Tag Archive for: writing

The Path Through the Forest of Words

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 by Bethany Maines

Writing is both hard and easy.  Like a lot of things,
it’s a relatively simple process that is accessible to just about
everyone.  Sit, type, repeat, and you’ve got a book.  Also like a lot
of things, doing it well is something that takes years of practice and
refinement. And the better you do it, the less the effort is apparent. Good
writer’s make writing seem easy. From the effortless flow of a sentence to the
way the plot of a book doesn’t strain to contain it’s characters, but seems to
come directly from the characters themselves. But what can elevate clunky
sentences to art?

I’ll be giving a guest lecture in a few months to some high-school
students on the topic of writing a mystery.  I love connecting with kids
and I’m really looking forward to this class, but it got me thinking about how
to teach such a thing.  I’ve been known to teach a variety of things—how
to write action scenes, karate, how to pee in the woods. According to my
daughter, who was four at the time, that last one is not my strongest topic.
But like any skill, there are ways to breakdown each skill and pass on that
recipe to the next person. Even if some small children don’t want to listen to
you, not peeing on your underwear is still an achievable goal.  As is
writing a mystery.  But can I teach someone how to write a good
mystery?  

As I have pondered the ins-and-outs of good writing and mystery’s and
teaching I’ve come to the conclusion and I don’t think I can teach someone how
to write well.  I can teach someone how to be competent and I can give
them an entire toolbox of tips and tricks, but I think in the end the only
person that can make a writer write well is… the writer. I think that it
really comes down to the practice and ambition of the writer to push themselves
beyond craftsmanship and into art.

I hope I’m on the path to art as I wander through the
forests of words, but I have to admit that on some days, the best I can say is
that I didn’t pee on my underwear.

Writer Update: The Lost Heir – The Deveraux Legacy
prequel novella is now available! Catch up on all the Deveraux family dirt.

Aʟʟ Rᴇᴛᴀɪʟᴇʀs﹕ ʜᴛᴛᴘs﹕//ʙᴏᴏᴋs2ʀᴇᴀᴅ.ᴄᴏᴍ/Lᴏsᴛ–Hᴇɪʀ

👑👊👑

𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒚 𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒏.

Jackson Deveraux was orphaned, abandoned and imprisoned, but
life is about to hand him a second chance and a new family. Eleanor Deveraux
lost her children in a plane crash and she’s in danger of losing her
grandchildren to the Deveraux Legacy of drugs, abuse and secrets, but life is
about to hand her Jackson. When Eleanor discovers an illegitimate grandson in
prison for armed-robbery she grits her teeth and does her duty—she gets him
out. But being out of prison doesn’t instantly make Jackson part of the family.
And as Jackson and his cousins struggle to find common ground, Eleanor steers
Jackson away from befriending her other grandchildren. She only needs Jackson
to keep them out of trouble—not be their friend. But Jackson and Dominique, the
youngest Deveraux cousin, have other plans and, as his first Christmas as
Deveraux arrives, Jackson sets himself on the path to fixing the Deveraux clan
and getting the family he’s always wanted.

 **

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

 

 

Fashion Makes Sense but I’m Wearing Shorts and a T-Shirt

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It’s hot and sticky in the South Carolina Lowcountry. 

I don’t water my plants in the morning because the forecast calls for rain. I end up watering my plants that afternoon because the rain passed us by. Or it rains when I’m inside working, and the humidity leaches up all the moisture into the air. 

I’m obsessed with fashion. I put on QVC every morning and play it in the background while I’m working. The mindless chatter of the host and the brand representative filter out all the other noises in my head. 

Susan Graver, a designer, talks over the host most of the time. She’s a true chatterbox. I feel her. I’d do the same, plus her clothing line has some nice items.

Carolyn Gracie, a QVC host, and Gary Goben, the senior apparel designer for Denim & Company, have stuffed squirrels that talk with one another. I find it strangely comforting that a grown woman and man play with stuffed toys on a national television show. 

On QVC Martha Stewart shows up from her house and talks about her rather matronly line. Joan Rivers accouterments still look like they’re from her time period, but I’m oddly drawn to them. 

I’ve purchased metal slinky water hoses (see the need for one above). A pair of cute Earth shoes that remind me of a pair of wooden slides I owned for years that one of my dogs chewed a bit of one heel and I still wore everywhere. I can’t find them now. I’m glad I found a similar pair. 

Since I’m working from home, I’ve purchases skorts, T-shirts, and Cuddle Duds attire. 

I have quite a collection of fashion catalogs. North Style, Serengeti, Coldwater Creek, Soft Surroundings, Lands’ End, and Talbots. I’ve been trying to find outfits to take on our twelve-day cruise to the British Isles that will most likely NOT depart from London in late August. I have not purchased a darn thing but have dog-eared the pages of fifteen catalogs.

A dear friend of mine has a lovely fashion sense and her own Instagram account and a blog about fashion. She looks put together at all times. She never looks dowdy as I often feel. 

At eleven in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Style Finder Boutique, a shop in Raleigh, NC, hosts fashion shows, tips, and sales via Facebook live. Michele and Michelle (or double L as they call her) seem to be around my age. Sometimes they aren’t that streamlined in their live show, but they handle mishaps with style. 

They explain fashion terms, color schemes, core closet, and what looks good on different bodies with different face shapes. I had no idea the shape of your face has anything to do with what clothing to wear. I have a symmetrical oval face according to the online eyeglass site I recently visited. When I had my “colors done” with a Color Me Beautiful stylist back in the day, I was told I am a summer. 

I’m wearing pull-on exercise shorts and a T-shirt I got for participating in the Charleston Yoga Fest two years ago. I am learning, just not putting into practice, obviously.

Do y’all like to watch fashion shows, flip through catalogs, and follow fashion pages and shops on social media? Tell me I am not alone. 

I’m going on a “dues cruise” with the Charleston Tour Association next Monday. We board a tour boat at 5:45 p.m., have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres whilst wearing face masks, and enjoy a cruise in the Charleston harbor. I’m a tour guide and the treasurer for this group. We’re allowing half the attendees we normally do for one of our most popular meetings. I have to wear a coordinating outfit for this event. I have not a clue what that outfit will entail. O.o

Robin

Charleston Tour Association: www.tourcharleston.org



This post, while silly and all about fashion, isn’t meant to be an escape from what’s happening around us, but perhaps a bit of a respite for the few minutes you’re reading. 
White privilege doesn’t mean your life has been hard. It just means the color of your skin isn’t one of the things that makes it harder. Please take the time to learn about more than what’s in our little bubbles. 

—-

Robin Hillyer-Miles writes romance of the contemporary, magic-realism, and cozy mystery varieties. “West End Club” appears in the anthology “Love in the Lowcountry: A Winter Holiday Edition.” She’s writing “Cathy’s Corner” a 45,000-word contemporary romance set in the fictional town of Marion’s Corner, SC.
You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobinHillyerMilesAuthorTourGuideYoga
The anthology is offered on Amazon in paperback or e-book here:

Wisteria Wars and Creativity in the Time of Covid—by T.K. Thorne

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     Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        New places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

Most people assume, as a writer, that I’m eating up the hours a little virus has bequeathed to us by WRITING. They would be wrong. Yes, I am working on a novel, but it’s in the editing stage. That means I’m calling on some craft skills, but mostly just plain old boring, repetitive checking for errors.
This piece is the first thing I’ve actually tried to pull from the creativity well, and I have no idea where it will go. But that is okay. I give myself permission to ramble and see if anything worthwhile will arise. (I encourage you to do the same.)  So here we go.

I’m fortunate to live on several acres of property surrounded by beautiful woods. Our nearest neighbors are cows. For the ten years before we moved here, I lived in the city, and tried to grow on a tiny patch of land what I felt was the most gorgeous of plants—a wisteria vine. For whatever reason, the one I planted with hopes of it gracefully climbing the crosshatch wood panel on the side of my front porch and spilling grape-like clusters of blossoms—never bloomed. When we moved, I dug up a piece of the root and planted it in my front yard, determined to keep trying. The ground was so hard, I ended up cutting off most of the taproot and throwing a small piece of it into the woods on the side of my house.

Thirty years later, that little piece of discarded taproot has been . . . successful.  That is like saying a virus replicates. It did bloom, draping glorious purple curtains from the trees.

At first I told it, “Okay, as long as you stay on that side of the path.” It didn’t. Then, I rationalized, as long as it stayed behind the fence in the backyard. (I didn’t actually go in my backyard very much, being busy with life stuff.)  But I looked one day after covid-19 hit, and it had eaten over half of the back yard.  I couldn’t even walk to the fence line. Two huge trees went down, strangled, and too close to the house.

It was time for war.

This engagement, like those in the Middle East, will never end. Wisteria sends out shoots underground and periodically forms nodes that may change the direction or shoot out its own horizontal and/or vertical roots, so each section can survive independently and pop up anywhere.  Of course, I have the most pernicious variety, the Chinese kind that takes over the world (challenging even kudzu, which fortunately, hasn’t found my house yet.)

My first priority was to save the trees near the house. The vines were so thick at the base, no clippers would suffice. I girded myself with a baby chainsaw and determination. It hurt to cut into those old, twisty vines, to destroy something so beautiful, but the trees were more important. I imagined that with each cut, the tree could feel the release from the vine’s embrace, the reprieve.  I was taking life, but I was giving it too.

I sprayed the growth in the yard and pulled up (some of) the root systems.  If you want a mindless, exhausting, frustrating, impossible task—pull up established wisteria roots. It will take your mind off anything, even a pandemic.

One side benefit of the fallen trees was that a little more light found its way into the yard, and I decided to try growing vegetables. Another feature of my backyard is an old fashion clothesline with rusty steel posts. Periodically over the past decades, I’ve thought we should take them down as they are eyesores, but another part of me (the part that worried what young girls with flat stomachs would do during the famine) worried that we would have a pandemic one day or some kind of disaster that would require actually hanging clothes out to dry, so I left them, as well as the abandoned rabbit hutch in the far corner.  We would be ready, if not attractively landscaped.  And worse case scenario, maybe the hutch, in a pinch, would hold chickens.

I thought my creative well was dry, but looking at those old steel posts, the pile of wisteria roots, the vines I had pulled up and cut down, and a package of bean seeds that has been sitting in a drawer for a few years, something started stirring. Beans need something to climb.  One of the fallen trees had taken out actual wire lines of the clothesline, but the poles were set in cement. They will be there when I am dust. The pole surface might be too slick for a bean to be able to curl up, but maybe—
And so, as a product of WWI (Wisteria Wars Episode I) and covid-19, I found that the outlet for creativity isn’t always words on a page. If my beans grow, they will be beautiful and feed me, and if they don’t, I will at least have a couple of funky art pieces in the backyard.

Foreground: Metal pole with wisteria roots and vines. Background logs
from tree felled by wisteria, the carcass of another felled tree, and
old rabbit hutch.

T.K. is a retired police captain who writes books, which, like this blog, roam wherever her interest and imagination take her.  Want a heads up on news about her writing and adventures (and receive two free short stories)? Click on image below.  Thanks for stopping by!

https://tkthorne.com/signup/

Is My Life That Bad? (Asking for a friend)

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by Bethany Maines

Originally I had planned on a post about how technology has
impacted my writing, but COVID-19 has a way of derailing things. My long journey
from Apple iMac in 1998 to laptops to ipads to composing huge swaths of a novel
on my phone has been a constant evolution in an attempt to remove roadblocks in
the process of creating stories. One
such roadblock was born six years ago and we named her Zoe. She’s charming, but she does slow down the
process and specializes in making it inconvenient to sit at a desk for extended
periods of time. In fact, her birth
escalated my search for technological shortcuts in the writing process.  I no longer have the luxury of futzing with
finding the perfect moment to write. I
get the moments I get and I’d better make them count because they won’t be
coming back.
Which brings us to COVID-19, social distancing and
sheltering in place, pausing or whatever else they’re using to mean “don’t
leave the house.” All the social media
is going on about how tragic it is to not leave the house and how they will at least be able to catch up on all
their TV watching, write a novel and learn French because everyone will have so much MORE time. To which I say…

I work from home. 
Grocery shopping is ALREADY my big going out event. Now I just have a child at home with me as I
try to work. Staying at home didn’t magically give me more
time. I have monumentally LESS time.  So basically, my sheltering in place is the
same as always except that the crazies have bought up the toilet paper I
actually do need and now my child wants to steal all the phones to facetime her friends. Also, now I have to
put on make-up in the morning because all the extroverts need to compensate and
want to do video chats.  
I realize that
my complaints are minimal in the greater scheme of things and I will happily wear mascara
to ensure the continued health of my fellow human beings, but sigh…  could everyone either stop complaining about having
to live my life or stop assuming that I’m going to roll out a novel next
week? That would be great.
Although, I am working on a novel. On my phone. 
Because I can “watch” Ducktales with one arm around Zoe and compose one
handed. You know… during all my “free” time.

**
Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

Turning to Other Writers for Inspiration

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Turning to Other Writers for Inspiration by Linda Rodriguez (originally published on The Stiletto Gang-November 4, 2016)

Periodically, I get a little burned-out
from working too long and hard without a break. I start to face
resistance when I sit down to write. I have developed several
techniques for dealing with this, but the first one I always try—and
one that usually works—is to turn to what other writers have
written about the trials and tribulations of writing.

So I look at what other writers have
written about resistance, about finding themselves reluctant to sit
down and write, even when that’s what they most want to do. Many
writers have written about this topic because this state is one that
every writer finds herself or himself in sooner or later. As I go
down the long list of writers who have written about this miserable
place to find yourself, the first thing I encounter is a very wise
statement from science fiction writer, Kameron Hurley.

“If
I quit now I will soon go back to where I started. And when I
started, I was desperate to get to where I am now.” –
Kameron Hurley

I
realize, as I read, that the problem at bottom is always fear, no
matter what else is also involved. Yes, I’m tired and need a little
break and some recreational reading or activity that will help
restore and replenish my well of creativity, but always, lurking for
moments of exhaustion and weakness, is the writer’s bane, fear. And I
find a great writer there before me, as well.

“The
work is greater than my fear.” –Audre Lord

So,
for the next time you find yourself burned-out and exhausted and
coming up empty when you sit down to write here are more helpful
quotations from writers about the process.

“Discipline
is simply remembering what you want.” – Judith Claire Mitchell

“Start
writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is
turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

“Work
is the only answer.” –Ray Bradbury

“A
word after a word after a word is power.”–Margaret Atwood

“The
first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” — Terry
Pratchett

“The
most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters
except sitting down every day and trying. ,,, This is the other
secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we
sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us.”
– Steven Pressfield

Have
you got some favorite quotations from writers that help you in such a
situation?
Linda Rodriguez’s book, Plotting the
Character-Driven Novel, is based on her
popular workshop. Her Skeet Bannon series featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion includes Every Hidden Fear,
Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret. She also is the author of several books of poetry. Linda has received critical recognition and awards, such as Malice
Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina
Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira
Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo
fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,”
published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been
optioned for film. Find her on the web at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.

By Genre!

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By Bethany Maines
One of the best parts of the Stiletto Gang is hearing about
the spectrum of genres that our authors work in.  I work in several and I know that can get
confusing for readers, so here’s a primer of genres and how they apply to me.
Mystery – A detective either professional or amateur
must attempt to solve a mystery, usually a murder.  In my San Juan Island Mystery series amateur
detectives Tish (an ex-actress) and her grandfather Tobias (an ex-CIA agent)
solve murders in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. 
Crime – The main plot revolves around some form of
crime. There can be elements of deduction and mystery, but the main elements
involve some sort of criminal behavior. 
In my Shark Santoyo Series, Shark is attempting to navigate his way out
of the criminal life, but faces enemies on both sides of the law. 

Thriller – While a mystery detective finds a crime and
steps in to solve things, the thriller protagonist has the crime happen to them
and must fight their way out to simply get back to his or her ordinary
life.  In my Deveraux Legacy Series,
the Deveraux family must face a series of antagonists who seek to bring them
down. 

Romance – A book where the relationship between the
two protagonists takes center stage. 
The best part about Romance is that like a good wine, it pairs well with
anything.  Most of my novels contain an
element of romance, but not all of them push the romance to the forefront.  But in the Deveraux Legacy series, each of
the cousins will find love while battling the baddies, making the series genre “Romantic
Thriller”.  
Want a free romantic thriller from me?  Get Blue Christmas today: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/to271maetc

Science-Fiction –
Sci-fi explores the future of science and
humanity as they intertwine.  I
participate in an anthology series called Galactic Dreams that translates fairy
tales to science-fiction.  Each author in
the anthology assists in building the shared universe of Galactic Dreams,
meaning that each of our stories share the same background, timeline and rules.

Fantasy – Fantasy stories contain elements of magic
and wonder.  My mother read us The
Hobbit when we were quite young and so I always assumed that fantasy was
something that everyone enjoyed. Then I grew up and realized that some people
think that it’s not “real” literature (what does that even mean?!) and
sometimes hate it for appearing to have no rules if magic can simply make
things happen.  So fantasy is my little
secret.  I don’t write a lot of it, but I
periodically dabble to make myself happy. 
 
**
Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

Killing Your Darlings

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RIP Darling!
By Shari Randall
Of all the writing rules out there – and there are a lot – the one every writer knows is “Kill your darlings.” Stephen King expanded on this advice from William Faulkner (at least he did according to Google) and said “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” 
Darlings. Those lines of dialogue, those descriptions, those witty one liners that we writers love, that make us proud. That make us think, “that’s a good one. That’s writing!” The chapter that makes us laugh, or shudder as we sit at the keyboard. The character we enjoy so much we’d like to take him out to lunch. 
The problem is, well, there could be lots of problems, and the biggest is my reluctance to hit the delete button on those darlings. Stephen King is right – killing my darlings does break my egocentric little scribbler’s heart. I find myself arguing with, well, myself about the fate of those darlings:
The dialogue doesn’t ring true to the characters. But it’s funny…
The description is too long. But it’s sheer poetry!
That chapter is so exciting. But it doesn’t further the plot…
That character is so much fun to write. Does the world really need another homicidal prom queen?
But, but… I love my darlings, especially some of my characters. So I’m going to bid them a fond farewell here before I hit DELETE.
A fond pat on the head to Spumoni, the loveable mutt from Fairweather Farm.  Scrappy and loyal, tail always wagging, Spumoni was a little too good for his own good. I needed a farm pet that would get into trouble. So bye-bye Spumoni and hello Hairy Houdini, an irascible miniature goat who never met a pen he couldn’t escape.
The police department of my tiny Connecticut town had too many named characters, so thank you and farewell Officer Moskovitz, enjoy your retirement in Florida.
Ah, Lu Fairweather, slender and dark, with a strip of gray highlighting your artistic brow (probably because I was reading that biography of Susan Sontag while I was writing you). Au revoir. ! I will miss your feminine mystique, your dangling Elsa Peretti earrings, your French press coffee and no filter cigarettes, your air of disdainful sophistication. 
Have you had to kill any darlings lately? Feel free to give them a shout out below.
Shari Randall is the author of the Agatha Award winning debut, Curses, Boiled Again. Her latest book is Drawn and Buttered.

How to Craft a Mystery

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by Bethany Maines
Step One:  Read the paper and/or listen to your weird uncle
to learn about strange ways people have died recently.  This usually involves blurting out something
like “ooh, another dead body!” while snatching up the paper in the middle of
the busy hour at a coffee shop. 
Bonus Points: If
someone shuffles away from you at the coffee shop, collect an additional 20 Murderer Alert points!
Step Two: Having
decided on your method of death it’s time for research! Start googling all
sorts of things that will help you cover up your crime.  Also, go on a vacation to the place that you
plan on putting your dead body. 
Bonus Points: If
you can say “This is a good place to kill someone!” in an aggressively cheerful
manner to the person at the tourist bureau who just wants to help, collect an
additional 20 Walking Sociopath points!
Step Three: Sit
down and write the book.  This is the
boring bit, but it does come with fun voices in your head to talk to.
Bonus Points: If
you finish the manuscript, collect an additional 20 I Have No Life points!
Step Four:  Realize that there is a plot-hole in your
book and go back to step three.
Bonus Points: If
you don’t become an alcoholic, collect an additional 20 At Least I’m Not an Asshole Like Hemingway points!
Step Five: Get
your book back from the editor and give back your Hemingway points while you
try to get over the stupid, stupid, stupid edits.
Bonus Points: Look,
you’ve got a complete book at this points, you shouldn’t need stupid bonus
points, but hey, if that’s what keeps you going, then take 5 I Need a Cookie points.
Step Six: Release
the book into the wild and realize that you are a winner!
An Unfamiliar Sea will be available on 1.21.20
Tish Yearly just opened a wedding venue on Orcas Island in
Washington State and one of her employees just drowned in four inches of water.
Now it’s up to Tish and her grandfather Tobias Yearly, the 79-year-old ex-CIA
agent and current private investigator, to find out who could have wanted the
sweet waitress dead. 

AN UNFAMILIAR SEA:
PRE-ORDER NOW! 










**

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

Statistics

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by Bethany Maines

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with some partnered
writing.  This goal of this partnership
is to write a novella and turn it into a screenplay.  As this will only be the second screenplay
I’ve written, I’m guessing at some of the mile-markers that let me know if the
project is meeting our goals or if we’ve wandered completely off-track.  As a result, I’ve become slightly obsessed
with the statistics of the work.  I’m
tracking how long chapters are, the character’s vital information (age,
occupation, relationships, descriptions), how often each character appears in
scenes and how long the screenplay is in comparison to the novella.
Some interesting statistics have emerged.  From a forty-thousand-word manuscript it
looks like we need to achieve a twenty-thousand-word screenplay.  For those familiar with basic math that’s
HALF!  That has forced some necessary contractions
in the story.  Some characters have
merged, some scenes got trimmed, and an entire sub-plot got deleted.
But as the process has progressed, keeping a sharp eye on
the length has given me insight into where the story is running long and where
it was going to need to be cut. 
This has been an interesting tactic for writing because knowing that
you’re writing something that’s going to be cut later makes motivation a bit
hard.  However, it does free me to write
more elaborately and descriptively then perhaps I might ordinarily for the
novella since I know that scenery description is not generally included in a
screenplay.
In all, writing for a specific goal has streamlined the
process in many ways, but also created some interesting  constraints. 
Hopefully, with information gleaned from this project my next attempts
at screenplay writing will be easier still.
***

Have a Netgalley account?  Interested in reviewing Bethany’s upcoming book?  Sign up to be part of the review team!  All readers & bloggers welcome!  Or  add it to your TBR list on Goodreads! Pre-Order on Apple iBooks also available.

➡️ Pre-Order: Apple Books: https://apple.co/32sL3vV

***
Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

Writing

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. . . by Dru Ann Love

I had an idea for a post and now I can’t remember.

It’s hard to write a post about writing since I’m not an author.

But if you visit my blog at dru’s book musings, I do writerly things on there, like my “day in the life” and my “get to know you” features. I also write up a list of upcoming books for the week and a monthly release blog. I also write-up information for cover reveals. I also write about the conventions I attend and miscellaneous reader events I attend as well.

Then there are my musings that I write. This year I slowed down on the number of musings I write – decided to go back to writing musings on books that I want to read as opposed to book other people want me to read and I think it’s working. I also try to give a shout-out on social media, okay Facebook, to books that I read but didn’t write a musing for. So, if you think about it, I guess I am a writer, as I write words and isn’t that what a writer does?

Can you believe the year is almost over?

I have two more conventions to attend, Bouchercon and New England Crime Bake. Anyone attending? Let me know and I’ll be sure to look for you.