A Story Idea Developing in Real Time

As Recorded on a Facebook Post

by Shelley Burbank

One of the perennial questions readers ask authors is, "Where do you get your ideas?"

Well, the other day I accidentally recorded the exact moment when an idea--starting with a story title--occurred to me. Here's how it went: 

In past months, I've tried to wean myself off of Facebook and Instagram and had some success. However, as I'm in the end stages of revising my novella and the beginning stages of publishing and release it into the world, I'm back on the platforms a bit more because . . . that's where readers continue to be. 

As an experiment, I decided to ask readers a question about preferences regarding chapter headings. 

Post: Do you like numerical headings, ie. 1,2,3, etc. or catchy phrases? 

Commenter: Catchy phrases and numbers.

Shelley: Both??? Like 1. Call Me A Cabernet?

Note: I came up with that title on the spot, trying to think of something fun in the moment. Unfortunately--or fortunately--I ended up liking it. 

Shelley [A few seconds later]: I'm not drinking these days, but that's CUTE! I should use that sometime.

Note: Uh-oh. It's starting. 

Commenter: Yes! Or 1

                                    Call Me a Cabernet 

Shelley: Hmmmm. Much to consider. 

Shelley [looking at the title again]: Now I want to write an entire novella with that title. Damn. I don't need any more projects.

Shelley [now warming up, ideas flashing in brain]: It would be about a mid-life woman who makes a mess of things and decides to try out sobriety for thirty days and the wacky things that happen when she tried to avoid it. What could go wrong???

Note: I'm sorta laughing to myself and staring into space, imagining a scene or two, vague, vague.

Shelley [another flash goes off because I remember something I read on a Substack newsletter about appealing to agents/publishers by going the opposite of the expected.That would look like]: Or MAYBE I turn the story inside out and a sober-all-her-life good girl reaches middle age and decides to give DRINKING a try for 30 days, haha.

Shelley [Remembering her current WIP is waiting for revisions]: Okay, now you all see how my brain works in real time. Do not wish this on yourselves. I'm actually avoiding revision work.

***

A day later. 

Do you know what is now happening? I can't stop thinking about this story and how much I want to write it and how it would be a fun novella and oh, maybe a SERIES of novellas--all stories with a booze-themed title but not idealizing drinking because, you know, it's not healthy in any way for our bodies but the covers would be soooo cute! And what is going on in my MC's life that sets her off on this weird adventure? A dare? No, too trite. Something. Something...

I'll keep working it in my brain for a few weeks or months or years, but I'm trying to not do that anymore. Too much time and the ideas get stale. Also, I'll do a little "recon" and see who's used that title in the past. I'm sure someone has. It's too delicious. 

Meanwhile, I have about two chapters left in my novella revisions and can finally send it off to my beta readers and hopefully they won't have too much in the way of objections. 

I've been looking up how to self-publish on Amazon's KDP. Partly I don't want to do it that way and have considered other options. I could use it as a reader magnet, perhaps, and give it away free to people who have already signed up for or will sign up for my newsletter. But really, I think it's time for me to explore the wild world of indie publishing. I'd love to find an agent and score a Big Five publishing deal, but I'm not holding my breath. 

I've never even tried to go that route. The process seems both daunting and SLOOOOWWW. But maybe someday, if I write the right kind of story. Meanwhile, it's probably gonna be indie-pubbing for me. 

***

Anyway, I hope you found this entertaining and enlightening. Ideas just spring up out of nowhere, like the title, but then the brain latches onto something in the original idea and works at it, connects other information to it, expands it. It's like daydreaming, really. Anyone can do it. 

Writing, on the other hand, is the craft and discipline part. That's where writers are made, not in the ideas arena but in the craft arena. It's putting the sentences together and learning the right structure for a paragraph and making a ton of decisions about point of view, theme, narrative device, etc. 

Writing is a wonderful, challenging, fun, rewarding hobby and vocation. I'm not sure it's a great "job" these days, but for some, I guess, it does bring financial rewards, as well. I'm no longer holding on to any expectations in that regard, but if I were thirty years younger, maybe. For now, it's enough to have fun with it. 

Enjoy the remaining days of summer, all you lovely readers out there. You also make it fun. 

Moral Rights

 by Sybil Johnson

Not long ago Penny Publications sold AQMM, EQMM, FS&F, Analog and Asimov’s to the new consortium Must Read Magazines. The staff remains the same and supposedly it’s business as usual for these magazines.You can read more about it here.

There has been discussion on SMFS (Short Mystery Fiction Society) about changes to the contracts when they buy stories, in particular the addition of a moral rights clause where the author agrees to waive them for the story. 

Moral rights? What the heck is that? I’ve never seen one in a contract, not that I’ve had many. Apparently, others in SMFS hadn’t either so it created a stir. 

Moral rights is not the same as a morality/morals clause. Here is SFWA’s description of moral rights: “an author's right to control the integrity and attribution of their work, even after they have transferred copyright ownership.” Basically, the right to have your name on a story and the story published as you wrote it. A morality or morals clause concerns the right of the publisher/movie producer, etc., to cancel all connection with the writer/performer for immoral conduct. So quite different.

Writer’s Beware has a nice article on what a writer needs to know about moral rights. Quite an interesting read and too long for me to summarize. A must read for writers. There’s something called the Bern convention that covers it. While the US became a signatory to it in 1988, there is no provision in US copyright law for moral rights. Apparently, Congress decided the patchwork of laws at the state and federal level were adequate. Later, copyright law was modified to include moral rights, but only for visual art.

This situation created enough of a stir that Must Reads decided to remove moral rights clauses from its standard contracts. Here’s the SFWA’s press release on the subject;

Has anyone had any experience with a moral rights clause in a contract? Did you sign it? Did you think it was a deal breaker?

The Interview

by Charlotte Hinger

Mary's Place is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in historical fiction. I'm thrilled to be given this level of recognition. The ceremony is this coming Saturday.

A while back I read a witty short story, "What Is . . ." If one of the readers of Type M knows where it was published, please let me know through the comments section of this post. I thought about that story when I was interviewed by Kevin Simpson for the Colorado Sun. Here's a copy with a little reformatting to fit the boundaries of our Type M blog:

Charlotte Hinger built her historical novel around “rural royalty”

The farm crisis of the 1980s created the backdrop for “Mary’s Place” and fueled the characters wrestling with economic doom

Charlotte Hinger has won multiple awards for both fiction and nonfiction writing. In 2021 she was inducted into the Colorado Authors Hall of Fame. In 2008 she moved to Fort Collins, where she applies her degree in history to academic publications and her depraved imagination to a mystery series published by Poisoned Pen Press. “Mary’s Place” is her third historical novel.


SunLit: Tell us the backstory of “Mary’s Place” – what’s it about and what inspired you to write it?

Charlotte Hinger: It’s about an affluent agribusiness family (rural royalty) who have always been prosperous and a banker who is the pillar of the community. Both entities are threatened with ruin when the government suddenly changes financial regulations. I’m a historian and I recognized the importance of events happening right before my very eyes.

SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?

Hinger: The day the bank closes in a rural community is a heart-stopping event. It’s like a bomb has dropped on a town. Selecting my excerpt was difficult! I knew which one was my favorite, but I didn’t want to expose too much of the plot for the reader. Both fathers have sons who have contempt for their values. The sons want to make money.

SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?

Hinger: I lived these events. My community lost its bank. I knew so many of the people involved. I knew heroic bankers who wanted the best for their community. I also knew wealthy farmers who believed nothing could touch them. I was a member of an ecumenical church committee that tried to provide emotional and financial help to farmers. We heard so many heart-wrenching stories.

SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?

Hinger: This is my third historical novel. I’m used to doing historical research, but wading through all the government programs and regulations pertaining to agriculture was mind-boggling. Integrating enough information so the reader understood outside pressures without stopping the story cold was hard.

The characters were trapped by events. Honestly, how could farmers find the time to wade through stuff? They have more on their minds than complying with regulations that are in effect one day, and changed the next.

SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?

Hinger: Resisting the temptation to provide too much detail about banking and agriculture. But I had to understand a complex and lengthy sequence of events to accurately reduce them to a sentence here and there. This was a story, after all, not an economic textbook. I loved my cranky old banker and wanted readers to empathize with his dilemma. I was so invested in the characters and wanted the reader to love them too.

SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book?

Hinger: No matter how sensible our decisions, how earnestly we strive to be the best person we can, things happen that we can’t control. Never assume people have caused their troubles because of some moral deficiency. Of course, that exists, but it’s easy to judge too harshly.

SunLit: Tell us about your next project.

Hinger: It’s a historical novel about the Volga German community in Kansas and the frontier Catholic Church. It’s set before World War I.

A few more quick items:

Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: As usual, I have a nonfiction, a heavier fiction book, and a fun book going at the same time. My favorite recreational picks are psychological mysteries. Right now I’m reading “Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy. I love Rick Atkinson’s first volume of his Revolution Trilogy, “The British are Coming.”

First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: Hands down, it was “Hoot Owl.” I read it in the first grade. I had learned the alphabet and while the teacher was helping other kids, she let me pick out a book from our sparse little library. It was a real book with a real story. Not just the numbing repetition about Jane throwing Spot the ball. I was filled with wonder. I could read a real story. It was about a little Indian boy named Hoot Owl who led a little lost pilgrim boy back to his family. The pilgrims were so grateful they invited the little Indian boy’s family to share their first Thanksgiving meal with them. Of course both groups lived in perfect harmony ever after.

Best writing advice you’ve ever received: It came from my first agent, the legendary Claire Smith. She said never to alter a book just because I think the person giving advice is really smart. Only change your writing when you know in your gut someone is right.

Favorite fictional literary character: Marguerite in “Green Dolphin Street.”

Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): I’m not a literary snob. I don’t feel guilty about anything I read. I’m dismayed by over-zealous parents who insist on monitoring everything their children read.

Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: All three, but if I really adore a book, I want to own the printed copy.

One book you’ve read multiple times: “Green Dolphin Street.”

Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: Coffee — hot and black.

Best antidote for writer’s block: Walking with only the sounds of nature. No media to muddy thoughts.

Most valuable beta reader: Margaret Neves, my friend, a poet with an impeccable eye.

It's like the stage on the page

    In my mid-20s, while working full time as an Air Force Officer, slogging thru a Master's program, coping with a new family and an old house, I decided to become a professional actor. I'd already been writing, since junior high back when they had those things. I was published in Fanzines and small publications that paid with a copy with your story in it. Short fiction, but with a novel forming. I took an afternoon class in theater basics, followed by three acting classes and one each in directing and producing. 

    As I got into the craft of theater, I was amazed at how similar it was to my writing process, except, on the page, I was the entire cast, tech crew, costumers, director and the house business manager. With fiction writing, the stage was between my ears and the audience was invisible.

    Consider the actor. The actor must understand his character's position in the story and in all the action. He must know the relationship his character has with the story and all the other characters, at least the characters he knows. Some actors write a deep analysis of their character, noting clues on his history, opinions, and personal issues as expressed by what he says and does. They weave that together to create a biography of the character, freely filling in details when the original author didn't mention them. It can be obsessive/compulsive.

    They look at scenes their character is in, and dissect the action and the words to discover the subtext, what the character really meant when they said that line or did that action. Serious method actors continue the process to perhaps ridiculous levels, examining their character's thoughts and feelings about everything on the stage, the couch, the props, the colors.

    My acting process is more cryptic. I diagram the cast and search for minimalist terms with deep meaning to describe relationships. I look at my character's objective with each scene and what's in the way and what I plan to do about it. As Marcus Aurelius said, "The impediment to action advances action."

    In short fiction, my initial seed is a concept, an idea about a scene or my protag. (A lot can be learned in daydreams)  Only after that concept has grown do I begin to write. I make short notes. I write them all over the text (why does she hate me, he is disgusting, he's left handed) and I slowly build up a collection of terms about what's going on in my story. 

    When I start a story, I have carefully considered a starting point, maybe a beginning, several scenes, maybe an ending, but it's not all laid out by my subconscious. I discover the story and the characters as I write, subconscious to fingertips on the keys. I have several series characters. They develop something like a biography that notes their likes, dislikes, what parts of their past affect this story, and, especially, what happened in previous stories that have become fact for that character. If he gets shot in Book 2, it still hurts in Book 4.

    The main characters in my mysteries have an autobiographical core. In those daydreams, I become the protag and I live the scene. The character, like when I played Tilden in "Buried Child", a drugie, burned out failure, aren't me, but there's enough of me inside to allow me to tag along thru the plot. I have the best seat in the house.

                                                                       "Michael Chandos"

Wonder Girl

 

Original movie poster

Did you ever see the movie Wonder Boys, with Michael Douglas? It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and here (aside from the Bob Dylan theme song) is why: it's about writers. On top of that, it's an excellent film about writers. Douglas plays a university professor of creative writing who several years earlier wrote a novel which won the Man Booker Prize for literature.

Since that moment of triumph, he has been unable to finish his much-anticipated second novel. It's not that he has writer's block – just the opposite. In one scene, he puts a blank page in his typewriter (yes, he still uses a typewriter), and at the top types in page number 2121. In a later scene, one of his students goes behind his back to find and read the MS. Afterward, she says to him, "You know how you tell us that writing is all about choices? Well, this looks like you've made no choices at all."*

Boy, can I relate. I've been on the verge of finishing a contemporary mystery for the past two years, but the darn thing kept getting longer. I just kept writing and writing, and I could tell plain as day that in the end I'm going to have to get rid of half of what I was writing. But I couldn't stop. I like my murderer and how the murder was accomplished, but I can't figure out how my sleuth is going to figure it out – not in a logical, uncontrived manner, anyway. So I kept writing. I'd try this for a while, then I'd try that. Maybe it'd work better if I did this. I have a bunch great scenes which may or may not go together. Probably not. But I kept going.

This is not the first time this has happened to me, and I must remember that, miraculously, it always works out. As I write the first draft of a novel, my beginnings never match the ending, for somewhere in the middle , I change my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. And I don't waste time going back and fixing the beginning to fit my new vision. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end. I just keep going until the book is done, with every confidence that I can repair all the inconsistencies when I'm done.

But this time, I let myself get sucked down the whirlpool and ended up not making any choices. So I've put the MS aside to marinate and started another historical mystery. I'm in my wheelhouse now and feel more confident that I can keep it tight. In the meantime, I know there's a THERE there with the contemporary, so after a bit of rest and rumination, I'll pick it up again. It'll be great. I just know it will.

––––––––––––––––

*I paraphrase

A Garden Surprise

 Catherine Dilts

Summers in Colorado tend to be go-go-go. We want to fit in all the outdoor adventures that don’t involve snow sports. The growing season is short at higher elevations. If you want to stop to smell the roses, you’d better do it quick!

One of my favorite hobbies is gardening. I’m far from alone. 55% of the US population lists gardening as their hobby. Over 70 million households engage in gardening activities.

There are dozens of reasons for digging in the dirt. For me, gardening gives me a connection to the planet. I’m more aware of the changing seasons when thinking about seed starting, planting, and harvesting. I get exercise carrying bags of soil, bending and squatting to weed beds, lifting watering cans to hanging flower planters, and generally getting my butt off a chair and into the outdoors.

My garden is modest. I do enjoy some produce, and might do a little canning and freezing if the harvest is good. As the years go by, and the pine trees shade my yard more, I’ve moved almost exclusively to container gardening.

When your chosen career involves hammering away at a keyboard for hours at a time, you need reasons to step away. Move around. Eye health requires looking away from screens every hour. Focus on something further away than your fingers.

During one step-away session, I went outside to admire our grapevine. In the half dozen years of its existence, it has never produced grapes. I was surprised to see tiny green globes for the first time.

I typically have a flaw in my writing schedule. Winter is more conducive to sitting at my computer for hours. It’s a way to avoid facing the gloomy, short days happening outside. Summer should be lived closer to nature. Yet I frequently end up tackling new projects or doing heavy editing in the summer.

In June, my co-author / daughter and I released book one in our YA series, Frayed Dreams. Book two, Broken Strands, will be out before the end of July. I’m doing final edits on my cozy mystery, book three in the Rose Creek Mystery series, The Body in the Hayloft. I won’t list the half dozen other projects I have going. My ambition exceeds the hours in a day. And my own energy level.

Marathon sessions should be for hiking, not sitting in my desk chair. To maximize my participation in summer, I work on the deck in the fresh air, as weather permits. If I hadn’t stepped away from my computer, I wouldn’t have seen the grapevine surprise.

I’m refreshed by the sun slanting through the ash tree, the sound of birds singing, and the scent of flowers wafting on the breeze. Time to get back to work.

Mystery Writing and Conspiracy Theories

 by Thomas Kies

Why are so many of us enamored with conspiracy theories?

I know that I’m enthralled by one right now.  This business about Jeffrey Epstein.  Unless you live under the proverbial rock, I know you’ve heard about it.  

Boiled down into as few words as possible: Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy financier who ran a vast sex trafficking operation involving underage girls, often recruiting victims through coercion and manipulation. He was convicted in 2008 but received a lenient plea deal (where the current head of the DOJ, Pam Bondi was involved). Arrested again in 2019, he died by suicide in jail, sparking widespread conspiracy theories. His associate Ghislaine Maxwell was later convicted for aiding his crimes. In 2025, a DOJ memo revealed over 1,000 victims but denied the existence of a “client list,” fueling public outrage and speculation about powerful figures allegedly involved.

Is the President of the United States implicated?  Was the video released by the Department of Justice showing that no one entered Epstein’s jail cell the night he died altered? Is the Department of Justice involved in a cover-up?

What a great mystery novel this would be…if only it wasn’t all happening in real time right in front of us. 

Okay, so that’s the conspiracy theory I’m wrapped up in.  You know some of the others:

-The moon landing was fake.

-JFK’s assassination was orchestrated by the government

- Walt Disney has been cryogenically frozen.

- Denver Airport is the headquarters for the Illuminati.  (Actually, until I did some research on this blog, I’d never heard of this one.  I guess I’ll go looking for those tunnels and lizard lairs the next time I fly to Colorado).

- We’re all living in the Matrix.

- The world is flat. 

- Covid was manufactured in a lab and released on purpose. 

- Elvis is still alive

I’ve read that we gravitate to conspiracy theories for a number of reasons.  We’re trying to make sense of a complex, chaotic, often frightening world. We have a deep distrust of authority. They give us some kind of control—we see hidden truths that others don’t see. They can give us a sense of community, letting us belong to a group of people with shared beliefs.

As writers of mysteries, isn’t that what we cater to?  Within 70,000 to 100,000 words, don’t we create our own conspiracy theories, drawing readers into fantastic adventures, suspicions, and anxiety that we create? 

Mystery novels and movies often share key ingredients with conspiracy theories: hidden motives, secret organizations, cryptic clues, and the thrill of uncovering “the truth.” 

Some novels have hatched or contributed to conspiracy theories.  One example is the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.  It fueled the fire with it’s story about the Holy Grail, secret societies, and secrets about Mary Magdelene and Jesus. 

The Oliver Stone film JFK threw gasoline on the flames with its story about government involvement with Kenndy’s assassination. 

In my own novel, Shadow Hill, I talk about how some members of government work with fossil fuel companies to create their own conspiracy theories countering the science behind climate change. Something I came up against, in real life, when I was lobbying against oil drilling off the Atlantic coast of the United States.

In the meantime, Cindy and I binge on old X-File episodes late at night. After all, “The Truth is Out There.” 

What conspiracy theories do YOU subscribe to?

A Dark Death: Analysis of a Cozy Mystery

By Shelley Burbank

Happy Friday, Type M Clan! 

I hope your July is going swimmingly. Here in Guam we are heading toward rainy season and have had several days of downpours–not unwelcome from my point of view. I love a good rainy day. They tend to be excellent for writing, cozy and hushed. 

Every once in a while I am approached with a request to read an Advanced Reader Copy and write a review. Part of membership in the writing community is helping other authors where we can. When I received an email from a publicist asking if I’d consider reading and reviewing a literary mystery, the author’s second book, I asked the PR rep how she heard about me. (I’m not exactly famous!)

She said she saw my posts on Type M and thought I’d be a good fit. I thought that was cool, so I said, “yes” and was privileged to read the ARC for Alice Fitzpatrick’s A DARK DEATH. Rather than a straight-up reader-type review, I’ve decided to analyze it from a writer’s point of view and for Type M readers who may be interested in studying the various pieces of a novel and all the choices a writer makes while creating a new story. 

Different authors start with different pieces. Sometimes a character comes first. Other times, the plot or setting or theme. The ideal outcome involves all these elements fitting together seamlessly, usually accomplished through the revision process. While drafting, the subconscious often works some magic. Themes and insights and imagery bubble up from the depths, and these are woven in and expanded on second and third drafts. When everything mixes well, the book resonates at a deeper level. We can't always hit this mark, but, dear readers and writers, we can try.

In A DARK DEATH, author Alice Fitzpatrick hones in on the darkness.

The Mystery Plot 

Set on a picturesque Welsh island, A DARK DEATH weaves together several mysteries. The central mystery begins with the discovery of a dead body, naked and posed, at an archaeological dig site. Secondary subplots include a mystical encounter during the filming of a ghost-hunting/paranormal traipse through a dark, abandoned mansion and to a lesser extent the mystery of the archaeological site itself at which anomalous artifacts are found, puzzling and exciting the team working there. 

This book manages to combine cozy mystery with touches of Gothic horror, paranormal, dark academia, and archaeological adventure. Rich and complex stuff! 

The Characters

The main character in A DARK DEATH is retired high school English teacher turned writer and amateur sleuth, Kate Glaway. Like many cozy mystery sleuths, Kate is well-liked and trusted in the community, pragmatic, and nosy. She’s not afraid to ask questions and wheedle information out of the police detectives. She and her feisty (and sex obsessed) friend, Shiobhan, can’t resist investigating the murder, especially to help clear the names of two suspects Kate knows and cares for. 

A big cast of possible suspects creates a fun jumble of characters. From quirky locals to a psychic conman, a team of archaeology students, and three police detectives, each character adds their own motivations and foibles to the twisty mystery while providing some flirtatious banter and interpersonal conflicts along the way. Important to the dark thread, many characters have "shadow" personality traits lurking behind their more innocuous faces, or hidden or forgotten trauma seeping through the cracks.

The Setting

I enjoyed armchair-visiting Meredith Island in Wales. The Welsh language touches were used sparingly, so as not to overwhelm the reader, but there were enough to lend atmosphere and authenticity. With descriptions of the boats on the waterfront, a cozy pub and hotel, a Gothic manor home, windswept cliffs, rocky beaches, and coastal cottages for contrast, the setting details paired well with the plot and characters. 

The Themes

Although mysteries are by design aimed at the head, not the heart–at their core they are puzzles–giving characters personal troubles, psychological traumas, and interpersonal conflicts adds depth. A DARK DEATH explores guilt, shame, fraud, jealousy, and a dark crisis of faith through the various characters. Even the main character, Kate, struggles with midlife questioning of her career path, wondering what she’s missed by not continuing on to a higher educational degree. 

The Writing

Mysteries can be written in styles ranging from cute and commercial to dark and literary, and though Alice Fitzpatrick’s language falls more to the side of literary than the cute, I found her writing to be very readable. I enjoyed the descriptions, and the sentence structure was varied enough to keep my interest. I would have liked a bit more dark, atmospheric language to fit the vibe of the book, but authors also need to develop a personal style that carries over from book to book.

The Whole Package

A good cover design is essential, and I think the publisher, Stonehouse Publishing, nailed it. The broody colors. The dark cliffs in the background. The clouds rolling in. It doesn’t scream “island” but you get the sense of it. The bold white lettering of the title stands out and the orange sun adds pop. 

Combined with a twisty mystery, a charming cast of characters, interesting themes, and the Gothic and dark academia elements, this mystery works. Alice Fitzpatrick must be happy with her second Meredith Island mystery, and I think I’ll have to read the first one, Secrets in the Water, to catch up.

----

That's it for my analysis. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. 

In other news, I've finished my draft of Strawberry Moon: An Olivia Lively Novella which takes place between books one and two, and I am working on revisions. It will be sent to beta readers next. I'm aiming for a late-September release, my first foray into indie publishing after being traditionally pubbed by a small Maine press. 

Sign up for my FREE monthly author newsletter on Substack, Pink Dandelions, to stay in the loop and for inspiring thoughts on living the creative life. https://shelleyburbank.substack.com/

My Summer Vacation

 by Sybil Johnson

I feel a little like I’m writing one of those grade school essays on “what I did on my summer vacation.” I don’t remember what I wrote back then, but it probably involved visiting relatives. Every year we drove from Washington state to Minnesota. I did a lot of staring out the window, which I enjoyed, and reading on those trips. 

Here’s what I did last week:

We flew to the Seattle area to celebrate my mom’s 103rd birthday. It was nice to see family and also get away from the construction going on next door to us. The new house they’re building has been going on for a while. I could look it up, but I think it’s around 2 years so far. Probably will be done next February. Better than the last house they built on the same lot, which took 5 1/2 years to build.

One thing I miss about living in the Seattle area is the sight of Mt. Rainier in the sky, when it deigns to make an appearance. It’s often obscured by clouds. The mountain was out for most of our trip so that was really nice. I’ve tried taking a picture many times, but haven’t been particularly successful. The husband took a good one on one of his many walks so here it is. BTW, you know someone grew up in Washington state or has been there for a while when they talk about “the mountain being out.”

 

Besides celebrating my mom’s birthday, one of the things we did was visit a Cat Cafe. I’d been to one called Catffeinated when it was in Tacoma. It has since moved to Puyallup. The one we went to this time was a fairly new one in the outlet mall in Auburn run by the Auburn Valley Humane Society. There are two enclosed spaces with 4 cats in each one.

 

It was so much fun. We haven’t had cats in our lives for a while now, so it was good to get some kitty time. We spent an hour with 4 kittens (Poppy, Leo, Onyx and Winnie) all about 2 months old. All of them had been adopted and were just waiting to go to their forever homes. It cost $20 for the hour. All proceeds go to the humane society. You’re not allowed to pick them up, but can pet them and play with them.

I pet some of the cats, then sat down to see if one would crawl into my lap. They crawled over my lap to get to my husband. The others crawled into my sister’s lap. So here I am looking bummed out that no kitten would curl up on my lap. 

 

The person who works there took pity on me and placed the black kitten, Onyx, on my lap. That seemed to give him the seal of approval and he stayed. I told him all about the many black cats I’ve had in my life: Squirt, Squirt II, Dog and, as an adult, Maleficent. He seemed to enjoy it.

Here I am looking happier with Onyx. He stayed with me for quite awhile before departing for greener pastures. Then one of the other kittens decided my lap was okay..

 

It was great fun. Other than seeing family, the highlight of my trip.

We flew both ways on Alaska Airlines. On the way back we ended up on a 737MAX. I usually avoid that particular plane because, you know, those problems they’ve had. I thought we were supposed to be on a different plane, but ended up on a MAX anyway. Still, one cool thing I hadn’t seen before was, if you fly Premium (gives you extra leg room), they have a cup holder in the tray table so your cup doesn't have to be on top of the tray. If you look at the first photo in this review, you can see the cup holder in action. Very nice touch. https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/new-cabin-interior/

Happy to be home. Happy to have had a break. Now, it’s back to writing for me.

The Big Bang

 by Charlotte Hinger

And a grand time it was too. The whole Hinger clan met in Beaufort North Carolina for a 4th of July celebration. We hope to establish a tradition similar to our beloved Phez Phest which took place in Hoxie Kansas every fall. 

Of course the Coast House event is minus the bird dogs and the hordes of friends who came from all over lugging musical instruments. But we got off to a wonderful start. Our host, Cheryl Flink and Jim Vetricek have a terrific four story house with five bedrooms and four bathrooms. It's right on a private beach that fronts a waterway that leads to the Atlantic ocean. 

Cheryl Flink and Jim Vetricek

The meals were wonderful. Harry and Michele Crockett are first class white water people who organize week long rafting trips both small and large. They divided everyone into meal teams who were responsible for the evening meal. 

Michele surprised everyone with these matching T shirts. 

Happy rest of the year to everyone. 

Wordplay prompts for stories

 MC here

Lecturing about genre writing to students is great fun. They almost always ask, "Where do you get your ideas?" My answer is always the same: "From everywhere". 

My mysteries are about crimes and the people involved, villains and victims. Mostly about the people and how their choices, behavior and circumstances got them to where they are, into the pickle they're in. It's fun to twist expectations. The most unlikely guy is the hero, the plain girl is the one offering true love, the mean guy has a soft spot for puppies.

My science fiction stories are either adventure stories written for fun or alternative looks at contemporary events, "told in future tense" <- stolen from the Dimension X radio series. For example, while sitting at an airline gate in Chicago O'Hare airport, I watched the passengers anxiously queue up at the gate, pushing to get on as early as possible to claim a favored seat or anxious they will miss their row call due to the crowd noise. All the passengers will take off and arrive at the same time, won't they? But I imagined they weren't boarding a cramped Regional Jet, but a suborbital space shuttle on a hard launch schedule to Australia or the Moon. Hmm, which ones look like Aliens?

I'd like to say my stories always start with a Grand Concept like the Nature of Truth. Nope. They start with a title, a play on words, a situation, a daydream about two characters having a heated talk. I have a file of wordplay titles. When I read them, a story sparks in my head. I won't show them to you, because they are so terrific you might steal them!

OK, here's an example. 

The fragment "-cide" is a compound word fragment evolved from Latin meaning "killer" or "the act of killing", as in Homicide. Suicide. Readers know those words and I'll use their understanding to create irony and contrast and surprise to generate an image in their mind, from just one word. The reader has the image, and expects the image to be present in the story. What images do you get with Fratricide, Patricide or Matricide?  

How about Seacide? Mountaincide? Countrycide? Westcide? Eastcide? Poolcide? Farcide? Nearcide? Genocide? 

What images did you get? Were some images negative? Or intriguing. I'd like to write a series of linked stories all turning on "-cide".

Independence Day

original cover

 Tomorrow being the 4th of July has caused me to reflect upon all the many, many U.S. Independence Days I have enjoyed in the past. Like birthdays, most of the 4ths I have lived through blur together now, or are completely lost to memory, but one in particular stands out for me, and that is the Bicentennial.

Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime experience. (I suppose that a person could live through more than one centennial event, but could one remember both of them? That is the question.)

In 1976, I was newly married and living in Lubbock Texas. We went downtown on the day and joined the crowd for the Independence Day Parade. I love parades, anyway, to the extent that I almost always tear up when I hear the drums and first catch sight of the flag corps, and of course this parade was spectacular in that already-spectacular Texas fashion.

Fourth of July, Boynton OK, 1912

Several local businesses were giving away free cake and hotdogs. The crowd around the tables was rather like a monkey riot, what with people grabbing free food hand over fist, and Don ended up with one whole hot dog and one that had been ripped in half. Both were squashed, and just delicious.

This brings to mind other memorable anniversary dates. Many years ago, we returned to the Western Hemisphere on a Polish ocean liner, the Stefan Batory, after several months Europe. We sailed across the Atlantic and right up the Saint Laurence Seaway to Montreal and landed on Canada Day, July 1, for a wonderful welcome home.

Four days from today, on July 7, is the twentieth anniversary of the launch of my first novel, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming. The joy of the occasion was dampened by the fact that my mother, who had been instrumental in the research for the book, had just died a few months earlier. Besides, I was so nervous at my first book launch that I practically had an out-of-body experience. I’ve launched eleven other books since then, and I have to say that thus far it hasn’t gotten a whole lot easier.

By the way, you can read an excerpt from The Old Buzzard Had It Coming here. In fact, one can read excerpts from all my books as https://doniscasey.com

Happy Canada Day, summer's here!

 Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canucks! As Catherine noted yesterday (the actual Canada Day), summer has finally arrived. Up here in Canada, it has come with a vengeance. Wildfires, extraordinary heat waves, wild thunderstorms, and at least in my little corner of paradise in Ontario cottage country, an early and unprecedented invasion of bugs. The bane of cottage summer is not the blackly nor the mosquito, although both are irritating, but the deerfly and its larger, even more voracious cousin, the horsefly. But after this long, cold dark winter, it's a small price to pay for the joys of warmth, sun, swimming, kayaking, and dining on the deck.

A perfect evening

These past six months have been stressful in other ways. There are wars, political chaos, destructive tariffs, threats of annexation, and up in Canada here, an unexpected change of government, bringing with it both excitement and uncertainty. I have been far too glued to the news, starting each day wondering what horrors await. It has not been good for getting anything done, especially writing. But in the past ten days, I turned a page. I am spending most of it up at my cottage and mostly unplugged due to lack of wifi access. No more checking the news and wondering whether World War III has started. It's long, languid days in my Muskoka chair on the dock, reading, writing, swimming, watching the baby loons, ducks, otters, herons and other wildlife play in the lake. Therapy for a worried soul.

No room for my manuscript

I do my best writing in the summer during these unplugged days, sitting in my favourite chair on my dock. I am  working on the first draft of the latest Inspector Green novel, and since I write longhand, I don't get distracted by news and social media, etc. The only drawback to this method is the inability to research on the internet as I write, as Shelley described in her post, but it's a small price to pay for the pleasure. I also find it helps me stay in the story rather than breaking the momentum to look things up. The fact-checking can wait until later. 

Writer at work

Besides writing, I am doing more reading. I have always read a lot of Canadian books, partly to support my fellow Canucks but also because I like finding the hidden gems behind the big American and British blockbusters that take up most of the space in bookstores and media. So far this month I have read Finding Flora by Elinor Florence, where I met a caring and determined young woman braving the challenges of pioneer prairie life, and The Cost of  a Hostage by my friend Iona Whishaw, where I reunited with the warm and likeable cast in post-war rural British Columbia. Both were delightful and compelling. Next up is Home Fires Burn, by my friend Anthony Bidulka. I've enjoyed all Tony's books and expect to be charmed again.

All these books tackle quintessentially Canadian themes and settings. I usually like gritty, hard-edged stories, but after the turmoil of recent months, I am enjoying these gentler tales. 

Apology to Our Readers

 By Charlotte Hinger

 I owe followers of Type M an apology. I was jolted by a comment submitted by one of our most faithful readers. It was in response to Steve Pease's post, Is anyone reading this blog? 

This comment was from Anonymous:

 If you're talking about Type M for Murder, I definitely read it (and almost always enjoy it). Every day (or at least every day it appears). Sometimes I comment. Lately, these comments hardly ever appear, let alone get an answer, so I've no idea if they were received. A recurrent problem is that even the regular poster/contributors often don't blog on their assigned day. I fully understand, though. They're busy, they're tired, they're on vacation, they're ill, they forget.

Maybe the solution would be to have a larger reserve of guest bloggers to cover for these inevitabilities?

 I'm the moderator for Type M For Murder and have fallen down on the job. Here was my apology to Anonymous:

Anonymous--I owe you an apology. I'm moderating this web site and have fallen down on my duties. As a result of your post, I'll be much more conscientious in the future. Some other readers comments are wicked mean and they never get past me. I've been gone a lot and have struggled with some health issues. Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse deserting my post as I always travel with my laptop.

It's true that I have been plagued with a bewildering sequence of medical problems, but honestly, that isn't a legitimate excuse. This blog was begun in 2006 and during that time I imagine we've covered the waterfront in our catalog of illnesses and disabilities. Type M's original blogmaster, Rick Blechta, was my idol. He never missed a post! And often posted every week. Not only was he a wonderful writer, he had a day job, and played in a band. Rick surely had his share of life events during that time, but he never slacked off. 

I'm going to straighten up and get back to doing my best to emulate Rick. The fact is Type M has an impressive number of readers. We've had 3,095,477 views and last month alone 763,248. 

We are read!! We love to hear from you. 

New Directions

Catherine Dilts

It's finally feeling like summer. With the warmer weather, my attitude toward the writing and publishing life is warming up. I feel like I emerged from a cold, dry spell, although I have been writing constantly during this time.

So many authors seem to be going through small press woes. The trials and tribulations of losing small presses are hitting hard. Agents and editors retire. The market is flooded. Competition for the decreasing number of slots with the big publishing houses is stiff.

Along with many other traditionally published authors, I'm exploring self-publishing options. My first experiment is with my co-author and daughter, Merida Bass. We just released book one of a YA science fiction series. Written under the pen name Ann Belice, Frayed Dreams begins the Tapestry Tales series.

Merida's enthusiasm has given me a boost. She's also an artist. The image is of Ando the squirrel monkey perched on top of a Teens For Earth badge. She created the book cover, too. 

I did some research on self-publishing, and learned that many authors are paying large sums to have their work edited, put into the proper publishing formats, given ISBN numbers, having covers created, and on and on. The folks offering this assistance are called hybrid publishers. An article on Reedsy stated that the cost of self-publishing a book can be as much as $10,000. Or more.

There's nothing wrong with this, if you have the money to pay for services, and the understanding that you may not recoup your expenses. But we decided if we're self-pubbing, we're paying for as little as possible. Yes, the learning curve was intimidating. I might not have attempted it if my daughter didn't have the tech savvy and desire to do most of that side of it herself.

I haven't abandoned traditional publishing. I will have exciting news to announce about a short story sale, after I have the signed contract in hand. And I might consider traditional book publishing again.

Honestly though, I'm ready to see what I can do in this new world of publishing. Having complete control over my novels is appealing. With that control, will my access to market or my sales suffer? We'll see. 

I'm optimistic about new directions. 

Never Hurt a Dog

 by Thomas Kies

My wife has one rule for when I write.  I can kill as many people as I want in any gruesome way my imagination can conjure up. 

“Yes,” she said, “but you can never, ever hurt a dog.”

“But, sweetheart, it’s a wonderful way to show how despicable a villain can be.  Remember the first episode of House of Cards, when Kevin Spacey’s character, Frank Underwood, cradled a dog that he found in the middle of street after it was hit by a car?  We thought he’d comfort the poor pooch until help arrived.  But then, just when you least expected it, he snapped the dog’s neck with cold resolve, without an ounce of regret.  We knew right then and there, he was truly a bad guy.”

“That was disturbing,” she responded, closing her eyes as if trying to erase the memory.

Then I said, “And how about the John Wick series of movies?”

“What about it?”

“They all started when John Wick, content to retire from his life as an assassin, goes on a murderous rampage of vengeance when the son of a mobster kills his dog.  Without that, the entire franchise would never have gotten its start.”

She put her hands on her hips and sneered, “You know I’ve never seen one of those movies.  Much too violent. And now that you told me about the dog, those movies are dead to me.”

Why is it such an emotional no-no in fiction?  I think it’s because dogs represent unconditional loyalty and love.  Canines are dependent on humans and offer simple, pure, and predictable relationships. We think of them as both protectors and furballs that we need to protect. 

I’ve read that on a human scale; dogs have an intelligence level to toddlers.  They love to play, and they cuddle, and they have those sad eyes when they’re begging for a treat. Only the worst kind of villain can hurt a dog. 

This subject came up in discussion a few years ago at a mystery conference in Scottsdale, Arizona where Ian Rankin was the keynote speaker. He had never hurt a dog in any of his wonderful books, but there was one instance where a cat was murdered. 

He chuckled and said in his soft Scottish burr, “I never heard the end of it. People were genuinely pissed. You know I’ll never do that again.”

If anyone is in doubt as to the emotions that can be dredged up, I recall crying my eyes out when I read Old Yeller and then, like a true masochist, saw the movie.  They both end the same way.  Absolutely heartbreaking. 

So, in my mysteries, I’ve hacked up people with a samurai sword, buried them in a shallow grave in the woods, drowned victims by chaining them to the prongs of a giant forklift and dropping them into icy water, shot them, blew them up in fiery explosions, and suffocated them. 

My wife laughs that my imagination is such that she sleeps with one eye open.  But because I will always abide by that one rule, we will continue to stay married.  Never hurt a dog.  

By the way, the pup in the picture above is our girl, Annie.  She’s a sucker for tummy rubs. 

The Night I Cried Because The World Was Going To End

I was in elementary school during the height of the Cold War. My dad was in the Army Reserves and worked as a chemist at White Sands Missile Range. He'd bring home pamphlets about how to survive a nuclear attack and the aftermath of radioactive fallout. These pubs reinforced public service announcements I'd seen on TV where anonymous cartoon characters would seek shelter in the event of an "emergency," which we all knew meant Armageddon. Being a young geek interested in the military, I could identify delivery systems in the world's arsenal of nuclear weapons at the time like the Hercules, Honest John, Davy Crockett, Redstone, Thor, Jupiter, Snark, Poseidon, B-47, B-52, British Vulcan (the MacGuffin in 007's Thunderball), French Mirage IV, Soviet Tu-95 Bear. Movies like Fail Safe, On the Beach, Dr. Strangelove weighed heavy on my mind. It didn't help my anxieties to read illustrated books about the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Did I fear WWIII? Hell, yes.

I was ten years old when I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by a loud siren. I knew that sound. It was the wail of the Civil Defense alarm and meant that atomic annihilation was imminent. Enemy missiles were on the way to destroy us. We were all going to die terrible deaths. I began to sob, gushing tears and snot. Why? Why?

After several frightful minutes, the wail faded and stopped. I waited for my parents to rush through the house and gather us kids, then take the family to a local Civil Defense shelter. I'd seen the yellow and black placards all over town but at the moment couldn't remember where any were. I expected to hear emergency vehicles, loud speakers advising the public what to do. And the commotion of people scrambling to safety. Chaos. Pandemonium.

Nothing. Only silence. What was going on? If there was no nuclear war, why had that siren gone off?

I later discovered that the city had installed the siren on top of the local fire station to summon volunteer firefighters they couldn't reach by phone. Learning this, I became embarrassed by my previous crying jag--the joke was on me--ha, ha. But no one ever explained how was I supposed to tell the difference between an alarm calling for volunteers and one announcing world destruction.

 This visceral fear of nuclear war remains with me. The scariest scene of The Day After occurred during a serene afternoon when the ground started to tremble. In the near distance, smoke erupted from blast doors popping open, then ICBMs emerged atop pillars of fire and smoke to begin their journey to obliterate cities on the the side of the planet. And similar missiles were on the way here. Within a half hour, tens of millions were going to die.

What activated this memory were the recent videos of Israel and Iran volleying missiles back and forth. Smoky arcs from rockets tearing upward across a blue sky. More ominously, swarms of warheads streaking through night clouds like meteors. Missiles launched from the middle of neighborhoods. Other missiles impacting into those same neighborhoods. And as this was happening--against the background shriek of sirens and boom, boom, boom--people were outside, on balconies, bridges, during weddings, cocktail parties, chatting, arms up with cell phones, recording the mayhem like it was a fireworks show. The saving grace to this bizarre spectacle was that the missiles carried high-explosive payloads and not nuclear weapons. This time.

 

Somewhere Between Love & Pain

A "Boonie" Rooster in Guam.

Hello, Shelley here.

As you Type M readers may know, I often complain about technology, social media, AI, and the interwebs in general. But the thing is, sometimes I LOVE Google. 

It’s not that I think all internet is bad. Because sometimes it’s awesome. Truly awesome. 

How the Internet is Awesome

For instance, I’ve been on a tear lately finishing up my novella.

I’m having so much fun with this story, especially one particular scene setting. Coastal Maine town. A beautiful Queen Anne house overlooking the ocean. Night of the Strawberry Moon (June’s full summer moon, around the time of the solstice). In this scene(s) I get to write about a fancy party, preppy coastal grandma types, and NYC publishing types dressed in sharp black fashions. 

This is how it goes: Tap, tap, tap on the keys. Scene playing behind my eyes as I’m writing. Oops, what’s that? I get an image. I want to verify said image, so I click open another tab on the laptop and open a search and type in my topic. 

Voila! 

(Do I skim the AI stuff at the top? Of course. Eyes can’t help it. But I always go to links listed below to verify because we know that AI bots hallucinate.)

I realized today that all these searches are fun and I should probably create some “socials” content to share with my readers. “See, readers, this is what writers do all day. They sit in their comfy pink-flamingo pajamas and look up things like how did the Kennedy family made its money after Prohibition and what exactly IS an Aubusson carpet, anyway?”

Here are some actual topics I’ve looked up the last two days:

Aubusson carpets, specifically do they make pink and blue ones? Sort of, but light browns and pinks might be more realistic. They are French. Good quality. I want some now. Sigh. 

Ceiling medallions. House of Antique Hardware. Egg & Dart style chosen for my scene. Not the fanciest, but sometimes it’s classier to show some restraint. It’s not Downton Abbey after all. 

Peonies, specifically companion planting. I HAVE peonies at my Maine house, but this is a fancy place on the coast that probably hired professional landscapers to pick the right mix of plants. Someone crushed a peony and left a short trail of petals across the lawn. Mentioned in the garden are sea roses, lavender, and fox gloves even though this is not a poison story. 

Kennedys. Did Joseph Kennedy really make money during Prohibition by bootlegging liquor? Probably not. So I mention it as a joke and then call out the truth that it’s just a myth. No need to get Kennedys mad at you when you are small, indie-pressed author. 

Mary Cassatt artwork. My sleuth’s client has a Cassatt hanging in her office. I wanted to know how much one might cost. I want one now. 

Six-over-six windows. I knew this but wanted to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Easy check. 

Florentine glass windows. Specifically, what can you see through them. Not much. Light and blurry movement I think will be okay. 

1920s office door with window. Very cool. I want one now. 

LBD for plump woman. Side character. Needed inspo for a “tiny” but realistic detail. 

Throw Up Emoji. Considered using this in a “text” in my manuscript but then realized it probably wouldn’t translate into formatting so why go there? I sorta want to go there. I might have to look up how to do it when I format this novella. 

If someone is knocked out with a head wound, what should you do? This is where I think the AI/Large Language Models are helpful. You can ask a question in regular language, not search optimized terms or whatever. But you have to go to the links to make sure the thing isn’t hallucinating. Also, I pretty much knew this, but again, wanted to make sure. 

Kodak Camera 1980s. I had one. I wanted to use it in my novella. I couldn’t remember what it was called. 

This is just a sampling. There’s more. Oh boy, there’s more. So here is my moment of gratitude for Google and the internet. I can’t even imagine how I would have written this without these quick references. Maybe I’d have had a set of encyclopedias? Or maybe my story would have been very different. Less exact. Maybe having all this info at our fingertips is changing the way stories are detailed? It might be interesting to look. I seem to recall that Stephen King used a lot of commercial brand names and such even in his early work. 

But what about Agatha Christie? (I just looked to make sure I was spelling her name right!) I think she probably looked up train time tables and things like that, but for setting details maybe she relied more on her powers of recall. 

Am I just getting a lazy brain? Hope you all have a good weekend. It’s my 33rd wedding anniversary today. We’ll be going out to dinner in Guam. Should be fun. 

—

Check out my latest PINK DANDELIONS newsletter with an essay on Romanticizing Your Life, which sounds way more Tik Toky than it is. It’s really some ideas for being in the moment and enjoying even the small, mundane parts of life because they are beautiful, or you can make them beautiful. Anyway, read the essay to get the whole gist.