Clicking Our Heels: No New Year’s Resolutions Because Our Noses Are to the Grindstone

Clicking
Our Heels – No New Year’s Resolutions Because Our Noses Are to the Grindstone


WE LIKED DOING A GIVEAWAY SO
MUCH, WE’RE DOING ONE EVERY MONTH ON CLICKING OUR HEELS DAY (FIRST
WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH)!

To enter for a chance to win Paula Benson’s Let it Snow and Debra H. Goldstein’s One Taste Too Many just
comment on this blog with your what you are working on whether writing or in some other area of life. Good luck and happy reading!
— winner will be announced next Wednesday on The Stiletto Gang Facebook page
– https://www.facebook.com/stilettogang 

Most
people make New Year’s Resolutions, but the Stiletto Gang is a busy group.
Today, we’re going to tell you what each of us is working on and how it
differs, if it does, from things we’ve written in the past.

Julie Mulhern – I am currently plotting
the ninth Country Club Murder – more Ellison, more Anarchy, more murder, and,
of course, more Mr. Coffee.

Juliana Aragon Flatula – I recently was
invited to submit to the Colorado Online Encyclopedia by the Colorado Poet
Laureate, Joseph Hutchinson. It will help K-12 teachers search online for
poetry using key words. I submitted ten of my poems and look forward to seeing
the website.

Cathy P. Perkins – I’m currently working
on the sequel to The Body in the Beaver
Pond,
which just won the Claymore Award (squee!). I’m also slowly moving
forward with a more literary mystery, a book I’ve wanted to write for years,
but promised not to touch until after my father died.

Kay Kendall – My first two mysteries
are set in the late 1960s and feature a young woman named Austin Starr. She
becomes an amateur sleuth in order to prove her new husband is not a murderer,
and then she continues when her best friend becomes a prime suspect. The book
titles are from Bob Dylan songs:  Desolation Row and Rainy Day Women. My third mystery debuts in early 2019 and is a
prequel about Austin’s grandmother, set in small town Texas during the Roaring
Twenties. Because I have no emotional attachment to that decade, it was easier
and more fun to write. The prequel is called After You’re Gone, also the name of a tune that is still covered by
artists today, including Ella Fitzgerald and Fiona Apple among many others.

J.M. Phillippe – I feel like I am
really leaning in to world building these days, and really enjoying creating
worlds for my characters to run around in. 
It does make it harder to come back to the actual plot sometimes though.
Bethany Maines – Ohhhhh. I’m not sure
this is a conversation we have time for. I’m working on another sci-fairy novel
to be part of the Galactic Dreams universe that I share with two other authors
(Karen Harris Tully and J.M. Phillippe). Then I’ve got a Christmas mystery
novella that may or may not get done in time for Christmas, a literary
thriller, and another San Juan Islands Murder Mystery novel.

Debra H. Goldstein – I’m working on
Three Treats Too Many, the third book in my Sarah Blair mystery series while
preparing to launch the series’ first book, One Taste Too Many in January. I’m
also working on a group of new short stories.

Linda Rodriguez – I’ve been making
notes for a literary novel that my agent wants me to write. It will be a
different experience from writing the mysteries. I think it’s going to take a
longer time to completion. I’m just sort of feeling my way through it right
now. I have written literary short fiction before, but not for a long time. So
I’m really looking forward to it.

Shari Randall – I’m working on a
standalone. It’s a thriller with humorous elements based on a character in a
short story I wrote called “The Objective Case” in the Chesapeake Crimes: This Job is Murder anthology. She’s been bugging
me to write her into a novel for years – I’m having a blast!

 TK Thorne – I’m stepping way out of my
comfort zone with my new Magic City Trilogy. My previous books have been
historical fiction set in the ancient past about strong women, given no name
and one line in the biblical stories (Noah’s wife and Lot’s wife), as well as
civil rights era nonfiction. But House of
Rose
, the first book, is set in current time with a different kind of
strong woman – a police officer with abilities to see glimpses of the past or
future. I called on a previous career in law enforcement and mixed it with
large doses of imagination.

Paula Gail Benson – I’m working on some
darker stories now. Learning how to respect the villain’s rationale while still
making sure justice prevails is a challenge!

AB Plum – Although I’m writing a
paranormal romance trilogy loosely based on The
Wizard of Oz
– quite different from the dark, psychological thrillers
series I recently finished, the major themes – family and misfits – remain
constant.

Dru Ann Love – Because I’m not a
writer, my blog, dru’s book musings,
keeps me busy.

Judy Penz Sheluk – I’m working on book
3 for both of my mystery series (The Glass Dolphin and Marketville), but I’m
also starting to do research for a collection of non-fiction essays, as well as
a non-fiction novel. The non-fiction doesn’t have a mystery element.