Is It A Mystery?

Well, I could claim I was laying in the clues, red herrings, false paths and beefing up my villain, but truth be told, time got away from me. I was editing (pays the bills so I can write) and it seems like there’s always something interesting on Cupcake Wars, so there you go!

A while back I read a book and I don’t know if it’s a mystery or chick lit – maybe it’s a new genre – chick mystery? There is a mystery involved, although somewhat of a mystery of relationships and the acts they can precipitate, the emotions they can engage and the guilt that trickles down through the years. But it keeps me coming back to find out what happens, and that’s the goal of any writer for her or his reader. It is the mystery, the characters or the flow of the story that keeps me turning the pages?

What other cross-genres do we like to read in mystery – historical mystery, science, legal and sci/fi mysteries. What about paranormal mystery? And one of my favorites – romantic mystery, often known as romantic suspense!

What else can we come up with? What favorite authors?

Libby McKinmer
Romance with an Edge
www.libbymckinmer.com
libby@libbymckinmer.com
Also at Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads

What happens when an idea sparks? Let It Sew.

I told you we'd have a guest.  Hey, help me pick up the magazines and books off the coffee table.  Are the dogs outside?  What about the cat? Who ate the cookies I sat out a few minutes ago...

Okay, now, I think we're ready... my friend, Elizabeth Lynn Casey, aka, Laura Bradford, is here to talk about her latest release in the successful Southern Sewing Circle Mystery series, LET IT SEW.  BTW, I love this cover! But I'll stop fussing and let Elizabeth talk.

Lynn
***

Ask a dozen writers what sparks a story and you’ll probably get a dozen answers with a handful of similarities—a news article, a radio snippet (a big one for me), and/or a dream. And most of the time, that’s probably the case. Sometimes though, at least for me, the initial jumping off point comes from a flash of something that, by itself, seems rather meaningless.

Take for example my latest book, LET IT SEW—the 7^th book in my Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries. I knew it was going to be a holiday book and that it was to be released in November of 2012, but beyond that, I didn’t really have a plan. Then came the flash, or, rather flashes.

Flash One: A woman with Alzheimer’s and whether their long term memory could remain intact, at least in spurts (the answer, according to my personal neurologist, was yes—hurrah!).

Flash Two: A different woman hell-bent on claiming her spot in a man’s life—his children be damned.

Most non-writers would probably see those flashes as odd thoughts and move on. But for a writer? Game on!

Once I’d confirmed the memory possibilities for my Alzheimer’s patient in the first flash, I began to build outward—using her skill with a sketch pad to slowly unlock a murder. Sketch by sketch this woman releases a chilling secret she’s hidden for nearly five years, a secret she thought she’d been keeping to protect one person only to find out her silence had actually enabled the real perpetrator to pull of the perfect crime.

But will anyone listen? After all, she has Alzheimer’s, doesn’t she?

The holiday aspect of my book grabbed hold of the second flash and spiraled that woman’s evil intent in multiple directions, making her the perfect female Grinch to wreak havoc among the series’ staple characters.

The next thing I knew, my fingers were off and running on my keyboard as my first flash took center stage and the second flash morphed into two different—yet interwoven—subplots.

Ahhhh…

I love it when that happens, don’t you?

*** 

Elizabeth Lynn Casey is the author of the Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries with Berkley Prime Crime. LET IT SEW, the 7^th book in the series, is now available. Additionally, she is also the author of the new Amish Mysteries (also with Berkley) under her regular name, Laura Bradford. HEARSE AND BUGGY, the 1^st book in that series, released in June. When she’s not writing mysteries, Laura occasionally dabbles in romances with her most recent release in that genre, STORYBOOK DAD. To learn more, visit: www.elizabethlynncasey.com or www.laurabradford.com.

   

The Next Big Thing for Me is Blessing or Curse

I received three tag requests to participate in The Next Big Thing -- one from Jenny Milchman, who is posting today at http//www.kathleenkaskawrites.blogspot.com, another from Shonell Bacon at http://shonellbacon.com, who posted on Oct. 22, and yet another from Susan Furlong-Bolliger, at http://booksgoneviral.blogspot.com, who will do her post on Nov. 19, so I had to give in, sit down and do one of my own.  My duties today are to answer ten burning questions, provide a link to the person(s) who tagged me, and also tag off to five other bloggers. So far, I've only found two, so I may need to tag three more victims later. The main thing is to keep The Next Big Thing going! And the questions and answers are:  What is your working title of your book? Blessing or Curse  Where did the idea come from for the book? Forever Young: Blessing or Curse When I began writing Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, my object was to lay the groundwork about the young pill which could revert a taker from that person’s present age to a previous one. So many characters begged for attention, I realized I couldn’t cover them all in one book. I had to yank some of them out of the manuscript and plop them into a separate book. Hence, Blessing or Curse, began. The first novel, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse,  concentrates on the heroine, as well as the villains. The second, Blessing or Curse, today's subject of The Next Big Thing, focuses on test market participants, as well as a bit about the bad guys. The third, Always Young, concludes the trilogy by taking readers back to the original main character  and someone she holds dear.  What genre does your book fall under? Good question. This one has mixed parentage. Paranormal, since no one has invented a pill yet to take anyone back in age and hold that person there.  It's also a Romance, because most of the stories revolve around love and relationships.  And a Thriller, because the pill has a wide reaching affect for good or bad, and also because there are nefarious villains around. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie edition? Ezekiel – Will Smith Sherri - Nicole Kidman Mike Walinski – Kevin James Not sure yet about the rest of the cast What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Blessing or Curse focuses on five characters from differing walks of life, nationalities, and circumstances, yet with one thing in common: they are all test market subjects of the experimental pill, Forever Young, designed to revert the user's age back to an earlier choice. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Definitely self-published, but with the help of my editor, Helen Ginger, plus my book designer,  Stephen Walker. How long did it take you to write the first draft of this manuscript? This has been going on for too long.(g) Actually, I started this sequel at least three or four years ago, but since much of it was part of the first book, I had to finish that one first. I’ve just about wrapped this second one up and hope to have it ready sometime in December, 2012, fingers crossed. What other books would you compare this story to in your genre? Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, the first book in my trilogy. Also, the original Forever Young book and movie. More movies: 17 Again, Young Again. I know there's more, but I can't remember them all. Who or what inspired you to write this book? Getting old was a big inspiration, thinking how nice it would be to be young again and stay at a younger age. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? I made a concerted effort to include different sorts of characters, with a range of nationalities and physical characteristics, to appeal to a wide audience.  Here's something about their stories: Desperation forces Consuela to order the Forever Young pill to cure her debilitated husband, Diego, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease; but will the cure become a curse? Ezekiel, an African-American male with  E.D. difficulties, sends in for the young pill to prevent his lady love, Luana, from discovering he can’t get it up. Will the pill draw her closer or drive her away? Strawberry blonde model, Sherri’s popularity is fading with her looks. The pill can bring her fame and fortune, but what about love? Overweight Chicago Police Officer Walinski must pass a new physical or lose his job, along with his canine partner. Will the young pill provide security, when danger lurks in the line of duty? Downtrodden going-on-sixty housewife, Dee Dee Marshall, suspects her husband of infidelity, and will do anything to keep him, even take an experimental pill. What she really needs is self-confidence. Now you know something about The Next Big Thing of Morgan Mandel, which I hope you'll be reading soon!!! I'm tagging Debra St. John, who will be posting about her Next Big Thing at my blog, http://morganmandel.blogspot.com on Nov.19. And Helen Ginger, is posting today at http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com.            Thanks, Morgan Mandel http://www.morganmandel.com Twitter at @MorganMandel Amazon Central Page: http://amazon.com/author/morganmandel Excerpt & Buy Links Blog: http://morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com

Visual Aids to Writing

By Kaye  George

I know many people use charts and other visual aids for plotting, but this one is new to me. It’s not a new concept by any means, but my TBR stack of articles has been there for quite a while and the printouts of Jennifer Crusie’s blogs just came to the top this week. Take a look at these two:

http://www.jennycrusie.com/more-stuff/book-collages/

http://www.jennycrusie.com/for-writers/essays/picture-this-collage-as-prewriting-and-inspiration/

When I read these, I realized I had done this, somewhat, when writing my Neanderthal mystery. I needed a lot of help visualizing the people for this novel. I wanted to keep in mind what they looked like--that they were not modern humans, but not animals either. I found the best pictures I could and even assigned some of the pictures to the individuals.

I’ve never done so much research for anything in my life. I wanted the story to be as accurate as I could make it. I set it in North America 30,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age was approaching and as the Neanderthals were living their last days on earth as a separate group of people. The Mississippi River didn’t exist, so I had to know what the terrain was like. I had to find out what an approaching glacier would look like, since all of them are receding now. Plants, animals, climate, housing, clothing, I had pictures of it all. Plus, I drew a map of the settlement and the surroundings, after figuring out how far a bunch of people could move in a day. Whew!

Fast forward to the FAT CAT series I’m writing. I had to spend a few weeks away from it to finish up my project for Barking Rain Press, and I was very worried about getting back into it. Crusie claims that a collage is a cure for that. If it really is, I’m all for it. As I read her articles, I thought, “This is great! It will solve my problems.”

Then another light bulb lit up! I already have a bunch of pictorial helps--on Pinterest! I started some boards as soon as I got the deal, just thinking they might do some good. I have a Dessert Bar board and one for Fat Cats! If you glance at my boards (http://pinterest.com/kayegeorge/), you’ll see they all relate to something I’m writing in some way. I’ll need one on Minneapolis, or maybe Dinkeytown, the setting for the series. Or maybe I should combine all of those for myself. Since Pinterest just announced the new Secret Boards, I can experiment and see what I come up with. I’m looking forward to this!

(Just found this: http://pinterest.com/volpane/for-collage-public-domain-images/)

(And this: http://voices.yahoo.com/how-digital-collage-sheet-3701368.html?cat=2)

However, I can’t find any illustrations of collages. Oh well. Click on some of the fantastic ones on the second Crusie link--they’re super duper!

Lightbulb & Glacier from Dreamstime

Don’t Tell Me Again… and Again… and Again…

As I sit writing this, the presidential election is going on. I have no idea of who won, though I do have hopes. By the time you read this, however, all will be known. It will be over.

Perhaps that’s the second most important thing about this whole unending mess. It will be over! Of course, who won is the most important, but at last it will finally be over.

I for one have been sickened and disgusted not only by the rhetoric, but by the pervasiveness of politics. Your phone rings, and it’s more likely than not a robo-call urging you to vote for someone. Political commercials fill the air like a swarm of gnats – and are just about as annoying. Signs proliferate on billboards and lawns like mushrooms. TV’s talking heads keep saying the same things over and over and over.

You’ve probably gathered that I’m tired of this circus (you’re right) and wondering just exactly what does this have to do with writing?

If nothing else, this year’s election brouhaha shows the boredom factor inherent in overkill.

I once read a manuscript written by a woman who loved description. Really truly unbelievably self-indulgently loved description. She described everything, from the heroine’s eyelashes to the main house’s staircase in stultifying detail. And not just once. Every time someone went up or down that dratted staircase she found something else about it to rhapsodize over at adjectival length, but nothing she ever said about it was germane to the plot. Her descriptions weren’t clues, weren’t even especially part of her world-building after the first one or two; if anything, they were more like love letters to the life she wished she lived.

She described practically everything in the book with equally mind-numbing detail. The hero’s car. The heroine’s wardrobe. The garden. The alley. The heroine’s office. The hero’s office. On and on and on, until the manuscript was more like a catalogue sans prices than a novel and I was crying ‘Enough, already!’

Of course, after a very few pages it was obvious that this book was an offense of the worst Mary Sue type, where the author was living the heroine’s life vicariously and projecting herself as the heroine, making the book as much therapy as catalogue. Believing that life is too short to read bad books I wouldn’t have read much past the first chapter had I not been contracted to edit the thing. As it was, I did read the entire sorry mess, and I wrote a 7 page single-spaced critique, but then declined to do a full edit. One only has so much strength and I could foresee having to work with this writer line by painful line and I don’t mean as a line edit. No, thank you!

So do we need description? Yes, of course. We need to know our characters’ world. Historic or modern? Clean or dirty? Antique or cutting edge? Rich or poor? Whatever, because the character’s reaction to their surroundings helps define them as a character.

Conversely, we don’t need to see every nailhead or scratch (unless they are definitely clues) and we certainly don’t need to see the same thing again and again.

Description can be a powerful tool if used properly. Also, in some formats more description is allowed than in others. Noir description is usually spare. Cozy is a little more detailed. Romance loves it. Even in the most fussy of formats I tend to like a certain spareness. This allows me to use my imagination, see what is in my head.

Example – let’s go back to the staircase. You can say it swoops upward in a graceful curve, that the banister is dark with years of careful oiling, that the posts are carved with a wild variety of floral motifs, that the carpet is a genuine Oriental runner, only slightly worn… Got it? You now know the exact kind of staircase I meant, but I am almost positive that if we were able to compare visuals, the staircase you see is different from the one I see. We still have a similar idea of style, status, etc. We don’t really need to know that the posts are carved with acanthus, roses and ivy or that the carpet is pale blue in the Elephant’s Foot pattern or that there is a wainscot which matches the banister.

This vague-but-exact description makes the scene come more alive for the reader because it allows the reader to participate – albeit following the form that you as the writer have created. A wise sage once said ‘Less Is More’ and in description that is very true.

Janis Patterson is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith who has just taken her first cautious steps into the world of self-publishing. This week she has released THE AVENGING MAID (traditional Regency romance), QUARTET:FOUR SLIGHTLY TWISTED TALES (mystery/supernatural short story anthology), THE DEVIL OF DRAGON HOUSE (traditional Gothic romance) and LACEY (traditional Regency romance), all under the name of Janis Susan May. All are available at Amazon and other major etailers.

The Devil's Foothold

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009R7DZ1S

Here's the book I wrote about in my last post. Nice spooky cover for what I'm calling a supernatural mystery only available on Kindle.

It's likely the only book I'll ever do myself. As it turned out, I need a lot of help. I found a great cover artist who definitely got the "flavor" of the book. 

Reading the directions for formatting for Kindle, for me was like reading something in Russian. I went to a friend who has great success and asked for help. Turns out her husband does all her formatting and putting it on Kindle. He helped me through the whole process--and ended up doing most of it himself. I've been calling him an angel.

The book is up there and I've had a few sales, but I need to get busy with more promotion. 

So far there's not a single review which is a bit disheartening, but I suppose they'll come.

My biggest problem is as I said before, I have way too much to do.

Trying to find time to work on my Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery and I've been caught up in fixing the historical family saga. 

And then I realized November was here and I needed to write a post for Make Mine Mystery--and here I am.

Marilyn     

More Favorite Movie Quotes

More Favorite Movie Quotes

by Randy Rawls

        Last month, I wrote about some of my favorite movie quotes. It stirred up some interesting responses and got me thinking and looking around the Internet. I discovered a whole treasure of lines from Humphrey Bogart movies.

CASABLANCA

           Rick: Your cash is good at the bar.
          Banker: What? Do you know who I am?
          Rick: I do. You're lucky the bar's open to you.

         Woman: What makes saloonkeepers so snobbish?
          Banker: Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam.
          Carl: Second largest? That wouldn't impress Rick. The leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen.

         Ugarte: You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.

         Ilsa: Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.

         Ugarte: You despise me, don't you?
         Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.

         Rick: ...Here's looking at you, kid.

         Rick: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.

         Rick: Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

         Rick: We'll always have Paris.

THE MALTESE FALCON

        Brigid O'Shaughnessy: I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.
        Sam Spade: You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere.

        Wilmer Cook: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.
         Sam Spade: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

         Sam Spade: My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, and an assistant district attorney and a stenographer.

         Detective Tom Polhaus: [picks up the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
         Sam Spade: The stuff that dreams are made of.

         Sam Spade: People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.

         Sam Spade: Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be.

 THE AFRICAN QUEEN

        Charlie Allnut: Well I ain't sorry for you no more, ya crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid!

        Charlie: Well, yeah, but I never tried shooting myself in the head neither.

        Charlie Allnut: I don't blame you for being scared—not one bit. Nobody with good sense ain't scared of white water...
         Rose Sayer: I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!

        Charlie: What an absurd idea! What an absurd idea! Lady, I may be a born fool, but you got ten absurd ideas to my one, an' don't you forget it!

       Captain of Louisa: I think I shall have to hang you twice.

       Captain of Louisa: By the authority granted to me by his Imperial Majestey Kaiser Wilhelm the Second I pronounce you man and wife—proceed with the execution.

       Charlie: It's a great thing to have a lady aboard with clean habits. It sets the man a good example. A man alone, he gets to living like a hog.

       Sorry to be so longwinded, but they go on and on. Hard not to include them all. And that's only three of Bogie's movies. I can keep this up forever.