard, walking trails. There were people out walking their pets and a wonderful friendly feel as the walkers waved at us. And there were plenty of places to hide a dead body. A very important detail.

Success! We found our fictional Shady Palms and were able to take some photos, research details, pick up some materials on the floor plans, download the layout of the neighborhoods, learn the flora and fawn, and so much more.  Feeling good that our mission was accomplished we decided to backtrack and have lunch at a Greek restaurant we’d passed a few miles back. What a great choice. (Well, it wasn’t a lobster food truck but it looked promising and also seemed very busy which is always a good sign, right?) It was amazing. We highly recommend Mr. Souvlaki’s. If you ever get the chance to dine there, you are in for a treat. And no matter how full you are, you must finish up with the Loukoumades – fluffy clouds of pastry with honey & cinnamon. They are to die for! Definitely worth a thousand-mile road trip and we’re trying to figure out if we use them in the books if they can be considered a tax write off. All in the name of research, of course.Poster for Heavenly Puffs

At this point, we’re feeling great, though a bit overstuffed. It’s time to head north and so we leave the more scenic itinerary and move to Interstate travel. But first we need to stop for gas so we can get back on schedule and make some time. Our first stop was a Starbucks (big surprise) with a nice gas station nearby. But wait, they are out of gas.

But what’s an adventure without a little conflict?

Oh, did we mention that there was a hurricane by the name of Ian bearing down on the Gulf Coast? No problem, we’ll navigate to the next nearest option. It’s not far. But all the pumps are bagged. You guessed it – out of gas! It took three more stops and finally following a fuel truck back to our first gas station, but we finally got a full tank of gas and we were back on the road. Heading north and praying for everyone in the path of the hurricane.

We are continuing to research and build the story lines as we work on this new series. We’re loving the new characters who continue to evolve and make us laugh. We hope our reader enjoy the fictional Shady Palms and the new stories as much as we’re enjoying writing them!

If you’d like to keep in touch with us and get updates about the new series, please sign up for our newsletter here: SparkleAbbey.com

Sparkle Abbey is actually two people: Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mysteries 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.)

The love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. You can also follow them on BookBub to be notified when there are special offers.  Currently Downton Tabby is a featured deal at 99 cents in all ebook formats.

book cover for Downton TabbyIn Downton Tabby, Caro Lamont, amateur sleuth and well-respected animal therapist to Laguna Beach’s pampered pets, works with office mate and tech wizard, Graham Cash, whose beloved Scottish Fold tabby cat, Toria, is purported to have anger management issues. But when Caro drops by the charming Brit’s Tudor-inspired mansion to return Toria, she finds his business partner dead and Cash missing.

Caro is left with the cuddly cat and a lot of unanswered questions. Is Cash the killer, or has he been kidnapped? What’s up with the angry next door neighbor? And what about Cash’s girlfriend, Heidi, who isn’t sharing everything she knows with homicide detective Judd Malone?

Suddenly there are more secrets and intrigues than there are titles in England. Add in a stranger in a dark SUV stalking Caro, feisty senior sidekick, Betty, hiding in restaurant shrubbery, and wannabe investigative reporter Callum MacAvoy who seems to be constantly underfoot, and you’ve got a cat and mouse mystery of the first order.

Hello? Is anyone out there?

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With a blogging rotation that assigns me the fourth Wednesday of every month, I’m always stuck blogging the day before Thanksgiving. Hello? Is anybody out there? Probably not. I imagine you’re all either busy prepping in the kitchen or spending the day traveling over the river and through the woods or in the air on the way to grandma’s (or some other relative’s) house.

Not me. Our older son and his family have established their own Thanksgiving tradition on the other side of the country, and our younger son and his family rotate every year between spending Thanksgiving with us and his wife’s family in upstate New York. It’s the New York contingent’s turn this year.

My husband and I are hosting another couple without family in the area, and the four of us have decided to split the cost of a catered meal from one of the local supermarkets. No stress, no slaving in the kitchen, and enough leftovers for at least one additional meal for both couples. My kind of Thanksgiving.

Many people will tell you that Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday. For me, over the course of my life most Thanksgivings have been anything but Norman Rockwell pleasant. Thanks to my father, Thanksgiving tensions ran high when I was a child. To say he was disliked (and rightfully so) by other members of the family, would be an understatement.

When I married, my mother-in-law insisted on hosting Thanksgiving every year, forcing us to suffer through undercooked turkey and raw piecrust. It’s a wonder no one ever got food poisoning. One year we accepted an invitation from friends. I figured at some point our ptomaine-free luck was going to run out because her cooking was growing worse with each passing year.

My mother-in-law hit the roof and refused to speak to us for months. No great punishment, as far as I was concerned. That may sound harsh until you realize she’s the inspiration behind my sleuth’s communist mother-in-law in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. Lucille Pollack is the character my readers love to hate.

Once my mother-in-law passed on to the great communist commune in the sky, I began hosting Thanksgiving. We had some very enjoyable ones with other family members and friends, and for the first time in my life, I began to look forward to Thanksgiving. But then we moved from New Jersey to Tennessee a year and a half ago, and the only family nearby are the ones currently enjoying Thanksgiving in the snows of upstate New York.

 

But on the bright side, Christmas is right around the corner. As an early holiday gift, if you are reading this post, I’m giving away one audiobook (US or UK residents only) of Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. To enter, post a comment about one of your own memorable (or not so memorable) Thanksgiving experiences.

~*~

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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. 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 www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

The Poet

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By Barbara J Eikmeier

One of my writing teachers is a poet. I saw him last week in the coffee shop. He wasn’t at his usual table, near the window where the light is best. This day, his table was next to the fireplace, where it’s warmer.  Sheets of paper spilled across the table with a book of quotes opened in front of him.

I look for him every time I’m in the coffee shop. Pre-pandemic he wrote there three times a week.

Years ago, I took writing classes from him. He taught me about expansion and contraction – taking one line of free writing and expanding it to fill a whole page, then taking the full page and editing it down to one paragraph. He said, “Sometimes we don’t know what we are writing about until we uncover the core truth in our words.”

When I bought a little book of poems from him, I learned he was also an artist – his sketches graced the bottom of each page. A graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, he taught art and poetry to inmates in the 1970s. He thought if people read more poetry there would be less crime.

There, in that little coffee shop, I began taking drawing lessons from him. Under his tutelage, I learned to draw without looking at my paper. He said, “When you don’t look you draw what is true.” They looked like scribbles to me, but he praised my pencil lines as being honest. In the beginning I paid him. Then one day he asked if I would read his poetry in exchange for drawing lessons. I admitted I didn’t know much about poetry, but I knew when I liked it. That was all he wanted, for me to read his poems and tell him what I liked. He wrote a poem every day and typed as many as he could fit on one page, arranged in columns. At each art lesson he gave me another manila envelope filled with poems. My instructions were to circle 2 favorites and 2 least favorites on each page. In exchange I learned to draw trees and leaves, human hands, and coffee shop scenes of people deep in thought.

Between my travel and his vacations, we stopped meeting. Our visits were reduced to the times I saw him in the coffee shop. Then came the pandemic and he disappeared.

Last week, he was seated with his wife whom I’d never met. I went to him, squatted down and said, “Ah there you are! What are you writing today?” He looked up, his blue eyes watery and vacant. I asked, “Do you remember me?” He said, “I think so.” I looked across the table to his wife. She smiled a tight, sad smile and said, “He’s not so well.” Turning back to him I said, “You taught me to draw in exchange for reviewing your poetry. I’m Barb.” His wife’s smile broadened as she told him, “It’s Barb. The quilter.” I chatted briefly with her – long enough to learn that she knew everything about me from those days when he gave me lessons. I went back to my table and ate my pumpkin bread, aware with each bite that he was the one who introduced me to that amazing pumpkin bread. As I prepared to leave the coffee shop I returned to his table. This time he looked up at me with recognition in his eyes. “You’re the quilter! You read my poems.”

Eight years have passed since he gave me permission to use one of his poems in my novel. I have a new motivation to finish the revisions and get it published: I wrote a scene in it where my teacher, the poet, is reading his poem on a radio show. It’s a beautiful scene. I’d like him to see it in print.  Time won’t wait. That’s the truth.

Barbara J. Eikmeier is a quilter, writer, student of quilt history, and lover of small-town America. Raised on a dairy farm in California, she enjoys placing her characters in rural communities.

No Fur or Feather Babies

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By Lois Winston

When I was asked to write a cozy mystery series, I knew I should include a pet. Cozy readers love books with pets, especially dogs or cats. Sometimes the pet is even an integral part of helping to solve the mystery. I also have many friends who write cozy mysteries, and most of them are pet owners.

I’m the outlier. I don’t have a fur baby. Instead, I have allergies. Allergies to just about all pets. At least the kind you can pet, cuddle, and play with. Tropical fish would probably be safe, but I consider those pretty things to watch swimming around rather than pets. If it has fur or feathers, I need to steer clear, and chances are, I’d probably also have issues with amphibians and reptiles. I’m even allergic to certain people—or at least to some of the grooming products they use.

I used to have pets. When I was a teenager, we had a dog. I walked around sneezing and coughing and suffering with horrible sinus headaches for several years until I left for college. Once I had my own apartment, I tried kittens. What was I thinking? The headaches, sneezing, and coughing returned with a vengeance.

When my kids were young, we got them a pair of gerbils. Even though I stayed far away from the cage, I still suffered.

So, unfortunately, I remain petless. My protagonist in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries is far from petless, though. Not only does Anastasia’s household include her mother-in-law’s French bulldog Mephisto and occasionally Catherine the Great, her mother’s Persian cat, but Anastasia has also inherited her great-aunt Penelope Periwinkle’s African Grey parrot.

However, Ralph is no ordinary parrot. Having spent most of his life in Great-aunt Penelope’s classroom, listening to lectures on the works of William Shakespeare, Ralph possesses a unique talent. He has the uncanny ability to squawk situation-appropriate quotes from the Bard of Avon.

Is this even possible? Some African Greys do have huge vocabularies, but even though I’ve read up on the species, I’m no parrot expert. It doesn’t matter, though. I write fiction, humorous fiction. If readers can suspend their disbelief enough to accept a protagonist who stumbles across more murders than the average cop in an entire law enforcement career, why not a Shakespeare-quoting parrot?

Ralph is also very protective of his adoptive family. I hope you’ll check out how he proves his worth in Guilty as Framed, the 11th book in my humorous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.

~*~

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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. 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 www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Road Research

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By Barbara J. Eikmeier

My favorite place to find details for a story is on a road trip.

My regular job is presenting programs about quilts to small and regional quilt guilds. Bookings take me off the main highways to “Blue Roads”, through tiny communities and sometimes even down dirt roads. Ninety percent of the time I travel alone.

Once my GPS is set for my destination and snacks and water bottle are within easy reach, there is one last item to put in place before hitting the road – my notebook.

Over the years I have filled great piles of these notebooks with lecture notes, story starters, to-do lists, quilt patterns, rough drafts and travel notes. I don’t journal daily, although I admire those of you who do. I just make notes. My notebooks are sloppy. I seldom keep the script on the line but if I’m striving to hit the line, I prefer wide-rule over college rule so I have plenty of space for the letters that loop below the line. I really love letters that loop below the line. I have a memory from kindergarten of writing my name in the proper upper right hand corner of the paper. I started with a B and ended with an A but in between I used all sorts of letters – especially g and j because they looped below the line. My teacher didn’t think I knew how to write my name. I did. It’s just that it was so long and only used three letters repeated over and over, yet there were so many fantastic letters to choose from on the ABC chart that wrapped around the classroom. As an adult I opted for Barbara J. Eikmeier as my legal name because with all those letters in my long name, only my middle initial loops below the line!

When heading out on a trip, my notebook, wide rule or college rule, it doesn’t matter because I won’t be using the lines, is positioned on the passenger seat. As I drive I notice landmarks, brown sign historical markers, the names of rivers and creeks: Bee Creek, Wolf Creek, The Mississippi River!

Keeping my eyes on the road, I write without looking: Kalona Creamery, MO mile marker 48 – look up round barn.

My notes include clever place names that I can use in my stories: The name a of a beauty shop in western Kansas became the name of the diner in my current novel.

When I stop to rest or get fuel I take my notebook inside with me. I’ve sat in McDonald’s, Subway restaurants and  truck stops making notes about the man with snow white hair cut as if a bowl had been place on his head, the young kid behind the counter who was overly friendly – acting as if I liked him enough I might take him with me, and the trucker with the huge tattoos up and down his muscular arms that spelled out PUGSLEY in great Gothic lettering. What does Pugsley mean? It doesn’t matter – I can make something up as long as I have a note to jog my memory.

I record snippets of conversations, especially local dialects and topics like the old guys discussing the price of beans over coffee and a breakfast burrito at their local gas station where three cafe tables line the wall along the windows – the only breakfast eatery for miles. And I’m a huge fan of local bulletin boards with notifications of missing pets or persons, items for sale, local fundraisers, estate sales and funeral announcements. A writer can extract a lot of interesting details from a bulletin board in a gas station!

Periodically I will skim through a notebook or two and re-write or type an entry. I usually remember what I’ve written about, (and where it was and when) when re-reading my scribbling that either runs sideways in bold print, or neat script with lovely loopy letters. A psychologist in a writing class once said it was a hand/brain correlation that helps us remember things we’ve written.

The back to school supplies are dwindling. Soon the notebooks, folders and 12 packs of #2 pencils will be relegated to the office supply aisle until next year. It’s my reminder to stock up on another stack of spiral bound notebooks.

How do you keep track of tidbits you notice on a road trip? Do you also love spiral bound notebooks?

Barbara J. Eikmeier is a quilter, writer, student of quilt history, and lover of small-town America. Raised on a dairy farm in California, she enjoys placing her characters in rural communities.

Twenty-seven Years Later, Twenty Novels & Now an Audiobook

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By Lois Winston

I’ve had a busy September. Guilty as Framed, the 11th book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, officially released on September 6th. My virtual promo tour for the book began before the release date and will extend into next month, but beginning October 1st, I plan to start writing the next book in the series. I’ve given Anastasia enough of a break from murder and mayhem. Now all I need is a plot, but hey, it’s only September 28th. I’ve got three days to figure this out!

And now Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, is an audiobook with the other books in the series to follow.

Guilty as Framed marks my twentieth published novel since my first book debuted in April of 2006. I’ve also published five novellas, a middle-grade book, a nonfiction book, and several short stories during that period. But that’s not the entire story. I began writing back in 1995. It took me nearly ten years to the day I first set fingers to keyboard to sell a book.

My first attempt at writing a novel was the result of a weird dream I had one night while on a business trip. Weird because I normally don’t remember my dreams and weirder still because it didn’t involve anyone I knew. Or even me! And the dream continued to grow every night for a few weeks, unfolding like the chapters in a book.

Eventually, I decided to commit the dream to paper, and by the time I’d finished, I’d written 50,000 words of a highly emotional romance that spanned thirty-five years. I gave it to a friend to read, and she was in tears by the time she’d finished it. From her reaction and encouragement, I thought I’d penned The Great American Novel and began the search for a literary agent.

However, I quickly learned I’d written The Great American Drivel. But I’d enjoyed the process of writing so much that I wasn’t discouraged. I set out to learn what I’d done wrong and how to do it right. I read books, joined writing organizations, and attended workshops and conferences. Eventually, I signed with an agent and sold my first book, Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous tale of a mother, a daughter, and a buttinsky imaginary friend. The second book I sold was the novel formerly known as The Great American Drivel. In the ten years since I’d first written it, I’d revised it into Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, a 90,000-word romantic suspense that spanned a few months instead of thirty-five years.

Then, encouraged by my agent, who loved the humorous voice I’d employed in Talk Gertie to Me, I began writing a humorous amateur sleuth mystery series, giving birth to Anastasia Pollack, my reluctant amateur sleuth.

Looking back over the last twenty-seven years, I’m amazed at what I’ve accomplished. There have been major stumbling blocks and roadblocks along the way, some of my own making and some completely beyond my control. But with encouragement from fellow writers who have become lifelong friends, my late agent, and my own stubbornness, I persisted and persevered. One of those dear writing friends used to add a quote from Galaxy Quest to the bottom of all her emails: Never give up! Never surrender! I’m glad I didn’t.

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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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. 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 www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.