Tag Archive for: #mysteries

Must See Mystery TV

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by Sparkle Abbey


Since we read and write mysteries, it was probably also a given that we’d like mystery shows. And there are a lot of great ones to choose from right now. 


Since the arrival of Netflix, Acorn TV, BritBox, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, there are more and more opportunities to stumble over shows that are not only great mysteries but are unique and different. 


Why are we so drawn to them? First off, most of these shows are heavily character-driven. The characters are quirky, eccentric and still likable. They are flawed, non-cookie-cutter characters who find themselves in extreme situations. Some serious, some with a mix of humor. Yet they feel so realistic you find yourself rooting for them to get their act together and succeed. 


Plus these shows have great plots! Twists and turns and puzzles to figure out. We love it when we get it figured out before the end of the show; and we love it even more when we don’t. 


Here are a few of the shows we’re watching:
My Life is Murder
Midsomer Murders
Death in Paradise
Father Brown
Agatha Christie’s Inspector Poirot
Murdoch Mysteries Movies
Shakespeare and Hathaway
Vera  
Queens of Mystery
No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
Miss Fisher’s Mysteries
Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries


What do you think? Did we list your favorite? Or did we miss your must-see? We’re always open to ideas.


Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Woods aka Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. (But don’t tell the neighbors.) They love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites.
Their most recent book is The Dogfather, the tenth book in the Pampered Pets series.
Also, if you want to make sure you get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website.

Day in the Life…

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by Bethany Maines

This week I have officially sent my third San Juan Island’sMurder Mystery off to the beta readers, broken a client’s website, and took my
daughter to her first karate class.  It’s
been a busy week.  Tish Yearly, the
heroine of the San Juan Mysteries also lives a busy, scattered life, hopping
from emergency to emergency.  But that’s
not really the kind of thing I want to emulate about my characters.  And I certainly don’t want to be finding dead
bodies every time I turn around.  It
would be extremely untidy if nothing else.
In fact, I think living the life of a mystery heroine would
be extremely fraught.  You would never
know when your next acquaintance was going to turn up dead.  There are some benefits of course.  There’s always some sort of hot police
personnel person hanging around and who doesn’t like that?  But the number of friends hiding dark secrets
must only be rivaled by the friends in a Romance novel.  Possibly less secret babies, but I wouldn’t
want to place money on that.  And don’t
forget that usually one of your other friends is the killer.  What kind of people are you associating with
mystery heroine?!!  You need a better
friend group! 

So, to sum up… I’m glad I’m not a mystery heroine, but I
really wish I hadn’t broken the website. 
And now if you’ll excuse me I have to go spend some time on hold with
the person who can access the website database. 
But here is a quote from Unfamiliar Sea to make us all laugh while I
cry over the hold music.

**
Bethany Maines
is the author
of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her fifth degree black belt in karate, she can be found
chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

The Perfect Ending

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by Bethany Maines

Sci-fi season is done and I’m back to working on
mysteries!  Yay!  Something I’m utterly comfortable with and
totally know how to do.  Wait… how do you
do this again?  I think I’ve got genre
whiplash.  Can I just toss in some aliens
at the end of this thriller and solve everything?
As I plug away toward the ending on my latest WIP
(work-in-progress) I find myself struggling to find the perfect stopping point
(that doesn’t include aliens). Some genres are more forgiving of ambiguity in
an ending, but I think that across all genre’s the perfect ending is one that
feels satisfactory to the characters. I’ve read many books where it was as
though author just wandered off and their lead character is left twisting in
the wind. (Grapes of Wrath, I’m looking at you. 
Just because you couldn’t come up with more tortures for your characters
does not mean you just get to quit writing Steinbeck.) I’m all for leaving room
for character development and a sequel, but… uh… let’s have a little bit of
satisfaction for the reader and character.
And an author probably shouldn’t subvert their genre too
hard.  Hamlet is not meant to end with
Hamlet and Ophelia riding off into the sunset. 
Romances should definitely have the two main characters getting together
and mysteries should solve the damn mystery. 
Don’t betray the audiences trust just to be clever.  But that still leaves a lot of leeway.  Just HOW do I want my characters to get
together?  What’s the perfect way to expose
the murderer?  It’s like I’ve got a
choose-your-own-adventure in my head and I’m the only one who can figure out if
I’m supposed to flip to page 42 or 117. 
So wish me luck as I venture off to page 117.  Hopefully I don’t die.
***

3 novels, 1 low price
Welcome to the universe of Galactic Dreams, where fairy tales are reimagined for a new age—the future.

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Galactic Dreaming

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by Bethany Maines

The sci-fi fairy tale anthology Galactic Dreams Volume 2, featuring my novel The Seventh Swan will be released next week. Today, I’m interviewing one of the the other authors featured in the anthology: Karen Harris Tully.  Karen generally writes sci-fi YA novels, including The Faarian Chronicles trilogy, and creates elaborate worlds for her novels aided by her bachelor’s in political science and economics. We met through a mutual friend and I have had the pleasure of beta reading some of her manuscripts.

For the Galactic Dreams series, myself, Karen, and fellow Stiletto Gang author J.M. Phillippe, were given the task of creating a literary universe that could be shared across the anthology series. We have to agree on the history of the universe as well as technology and vocabulary.  Each of us is venturing into unexplored territory, whether it’s by sharing a world, trying out the sci-fi genre (that’s me!), or attempting to write on a shorter deadline than normal, the Galactic Dream series has been challenging for all of us. I’m asking Karen about some of the challenges that came with writing as part of the Galactic Dream Team.

What is the best/worst part about sharing a universe with two other writers?
KHT: Like Cerberus, three heads are simply better than one. I may come up with some good ideas, but when I’m lucky enough to put those together with the imagination brainpower of JM Phillippe and Bethany Maines, well, the stuff we come up with as a trio is mind-blowing. And when our brains flow and mesh together to create something bigger, that I never could have imagined on my own, that’s the fun part. Of course, the worst is when they don’t like my amazing ideas! As if that could ever happen, right? 😉

BMM: You have great ideas—we’re probably missing out on sheer awesomeness whenever one gets voted down.

How do you develop the technology in your books?
KHT: The ideas, you mean? They come from extrapolating real, amazing s**t that is happening right now! I am so fascinated with CRISPR gene editing for example. I love science news and listen to a lot of NPR and science podcasts. I read online articles about new tech that scientists and companies are developing that isn’t even out yet, from gadgets and tech to clean up our oceans, to weapons of the future, to tiny interstellar disk probes on shiny, laser powered sails, and pretty much everything else. I think to myself, what happens with this technology next, what does this look like in a hundred or a thousand years? And then I write it in. 
BMM: I’m interested in the tech, but I think the social ramifications of a technology become more interesting for me. I think you’re more science-minded than me. Which is beneficial.  Definitely don’t leave me in charge of the tech.

Do you think fairy tales adapt better to sci-fi than other genres (and if so, why)?
KHT: Of course! Because what used to be magic, strictly relegated to the realm of fantasy, is becoming real, through technology. Waving a magic wand is too easy. Making miracles happen in real life, that’s science. I love it most when science and fiction, fantasy and imagination, all crash together to create something new, weird, and wonderful.
BMM: I completely agree with this, but also, I think some of the disjointed plotting of fairy tales can more easily be explained in sci-fi because… aliens.  😀

The core of your plot is a mystery of who is behind an impending war—do you approach that plot line differently than the sci-fi portions? 
KHT: I think all good sci-fi starts off with a mystery. Strange stuff is happening in a weird location and the science and imagination of that fascinates me. But, without the mystery of why the drama is happening, and who’s behind it all, fighting the alien horde would just be visceral stimulation without a purpose, you know?

BMM: That’s right. You heard it here, folks. Even the sci-fi people admit… Everything is Mystery!
Many thanks to Karen Harris Tully for being interviewed today!
**
3 novels, 1 low price
Release: 2/19/19
**
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, San
Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo
Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to
exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in
karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working
on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.

Liars or Truth Seekers?

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by Sparkle Abbey

Ever play two truths and a lie? The ice breaker game where each person shares three facts about him or herself, but one is really a lie. The others must pick out the lie from the truths. The most successful players know that the best lie contains a truthful element.

According to Stephen King, “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” Perhaps one can consider fiction to be a form of two truths and a lie.

Great fiction has the power to reveal truth through well defined and developed characters. Yet truth is a matter of perspective – especially in mystery fiction. Truth, lies and deceit are pillars in a great mystery. If the characters, for the most part, always told the truth, the mystery is quickly solved and well, that’s pretty darn boring. And a very short novel. Think about some of your favorite characters. They are most likely flawed, complex, and strive to do the right thing, although at times going about it the wrong way.

Are they liars or truth seekers? Perhaps both.


When do characters lie?

Secondary characters lie to the protagonist, the protagonist lies to other characters, and the protagonist lies to his or herself.

Self-deception is an important element in fiction. Like in real life, our characters are quick to justify and find excuses for lying—even the good guys. It’s only a white lie, to protect someone’s feelings. They didn’t actually lie; they just omitted the truth when asked if they had information. Or maybe they did lie to protect someone they love who is accused of a crime they didn’t commit, buying time to find the truth. Ah…a truth seeker!

 

Professional lie detector Pamela Meyer says, “Lying is a cooperative act.  Think about it, a lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance. Its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe the lie.” (Check out her awesome TED Talk: How to spot a liar). 

As writers we “lie” by planting clues of misdirection, red herrings, false clues, inaccurate witnesses, and false confessions. Our lies add tension and hid the truth until the appropriate time for the big reveal. In a mystery these types of lies are acceptable because the reader is already in on the joke or “lie” the second they opened the book. The reader “agrees to believe the lie.”

As writers not only do we want to entertain, but we also have a point of view, a “truth inside a lie” we want to convey to others by storytelling—redemption, love, forgiveness, justice. A truth seeker.

Though we are, you could say, “professional liars” we have a responsibility to the reader to play fair throughout the journey we take them on: to use the lies to weave the story, create the conflict, and eventually to reveal the truth. 

Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. (But don’t tell the neighbors.) They love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. Also, if you want to make sure you get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website.

Nikki Lanier in the Hot Seat

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by Bethany Maines

In today’s blog we’re interviewing Nikki Lanier, the star of the Carrie Mae Mysteries and the upcoming Glossed Cause by Bethany Maines. The interview questions are selected questions from Marcel Proust’s Questionnaire of 35 questions intended to reveal an individuals true nature.  So read on to find out what makes Nikki Lanier tick…

1. On what occasion do you lie?
Most occasions? Sorry, that’s an awkward question. I have to lie to most people on a daily basis. The Carrie Mae Foundation, the non-profit charity branch of Carrie Mae Cosmetics, and my employer, has the extremely simple goal of “helping women everywhere.” But the Carrie Mae founders realized early on that helping women sometimes requires a silk glove of diplomacy and sometimes an iron fist of enforcement. Basically, the Carrie Mae Foundation is part non-profit, part black ops force. And I’m part of the iron fist, but I can’t tell anyone. My boyfriend—the CIA agent—just found though… I guess we’ll see how that turns out.

Nikki Lanier

2. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A Saturday afternoon at the beach with my friends, my boyfriend, no one shooting at me and no phone calls from my mother. You wouldn’t think that would be so hard to achieve, but it’s been difficult. My friends all work for Carrie Mae, my boyfriend works for the CIA and my mother doesn’t know when to butt out, so getting a free Saturday rarely seems to happen.

3. What is your greatest fear?
That everyone will find out that I’m just faking it. I know they say imposter syndrome is a real thing for women, but I just keep feeling like everyone else has it more together than I do. I mean, yeah, I can speak five languages, but one of those is Latin. And OK, so I can shoot pretty straight and I know how to get into AND out of a bar fight and a foreign country, but I still can’t shake the feeling that other spies have their stuff way more together. Oh, and my other greatest fear is that my father will try to steal the Mona Lisa.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I have a tiny bit of a temper and sometimes something will just set me off. Next thing you know, I’m force feeding someone their lipstick. I have to say though, having a job where I get to punch people on the regular has cut back in my occasional outbursts. Mostly. Sort of. I think.

5. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Sigh. My hair. I think I’m finally at a place in my life where I’m OK with being a red-head, but there was a lot of my childhood that I hated it. And even now, it just seems to have a mind of its own.

6. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My boyfriend, Z’ev Coralles. He’s got these brown eyes and this voice that just makes me melt. How am I supposed to resist him? I know I should. My boss would be a lot happier if we broke up, but… He knows how to salsa and then there’s his derriere. Don’t tell anyone, but it should probably have a few poems written about it.

Val Robinson

7. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Does being a selfish jerk count as a trait? My father and my ex-partner, Valerie Robinson, think they can just walk into my life and mess up everything. They don’t apologize; they don’t even care. They just make messes and I’m the one that has to clean up. It would have been a lot easier for me if Val had just stayed dead after I dropped her off that bridge in Thailand. But Val never does what she’s told, even when she’s being told by a bullet to the chest.

8. What is your motto?
I never had a motto until I started working for Carrie Mae—they have quite a few little sayings. Most of them come from the founder – Carrie Mae Robart, she was a tobacco heiress, who turned down her father’s money to start Carrie Mae Cosmetics in her garage. She used to cross-stitch little sayings onto pillows. Currently, my favorite is, “Sunscreen, waterproof mascara, and a silenced .38 will take you just about anywhere you want to go in life.”

Find out what adventures Nikki is up to next in Glossed Cause!
Top Carrie Mae agent Nikki Lanier’s nemesis and ex-partner Val Robinson has returned from the dead and she wants Nikki’s help.  When Val said that Phillipe Lanier—Nikki’s long-absent father—had been kidnapped, Nikki dropped everything—friends, family, boyfriend, to fly to the rescue.  But soon Nikki realizes that her father’s kidnapping may not be what it seems and she may have just tanked her life for one of his ridiculous schemes. As Nikki and Val arrive in Amsterdam, Nikki realizes that if wants to her life back, she’s going to have to not only stop an international arms dealer, but convince her boyfriend, CIA Agent Z’ev Coralles, that she’s not the bad guy and that Carrie Mae isn’t a terrorist organization. But with Philippe refusing to be rescued, and an INTERPOL agent gunning for Val and Nikki, as well as making moves on Z’ev, Nikki is starting to doubt her own abilities. Can she do it, or is it a Glossed Cause?

Clues

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by Bethany Maines

Recently, I’ve been working on the sequel to my murder
mystery An Unseen Current.  While
thematically not that different from my other books (a young person struggles
with unusual circumstances while navigating the choppy waters of family, love,
and friends), mysteries bring a special level of challenge to the mix.  For one thing, people expect clues.  Oh, there’s a dead body?  Well, writer, where are the clues?  Chop, chop! Produce the clues!
However, it’s not just about clues; it’s about when to reveal
those clues.  Too early and readers are
bored because they already solved it. 
Too late and it seems like the author is cheating and wedging
information to justify who the killer is at the last second.  Then, even if the writer does pop a clue in
the right place, she can’t be too precious about it.  The author can’t present it on a silver
platter with a neon arrow stating: Clue Here!! 
To accomplish the correct where and when of clue placement requires a
stronger outline than other genres.  And
that means that I must do what every writer hates doing—not writing.
Outlining and the synopsis are vital to a successful book.  But they aren’t the FUN part of writing.  The fun part is churning out scenes and
spending time with the made up people who populate my brain.  Outlining requires problem solving and all
the leg work of deciding back stories and motivations and the literal who,
what, when, where and why of who was murdered. (It was Professor Plumb in the
Library with the Candlestick, in case you were wondering.)  But mostly it leaves me thinking: Are we
there yet? What about now?  Can I start
writing now?
Fortunately, the answer is getting closer to being yes.  So wish me luck as I work out the kinks of how the dead body
ended up behind a bar in Anacortes.

You never know what’s beneath the surface.
When Seattle native Tish Yearly finds herself
fired and evicted all in one afternoon, she knows she’s in deep water.
Unemployed and desperate, the 26 year old ex-actress heads for the one place
she knows she’ll be welcome – the house of her cantankerous ex-CIA agent
grandfather, Tobias Yearly, in the San Juan Islands. And when she discovers the
strangled corpse of Tobias’s best friend, she knows she’s in over her head.
Tish is thrown head-long into a mystery that pits her against a handsome but
straight-laced Sheriff’s Deputy, a group of eccentric and clannish local
residents, and a killer who knows the island far better than she does. Now Tish
must swim against the current, depending on her nearly forgotten acting skills
and her grandfather’s spy craft, to con a killer and keep them both alive.

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Is “Author Fitness” an Oxymoron?

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By Kay Kendall

Most writers now spend countless hours each day seated at their
computers pouring words into their machines. Oh, for sure, a few rare birds do exist
who live otherwise—British writer Graham Greene wrote his usual 500 words each
day and then called it quits. Few of us are that disciplined, however, and
besides, the literary pace has picked up considerably since Greene’s heyday (and
more’s the pity).  

As Greene grew older, his daily word count even slid to 300
words. He said he couldn’t sit still longer than 90 minutes, comparing himself
unfavorably to Joseph Conrad whose ability to sit and write for twelve hours at
a stint was legendary.

Pity today’s poor authors. We no longer get the exercise
that our predecessors did decades ago. After all, they pounded typewriter keys. Surely that burned up a few extra calories
compared to the soft touch used on computer keys? And remember this—writers
from the 1860s to the 1960s also had to fling
their mechanical typewriter carriages when they reached the end of lines on their
pages. Until electric computers were invented, there was that nice little workout
too.  

Lately I’ve mused about the unhealthy life of a writer. Not
only am I getting creakier as I sit for longer hours at a time, but also I’m
reading that my lifespan is threatened if I sit too long each day. Health and
fitness gurus are now encouraging everyone to stand up—and walk too, preferably—at
least ten minutes out of each hour.

I think about
doing that, but so far that’s not been added to my routine. If I’m really
cooking on a chapter, I scarcely want to glance at the clock that’s telling me
to stand up, walk around—heck, and even smell the roses, for all I know. At
least when Graham Greene stopped after writing his required words, he then would
imbibe too much alcohol and consort with willing women who were not his wife.
That was some kind of incentive to get moving, I guess, at least for him.

I may not get up and move—or even wiggle in my chair—each hour
that I am writing, but I do exercise at least five times a week. I use a
stationary bicycle and recently added an elliptical machine to my workout
routine. Once upon a time I was proud of these exertions. I was exercising more
than the suggested number of hours each week. Yet that’s not good enough now. I
am still sitting for up to four hours at a stretch each day. My bottom gets
numb and sometimes—like now—my back aches a wee bit too.

So, I guess I’m ready for a new addition
to my fitness routine. Either that, or I could
adopt part of Graham Greene’s pattern and take up heavy drinking. Now there is
a topic for another blog one day—Let us consider the great number of writers
who were alcoholics.
 

 

Kay Kendall’s historical
mysteries capture the spirit and turbulence of the 1960s, and her titles show she’s a Bob
Dylan buff too. DESOLATION ROW (2013) and RAINY DAY WOMEN (2015) are in her
Austin Starr Mystery series. Austin is a 22-year-old Texas bride who ends up on
the frontlines of societal change, learns to cope, and turns amateur sleuth….Kay
lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel
Wills. In her former life as a PR executive, Kay’s projects won international
awards.

Cameron Diaz and Women’s Liberation

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 by Kay Kendall                              

                                                                               

I don’t know about you, but I feel relieved. Various TV morning shows and
a plethora of online sources that follow celebrities’ doings say I can check
one thing off my worry list. Movie actress Cameron Diaz “is not going to die an
old maid.”
Really? In this day and age, wouldn’t you think that opinion was old hat?
What is this—the 1950s?
Lest you taunt me for being frivolous, I assure you my musings are quite serious
about the wedding of Ms. Diaz (42) and rocker Benji Madden (35). For the last
two years I’ve thought a good deal about how far we women have come, baby, as I
developed my mystery set against a women’s liberation background. Rainy Day Women takes place in 1969. Those
were early days in what is known now as Second Wave Feminism. (First Wave took
place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, keying on legal issues,
primarily women’s right to vote).
From the vantage point of 2015, looking back at the sixties, you could assume
the women’s movement had changed many attitudes about appropriate behavior for
women. And then you slam into nasty offhand comments about poor Cameron Diaz. Believe me, this actress is no wallflower. Her dalliances with celebrity
boyfriends are the stuff of legend. To name only a few, there were heart throb
Justin Timberlake, Oscar winner Jared Leto, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and
even P. Diddy  AKA Sean Combs.
With that dating background, Cameron Diaz needs a better commentary on
her marriage that took place on January 5. She deserves to be compared to
Warren Beatty, famous playboy who settled down with wife Annette Benning when
he was all of 55. They wed, had children, and are evidently living happily ever
after. When that happened, no one proclaimed he had been saved from a life of sad
bachelorhood.
This blog topic was thrust upon me when a longtime pal shared her ire
over media jabs at Ms. Diaz. My friend said, “A woman has many other ways to
fulfill herself or prove her worth than through marriage. Why hasn’t everyone
gotten beyond that narrow, old-fashioned opinion by now?”
Why indeed? Great question.
When I began writing Rainy Day
Women, my intent was to show the kinds of issues bedeviling women
45 years ago. They flooded into consciousness raising groups with senses of
despair over choices offered them in life—and then left those meetings
emboldened to follow their own paths. Despite being called unfeminine or
derelict of their familial duties, they set out to take control of their own
destinies.
Clearly there are still some people who want women to remain in
traditional roles no matter what. Female emancipation still scares many.
My husband likes to tell about the time he was traveling in Asia for
business and a male executive delivered a stunning view. “There are three
sexes in the world,” the man said. “There are men, women, and American women.”
My husband did not find that amusing. Rather, he shakes his head when he tells
the story, disturbed at such prejudice.
Okay then, I will now proudly place myself in that third category. If being
an American woman means I stand up for my rights as a person then, yes, I will
do that.
And as for Cameron Diaz, who has often gone on record as being uninterested
in marriage, I would tell her this: “Honey, you just go right on living as you
choose. Unmarried, married, or divorced—it is all up to you.” In short, you go,
girl! 
*******   

Kay Kendall set her
debut novel, DESOLATION ROW–AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows
her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn’t murder
women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical
mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear
accomplishes for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture
the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive
who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills.
Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show
she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 
 *******

Why Do I Keep on Writing?

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That’s a good question, one I must ask myself periodically.

I spend a good percentage of each day in front of my computer either working on a new book, editing, or promoting whichever book is out now.  And guess what? I don’t make much money. And what I do make is spent on promotion.

No, my publishers do not send me out on book tours, though they both do some promotion, the greater share is up to me. I’m the one who arranges my in-person events and does the majority of the on-line promotion.

So what do I get out of all this work?

1. I love to write. I enjoy visiting my characters and finding out what is going to happen to them next. The only way to do that is to write the next book. My writing is not confined to my novels, believe it or not, I get a kick out writing blog posts, like this one, and others where I guest.

2. I love meeting people and making new friends. Of course this happens at book events and at conferences and conventions. (Going to a mystery con is very much like attending a huge family reunion.) The Internet has given me the ability to make many new friends, many I’ve known now for a long time.

3. And of course my books have fans–fans that enjoy my books, have favorite characters, email me, read my newsletter and comment, fans that encourage me to write the next book.

4. Because of the conventions, conferences and places I’ve been invited to teach and speak, I’ve traveled many places I’d never have visited otherwise from the West Coast to the East Coast, many cities in-between, and Hawaii and Alaska.

5. I’ve learned how to do many things I might never have tried if it hadn’t been for my writing career from many computer skills to giving presentations and classes about books, writing and publishing. For ten years I taught writing for Writers Digest Schools, and I just recently retired from many years of being the program chair for the Public Safety Writers Association’s annual conference.

6. And most of all, I’ve met many challenges, grown as a writer and a person, and had a great time doing what I wanted to do.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith