A mystery writer's mind is like a __________ (fill in the blank)

 

Please allow me to back up for a moment and explain the genesis of the blog's title. I was walking through the kitchen and saw a partially covered newspaper headline: "Woman eats Roommate". While most normal people would be horrified and quickly uncover, or cover, the article, my mind wandered. "Hmm, how would I handle that in a mystery? Would it work best in the Pine County or the Doug Fletcher series?"

My second child, Heather, who hasn't read any of my books, says the inside of my head is a scary place she doesn't want to explore.

What can I say? My mind runs to mystery plots when I see something intriguing. To address the "Woman eats Roommate" headline, the entire title was "Woman eats Roommate's Groceries." It was a Dear Abby headline, and totally uninteresting when compared to the plots that were raging through my head.

To be frank, yes, mundane events and stories send me off on mystery tangents. A retired Lutheran minister asked how many books I had in print. When I replied 25, he asked how many full-time writers I employ to do the writing for me, and what part I played in crafting the books. Laughing, I explained that my staff was tiny and part-time, paid only in signed copies of the latest book. The writing, outlines, plots, characters, and the typos, were all my own. He was amazed that I was consistently writing four books a year.

Writing is a solitary endeavor. I spend a few hours a day behind my laptop, with the characters speaking to me, and little other interaction with the outside world...unless a curious headline, conversation, email, or newspaper story captures my attention.

The latest Pine County mystery, Fatal Business, is an example of my wandering mind. My cop and horse consultant may have suggested the premise of a deer hunter failing to return to his camp at sunset. After that idea "pinballed" around my brain for a few days. I studied maps, researched gunshot wounds, tapped into my biology and medical education and experience, then crafted an outline involving a small-town businessman who disappears, later to be found, dead. Was he a murder victim? Or did he die in a tragic hunting accident?

Read Fatal Business to find out.

Hovey, Dean - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

www.amazon.com/Fatal-Business-Pine-County-Book-ebook/dp/B0B365MLXQ

Fatal Business | Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store! (books2read.com)

Revising and Rounding Out my New Brunswick Brides Book, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

To purchase, On a Stormy Primeval Shore: Click

Four years after the first publication, my Canadian Brides book is undergoing revision, and now released in Audio. I need to purchase this format and listen to how my story is expressed.

When a professional reviewer mentioned the bad guys were one dimensional, after praising the rest of the novel, I knew what needed to be done.

I'd go through it and add dimension to all the side characters, especially the villains.

It was actually an enjoyable process. What drove this or that person to behave the way they did? What makes a person turn to crime instead of traveling the straight and narrow? A cruel childhood, an abusive parent, nothing but failure or loss in their later life?

Of course, a character can experience all of this and still turn out fine. But others turn bitter.

My main villain needed several life changing experiences, and a turn to alcohol, which intensifies his feelings of persecution and need for revenge.

I gave other characters a boost to show their hopes, wishes, and a glimpse of their backgrounds and motivations.

Woven into this is the history of the province of New Brunswick. A wild land my heroine, Amelia, travels to in the late eighteenth century to marry a man picked out by her father; but she finds love with someone else. A most inappropriate man.

Gilbert is French Acadian, scorned by the 'entitled' British. The Acadians were slaughtered and burned out when England took over the colony. Or deported elsewhere.

The Deportation of the Acadians by Henri Beau

Will Gilbert remain bitter, or assimilate with the changes? His love for Amelia will cause problems all around.

The Canadian Historical Brides is a wonderful series, showing the history, the romance, the struggles, of all the provinces at different times. The divergent people who settled in Canada. 

All great reads. Find them HERE.

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.

To find out more about her and her books:  DianeScottLewis

Vegetable Gardening: Fresh Vegetables from Our Garden to Our Dinner Table: Zucchini Cake Recipe #vegetablegardening #zucchini #gardening

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by JQ Rose

Rescuing a naked woman lying in a geranium bed? Investigating mysterious murders? These are not the usual calls in a Florida retirement community for volunteer first responder Jim Hart.

Click here to discover more books by JQ Rose 

on her BWL Publishing author page.  

You just need a garden and a library!

 What a special time of year for people who love fresh veggies. July and August are the prime months for harvesting vegetables from our garden. This is the time of the year when we get paid back for all that hard labor in planting and nurturing those lovely plants. 

We are reaping the rewards now.

Not only does gardening provide rewards of fresh, healthy food, but the labor also is more satisfying than going to a stinky dark gym to exercise. Planting, digging and weeding the plot is one of the best ways to keep a happy, strong heart.

Warning!! It's zucchini time. Zucchini is a prolific plant. Once it gets growing, the harvesting goes on and on and on. You'll need several recipes to have some diversity in your diet.
I'll share a zucchini cake recipe at the end of the article.

Green tomatoes. Fingers crossed we'll have a long enough season for the tomatoes to ripen.
We had a late spring. The weather was so cold and rainy, Gardener Ted thought he would never get any crops from our garden. Unfortunately, many seeds rotted in the cold ground and had to be replanted. The good news is the sun finally came out and warmed up the ground so the beans are flowering and looking healthy today! We may pick a handful by the end of the week.

I picked my first green pepper this week. I love, love, love green peppers. You too?

The potato plants are blooming. They show promise of producing tasty spuds.

Lettuce on the left. Romaine and Magenta. We have had to give lots of lettuce away to friends and family and to the local food pantry. What a rewarding experience when people smile when we hand them the fresh lettuce. Nothing like it.
I've made two batches of slaw from crisp heads of cabbage. Nothing like the sound of the crack of a head of cabbage when you split it with a sharp knife. I cut the head in halves or quarters, cut out the core, then soak it in salt water for about 15 minutes.
The salt kills any insects hiding within the layers of leaves.

I know, the black-eyed Susans are not veggies, but oh so pretty.

In my scary story, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, the main characters are Gloria and Jim Hart from Michigan. They spend winters in a retirement community in Florida. Jim is a year-round gardener with a garden Up North and one in Florida. He grows waaaaay too many vegetables so they give them away to friends and family. Gloria is always searching for delicious ways to cook vegetables so she has a choice of dishes for their dinner table. 

Hmmm...these characters are suspiciously similar to the author and her husband. LOL...Yes, I based them on my life, but Jim and Gloria are a bit more fun and quirkier than we are!

Zucchini
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay 

Since I can't pass a zucchini through the Internet to you, I will share a great recipe with you for Zucchini cake. 

ZUCCHINI CAKE

3 c. flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Sift together these dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside. (I don't use a sifter.)

3 c. sugar 

11/2 c. vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

3 c. shredded zucchini

1 c. chopped nuts

Beat together sugar, oil, vanilla, eggs and zucchini

Mix all ingredients together. Fold in nuts.

Spray 9 x 13-inch pan with oil--do you flour your pans?

Bake at 350 degrees C  for 1 hour

Cool in pan, then sprinkle with powdered sugar or frost with cream cheese icing

Mmmmm. Good.

TIP: Use 3/4 c. applesauce and 3/4 c. oil instead of 1 1/2 c. oil to reduce fat

So I leave you with this delicious recipe. 

I hope you and your family and friends enjoy the cake.

Our Michigan garden

****

Thank you for your support of my novels and memoir over the years and for your support of BWL Publishing.

Click the links below to stay connected with JQ Rose. Thank you.

Author JQ Rose and Gardener Ted

JQ Rose's Focused on Story Blog

JQ Rose, Author Facebook Page 

Dig Deeper by Helen Henderson

Windmaster Legacy by Helen Henderson
Click the cover for purchase information

A question I have been wrestling with lately is how to make a character real. Reference books on characterization offer various tips, then it is in the author's hands. I remember reading the western novels by one of my father's favorite authors. After a while I realized the author had fallen into a rut. Each lead male character had the identical physical description down to hair color.

A novel notebook or series bible helps me keep the characters straight from book to book and within a series. Although cover images are not always selected until the work is completed, a practical reason to reuse the same hair color is the availability of cover models. You don't want to write a character with an unusual hair color, then find out that there is no suitable cover shot. Editing an entire novel to just change hair color wastes time and increases the possibilities of error. And that doesn't even include the possibility of a character getting mad at me as their creator and refusing to cooperate in telling the story.

My favorite part of a character is their backstory. The character's past and how their experiences, culture, and family all blend together to not only form the individual's personality, but also how they will react to a given circumstance. What can be a challenge is not putting everything I know about a character into a story. To create mystery while allowing the reader to use their imagination in a blending of the writer's and the reader's vision, details need to be sprinkled like a fine spice rather than giving the reader an encyclopedia.

A child who grew up during the Great Depression might handle money differently than one who knew only an abundance of opportunity. One might reuse items until they are no longer functional and put money away for lean times. The other who never knew hard times or went without, might never have two cents in their pocket because they spend everything they have and trust there will always be more.

A lot of considerations went into creating the archmage, Lord Dal. A chieftain's son, magic cost him the possibility of leading his clan. Yet he retained knowledge obtained during his formative years. A talented horseman and skilled swordsman helped him obtain a position in a mercenary unit, but a natural ability to lead helped him rise through the ranks. These same skills aided him after his powers asserted themselves and he eventually became archmage, head of the School of Mages, and responsible for all those with powers. In response to the totality of his experiences and background, duty, honor and loyalty were ingrained into his personality.

       Part of a character is his friends. In the case of Lord Dal,
a long-time friend is the head stallion of the falaire herd, Tairneach.

While not all characters receive a detailed physical description, follows is Lord Dal's. In Windmaster Legacy, he is in his early thirties. Even though men from the M’twan Mountains run to long in the leg, Dal is a full head taller than many of his kin. The scars on his forearms from practice blades and actual battles tell of his experiences as a mercenary.

Dal's black hair is short on sides and falls to just below shoulder in back. Besides his muscular frame which hints at his true strength, one of the first things many people notice about him are his light brown eyes that tend to sparkle with an internal amusement.

I hope you've enjoyed this deeper dig into Lord Dal.

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

~Until next month, stay safe and read.  

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination.
Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads or Twitter. 

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack.

Kayla's Cowboy, another Longview Romance by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about Nancy's books click on the cover above.

For any of you familiar with my Longview Romance series, you'll recall that Rob Chetwynd and Michelle Wilson were engaged. Or at least that's the impression Michelle had, not to mention all of Longview. So it was a shock when Rob came back from the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas married to someone else.  And that someone else was a dressage rider, not someone familiar with rodeo. Kayla Dunbarton had no idea of the hornet's nest she was going to encounter when she accompanied her new husband home to Longview, Alberta. 

Kayla's Cowboy tells the tale of how this wedding came to be and the events leading up to the nuptials. Not to mention the fall out afterwards.

Here's a short excerpt to tempt you. Kayla's first meeting with Rob which doesn't go so well:

She’d just finished taking the bridle apart and was dropping the bridoon bit and the curb into a pail of warm water when the curtained stall door opened a bit.

“Anybody here?” A male voice asked.

“Get out of there, Chetwynd,” another voice cautioned.

What the hell? Kayla pulled the door all the way open and fisted her hands on her hips. “What do you want?” she demanded. “Who the hell are you?”

“Aw, c’mon now, pretty lady. I was just wantin’ to say hello and admire your horse.” The tall cowboy pushed his hat back on his head and grinned down at her. His gaze swept her up and down, lingering on the swell of her breast below the gapping neck of her old sweatshirt.

“I asked what your name was,” she repeated. “And I don’t appreciate you just inviting yourself into my tack room. There was something interesting about the man, his jeans snugged against his lean hips, broad shoulders filling out his western shirt. There was some kind of advertising emblazoned all over the red shirt but she couldn’t make it all out. The cowboy just continued to grin at her in appreciation.

“I’m sorry, m’am. I’m Cody, Cody Butters and I apologize for my partner here, he’s a little short on manners.” The second man elbowed in front of his friend.

“Hell fire, man. She should know who I am,” the first man said belligerently.

Kayla’s temper flared and she glared over Cody’s shoulder at the cowboy. “I haven’t a clue who you are, and I could care less. Why don’t you go back under the rock you crawled out of?”

“He don’t mean no harm, m’am. He’s just a mite uncivilized, is all,” Cody intervened. This idiot, is Rob Chetwynd, the reigning Bull Riding Champion.”

“At your service,” Rob swept his hat off and made a deep bow.

Kayla sighed in exasperation. “What do you want? I have things to do.”

“Just wanted to say hello and say how much we enjoyed your riding,” Cody said with a meaningful glance at his friend.

“Actually, I wanted to see if your little behind was as cute out of the arena as in it,” Rob said, lifting one eyebrow.

“That’s enough.” Kayla grabbed a stable broom from the corner of the stall and smacked him with it. “Get out! Get out now, before I call security.”

“Now, now, there ain’t no call to do that.” Cody grabbed his friend by the back of his belt and started to drag him out of the stall.

“What’s going on here?” Anna demanded, coming to a halt with Wellington in tow.

“These two yahoos invited themselves into our tack room and made themselves very unwelcome,” Kayla told her, still brandishing the broom.

Cody turned and let go of Rob’s belt as Anna came up. “Man, that’s a nice piece of horse flesh,” he said, eyes running over the 17.3 hand gelding in appreciation.

“Yes, he is, and I’d thank you to not touch him and take your…companion…and leave.” Kayla glared at the two men. “Now.”

“Sorry, yeah. I gotta apologize for my friend here. He’s maybe had a bit too much celebratin’, if you catch my drift,” Cody said.

“That’s not excuse for being an ass,” Kayla shot back.

“Yes, m’am.” Cody ran his eyes over Wellington again, stopping when Anna stepped out from behind the big horse into his line of vision. Interest flashed across his face before he dragged Rob away.

“What was all that about?” Anna asked, her gaze on the red headed cowboy. “What did he say his name was?”

“Which one?” Kayla stripped the cooler off Wellington and picked up a brush from the tack box just inside the tack room door.

“The red headed one, not the other one,” Anna said folding the cooler up.

“I don’t know…Cam, Cale, Cody…maybe…why?” She glanced up from her work. “You can’t seriously be interested, can you?”

“Maybe,” Anna dragged the word out. “He seemed nice, I mean, nicer than his friend. And he sure filled out those jeans…” She winked at Kayla.

“Oh, you,” Kayla snorted. “You’d date the devil himself if he had a nice ass.”

Anna grinned. “Probably,” she agreed, chuckling.