Black Friday Thoughts

Margaret Mitchell at work

Several years ago, a plot for a short, Black Friday story popped into my head. I don’t write horror or Die Hard type action fiction, but we don’t actually get a say in what ideas coalesce out of the amino acids of the ol’ mind soup. This idea was something like: An innocent bystander witnesses a murder in the parking lot of a mall on Black Friday and spends the next ten or fifteen pages (or 100 if it turned out to be a novella) running from the killer in the mall. In other words, lots of opportunities for me to play up the entire Black Friday madness and mall culture in general. 

I never wrote the story. 

I did write a note on a scrap of paper and stuck it in this old stationery box with all my other (as yet) unwritten story and book ideas. Periodically–okay probably every day-after-Thanksgiving–I remember this story and consider working it up into a first draft. But I don’t. It’s just not my jam. I seriously doubt this is a story I’ll ever create. If you want to try, go for it!

(Maybe someone has written a similar story by now. If you know of one, let me know in the comments. I’d actually like to read it. I just don’t want to write it.) 

Last night, after a lovely Thanksgiving Day, I watched the Netflix Top 10 movie, Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy. This documentary was styled as an ironic AI-generated webinar for wannabe corporate executives looking to increase sales at any cost interspersed with interviews of former corporate sales gurus who now advocate changing our growth economy into a sustainable economy. Watch it here: https://www.netflix.com/title/81554996

Obviously, the timing matters. Between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, we are encouraged to buy, buy, BUY! In the movie, we are shown mountains of clothing washing up on third-world shores; plastic found in the guts of ocean fish; giant piles of discarded electronics. We are literally killing ourselves and the planet along with us in our capitalist zeal. Hey, I understand capitalism is the best we’ve come up with so far, but really? Isn’t it time for a new plan?

As I sat there, horrified but not exactly surprised, I started thinking about books. I thought about a recent article published in The Bookseller entitled “New publisher Spines aim to ‘disrupt’ industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone.” See: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-publisher-spines-aims-to-disrupt-industry-by-using-ai-to-publish-8000-books-in-2025-alone

It’s beginning, friends. The AI disruption of our industry. In a market already flooded with books, here comes a tsunami of AI-generated content. Many of these will be ebooks, but plenty will be print, likely POD. I suppose this is better than printing and warehousing and then destroying the copies that fail to sell, but still. I began to wonder about the lifespan of today’s literary “products.” Are these cheaply produced POD books saved, treasured, passed along to younger generations? Or are they consumed and thrown away like last season’s sweatshop garment? 

For years, many indie (self) publishing gurus advocated quickly writing and releasing books to gain market share, surfing the Amazon algorithm to financial “success.” Perhaps the best-known of these strategies, The 20 Books to 50 K method, encourages a “high volume, low price” strategy. Pump out those books as fast as you can in hopes of establishing a backlist and making a living. Fine. Good. It works, or at least, it did. 

But what happens when EVERYONE does it? 

If we think of books as products, like widgets, how valuable are the widgets when everyone’s pumping out widgets? And where are all the widgets going once they are sold? 

Hey, I get it. I’ve published a couple of books. I’d like to publish some more. It would be nice to think I could make a living at this writing thing. Also, I’m not a fast writer. The thought of writing a book in twelve days turns me cold. I admit, I’m predisposed to disdain this mindset. Because I doubt I could do it even if I wanted to. So, yeah, this entire essay might just be a bit self-serving. But hear me out. 

I think it’s worth it for us in the publishing industry to consider sustainability. How much electricity is consumed with our Kindles and ebooks? How many trees are turned into paper? Where do the books end up? In a landfill? Burned? Adding to the carbon load? What happens when AI companies like Spines begin releasing 8,000 titles into the market per year? What happens when 100 similar companies spring into being? 

Will writing and publishing 20, even 40 books work in that market? Is our ambition worth the cost to the planet? What could we writers do to create a manageable, sustainable, and profitable-for-more-with-less market?

I visited Atlanta last week. The Margaret Mitchell museum, housed in the apartment where the author wrote Gone With the Wind, finally reopened after a remodel that started in 2020. Mitchell made a name for herself with ONE book. One. Yes, the book is problematic (and the museum does a good job pointing this out), but we can’t deny that GWTW made a giant splash and continues to be one of the best-selling novels of all time. 

The desk where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind

One book. Could what worked for Mitchell  work for us? What if we all slowed our roll? What if lower supply led to greater demand and prices? 

What if we created readership thirst? 

Maybe we should consider writing fewer books. Maybe we make designer books instead of fast-fashion books. Maybe we leave the silly Black Friday stories in the idea box and instead create books with substance and staying power. 

Just a thought. 

What do you think? As readers? As writers? I’m sure this may have touched some nerves. Let me have it. 

—--

Check out my Substack and sign up for my newsletter. https://shelleyburbank.substack.com/ 

Words of the Year 2024

 by Sybil Johnson

It’s that time of the year again. No, I don’t mean Thanksgiving, though it is tomorrow. I’m busy prepping for that. 

No, I mean the time when the words of the year start rolling in. Here’s what’s going on so far.

• Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary, has been selecting a woty since 2003 when it chose democracy. They choose based on which words were most frequently looked up on their website. No “word” yet on what the 2024 woty is.

• Collins, a British dictionary, has been selecting a woty since 2013 when it chose geek. 

Its 2024 word of the year is brat which is defined as someone who is "characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude". This, apparently, is newly defined for 2024 and inspired by the Charli XCX album by that same name.

Don’t know who Charli XCX is, but apparently among the young’uns (at least in the UK) it’s one of the most talked about words for 2024. 

Other words that were finalists: 

delulu, meaning to be "utterly mistaken or unrealistic in one's ideas or expectations" I guess this comes from delusional. 

looksmaxxing, a word commonly used in online male communities that refers to "attempting to maximize the attractiveness of one's physical appearance" 

rawdogging, the growing travel trend where passengers abstain from in-flight entertainment and other travel perks. That means no movies, no music, no snacks, no napping!, no using a phone. So you just stare at the seat in front of you. Yeah, not going to do that. 

yapping, which means talking at length about things that don't really matter that much. I think people have been doing this for a long, long time.

 supermajority, a political term that became popular around the UK general election in July.

• Cambridge, another British dictionary, has been choosing its words of the year since 2015 when they picked austerity. 

The 2024 word of the year is manifest. According to the British dictionary, it refers to the practice of using “methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen,” 

I feel like people have been talking about manifesting things for a very long time, particularly celebrities, including Dua Lipa and Simone Biles this past year. 

Maybe we should all try to manifest a more peaceful, positive world.

• Macquarie, an Australian dictionary, has been choosing a woty since 2006 when it picked muffin top. The 2024 word is enshittification. This was also the American Dialect Society’s word of the year for 2023. Macquarie defines it as “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking."

•  Oxford, another British dictionary, has been choosing a woty since 2004 when it picked chav, which I have never heard of. According to the dictionary it means “a young person of a type characterized by coarse and brash behavior (with connotations of low social status).” 

Apparently, they haven’t announced the 2024 woty yet, but brain rot is one of the finalists. It’s a supposed decline in a person's mental or intellectual state, often attributed to consuming too much trivial or unchallenging content, especially online.

Among the other finalists are: 

dynamic pricing: Varying the price of a product or service to reflect market conditions. Anyone who goes to Disneyland and other theme parks these days knows this one.

romantasy: A genre of fiction that combines elements of romance and fantasy, often with themes of magic, adventure, or the supernatural. I have heard this used a lot this past year.

slop: Art, writing, or other content created using artificial intelligence, and shared online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way 

Voting closes on November 28th.

• The American Dialect Society has been choosing a woty since 1990 when it chose bushlips, referring to insincere political rhetoric. It comes from President Bush’s speech about reading his lips and no new taxes. The society doesn’t choose its word until January. They are open for nominations.

• dictionary.com has been choosing since 2010 when it picked change. It’s 2024 woty is demure. They analyzed things like news headlines and social media to see what words were trending. Demure, apparently, had a 1200% increase in usage over the last year! Can’t say I’ve used it. According to the article linked above, demure now means “ refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane.”

That’s what’s going on so far. Your challenge is to try using some of these words in a sentence! 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

On Epilogues

By Charlotte Hinger

 In this blog I've complained about novels that have a beginning, a middle, and a middle. That's it! No end in sight. My husband once said he thought the author simply got tired of writing. It's a common enough phenomenon in literary short stories. 

Such tail-less tales are frequently published in a magazine I'm too cowardly to name. It specializes in absolutely exquisite writing that goes absolutely nowhere. 

Apparently a lot of editors feel the same way. Gotta end the book, they say. So, the writer comes up with an epilogue. 

Epilogues should not be necessary. The strongest books conclude the narrative in the last chapter. Stick to the story you are telling. It's not necessary to know what happened to your characters fifteen years in the future. 

Readers, as well as people in the real world, like to be present at important events. We want to be present at a wedding. One of the best ending chapters I've read lately is contained in Margaret Miszushima's latest book, Gathering Mist. Not only does it tie up a plot complication that has continued throughout her series, it's a terrific finale to this particular book. We are gloriously present at this wonderful wedding. An epilogue statement such as "fifteen years later, they were still happily married . .." would have paled in comparason.

There's a sure test for using a prologue. It should precede the primary narrative. If it could be a scene in the book, don't use a prologue. The same advice applies to an epilogue. If the conclusion could be covered in the last chapter, do that. Conclusions are hard to write. They are nearly as difficult as a first chapter.

Prologues should never jar the reader. I recently read a beautifully written novel that included an epilogue. It ruined the book. The voice used for the ending was different from the one used for the body of the book. It was simple and childlike. Along the lines of "Jack threw the ball." Only these sentences read like "Jim went to prison for a long time." "His wife got a divorce and married someone else." "His children suffered."

The main thing to remember about epilogues is they don't compensate for a weak ending or lazy writing. 

Watching People

 By Steve Pease / Michael Chandos

   Our stories are about people. Not about the setting, the action, or the clues, but about the people living in the setting and involved in the action and creating the clues. About how the story affects them, and forces them to make desperate choices and bad decisions. Makes them consider Murder as a viable solution to their problems. The story is about how the plot, clues, circumstances and twists affect the characters.

    Lee Child said "My books aren't about the detectives working on the crime, but the crime working on the detectives."

   Watch people. Are you waiting in the airport for your connecting flight, hours away? In the grocery store? The clinic? Look at your fellow "waiters". How is their day treating them? Does a romantic rejection twenty years ago still affect them? Has it made them cynical and bitter? What's their financial status? What are the little traits and clues that define who they are, to your mind's eye at least?

   What do their clothes suggest? Look at their shoes. They may be wearing a comfy traveling outfit, be in going-shopping utility clothes, or new and colorful holiday clothes, but their shoes remain. Are they worn, dirty, new, shiny?  Does the shoe style fit the rest of their clothing? Are they from around here?

   What does their behavior suggest? Are they engaging with their surroundings, or are they shielding themselves from it? Why? What are the possibilities? Does that make them look "evil"? Did they catch you staring at them? What was their reaction?

   You will be training your eye to assess people, to identify key indicators of what they do and who they are. Are you nervous about being judgemental? Who cares? This training game is just for you, the writer. Our fictional stories are just fantasies, to quote A. Conan Doyle. It's not important to be accurate to reality. It is important to be consistent to your fictional reality. When a character enters your story, you'll be able to describe one or two things that will immediately convince your reader of who the character is. Be a Sherlock.

   Or not. This is an opportunity to deceive the reader, too, to build suspense with ill-fitting appearances and behaviors.

I stuck this patch on my sling bag.

In Memory

Friday I attended the Celebration of Life for Christine T. Jorgensen (1941-2024). I met Christine during my first Colorado Gold conference in 1994. She was incredibly gracious, poised, and welcoming to a wannabe writer like me. Christine was one of the founders of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and its first president. Over the course of her writing career, she published seven mystery novels.

 

I didn't know her very well and it was both enlightening and inspiring to hear anecdotes of a full life from her husband, children, and friends. An interesting writerly detail was that she had a thirst for cocktails and could hold her own when it came time to partake in the booze. Christine was born September 12, 1941, in Champagne, Illinois. With the start of WW2, her father was called up, serving later in the Philippine campaign, and the family moved to southern California to be closer to him before he shipped out. After college, Christine worked in family and child support services in Chicago and Denver. A voracious reader, she was drawn to writing, initially trying her hand with romance novels until her critique group noted that a romance story does not typically have a murder. Even if it did, seven dead bodies in one book were too many for the genre. With that advice, Christine turned her attention to murder mysteries, eventually penning five in the Stella the Stargazer series, followed by two stand-alones. Any one of us would be lucky to be so fondly remembered.

To read her obituary, click here Christine T. Jorgensen.

Rewrite Time

 I've finally finished the first draft of my new book, and have begun the rewrite. We've all heard many times that writing is rewriting, and anyone who's ever scribbled a page knows it's true. At least I've never met a literary Mozart, whose first draft is so perfect that it doesn't need any alteration. In fact, most authors I know, even very well known and accomplished authors, think of their first drafts as something too embarrassing to be seen by anyone. It's the rewriting that makes the book. If I may repeat something I've written here before – and never let it be said I missed an opportunity to repeat myself – you have to have that block of marble before you can carve out a statue of David.

Rewriting is the fun part, as well. The first draft is eked out of you like bone arrow, but with the rewrites, you have something to play with, to refine, to remodel, to put makeup on and make beautiful. I've begun rereading and adjusting, making sure the beginning matches the end. After the first draft, my beginnings never do match the end, for somewhere in the middle of the writing, I changed my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. And I didn't waste time by going back to the beginning and fixing it to fit my new vision. No, no, that way lies madness. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end of a first draft. I just keep going until the MS was done, with every confidence that I can repair all the inconsistencies in the next draft.

As I reread the story, it's interesting to see how it all turned out, to remember what I originally had in mind and see how the tale changed as I moved through it. Questions come up as I put all my ducks in a row. Here is one I always struggle with: how much explanation is too much?

For instance, there is what looks like a coincidence in one scene of the new book. Coincidences do happen in life, but you've got to be very careful about putting one in a mystery story, lest the action seem contrived. And yet, when I set about to explain how this coincidence came about, I didn't like it. Too much exposition and not enough action.

Do others of you writers out there struggle to find a balance between making it real and making it exciting, or romantic, or terrifying, or however you want it to turn out?

I've read and loved many books that elide over illogical plot points. Some best-sellers, too. As long as I like the story and the characters, I don't really demand existential reality in my reading. Yet I don't like holes in the plot big enough to drive a truck through. They take me out of the story. Have I done that, or shall I let my coincidence stand and devil take the hindmost? I'll have to let my pre-readers tell me what they think.

A novel way to connect with readers

 This is a very quick post because I am already late with it and many other things need to be done. But I want to report on a very interesting a successful experiment that a group of local Ottawa authors tried yesterday. 

The first ever Ottawa Christmas Book Fair. It was the brainchild of enterprising Ottawa author Peggy Blair who pitched the idea in September and within a couple of days eight of us had signed on. Besides Peggy, there were Mary Jane Maffini, Brenda Chapman, Mike Martin, Amy Tector, Don Butler and John Delacourt. We rented a hall at a local legion for five hours and developed promotional activities like appearances on local radio and TV, write-ups in community newspapers and newsletters, and posted this poster all over time. With that many people, there were lots of imaginative ideas and useful contacts.

On the day of the event, we set up tables and decorated them in holiday themes. Each of us had our own table  and managed our own sales. We had baked or purchased goodies for a treats table, advertised the cash bar at the legion, and now we settled in to wait. We had no idea what to expect. Would anyone come? It's a work day and already getting dark by 4 pm.

They came! We were flooded with readers who'd come specifically to buy mysteries and each of us was kept on our feet and meeting readers for over three hours straight. I have no idea how many people came although Peggy estimated 150. I have no idea how many books I sold, but readers were leaving with armloads of books. I didn't even have time to eat anything nor visit my fellow authors to check out their books. By the end, we were all exhausted but so relieved and happy that it had gone so well.

Will we do it again? Absolutely. And plans are already underway for other collaborative, mystery-focussed events. So stay tuned.

I Hired a PI - the conclusion

 By Catherine Dilts

My previous post on Type M for Murder (11/5/24) described the events that led to hiring a real-life private investigator. Quick recap – when my father passed, we needed to find his estranged step-son (let’s call him James, to protect his obviously highly treasure privacy), who was included in the will.

June 25 - First contact from me: “Hello Steve, I mentioned to you that my family is trying to locate my deceased father's stepson. I was under the impression the amount of money we were inheriting was not worth hiring someone to track him down. Now my brother says we really need to find James, because the inheritance is too much to stick in a sock drawer in the event the guy resurfaces. My question to you - is it possible to hire you to locate a missing person? What's the process and estimated cost?”

We wouldn’t have required a PI if there hadn’t been paranoia and suspicion on both ends of our search. I was concerned about contacting the wrong people with a “you’ve inherited money” message. James was reluctant about replying to the promise of money if he would confirm his identity.

Steve Pease, aka author Michael Chandos, is also a Type M for Murder contributor. As a licensed private investigator, Steve knows plenty about finding people. But first, the bad news: Steve was retiring from the PI business. Followed by the good news: Steve was willing to take a look.

June 25 - Steve replied, “depending on how much you know about James, birth date, locations of things, any previous contacts, maybe I can find him… Do you have photos, SSAN, former locations?... What do you know about him? Does he know who his father was? Does he want to be found? Things like that….”

James had distanced himself from family, including the one person I hoped knew where he was: his aunt. She hadn’t heard from him in over two years. My brother’s law office paralegal had cobbled together a little info. I gathered what I had learned with my amateur sleuthing. We were thin on data.

After a call to my brother, we realized we knew pathetically little about this guy who was part of our family. I felt guilty I hadn’t made more of an effort to connect with him. But we were adults when our father and James’ mother married. James had been an unruly teen in high school. There just hadn’t been the time, or I suppose the desire, to forge relationships.

June 28 - I couldn’t decipher whether Steve was frustrated or amused when he emailed, “Literally ANYTHING you can remember, from all the basic history, and then any tidbit of content, places, other people that may know him. Circumstances - how did you lose him?” 

As a writer, I love stories. And the contorted family history made for a story I could tell. After wrenching the memories from my reluctant brain, I typed up a page of everything I knew about James, my father and his wife, and the estrangement.

July 1 - “Hi Steve, This might be a little rambling, but I put together what I have. I can try to dig for more info if this isn't helpful. It should be highly entertaining, though.”

July 3 - To which Steve responded, “This is a great model for a Southern Murder Mystery potboiler.”

James’ mother was a Louisiana girl who desperately craved to be a Southern Belle. My father was a Midwestern guy thrilled to attract the attention of a much younger woman. When James came out of the closet, although my father accepted him, his own mother cut him out of her life.

July 12 – Over two weeks into the investigation, Steve attended a PI seminar. He presented our missing step-brother case for a brief group discussion. Steve told me we needed hard data, like James’ Social Security number. I began to worry we’d be unable to locate James.

Steve sounded less optimistic, too. “Maybe James is no longer in Colorado. I did not find him on any prison inmate listings.”

That is how little I knew my step-brother. I had entertained the idea he might be in jail. Or living under a bridge.

July 13 - Steve sent me this. “He either moved or did a serious drop-out.” Again, Steve requested James’ exact birth date and social security number.

Later that same day, James responded to an email from Steve. At the same email address my brother had used to contact him. Coming from Steve Pease of Glass Key Investigations LLC must have convinced James the attempt to contact him was legit.

Steve asked James to provide some details to prove he was actually our James. The info was not in my father’s online obituary. Only family knew this stuff. Yes, this James definitely was the right guy.

After confirming my brother was able to make contact with James, Steve closed our case. He sent us a report on his methodology and the results of the search. James really didn’t want to be found, but now he seems happy to be in contact with his step-siblings, on his own terms.

July 14 - “We are lucky a simple route found him,” Steve reported. “I queried top level county databases and the Colorado Secretary of State's databases, and was about to dig deeper. This email contact was lucky and it eliminates the lengthier inquiry, and it is cheaper.” 

My family is all about cheap. So, a happy ending? A family healed? Sort of. We’ve reached out to James. He knows our email addys. It’s on him if he wants to try to establish relationships at this late date.

If you need to hire a PI to find your own missing relative, here’s what I learned. Life is not a Hallmark movie. The best ending might be simply to acknowledge everyone is alive and not in jail. Another lesson learned – keep track of people. Don’t let them fall off the grid entirely. Otherwise, you might end up paying a PI to dig up info you could have known all along.

It's the People You Meet

What’s the best part of this crazy writing life? It’s the people you meet. 

Way back in college in the 1980s, I met my friend, Mary Ann. She, too, wrote stories in notebooks. She, too, wanted to be a writer. We encouraged each other. We read each others’ work. When graduation day arrived, we stayed in touch. Almost forty years later, we are both still writing. We still read and encourage each other. We’ve both improved so much, and neither of us ever gave up the process of improving our craft. 

Forty years. Whoa. When I stop to think about it, I’m amazed and grateful (and a little weirded out about how much time has passed, to be honest.)

As the 90s made way for the 2000s and then the 2010s, I met writers online in places like iVillage and eHarlequin and Yahoo groups. It was through Yahoo that I joined a community of confession magazine writers. The “Trues” were venerable pulp magazines written in first person, featuring relationship stories and a formula known as “Sin. Suffer. Repent.” And they paid by the word. I wanted in. 

Though the stories were supposedly written by readers, in actuality, a stable of authors penned sometimes multiple stories in the same issue. Because of this group, I broke into a paid, national magazine market with four stories over the course of a couple of years. When the magazines folded after a 98-year-run, we scattered. Alas, I’ve lost touch with most of these authors, but one I continue to follow on socials and enjoy seeing his many, many projects, including editing a mystery magazine and so many crime anthologies it’s hard to keep up. His name is Michael Bracken. You may have heard of him. 

In 2014, I joined Wattpad and met so many talented, new authors who serialized their fiction (and some nonfiction) on the platform. I collaborated with some for a collection of author interviews and published others in a Wattpad-based literary magazine I edited. Though many have drifted off-site into indie and traditional publication, we follow each other on social media.

Meanwhile, other IRL (in real life) writerly relationships developed. Maine literary author, Carolyn Chute, held an annual series of writer circles here in our neck of the woods, and some of us eventually gathered ourselves into a weekly writing group. Four of us remain close–my lovely Advance Copies Writing Group–and I’m meeting them on Monday for tea and scones. We cheer each others’ successes, encourage each other’s dreams, and even though we’ve gone in different directions artistically, we still support each other in our various endeavors and dreams.  

And then there are the professional contacts. Joining Sisters in Crime, I happened across a cozy mystery author named Sarah E. Burr who offered links to her YouTube videos showing how she creates graphics and marketing materials. I reached out to thank Sarah for the incredible information and inspiration and asked if I could interview her for my blog. She agreed, and since then we’ve stayed in touch via social media. She and fellow traditional mystery author, J.C. Kenney, hosted me tonight on their podcast The Bookish Hour.

In San Diego, I met several authors who write women’s fiction and non-fiction, including Marlene Wagman-Geller, who I now consider a friend and whose essays about historical female characters fascinate and charm. 

When Encircle Publications offered to publish my first mystery novel, I had my friend, Kevin St. Jarre, to thank for introducing me to the publisher. Since then I’ve met several Encircle authors who continue to inspire me, including our own Type M for Murder author, Catherine Dilts, who I have yet to meet in real life but who, nonetheless, got me this gig. So generous! 

To sum up, the relationships we create as writers actually make this whole crazy business worthwhile. There are so many more people I could mention, so I apologize if anyone feels left out. These are just a few examples of writers-helping-writers. It's my hope that I, too, can contribute to the community, whether by sharing interviews on my blog, writing blurbs, sharing social media posts, or sharing information about the industry when I have something I’ve found valuable to my career. 

We are a community, we writers. Published or unpublished. Big 5 traditional, small press, or indie. Seasoned craftsperson or enthusiastic newbie. In this season of thanks, I’m grateful for each and every fellow scribbler. 

Thanksgiving Mysteries

 by Sybil Johnson

Halloween is behind us. Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is only a couple weeks away. Yet a lot of retailers are focusing, as usual, on Christmas. Poor Thanksgiving. It doesn’t get its due.

In the cozy world, holiday themed mysteries are common. You’d think there would be more Thanksgiving themed ones than there are. After all, families get together, arguments ensue, etc., etc., etc.

Back in 2015, I wrote a post about the lack of Thanksgiving mysteries.

Okay, okay, I’m part of the problem. In my Aurora Anderson series, I have a Halloween themed mystery and a Christmas themed book. I just passed right over Thanksgiving. In the series, I decided when I first started writing it that books would take place 2 months apart to give my characters a little breathing room between murders. Hence, the skipping over Thanksgiving. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I feel like I’m seeing more books set around Thanksgiving these days or maybe I’ve just become more aware of them. I happened upon this list of Thanksgiving Thrillers and Mysteries put together by The Monroe County public library in Indiana. It was nice to see some non-cozies mentioned.

This year, I heard through author Diane Vallere about a bunch of novellas set around Thanksgiving. I haven’t read any of the, but I’m happy to see they exist. These are all ebooks only, which makes sense to me for a novella.

I’ve never written a novella, but the idea intrigues me. Any ideas I’ve had so far fall into the short story or novel space. I suppose I could write a Thanksgiving novella that occurs between my Halloween mystery (Designed For Haunting, Aurora 4) and my Christmas one (Ghosts of Painting Past, Aurora 5) and label it book 4.5. I shall ponder the idea.

Do any of you have a favorite mystery or book set around Thanksgiving?

Snow and Long Ago by Steve Pease/Michael Chandos

     Every dozen Octobers, Halloween in Colorado delivers a serious snowstorm. We had an enormous blizzard in 93 (or was it 94?), 60 mph winds, single-digit temperatures and three feet of snow blown to 8 foot drifts. Deadly to man and beast. This 7 November, we had another storm, minus the winds and the super chilly temps, but most of the snow. I live in Black Forest, Palmer Ridge, at 7450 ft elevation, all of which spells serious snow. 30 inches. 25 across the roof. (Lots of shoveling) And power outages.  Six hours, at night. I have a solar system, the TV was off and the thermostat was turned down to minimize power use.  I wrote.

     Having the TV off gives one time to write –> That’s A Hint.

No jokes about my clothes.  I’m a writer and I’m sensitive.

     I worked on a scene from my building novel, a noir-ish murder mystery set in 1963 Los Angeles. Another Hint -> LA in 1963 is Not LA of today. Roads changed names, cities were invented in areas that were barren in 1963. Neighborhood names evolved. In my main character’s neighborhood, the main city road changed names compared to 1963, a prominent Synagog was relocated, and the ethic mix is Very different now. Where he worked as a male emergency nurse no longer exists. Even the terms “emergency medicine” and “emergency room” had Not been invented yet. The ER concept came out of the Viet Nam War, perhaps the only good thing that did. A male nurse, vice an orderly, was rare in 63.

     Conan Doyle said his popular fiction was fantasy. The stories didn’t have to be 100% correct as long as they made sense. Like Dan Brown’s novels. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. But, if your setting is a real place, you can’t make Big errors like street names. Readers will be jolted out of the story and you might not get them back. 

     A few years ago, I spent two fun days running thru areas of LA where my story takes place, taking hundreds of photos. And I got lost, because streets had changed names since 1963! It hit my head – gotta make sure about principal details.  So, I bought a map.

     Not just any map, but a street map you once could buy at something called a service station. On eBay, I found a Chevron map of LA from 1964, copyrighted in 1963. Close enough. It is part of my checklist for my 63LA stories now.

Guest Author Lorie Lewis Ham

Lorie Lewis Ham

This weekend, Type M 4 Murder is happy to welcome our honored guest blogger, Lorie Lewis Ham. Lorie lives in Reedley, California and has been writing ever since she was a child. Her first song and poem were published when she was 13, and she has gone on to publish many articles, short stories, and poems throughout the years, as well as write for a local newspaper, and publish 7 mystery novels. For the past 14 years, Lorie has been the editor-in-chief and publisher of Kings River Life Magazine, and she produces Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, where you can hear an excerpt of her book One of Us, the first in a new series called The Tower District Mysteries. Book 2, One of You, was released in June of 2024. You can learn more about Lorie and her writing on her website mysteryrat.com and find her on Facebook, BookBub, Goodreads, and Instagram @krlmagazine & @lorielewishamauthor.

The Importance of Setting

by Lorie Lewis Ham

I wrote a series of mysteries many years ago featuring a gospel singing amateur sleuth (I used to sing gospel music). I set the series in a fictional version of my hometown of Reedley, CA. Then I took a break from writing mysteries to start an online magazine called Kings River Life. When I came back to writing fiction a few years ago, I was ready to do something new. 

The Tower District

When thinking about what to write next, I first decided on a setting for the books. While every part of writing a mystery novel is important, I think the setting can set the tone for the whole book/series. This time around I chose a real life setting with just a few elements fictionalized for story purposes. I chose to set my new series in the Tower District of Fresno, CA. This is the arts and entertainment district of Fresno and it is almost like its own small town, as it is very different from much of the rest of the city. It is a very artsy, quirky, creative community filled with theatre, art galleries, dance studios, and more. It is also filled with charming and quirky residents. There is a lot of history in this part of town as well—my main character often says that being in the Tower is like stepping back in time.

This setting has definitely set the tone for my new series The Tower District Mysteries—every book has something to do with that artistic community and the arts—especially theatre. It dictates what sort of stories I tell and what type of characters are in my books. The Tower District is almost like a character itself. 

I have found that the setting has also done something else for my books—it has helped them sell. Outside of the area, readers have found this setting interesting and unique. Locally, people have been excited to read about their own community and they have been very supportive. Perhaps part of that comes from it being an artistic community—they want to be supportive of other’s artistic endeavors. I also think they like the idea of people beyond the Tower District being able to learn about it and fall in love with the place too. Funny enough, when I wrote about a fictional version of my hometown I didn’t find that same support—so I think what community you write about can make a difference. 

I have also discovered that my books appeal to another community—and this was completely unintended. They seem to appeal to those who love pop culture just as I do. Sharing my love of TV shows, anime, manga, etc. in my books has made a connection with others who find joy, and often comfort, in those same things. Recently I was part of a booth at a book festival, and someone literally stopped to check out my books simply because I was wearing a shirt from the anime Fruits Basket. The shirt caught their eye and we talked a bit about the show, then I told them that my main character shared that love of anime and they bought my book! My main character also has a love of all things King Arthur and even knows how to use a sword (these are contemporary mysteries). I too have a replica of Excalibur and have brought my sword to events, which has also been a big hit. 

So I would definitely have to say that the setting of a book, and those extra little elements we include, really can help our books connect with readers. 

Universal Buy Link for “One of You” https://books2read.com/u/m0eWAy 

Elevator pitch-

Secrets, gossip, theatre, mystery writers, and murder! A Halloween Mysteryfest. Or is it a murderfest? One author murdered, others attacked. Is the killer writing their own murder mystery in blood? It’s a mystery set in the historic Tower District—Fresno's dining, arts, and entertainment hub. 

What It's Like to Hire a PI

 By Catherine Dilts

This summer, I hired a Private Investigator. The experience had little in common with what I’ve seen in movies or read in novels. This being a rather mundane missing person’s case, there were no late night stake-outs and absolutely no gun play.

Me, being the customer, didn’t fit the classic mold of a glamorous redhead puffing on an opera-length cigarette holder with gloved fingers. I was wearing baggy sweats when I contacted the PI via email, and my mousey hair was pulled back into a messy bun with a cheap plastic clip.

Nope, no glamour. Just my family needing to locate a person none of us had heard from in years. My father passed away in March. His second wife preceded him in death by several years. In his will, Dad left a bequest to his estranged step-son. Before my brother, the executor of the estate, could finish the legal paperwork, we needed to find our step-brother. Let’s call him “James.”

Step One: DIY investigation. We began with my brother requesting a paralegal in his law office attempt to track down James. That quickly reached a dead end. My brother decided since I write mysteries, I could find our step-brother. So I tried. I started by contacting James’ aunt. She hadn’t heard from him in a couple years.

I was very concerned about throwing out a “you’ve inherited money” message to potential strangers. Aren’t we warned constantly to beware the dangers of the internet and social media? In fact, this may be why my brother’s and my efforts failed. Would you open an email or respond to a social media message promising you an unexpected, if modest, reward? What if the wrong person answered? Would I end up with creepy stalkers demanding money from me?

Step Two: Hiring a PI. I told my brother I was uncomfortable with the idea of contacting sketchy potential strangers, and my efforts to connect with who I thought was the real James went unanswered. But I did know a Private Investigator from my mystery writing group. Anxious to close the estate, my brother gave me the go-ahead.

Enter Steve Pease, aka author Michael Chandos, our own Type M for Murder contributor, and an honest-to-goodness licensed PI. He quoted me a retainer price my brother approved. We hoped the case wouldn’t become too lengthy or complicated. 

My first lesson in hiring a PI was that the more info you already have, the less time it will take to track down the missing person. Less time = less money. I did mention the bequest was modest? My family didn’t want to spend our entire inheritance trying to find James. “Oh great, we found you. But we spent what all of us would have inherited on locating you. Oops. Our bad.”

Thankfully, we had some info. His last known couple of addresses and phone numbers. His mother’s sisters’ contact info. What we didn’t have was James’s social security number or employer. We were reasonably certain he was in Colorado. If he was still alive. Or maybe (sorry James) in prison.

The hunt began.

Middle Age & The Madness of Art

At the Bangor Pubic Library in Bangor, Maine 

It’s the first of November, and I’m in Maine watching orange and bronze leaves carpet the scraggly grass of the front lawn. Maine’s seasons come in distinct palettes. Cold, white winters. Mud-brown and tender green springs. Blue skies and lakes and florals of summer. And the warm reds, bronzes, and yellows of fall. 

As I head into the middle-aged, downward slope of my fifties, I’m all too aware of the changing seasons of life, as well. The writing goals of young to mid-adulthood, once seeming so achievable, have either mellowed or have become greatly tempered by reality. Time, which used to stretch so deliciously into the future, shortens. I realize that since I haven’t hit those big goals by now, it’s more than likely I never will. Yikes. 

Fortunately, with age also comes perspective. Wisdom, even. Things change. Life gives you opportunities you never expected but also throws up roadblocks couldn’t anticipate. You learn to take things as they come. 

I’ve decided to approach this time of life as an opportunity not only to take stock of my accomplishments but also come to terms with my youthful goal of being a professional writer. 

I mean, I AM a professional. I’ve been published and paid as a short story writer, a journalist, a memoir ghostwriter, and a novelist. However, I have not achieved my goal of “making a living” by the pen. It’s harder to do so since the advent of the ebook and Amazon/KDP, and if you don’t believe me, check out the recent Write-Minded podcast with Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner interviewing Michael Castleman whose new book, The Untold Story of Books: A Writer’s History of Book Publishing, gives all the stats (plus wonderful historical perspective on the industry.) https://podcast.shewrites.com/optimism-and-pessimism-in-book-publishing/

My dream of being a financially-successful author probably would have come to fruition by now if it was going to, so now I’m forced to contemplate what, if anything, I can hope to accomplish, writing-wise, in the second half of my life. 

As often happens, a book I happened upon addressed this issue exactly when I needed it. While visiting my parents in the central part of the state, I went to the cellar to look at some old books stored down there and rediscovered a first edition of May Sarton’s Plant Dreaming Deep I’d picked up somewhere and forgot about. What a treasure! I devoured it over the course of two days and came away feeling refreshed.

Sarton wrote the book in 1968 (the year I was born!) when she was 55 years old and was going through a similar mid-life shift in perspective. She’d just upped and bought an old farmhouse in New Hampshire. Reading her musings on middle age and writing was like reading my own thoughts only in a 1950’s poetic syntax. 

She writes, “The crisis of middle age has to do as much as anything with a catastrophic anxiety about time itself. How has one managed to come to the meridian and still be so far from the real achievement one had dreamed possible at twenty?” She goes on to say, “One does not give up if one is a writing animal, and if one has, over the years, created the channel of routine.”

Aha! I think. I, too, am a writing animal! Perhaps with a little dredging of the routine channel (which to be honest is a little clogged these days), I can continue, like Sarton, to be “happy while I’m writing.” The poet, essayist, and novelist then muses about how her writing falls somewhere in between the critically-acclaimed literary and the popular fiction of her day, which she thinks hampers her success, and concludes that she’ll just hold out hope that her entire body of work will one day be seen and esteemed as a whole. 

Sarton also quotes Henry James: “We work in the dark–we do what we can–we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” [from The Middle Years]

Oh, May Sarton! Oh, Henry James! Thank you for writing, for sharing your gifts with those of us who came to this writing life behind you. I’ll take comfort in your words and dig my channel of routine and stop worrying about financial success. I’ll build my small body of work. I’ll be that writing animal, burrowing along, doing what comes natural to me as breathing. I’ll revel in the madness of art, and that will have to be reward enough.

Read more of Shelley’s thoughts on art, writing, and life in her author newsletter, Pink Dandelions, on Substack. https://shelleyburbank.substack.com/about

Why do we write what we write?

Happy Halloween! I have some scary questions for you today.

What leads us to write what we write? And in an ever-shrinking market, what should lead us to write what we write?

These are a couple of a handful of questions I've pondered for a while.

I wrote five books set on the PGA Tour. They were published by a university press, and the sales figures indicated as much. Then I wrote three books featuring a female U.S. Border Patrol agent. The Peyton Cote series was published by a small mystery house that went out of business shortly thereafter (not entirely due, I hope, to me). I’ve had a starred review in PW, but my sales numbers will tell you “high concept” is not my bread and butter. Character- and setting-driven novels are what I write. And it’s getting harder and harder to publish them, which leads me back to my questions.

What drives us to write what we write?

And what should drive us?

My wife, a human resources specialist who sometimes sees the world very differently than I do, said to me the other day, “Figure out what sells.”

“Um,” I said, “it doesn’t work that way.”

Right?

It was a short conversation. I couldn’t explain it to her.

Am I right?

“Writing doesn’t work that way” sounds like pretentious artist-speak. I live outside Detroit. This city has gotten very wealthy by figuring out what people want and giving it to them. I once did a book signing next to a NYT best-seller and heard them ask a reader what they wanted to see happen in the series. Maybe the writer was being conversational; maybe they were planning to incorporate the reader’s ideas. I never followed up to ask.

But, as the market shrinks and fewer people are reading, the questions linger for me: What drives us to write what we write? And how do we make that determination?

Happy Halloween!

 by Sybil Johnson

I can’t believe tomorrow is Halloween! The year has sped by. 

When I was growing up, Halloween wasn’t as big a deal as it is now. Sure, kids went out trick or treating and there were Halloween parties at my grade school. I swear, though, that people didn’t decorate like they do now. 

I really enjoyed the pictures in Charlotte’s post yesterday. I have seen decorations around here, but I don’t think anything as complicated as those pics. Here are a couple I encountered this year. I’m pretty sure these 3 ladies are up to no good. 

And just how big would this skeleton be if it came out of the ground!? 

 

We don’t decorate the outside of our house, but I do have my decorations inside. They consist mostly of items I’ve painted or crocheted or macramed... You get the idea. They all tend toward the cuter side. I am not fond of gore. As you can tell, I have a thing for gnomes.

 

 

In the cozy mystery world, there are a lot of books set around Halloween. I love reading them. I wrote one myself for my Aurora Anderson series called Designed For Haunting. Since my series takes place in a fictional LA County beach city, I looked for what’s happening around Halloween in the real LA beach cities for ideas on places to set scenes. We have a silent movie theater in El Segundo, not far from where I live, that plays the silent 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera pretty much every year. There’s also a pumpkin race in Manhattan Beach every year. I created my own versions of each of these for my book. When I was looking for a ghost legend I could use in the book, I researched local legends and found something I could use. If you're writing a holiday mystery of any kind, it's always good to find the unique things that happen in the place it's set.

I hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween. Why not try your hand at writing a Halloween story?