Slow start

by Charlotte Hinger

My shiny New York began with the best of intentions then got off to a dismal start. A case of cellulitis landed me in the hospital for IV antibiotics. It was followed by a reaction to oral antibiotics that I overcame just in time to be plummetted into my usual seasonal allergies.

What allergies? In January? When there's no pollen? Yes indeed. There's a quickening among all the bushes and trees. Go outside and see for yourself. All the little twigs start growing tiny little buds. Actually, apart from my sinuses, it's quite exciting. It's an irrevocable promise that there will be a spring. All we have to do is wait out the winter.

What I do best, is lying around reading books and eating popcorn. But it's not a sustainable life plan, It leads to muscle and mental deterioration.

Today I took myself in hand, vowed to overcome my tendency toward sloth and got back on track. I slipped into my morning routine. I reread the mystery I'm working on and made some progress on the next chapter.

I had a problem. One of the characters--a child--was out of whack. He was saying things that didn't ring true. That's where had I left off before I got sick. I didn't have a single bright idea for fixing this when I sat down. But it came to me after I started writing.

I've been writing for a long time and I still can't explain the writing process. Words come. They always do. Sometimes I think the only part of my body that knows what to do next are my fingers. The brain has nothing to do with it. When the fingers start moving, whether it's pushing a pencil or hacking away at a computer, words come.

My health problem was minor and easily treated. I'm in awe of the writers who have triumphed over overwhelming physical and emotional setbacks.

Stephen King was hit by a car in 1999 and suffered horrible injuries. He had a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a severe head injury, a broken hip, and a totally shattered right leg. His millions of fans worried that he would never write again. He did. In fact he's published book after book since then.

Louise Penny did not believe she could ever write again after she lost her husband. In one of the afterwords of her first novel written after Michael's death, she had a moving account of how it happened. Her typewriter still sat on the table and she passed it every day. One day she simply typed Armande Gamache. She couldn't help herself. The next day she typed one more word. Another the next day. Then she began writing again in earnest.

We are writers! If you think you are not, the fact you read writing blogs tells me you are. So begin. Sit down and just do it. Trust your fingers.

The fingers know.

I'm struggling with organization

 By Steve Pease/Michael Chandos

   I am mainly a short story writer. I like the format of a 30-40 minute story and I like pulling the puzzle pieces together of plot, character and structure. Short stories (3500 to 6000 words) are concepts, metaphors. They can be stylish and can comment on life, like using Lilliput to comment on Government.

   I use many story-starters: a theme, a scene in my imagination, a title, a character, an observation. I've thought about how an airport boarding gate would look if we were boarding for a scheduled to Mars rather than to Chicago. Some of my stories have started with a daydreamed character "talking" to me.

   BTW   Those who dream during the day have an advantage over those who dream only at night.

   The writing might start with just a scene, maybe a page of notes, some internet images, or even a song lyric. Often, a working title suggests itself as the label for the story concept I'm chasing. The title may change later. Everything goes into an electronic folder and often a real one. I have stories that started with one title and a few pages, but then a better story concept developed from that early writing, so new text files under the new title go into the same folder, which now carries both titles. I  do research on Wikipedia and elsewhere on the web. I file technical reports, videos and artwork in the folders.

   I throw nothing away.

   Often, I have a market in mind. A themed anthology? Maybe this story is #5 in a story series. Sometimes, a story will be edited/rewritten to meet a specific Conference contest or anthology call, like Bouchercon. Most folders hold multiple versions of the same story. My latest published story, "Dinky Dau", was first written around the history of Vietnam War slang that I ran across during research about something else. I have written and rewritten that story a half dozen times over 5 or more years as I submitted it to various markets. I have all those different versions of the story. It improved, and it's now in "Mickey Finn #5".

   I want to rewrite and submit another existing story, "The Happy Ending", for Ellery Queen magazine.  I couldn't find the latest version! I know I rewrote the middle of the story last Fall and I knew I needed to go thru it one more time before mailing it to EQ. I couldn't find that Fall 24 version anywhere. I hadn't followed my own rules on folderizing everything. Versions of the text were spread over two computers, some saved under non-writing labels!

   I had to go to an email from last Fall when I sent the story to an anthology call. The Fall 24 story was attached. I wasted time and raised my anxiety unnecessarily. I need to organize better.

   The base element to good writer organization, for me anyway, is saving with a meaningful file name. I have hundreds of images, maybe thousands, with non-sense numerical file names as downloaded from a source. I have versions of a story saved just under the title, ie Hamlet, but I needed something better, like Hamlet 2023 EQ. I have stories with all attribution removed for award consideration. There's no reason to do that task twice.

   I'm going thru gigabytes of data on my writing hard drive creating better file names and folderizing the result. Yes, there are Many folders on my hard drive, so the folder names are short but descriptive too. Confusing file names get changed if they don't work. Discipline.

   I'm finding things I didn't remember I had. Sometimes my writing mind is intrigued. I make a side note to go back later.

The Magic Character

 I'm within a gnat's whisker of finishing the new book and am in the process of making a few changes as per my writing group's suggestions. My original plan was to have the book completely finished by last August.

Oh, foolish woman.

Once I got into the rewrites, I realized that it isn't quite that easy. As I was pondering ways to expand one character's part and add a bit more legerdemain and misdirection, it came to me in one of those lightning strikes authors are so familiar with that if I add an extra character I'll be able to kill all my birds with one stone. In fact, the new character is tying up threads and making story connections that I  hadn't even considered before she came on scene.

It's interesting to see how her very presence affects the tale, just as the sudden insertion of a real person into a group changes its entire chemistry and dynamic. Adding a new character into a book that is to all intents and proposes finished gives the writer a jolt of energy right at the end of the process that is unusual, for the normal feeling for an author (at least this author) has as the end seems to get farther and farther away is a combination of weariness, loss of perspective, and and inability to let it go even though it's really done.

I don't expect that I'll have to make huge additions or alterations in order to accommodate the new woman, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to take some time. I foresee a couple of new scenes, at least one major rewrite of an existing scene, and a careful re-read to make sure she's mentioned wherever she needs to be mentioned. You have to be careful not to overdo it if you're going to try something like this. It's amazing how little it takes to make big changes.

This is not the first time I've gone back and added a character after the manuscript is almost finished. Whenever I've done such a thing, it's been as though the character was on the sidelines the whole time, like a relief quarterback, just waiting to jump into the game and throw the winning pass. For one of my earlier book, The Sky Took Him, it was Ike the cat. I don't know how he did it, but that cat dies the action together with a big red bow. He was a magic character. I can only hope my new gal has the same juju.

p.s. sometimes you have to take a character out. But that's a whole other entry.

You Have the Time

Catherine Dilts

One hour. My co-author informed me her window of opportunity was constrained that day by being the Mom Taxi. We could skip our writing session. Or try to accomplish something in sixty minutes.

My co-author is my daughter. Last year we embarked on a writing project that was successful, despite our busy schedules. We’re working on a new project right now that we’re both wildly enthusiastic about.

If only we had the proper amount of time to work on it.

Working with my daughter required experimentation to hit the right methodology. We write using shared files, and talk over the phone, at least 90% of the time. Just as working the former day job from home trimmed off get-ready-to-face-the-world time, plus the commute to the office, co-writing via the ether saves a lot of time.

One hour. Even having trimmed off travel to meet in person, that’s still a slim quantity of time.

Becoming a multi-published author while working a fulltime job required workaholic energy. I’ve recently retired, so my expectation was that limitless time would mean even more output. Life gets in the way, in the same manner that the day job used to put hedges around my day.

Why sweat it? Unless you're working under contract, you can take all the time in the world to write your story. Writing fiction can be a strictly creative endeavor. You can write for the love of the wordplay. You can take years to craft the perfect tale. 

I came from a manufacturing environment, and my daughter from the academic world. We’re both accustomed to deadlines. For me, writing is only part creative whimsy. The other part is publication. Getting the story into the hands of readers. Hopefully including the reward of a paycheck. At some point, the product needs to be shipped, and the grades reported.

I do have a book of the heart that will not be quick to complete to my satisfaction. I sometimes spend a crazy amount of time on short stories. But other work needs to happen at a fast pace. Get it done.

Lately, my daughter and I have realized that an amazing amount of work can be accomplished in just one hour. With the clock ticking off the precious minutes, we tear into the task at hand. We get a plot roughed out and an outline half completed.

Here are two suggestions to enable you to get 'er done:

One: Do an on-line search for “write a novel in a year” and you’ll find dozens of helpful articles. Just saying “I will write a novel this year” will doom you to failure. You need to set word counts and deadlines. “I will write a page a day.” That’s approximately 250 words. 365 pages in a year. A novel.

Two: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) pushes writers to complete 50,000 words in a month. I’ve done this. It’s grueling. The end result is a terrible rough draft. But it’s the rough draft of a novel. Material that can be refined, expanded, trimmed, edited, and tamed into something terrific.

“I don’t have time to write a novel” doesn’t fly with me. If you really want to do it, you will find a way. Or not. There are plenty of other ways to spend your time on this earth. Maybe writing’s not it.

If you do have a story aching to be told, get after it. Nobody’s going to write it for you. Devise a plan. Set quantifiable goals. Hold yourself to your own interior deadlines while you strive for the exterior deadline of publishing contracts and timelines.

You can get it done. One hour at a time. One hour is enough.

(If you have a hard time ignoring life’s distractions while you attempt to write, check out Sunday’s article by Thomas Kies.)

Shutting Out the Distractions

 By Thomas Kies

I live on the coast of North Carolina.  I’ve been here for nearly twenty years and in all that time, I might have seen snow twice and then it was just a dusting. Here one moment, melted into oblivion the next.  But this past week, we got seven inches of the white stuff, and the temps have been below freezing so it hasn’t gone anywhere.

I grew up in Upstate New York, so I know snow.  I even miss it from time to time.  When it started coming down this week, it was late evening and I went for a walk along our quiet lane, watching it fall, feeling it on my face and hands.  I literally luxuriated in it.

Bu then, as I recalled from my youth, the next day it turns to ice.  Driving and even walking become treacherous.  The longer it sticks around, the grayer and dirtier it gets.

What did I write while the snow was outside my window? How much of my next novel did I complete?  Nothing.  Nada.  I was distracted. 

That coupled with the political climate and ensuing chaos….well, any attempt at fiction was a bust this week.

How do you overcome distractions?  Here are a few suggestions. 

Have a place of your own that is conducive to creativity.  It’s your space to write.  It might be your office, a corner of your kitchen, or a table at the coffee shop.  For me, I have a man cave over the garage.  My desk is here, the lighting is good, and it’s quiet.  

Do you have a writing routine?  It helps to set aside a certain time of day….or night…that you can take the time to write.  I know some writers who get up early to write before they go off to their day job.  I know some writers who stay up late and hit their laptops until the wee hours of the morning.  For me, mid-afternoon is the sweet spot.

The biggest distraction?  The internet.  Notifications that chime when they come across my phone.  Emails that can’t wait, social media posts, or headlines from the multitude of websites demanding my attention---all of it sucking time. IGNORE IT!!!  Click bait is just that.  It’s created to attract eyeballs and eat your time.  

Writing a novel is daunting.  It’s huge.  Break that sucker down into manageable pieces.  For me, I think about the book in scenes or chapters.  I try not to view it as a big project but a lot of smaller projects. 

Need to take a break?  Get some exercise.  Take a walk, lift some weights, take a cruise on your bike.  Not only is it good for you, but it pumps that blood into your brain where you need it the most. 

There are so many distractions that can take you away from your writing.  Putting your words on paper is hard.  Finishing an article or column or…a book…is really difficult.  You have to have your own strategy to put you into that mindset and push out the rest of the world.  It might be meditation.  It might be a few minutes petting the dog while you have a cup of coffee.  It might be taking a stroll around the block.  Whatever it takes, do it. Writing is like being an athlete.  The more you practice, the better you are at your sport.  The more you write, the better you are at your craft. 

The rest of the world is working hard to get your attention.  You have to work even harder to keep you focus. 

What do YOU do to shut the rest of the world out and focus on your writing?

My New Dog - Seven Years in a Cage

 My dog Scout, a fourteen-year-old Shiba Inu, seemed as though he was getting close to the end. Severe bronchitis, treated with steroids that caused digestive issues while stoking his appetite, made him gain a lot of weight, which aggravated his arthritic hips. Poor guy could barely walk in between his coughing fits. The impending grief of losing such a dear companion prompted my girlfriend to look for a second dog. She wanted another Shiba Inu, which she found through a dog rescue agency. Shibas are amazing dogs and it made me wonder who would get such a creature and then put it up for adoption? Or to any dog, actually.

 

So we found our new pooch, a cream Shiba Inu with the very un-dog name of Dirk. Though fully grown and physically healthy looking, he's got significant developmental issues. Easily frightened, any loud noise or sudden movement will make him shy away. Being outside really spooks him. Going for walks, which dogs should love, is a challenge.

He's the product of a puppy mill and the neglect he suffered makes me tear up thinking about it. He was kept caged for seven years, and once separated from his mother, never had a chance to play with others, in effect, learn how to be a dog. What he wanted was affection and no one gave it to him. 

We've had Dirk now for almost a month. In his youth, Scout was fiercely territorial, and he's mellowed some, enough for him and Dirk to get along. They haven't yet bonded but do pal around a bit, and we think that's why Scout's health has improved. Though he still can't jump, letting Dirk claim the sofa. 

What does this dog story have to do with Type M for Murder?

To show how childhood can indelibly affect your life.

I recently finished Truman Capote's masterpiece of crime nonfiction, In Cold Blood. He leads us through the details of a horrific mass-murder, which at the time, shocked the country. Sadly, since then, the body count of that slaughter has been eclipsed several times. The book laid out that what drove these perpetrators, like others who've committed similar heinous acts, didn't suddenly happen. The two killers were products of much childhood abuse, which they internalized and then expressed in acts of rising threats and violence until they were able to frame the murders as justified given their objective: getting rid of witnesses to cover up a robbery.

But such reactions to childhood trauma are not universal. I know people who reacted to abuse and domestic violence by going the other way, striving to be wholesome, sane, and kind. 

Not all crime stories need be dense examinations of human psychology but understanding human nature helps write more compelling villains...and heroes.

 

Scout and Dirk.

Tik Tok, Facebook, and the Intersection of Social Media and Book Marketing

This is an excerpt from a longer post on ShelleyBurbank.com published Jan. 24, 2025. I'm currently living on the island of Guam with my husband. We've been apartment-hunting and trying out local cuisine. Writing fiction has taken a back seat, but hopefully we'll get settled soon. Meanwhile . . .

The recent TikTok ban (then the non-ban) provoked much discussion and downright angst in other corners of the literary world, but I have to wonder why it came as such a surprise to some people? For as long as I've been learning about platform-building, the smart people in the room gave the same advice: Don't count on social media platforms entirely because you never know when they might fail, change, or become unusable. Build your own website and gather an email list.

I remember feeling frustrated every time I read that advice because everyone knew that nobody read blogs anymore, and getting people to sign up for a newsletter was so much harder than getting them to click that "follow" button. Why should I waste so much energy when Twitter was obviously the way to go?

And then there was BookTok, which took some backlist titles and blew them up into mega best-sellers and made huge names of some authors and created new genres, most notably, Romantasy. Good for them, I thought. It's tempting to follow suit, but do I need to jump on every trend? MUST I go on Tik Tok in order to give my books a chance?

Nope and nope. I just didn't want to go there, and I already hated Twitter, though I had an account as a kind of place-holder.

Now I'm glad I didn't waste my time and energy on either Twitter or Tik Tok. I used the X switch as an excuse to delete my barely breathing Twitter account, and I stuck to Meta products Facebook and Instagram for the past few years. Still, I had this constant feeling of irritation about the whole notion of being obliged to use social media just to reach readers. It felt performative. Maybe a little desperate. And crowded.

I liked the old Facebook. Friends and family sharing photos and recipes and funny little daily things. Then they changed the algorithm, making it increasingly less likely that I'd see the personal posts while throwing paid posts and advertising in my face along with weird meme accounts and bot-run accounts and anything inflammatory that kept eyeballs on the screen.

Recently, I ran into some horrendous, misogynistic rant pits, dumping on women's abilities and basically saying they had one, and only one reason for being alive on this planet, and I thought, This is so not where I want to spend my time.

Still, Facebook had its uses. The one time I ran a Facebook ad, my book sales did increase. Instagram helped me find reviewers who wrote lovely posts about my two mystery novels. Unfortunately, these socials are fraught, once again, with politics, and I'm ready to exit this highway to nowhere.

Plus I think it's ruined a generation of young minds and our collective society.

There. I said it. Without social media, all the Big Crazy (what I call the monster we've collectively created) would have no place to spew its venom, to spread its lies, to stew in its own acidic juices while somehow getting meaner and stronger for it, ruining any hope of factual and polite public discourse again.

I hope they all fail.

Do I feel any empathy for the influencers and creatives and artists and crafters who use social media to make money? Yes, actually. I do. It was a cool new way to make a gig income, or even a full-blown massive one, but can you say we weren't warned? Were we just hoping against hope nothing would change? Ever?

The thing about our current tech-driven life is that change happens faster and faster. What's in one year is out the next. It's not like social media arrived in a vacuum. It disrupted older industries. People used to make money writing for magazines and newspapers. Remember those? The quaint things that arrived in the mail and had a crisp turning sound when you went to the next page?

Print media began a slow decline and then took a big tumble as social media gained traction. In fact, I had just broken into the paying confession magazine market (with a 98-year history, btw), when the confessions suddenly folded and were gone. My very new source of writing income evaporated after I sold only four stories to them. Did anyone weep for me? For the other short story writers who used to make a good, steady income selling to that market?

It wasn't just writers, either. Other people once made money buying and selling ads in those publications. Others earned salaries editing, copy-editing, proofreading, typesetting, and printing them. Stores sold them. Every newspaper that died or cut way back, every magazine that disappeared, represented loss of income for creators and production people and retailers.

So, I have to ask myself, did influencers and BookTok celebs mourn for all of those people who lost their livelihoods when the new platforms left print in the dust? Did they even spare those people a thought?

I doubt it.

_________

For more like this, go to ShelleyBurbank.com  Remember to subscribe to my 1 x per month, free author newsletter where I opine about creativity, living your best life, goal-setting, books, literary life and more. Check out PINK DANDELIONS at https://shelleyburbank.substack.com/

Angel City Beat

 by Sybil Johnson

As many of you know I live in the Los Angeles area. We’ve been in the news lately because of the horrendous fires that have devastated parts of the area, Altadena and Pacific Palisade in particular. We live far enough away from these fires that it hasn’t been an issue for us. The only problem we had was one or two days of smoke in the air as it came down the coast. Then the winds changed and the air cleared for us. As I write this, the fires are slowly being contained, but they’re still going on. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost a home or family members in the fires.

It’s nice to be able to share some good news. My story, “Fatal Return,” is now out in Angel City Beat, a Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles anthology. Barb Goffman edited the anthology. She was really great to work with and helped me make the story better.

I’ve had other short stories published before, all online. This is the first one that’s been part of an anthology. Very excited about it.

My story takes place in a library so I had fun with the names I chose for the characters. I looked up the names of Library of Congress librarians and famous people who had some connection with libraries. Then I mixed and matched first and last names, added a few other names and it was done. Quite fun to name characters with a theme like that.

Here are the anthology details:

The City of Angels has a dark side. Hidden beneath its shiny surface are misdeeds, miscreants, and murderers. From Santa Monica’s sandy beaches to Hollywood’s glitzy streets, from Boyle Heights to Holmby Hills to the dirt trails of the San Gabriel Mountains, there are so many tales to tell. So many people on the beat. The police detectives seeking justice. The reporters seeking truth. Writers who build beats into their movies and TV shows. And people who choose violence to beat others and come out on top. Angel City Beat is an anthology of stories that show life behind the plastic smiles of the rich and famous, the desperate pleas of the overlooked, and the promises of dreams forgotten. Angel City Beat is the beat of a city told by those who love her.

Stories by: Gail Alexander, Paula Bernstein, Anne-Marie Campbell, Jenny Carless, Ken Funsten, CFA, Daryl Wood Gerber, Sybil Johnson, Norman Klein, Amy Kluck, Melinda Loomis, Kate Mooney, Nancy Cole Silverman, Meredith Taylor, and Jacquie Wilver 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/AmAngelCity 

BN: https://tinyurl.com/BNAngelCity 

Kobo: https://tinyurl.com/KoboAngelCity 

I’ll be participating in some events around the L.A. area. I’ll have info about that as the details are confirmed.

 

Lying

   by Steve Pease writing as Michael Chandos 

   When I was a working stage actor, and a poor film and radio actor - wait a minute - stage actors are poor too. I digress. When I was a stage actor, people asked if I was lying when on stage. I wasn't being me, I was pretending to be someone else, therefore, I was lying, they said. Writers face that too, I think.

   We can make up stuff for our stories, but it better be the truth!

   There's a saying in acting: "Acting is telling the truth under imaginary circumstances".  As Cassie Greer said in her blog "...this is the theater, where we go to have an experience and to be moved. And, unless we, the actors, tell the truth, there's no way you, the audience, will be able to experience this story at all". Substitute literature for theater, writers for actors and readers for audience, and you'll see my point.

   Not all writers agree. Arthur Conan Doyle was scrupulous with facts and history in his historical novels like "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel". He wanted to mimic the heroic tales his mother used to tell at night when dad was out drinking all the family money away. He did research on historical places and people. He filled his sketchbooks with ink drawings of armor, horses, castles and medieval village life, and carefully annotated the correct term for everything. He copied medieval language styles, antique wording and old romantic tales. It made his histories tough to read sometimes, but they were "authentic", in his opinion. His Sherlock stories were "fantasies," and truth and accuracy weren't so important. Was he lying?

   The author Chris Bohjalian wrote "Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine...and then make them plausible." Dan Brown follows this maxim in "The Da Vinci Code." Harry Potter is imaginary. Is S.J. Rowling lying?  That's not the point.

   These writers took amazing stories and made them seem Real to the reader. Use imagination, spin a tale, write about places you've never been and people doing things you've never done. Great. But you MUST tell the story like it's the truth. Characters must be consistent. If your detective crawls out of the river after fighting the murderer, he will be wet until your story allows him to dry. And that will affect the events in the story. Chekhov said if you write a rifle on the wall of the house, sooner or later you have to hear it go bang. (He almost said it that way)

   Writing it Real will help the reader believe your story. When the Hero is in a life-threatening bind, they will feel the terror. And the happy ending will be happy for them too.

Launch preparations

 Here I am again, a little late and a few words short. I have been very busy juggling a few different balls, always mindful that I need to do four dog walks a day, cook, eat, and sleep. But my twelfth Inspector Green novel, SHIPWRECKED SOULS, is due to be released Tuesday January 21 and I have two launches planned -- one in Toronto and one in Ottawa. I wish I could go farther afield and celebrate its release in other major cities but an author's finances can only stretch so far!

A lot goes into a launch party, from choosing the venue, date and time, arranging for the bookseller and the venue, deciding on the format, designing promo materials like posters, and finally, spreading the word so that people actually come.

Below are the posters for both events. I am fortunate that my publisher does the poster designs, much better than I ever could.

Choosing the Toronto venue has always been easy; Toronto has a wonderful independent mystery bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street, which is always supportive of Canadian crime writers and hosts many signings and launches. These are informal, friendly affairs. I usually provide some drinks and sweets, chat with attendees, many of whom are old friends, chat about the book and do a reading or two.

Choosing the Ottawa venue is more challenging. Because Ottawa is my hometown, I invite more people and like to have a bigger venue than my favourite bookstores can provide. I also tend to make it more of a party. Before the pandemic, I used to book a room or section in a local pub. When the pandemic hit, my launches were relegated to Zoom, which allowed me to reach many more people but lacked the feeling of connection. I'm thrilled now to be back in a pub and looking forward to making it a big party. Irene's Pub in Ottawa is well known in artistic and musical circles and provides a lively, informal venue. For this launch, I will be providing some food platters at my expense, as well as a cash bar and full pub menu. A friend's band is going to provide soft, background jazz to enhance the mood. This is shaping up to be a great party! Here's the invite.

Next, inviting the guests. Besides posting the two invites on my public Facebook and Instagram pages, I use two main sources of potential attendees -- my Facebook friends list and my Contacts list on my computer. Facebook has a very handy, easy-to-use program for designing and sending out the invitations. On the Events tab in the sidebar, choose "Create a new event", and follow the instructions. It allows you to choose which friends to invite to the event, and rather than bothering everyone with the invite, I go through the friends list and choose those from the appropriate city. I miss some, of course, because I don't always know where they live, but I like ensuring I only pick people who might be interested. The invites are delivered not to that person's feed but to their Facebook Messenger. Again, not as intrusive.

Besides this approach, I also write an email describing the event, including the poster, and inviting people to come. I go through my Contacts list to email it out using the BCC feature. Some of these will likely end up in spam filters, which can't be helped.

As part of the preparation for the release, I also updated my website with the events listed, the first chapter of the new book, and other details. I am also going to post on a few blogs, and as part of this I learned one interesting new thing. The Universal Book Link. I had no idea such a thing existed, but Books2read.com creates a universal link where all the links to the book on different sales outlets are collected under this single link. Following the instructions, I set one up for SHIPWRECKED SOULS,  and although it's a work in progress as I am still searching for links to add, this one link will provide the purchaser with a choice of bookstores where the book is available. To illustrate, here's the link I set up. https://books2read.com/u/4Xx0W7

Now I hope everything is in place and all that is needed is for people to come! 

Inspiration from the Past

Catherine Dilts

I never thought I’d write historical fiction, until a story dropped into my lap. A whole trunk full of stories. I had to start somewhere, so I picked one. And this story is a doozie.

Going through the piles of photos, newspaper clippings, letters, and journals my mother left me, I discovered an irresistible true tale. My great-aunt Mildred was in a bank robbery.

If you knew Aunt Millie the way we did, you might briefly suspect she’d participated. She was a sassy gal. A real firecracker. Not that I actually expected her to engage in criminal activity. But it wouldn’t have shocked me much if she’d been on the periphery of something sketchy.

She was, however, an innocent bystander. In 1932, at the tender age of twenty-five, Mildred Berry was working in a South Dakota bank when armed men entered to rob the place. Someone in the family had clipped newspaper articles and tucked them away, for me to find over 90 years later. My mother hadn’t been born yet. This seemed so ancient, and yet so immediate.

One article stopped abruptly. Someone either didn’t clip the rest of the article, or the other half had been lost over the decades.

I had this pile of very interesting material. Interesting to me, at least. What was I going to do with it? I couldn’t bear the thought of this stuff moldering away for another generation. Maybe becoming permanently lost to decay or indifference.

First, I verified the clippings by checking my great-grandfather’s journal entry for the date of the robbery. He wrote briefly about his daughter’s terrifying experience.

Second, I fortuitously ran across a Facebook page for the small town where the robbery took place. Oh, no! The bank was being torn down! I watched the progress of the demolition in horror. Not that well-built over a hundred years ago, I suspect, it was crumbling and unsalvageable. At least I had the before images, and found other photos of the bank when it was fully intact.

Third, I messaged the town’s Facebook page, and learned where to find archived newspapers for the more complete story about the robbery. I was amazed these prairie newspapers had been lovingly preserved digitally, and there are people who can look up specific info for you, for a modest fee. I soon had several articles, plus the just conclusion for the ruffians.

Fourth, now I was in knee deep, and wading further. I dove into research, learning about Model As and bank vaults, and reading great-grandfather’s memoir/history. I tried writing Millie’s story. Being a fiction writer, I struggled for a bit, until I decided I didn’t need to stick to the plain facts. So I embellished, adding a plotline that has no connection to reality. Millie’s story, but fictionalized.

I’m still working on the short story. My critique partner won’t see it for another month or two. And I’m not sure where to send it for potential publication when I’m finished. At this point, I don’t care much about the end result. This is a story I had to tell. For Aunt Millie.

Welcoming the Unexpected

Journal Collage Cover

By Shelley Burbank

One of the best parts of coming to the last page of a journal is starting the first page of a new one. No, it’s what comes before that. It’s picking out a new journal with a beautiful cover or, in my case, creating a collage cover that will inspire me over the course of filling the pages. I use no set dates. I start when I start. I write when I feel like it. I stop when I get to the last page, even if it’s a random day in February. 

Soft, leather books with wraparound ties. Pretty floral designs with gold-embossed letters spelling “Journal” and/or the year. Plain, black moleskine notebooks. Marble or other decorated composition books. I’ve tried all of these, but my preference now is to buy a spiral bound, college-ruled notebook with cardboard covers and make my own design from magazine cutouts, bits of pretty papers (even cocktail napkins), ephemera like ticket stubs or postcards, and even ribbons or buttons.  

This year I completed my last journal not long after Christmas. This wasn’t planned, but that meant I could create a new journal right at the new year, coinciding not only with my 57th birthday but also with a huge, life-changing move halfway around the world to Guam, a tiny speck in the Pacific barely 36 miles long and 12 miles wide.  

I’d been approaching this big move with a great deal of trepidation. Not only that, I’d become disenchanted with the whole publishing/marketing/PR side of my writing life, especially the social media aspect, at the same time. Here I was with some book projects started and stalled, another project planned, and feeling meh about the entire industry and unsure how to attract new readers and keep my writing career moving forward. A downward spiral seemed imminent. 

But I had a journal collage to create. 

Feeling cranky and uninspired, I gathered some magazines around me, grabbed my scissors and a gluestick, and tried to relax so that my subconscious could do its work.

At first, I couldn’t find anything I wanted to use for my collage. I cut out a few things, pushed them around into different configurations, testing the design. Nothing felt right, but then an advertisement with a clear blue-green background and butterflies caught my attention. I cut out a big chunk and laid it on the journal cover as a potential background layer. My mood lifted. That color felt like tropical beaches, far-off coastal skies, and luxury. It felt like something I could work with. Something appropriate to my adventures ahead.

Once I had the color, more images popped out for me. A dragonfly in golden brown hues. A ripped bit of cocktail napkin from a pack my friend gifted to me last summer. A turtle. A caftan. Sunglasses. 

Aha! My inner self knew I needed a different, positive approach to this move. Lean into it, my muse whispered. I cut out a starfish and a postcard and, most important, I spotted a writing prompt in Magnolia magazine reading: How can you approach each day open to the unexpected?

THIS, I thought, heart lifting. This is the attitude I needed moving forward. Openess to the new, the strange, the unfamiliar, the unexpected. 

Sure enough, not long after completing my journal collage and writing a few entries, a new story idea popped into my head, and I quickly wrote in the journal as the narrative formed. A character swam up from the depths. Who was she? What was her story? Why does she decide to go to . . . Guam?  

Everyone who said to me, “Well, this adventure should inspire some new writing,” had been right! 

I now plan on writing a series of stories set in Guam featuring my new character, a woman my age but not my circumstances (although she is a writer!) who decides to sell her home and move to that tiny speck in the Pacific. She (I don’t know her name yet. Katrina? Lindsay? Lynnie? Brooke? Marley? Tatum?) found a mysterious postcard from Guam addressed to her now-deceased mother, sent in 1973 from a man my character’s never heard of. Part of her journey will be discovering what this man mean to her mom, but really the postcard just gave her an idea of where to go when she needs a new start. 

Using long short stories, or novellas, I’ll be able to share my Guam experiences with my friends, family, and readers. How and where I’ll share them remains to be figured out, but I’m happy to be feeling creative again. In the end, I want my life to be about creativity and books and writing. 

Living your own “good life” is an art. I encourage you, my friends and readers, to be creative in your actual daily living. Find the things that make you happy and incorporate them into your life as much as possible. Be aware of the passing of your days. Make each day meaningful in little ways with your own rituals. Be deliberate in your choice of meals, music, books, collections, furnishings, and daily tasks.

How can YOU welcome the unexpected as we head into 2025?

My Year in Books, 2024

 by Sybil Johnson

Happy New Year! Sorry I missed my last posting date. I was in Seattle for Christmas and, well, was too lazy/busy to put something together before I left.

It’s time for my annual reading wrap-up. January to December, just to make it clear. I say this because I participated in shepherd.com’s My 3 Favorite Reads 2024. Their year runs from end of September 2023 to October 2024. More on that later.

I saw a post online where someone wondered why people keep track of what and how many books they read. I started keeping track because I was curious about how many I actually read in a year. Plus it’s also a nice reference so I know if I already read a book. I also like to share the highlights of my reading because it’s a way of bringing attention to books that I think others would enjoy. With all of the books out there, it’s hard to get noticed sometimes. I also know what I’ve read so I can participate in things like Shepherd’s My 3 Favorite Reads that I mentioned above.

Let’s start with Shepherd’s. Those books were:

1. Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge
2. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
3. The General’s Gold by LynDee Walker and Bruce Robert Coffin 

I won’t go into details here. You can read my comments at https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/sybil-johnson

Number of books I “consumed” (audio plus print/ebook) in 2024: 105. Last year it was 68 so I guess I found more time to read. Around 30% non-fiction, 65% crime (middle-grade books, cozies, historicals, thrillers and traditional). The other 5% were science fiction/fantasy and audio

I don’t usually set a reading goal for the year, but last year I decided to try for 100 books in 2024. Yep, made that one. Not going to set a goal for 2025.

Cozy/traditional highlights: 

1. Ill-fated Fortune by Jennifer J. Chow 
2. Besides the Phyllida Bright mysteries, which includes Murder at Mallowan Hall, I also enjoyed the first book in Colleen Cambridge’s An American in Paris series. Check both of the series out. 
3. A Sprinkling of Murder by Daryl Wood Gerber. This series includes a fairy as a sidekick. Very clever and fun read.

Non-fiction highlights:

1. Neither Snow Nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service by Devin Leonard. I picked this one up at the Postal Museum in D.C., a really great museum with a wonderful free tour. It was a fascinating book. I highly recommend it.
2. Disney’s Land by Richard Snow. I enjoyed this history of Disneyland since it’s one of my favorite places to spend time at.
3. The President and the Assassin by Scott Miller. The president is McKinley. I knew little about him until I read this book. Very interesting.

Historical Mystery highlights:

1. The Redmond and Haze mysteries by Irina Shapiro. I continue to enjoy these.
2. The Isolated Séance by Jeri Westerson. Thoroughly enjoyed this new series from Jeri.

Audio highlights:

• A Christmas Carl by Dickens and Gaspard, narrated by Jim Cunningham. No, I didn’t make a mistake in my typing. This is part of Gaspard’s Greyhound Classics series where he takes a classic book and inserts Carl, a greyhound, into the story. Delightful. Nicely narrated.

That’s my reading summary. There were a lot of other good books I read over the year. These are just the highlights. 

 How was your reading year? Anything you particularly liked that you want to give a shout out to?

My First Type M Blog

 Good Grief. I came across my first post for Type M and can't resist reposting it. Next time I'll tell you how much has changed about publishing. And how much things have stayed the same.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Blog Heaven

I’ve died and gone to blog heaven, of course. When the gracious, talented Donis Casey invited to become a regular contributor, naturally my first instinct was to mumble “who, me?” I’m deeply honored! Not only is Type M for Murder my favorite mystery blog, during the past two years I’ve met some of the wonderful persons who keep this blog going. In fact, I’m now an honorary Canadian. This was decided in the bar after the Left Coast Crime Convention in Santa Fe.

Donis Casey came to my book launch at Poisoned Pen Press, which was a heady experience that gave me delusions of grandeur. Oh, if I could freeze these moments! They compensate for the panicky “can I do write another book?” paralysis that stuns our creativity. It’s rather overwhelming to have an award winner writer of Donis’s caliber in the audience. (A real writer)

Barbara Fradkin was my roommate at Left Coast Crime. She is one classy dame! She taught me a lot about dealing with adversity. Her flight was cancelled and she was rescheduled. She breezed in at 3:00 am and got up at six to go on the Taos tour, explaining that she was not going to let the plane snafu ruin her plans. Wow! Not a word of complaint. I bought her book, Once Upon a Time, and was awed by her ability to maintain the smooth pacing of a complex plot based on events evolving from World War II and war crime issues. Marvelous characterization.

Vicki Delany is one of the friendliest, nicest writers I know. I loved In The Shadow of the Glacier and bought Negative Image at Santa Fe. We shared a room at Malice Domestic last year. She tried to tell me Deadly Descent was a finalist for the AZ Book Publishers Award, and I hooted and jeered and patiently explained to her why that could not possibly be true. I won and have been trying to compensate for questioning her truthiness ever since. In short, I buy her drinks.

Now it’s true confession time. I have a weird half-life as a historian and do some academic work. Sort of like some drugs that keep working after you stop taking them. I’m an accidental academic without sterling credentials. Nevertheless, I'm a highly opinionated and relentless researcher and that counts for a lot. In fact, my first novel was not a mystery, but a historical novel, Come Spring, and it was published by Simon and Schuster.

In the meantime, I was publishing mystery short stories and loving every minute of it—so I added mystery novels to my writing mix. How is that working for me? Not very well. Too many editors and not enough time. Mysteries soon possessed my mind and soul. I love writing them. Who knew? So I’m polishing off my editors, one by one, and soon Poisoned Pen Press and my Lottie Albright series will be the last man standing.

For my next gig, I’ll tell more about the Lottie Albright series. Greek tragedies are alive and well, they’ve just switched their venue to the High Plains. I’m a native Kansan, with a flaming state loyalty, so it’s only natural that my historical novels, my academic work, and my mysteries should be set in this difficult state where conniving families with tattered pasts seethe with historical and contemporary tensions.

One place to get inspiration - Al Capone

     People often ask, “Where did you get the idea for this story?” They are often surprised by the answer: daydreams. Perhaps they expect my Muse to whisper to me as I sleep and dream. I am not Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet. My dreams are disappointing.      

     I can have a Star Wars level murder mystery working in my head, but my dreams, the ones I remember anyway, don’t contribute. My dreams are about crowded airline terminals, Atlanta for example. I am in a mad rush to the gate to find my gate has been changed to one that’s across the airport! I run thru thongs of people like it was the Rose Bowl and the band was still on the field. My huge and heavy suitcase pops open, I struggle to get it snapped! Then, somewhere deep in my skull, I remember I had this anxiety dream before, and I know it goes nowhere and contributes nothing, and I wake up to get out of it. Spit, pee, try to go back to sleep. Needless.

     Daydreams are different. Neil Gaiman said, “You get ideas from daydreaming…. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.” Anon said, “Daydreamers have the advantage over those who dream only at night.”

     I imagine scenes, full of color and human activity. I “listen” to characters talk. I put characters in the scene and give them a problem, a threat, a mission, rewards. Then I daydream about what they do. 

     Titles take inspiration from the world in the story, and reality helps me twist them a bit. Plots come from what the characters decide to do.  Plots might be linked daydreams.

     Quotations can get me thinking. I collect them. They offer a new perspective on human events, they present truths, they play with reality, they illustrate moods. If they give me a mental buzz, perhaps there is a story in there someplace. They spark daydreams, and off we go!

     I am currently working on a story featuring my Denver PI, Sammy Lagune (the latest story is in Micky Finn 5). The plot is inspired by the famous Chicago mobster, Alphonse Capone.

     He said, “You’re either at the table or on the menu.”   Vicious, predatory, kill or be killed. Dangerous territory for Sammy, life-threatening. A threat to his Capitol Hill community too, out east on Colfax. Raymond Chandler described the perfect PI as a modern Knight protecting society. Sammy will hear the call to action and he won’t ignore it.

     Dream on, keep a notebook by your bed, next to where you write, maybe even with you all the time. Daydreams are ephemeral and they lose fidelity quickly. Jot down a few notes so you can revisit the daydream later. It will serve you well.

Steve Pease/Michael Chandos

Off To A Slow Start

 

I'm very late posting today, which is not the greatest way to start the New Year, but it is a way. Here we are again, at  the beginning of a whole new cycle. December has always been a momentous month in my life. Besides Christmas, when I was growing up, my family celebrated my mother’s birthday, my grandfather’s birthday, my sister Carol’s birthday, and my birthday. My mother and grandfather are gone (in fact today, Jan 2, is the 20th anniversary of my mother's passing), but Carol and I are partying on.

I finally finished the first draft of a new MS after toiling on it for an entire year. My critique group was very complimentary throughout the process, until I submitted the reveal at the end. They were too polite to say they hated it, but I can read the room. So back to the murder drawing board.

On a more personal note,I decided that this year I was going to let my hair go grey, because why the hell not? But after a few months, I changed my mind. I love grey hair on others, and I’d love it on me if it were a pretty grey. But sadly my salt-and-pepper only looked faded and sad. So back to the color of my youth. At least until my grey decides to cooperate and turn to a stunning all-over silver.

 November 15 was my 50th wedding anniversary. Above is a selfie we took on the day. There is nothing like the bond that develops between two people who have stuck with each other through thick and thin for decades.

Happy New Year!

I have been very remiss in posting this past month, although in fairness, it's been a very busy month with holiday activities and also abdominal surgery stuck in the middle. But here I am, just in time to wish everyone all the very best for 2025. I can't believe we are a quarter way through this century when it seems only yesterday we were all worrying about the computers crashing and the world ending as the calendar turned over the millennium. Of course, it helps to remember that date is an entirely arbitrary invention and that other civilizations have very different dates.

The year 2025 promises many surprises for the world order, and many of us are approaching it with trepidation, even dread. I don't intend to to turn this into a political post because this blog is meant to focus on crime writing, but suffice it to say, in the upcoming uncertain times, perhaps exploring murder and mayhem within the safe confines of a book is useful therapy. Or at least an outlet for our frustrations.

With that in mind, I am starting off 2025 with a very busy author schedule. My latest Inspector Green novel, SHIPWRECKED SOULS, hits the bookshelves at the end of January, although it can be pre-ordered now in many outlets, and I will be signing free copies in my publisher Dundurn's booth at the Ontario Library Association conference in Toronto on January 31. On February 1, I celebrate the book's Toronto launch at the famous and wonderfully supportive Sleuth of Baker Street from 1 - 3 pm.

Then on Sunday February 9 from 3 - 5:30 pm,  I am holding the main launch party at Irene's Pub in Ottawa. There will be some food platters but also a cash bar and full pub menu available. I can't wait for this, because it's the first pub launch I've held since the pandemic and I am ready to enjoy myself. I hope others are too! 

After that I so far have a couple of talks and one signing planned at Indigo Books in the Bayshore Shopping Centre, Ottawa, on February 22 from 1 - 3 pm. Now that the holiday festivities are over, it's time to start booking more, Maybe a spring mini-tour of the many independent bookstores in towns in the Ottawa Valley? 

At the same time, I am working on a short story for an anthology Dundurn is planning around the theme of 'Monsters'. Lots of scope there! And I am slowly - and I mean very slowly - working on the first draft of another book. After a challenging health year that forced me to slow down drastically, I've made a resolution to take life at a more leisurely pace. It's one way to cope with 2025.

Here's to health, happiness, and peace for all in the new year.