The Idea Factory

By Vicki Delany

Authors are always being asked: Where do you get your ideas?

It’s a difficult question to answer, because we do quite often get them out of thin air. What’ an idea? A scrap of a thought.  An impression flickering at the ends of consciousness.  An offhand comment.

Ideas are everywhere, you have to be ready to accept them and then, most importantly to follow them where they might lead.  

Because an idea is just that. An idea. But a book is a book.  And there’s approximately 80 – 100,000 words between then.

But sometimes, an idea isn’t a fleeting impression or a thought pulled out of the air, but taken from something real and concrete.

Case in point: I was listening to a piece on the CBC radio a couple of years ago about an organization that worked on behalf of those wrongly convicted of murder. In Canada, we all know many of their names: Guy Paul Morin, Donald Marshall, Steven Truscott. 

They had a long interview with a man who spent years in prison for the murder of his wife before it was determined that her death had been an accident.  He now works with AIDWYC, helping others in his position. (https://www.aidwyc.org)

It was a fascinating interview and I was struck with how this poor man’s life had been ruined, by what basically turned out to be incompetence on the part of the authorities.  And, how hard the people who believed in his innocence worked to see him exonerated.

And presto! An idea plus a lot of hard work became a book.

Unreasonable Doubt will be released on February 2rd. This is the eighth in the Constable Molly Smith Series.

Here’s a taste: 

Twenty-five years ago, Walter Desmond was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of young Sophia D’Angelo in Trafalgar, British Columbia. For twenty-five years, Walt steadfastly maintained his innocence.

Now he’s out of prison, exonerated by new evidence that shows corruption at worst or sheer incompetence at best, on the part of the Trafalgar City Police. And he’s back in Trafalgar.

Tensions are running high in the small mountain town. Tension between those who believe an innocent man was convicted and those who maintain the police got the right man. Surrounded by supporters, Sophia’s bitter family is determined to see Walter back in prison. Or dead.

It’s mid-summer in Trafalgar and women’s dragon boat teams are in town. At his B&B Walt Desmond meets lonely widow Carolanne Fraser, and Walt decides he might have reason to stay.

The police are instructed to do nothing to interfere with Desmond, but when Constable Molly Smith comes across two of her colleagues ordering the man out of town “or else” she’s forced to decide where her loyalties lie.

Meanwhile, a file that closed twenty-five years ago is on Sergeant John Winters’ desk. The records are dust-covered and moldy, the investigating detective long dead, the arresting officer retired and not talking, but Smith and Winters dig into the case. 

Because, if Walt Desmond didn’t kill Sophia Angelo, then someone else did.

What am I working on?

By Vicki Delany

A heck of a lot.

I am juggling a lot of writing balls these days, so I thought this would be a good time to let you know what I’m up to.

Other than a couple of day trips over the spring and summer, I have no book tours planned until the Suffolk Mystery Festival in August.  I am hoping to squeeze in a vacation to London in the fall. I love to travel, both for book events and for holiday, but I have to stay at home sometime and work!

The weather here in Southern Ontario has been nothing but gloomy for the past week. Which is a pretty good thing for the productivity.

As I write this, I have just finished four days of solid writing and managed to do 14,000 words. Which is pretty mind-boggling, as most authors will tell you. That’s about 14,000 good words. Very few of it will be discarded when I do edits.

A lot of people have written to ask me if there will be another Molly Smith, and I am happy to say 

I’m working on the eighth book in that series now. The nice people at Poisoned Pen also asked me for another. How can I say no?

Here’s what on my plate:

Constable Molly Smith #8 – half finished first draft.

Lighthouse Library. #2 – Booked for Trouble.  Completely finished and waiting for copy edits back. Publication date September 2015.

Lighthouse Library #3 – Reading up a Storm. Finished and now with my editor. She may, or may not, want changes major or minor.

Lighthouse Library #4. No contract as of yet. That will depend on how books 1 and 2 do. It’s all up to the readers now (Hint, Hint).

Christmas Town #1 – Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen. Completely finished, edited and waiting for copy edits back. Publication date November 2015.

Christmas Town #2 – We Wish You a Murderous Christmas.  Ready for me to give it one last polish before going to the editor.

Christmas Town #3. Nothing done yet. (But heck, it’s not due until April. That’s April 2016)

Ray Robertson #2 (A Rapid Reads Novella) – Haitian Graves. Completely finished and in production. Publication date August 2015

Ray Robertson #3 – outline and opening chapters sent to editor for her approval.

Oh, and one last thing.  Proposal for a new cozy series. Three chapters and series outline are now with my agent.  No hints until (if) I have a contract! So stay tuned. 

Switching Gears

I once tried writing a very dark crime novel. My original premise had been about these two tough cops in B.C., a young woman and an older man, up against drug and motorcycle gangs, sex traffickers and really bad killers (as opposed to really nice killers??).

At the end of the first book in the series, the older male would be killed in a bomb explosion and the woman would go on to seek revenge.

Believe it or not, that book didn’t come out very dark and ended up being In the Shadow of the Glacier, the first Constable Molly Smith book.

Which, if you haven’t read the books, is a realistic police procedural about the lives and jobs of cops in small town British Columbia. Some reviews have called the series cozy, but they definitely are not.

In one book, Molly Smith kills a man, in them all the fall out of the murder or crime is wide-spread and devastating. I’ve dealt with the murder of a mother, the disappearance of a father, the suspected betrayal of a spouse, the death of adult children (not touching little kids), and even a soldier with PTSD and a gun on his lap.

So, not cozy. But nowhere near as dark as intended originally. Which is no doubt all for the better.

My standalone suspense novels have a modern gothic touch, and all deal with betrayals past and present.

My Klondike Gold Rush books are lighter, but they still have an edge. The main character is a woman with a past and she knows there are people out there looking for her. She runs a saloon and dance hall, and the occasional shady character drops in.

So, all in all, I think I’m a varied writer. I can write in different sub-genres and use different styles and tones in my writing.

Except, it seems, the dark stuff.

My newest style is very light. Under the pen name Eva Gates, I’m writing true cozies.

And having a lot of fun with it. Maybe I was burning out with the stuff I was writing, but the cozies have given me a giant boost. Then again, maybe I’m just enjoying not worrying about grief, and loss, and the tragedy of human existence.

Cozies are intended to be nothing more than an entertaining read. You won’t learn many lessons about the human condition, there is no one suffering from angst or threatening to kill themselves because of depression. No PTSD. No terrorist attacks or serial killers. Just people with friends and lovers and community. And the occasional enemy. And a murder of course.

Some cozies are humourous, some are not. I have tried to be.

Even if you’ve never read a cozy before, I invite you to give it a try. By Book or By Crook will be out on February 3rd. I'll be travelling extensively in the US on book tour, and meeting up with some great authors to share events along the way. The detailed schedule can be found at www.vickidelany.blogspot.com.