Writing Update

 Here's a quick update on my current projects: 

Restaurants and Revenge: After changing my mind a couple of times about who committed the murder and how, I think I finally figured out who, how, and why. Now it's time to revise.

Bubble Tea and a Body: This will be the third book in my cozy mystery series. I've written about 14,000 words so far. The murder happened in a way I didn't plan for, so now I have to rethink how my heroine will investigate.

The Season Between: I haven't made any progress on this short story collection.

Other Writing Projects: I started a flash fiction story, but I need to get back to it. I've also been seeing several open markets listed on a Facebook group I belong to, so I should see if I have any trunked stories that might be a good fit.

What are you working on these days? Are you drafting or revising? Feel free to share your progress in the comments.

My Wordle Way

Like many other people, I've made a habit of starting my day by playing Wordle, the game where you have six chances to guess a five-letter word. Here's a link to the game, along with a list of the rules. Briefly, you type your guess (which must be a real word) into the website. Each box represents a letter. Green boxes indicate the right letter in the right spot; yellow boxes represent letters in the word but in the wrong place; and gray boxes are letters that don't belong. This is my strategy:

1. Start with a word that will give you common vowels and consonants. I use STARE. 

2. Based on how you did with the first guess, choose a word that keeps all green letters the same and moves yellow letters to different positions. (I should note that I play on Hard mode, which requires you to reuse green and yellow letters. Some people like to start fresh with a different set of letters, but I prefer to focus on getting the right letters in the right places.) If you didn't have any luck with vowels, try a word with a different combination. I sometimes use PRION as my second word.

3. Once you have two or three letters, it then becomes a matter of moving them into the right spots and figuring out what the missing letters could be. Sometimes if I get stuck at this point, I take a break from the game and return to it later. Other times, I may try a "brute force" method, where I mentally test unused letters in unfilled spots to see if I make a word. I don't enter these guesses until I find something that clicks with me. Sometimes it takes me all six guesses, but I've had pretty good luck so far. Hopefully, this post won't break my streak.

Do you play Wordle or other word games? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Mid-Month Mysteries: Valentine Theme

 

Apologies for not posting last week. I had planned to post this on the 9th, but I scheduled it for the wrong date. I may as well post twice this week!

 Cozy mysteries often feature romance as a side plot, so it's not surprising that there are several mysteries that feature Valentine's Day. Here are a few of them.

My author friend Kelly Hashway recently published the first book in her holiday-themed cozy mystery series. I haven't had a chance to read Valentine Victim yet, but it looks interesting. It's about a psychologist whose Valentine's Day date is murdered, making her the prime suspect.

The St Valentine's Day Cookie Massacre by Elisabeth Crabtree is a novella featuring a murder in a cookie shop. It's free on Amazon, so I added it to my collection.

Another food-themed cozy mystery is A Catered Valentine's Day, by Isis Crawford. It includes chocolate, wine, recipes, and the death of the chocolate shop owner.

For a non-food related story, there's Death of a Valentine by M.C. Beaton. Two detectives find romance while solving the murder of a woman who received a mysterious Valentine's Day gift.

For a more extensive list of Valentine's Day mysteries, check out this link.

 

IWSG: Missing Mentors

Happy Groundhog Day! Here's hoping you're not seeing lots of snow where you are. I'd hate to deal with that over and over! Today is also blogging day for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Learn more about them on their website, Facebook, and Twitter.

Our hosts for this month are Joylene Nowell Butler,  Jacqui Murray, Sandra Cox, and Lee Lowery. 

Our question for this month is Is there someone who supported or influenced you that perhaps isn't around anymore? Anyone you miss?

The first person who came to mind when I read this question was Kathleen Massie-Ferch, who taught the first writing class I attended. After the writing class, I maintained contact with her at conventions like WisCon. She mostly wrote short stories and had edited two anthologies. She passed away of breast cancer about twenty years ago before she had a chance to finish the novel she was working on--and before I sold my first short story. 

This question also reminded me of some of the friends I've made through writing workshops, though I still have contact with some of them through Facebook. Hopefully this year we can have more in-person conventions. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to attend either WisCon or ChiCon this year, but it would be great to see some of those writers again.

Do you have any writing mentors who've passed on to the Eternal Convention? Feel free to discuss them in the comments or share a link to your own posts about them. 

"Glass, Wool, Paper" Is Live!

I don't normally blog on Mondays anymore, but I have a special announcement: my flash fiction short story, "Glass, Wool, Paper" went live at Flash Fiction Magazine on Friday. With themes of objectification of women and their resilience, it seems to be striking a chord with readers. The site is free to read, so please check out the story for yourself if you're interested. If you like the story, please comment on the Flash Fiction Magazine site itself, and feel free to share the link. (I think the most popular stories may be selected for an anthology, so that's why it would be most helpful to comment on the story over there.) I hope you enjoy it!

Reading/Writing Update

 I decided to make my blog post this week about my reading and writing progress so far this month:

Reading: My goal for this year is another 150 books. As of Sunday afternoon (when I'm writing this book), I've read eight. The non-fiction books I'm reading are pretty hefty, so they take a lot of time. Once I finish Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, I should be able to catch up.

Writing: I've written about 9,000 words of my third cozy mystery, Bubble Tea and a Body. I'd like to get at least 10,000 done this month. However, my plans for this mystery have already gone off course. (I intended to have the victim die one way, but when I reached a certain point in the story, my instincts told me my heroine should find the victim already dead.) I'm debating whether I want to discard some of what I wrote to have the death happen the way I originally intended. Alternatively, I can use that type of death elsewhere in the series.

Regarding the Season Avatars series, I have a rough draft of Ysabel's short story written, but while I have some ideas about Kay's story, I haven't decided on the focus yet.

Revising: I have two projects that need revision: Gwen's short story "To Heal the Healer" and Restaurants and Revenge, the second cozy mystery in the Abigail Ritter series. I've read Gwen's story all the way through, but I still need to finish reading all of RaR. The first part of the book seems fairly solid so far, but I had issues with the second half. It's hard sometimes to find the time to write new words and revise old ones on the same day.

So that's what I've been up to the last few weeks. How about you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

As a naturally speedy reader, I can finish a typical novel in a few hours. This is one of the ways I'm able to read so many books every year. Sometimes, though, I want a change of page and am willing to read something longer and thought-provoking. This is the case with The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by the late David Graeber and David Wengrow. It took me almost two weeks to read this book, and I'll need still longer to digest it.

The Dawn of Everything (hereafter to be abbreviated as TDoE), proposes alternate ideas for how civilization (specifically, agriculture, cities, kings, and the rise of states) developed--or, in some regions, was deliberately rejected. They discuss a variety of cultures and archeological sites, from Egypt's First Dynasty (around 3100 BC) to 17th and 18th century encounters between Europeans and Native Americans. They look at cities from Mesopotamia to Central America, slaves in ancient Rome and along the Northwest Coast, and more topics than I could possibly list. I can't summarize all the key ideas the two Davids discussed, but here are a few that I remember:

• Many cultures experimented with farming but didn't settle down to do it full-time. They might spend part of the year at one site and spend the winter fishing or hunting.
• Women may have been the ones experimenting with agriculture and textiles.
• Care-giving used to be valued more highly. However, slave-owning cultures may delegate this work to slaves.
• Two settlements close to each other may deliberately adopt opposite values to distinguish themselves. 
• Some ancient cities lack palaces or other signs of an elite class, suggesting the occupants may have governed themselves through networks of obligations. There are prehistoric sites where people may have temporarily gathered for rituals or big projects, but there are no signs they were forced to do this by a leader.
• Kings come to power by control of violence, control of information (administrators), or personal charisma. 
• The classification of a group of people as a tribe or state is less important than how they organize themselves.
  

Most importantly, many Native American cultures defined freedom as the ability to relocate, the ability to disobey or disregard orders, and the ability to imagine alternate ways of organizing themselves. (I think of these as freedoms of body, will, and mind.) For example, a chief may have absolute power in his village, but the rest of the tribe may choose to live out of his reach. Tribes may choose to be ruled by a council and require representatives from every clan to be part of the decision-making process.

With so many sweeping generalizations in this book, there were a few that I thought went too far (specifically, saying Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries who were taken into Native American groups unanimously returned to them when given a choice. Another statement I didn't agree with was the idea that animals never accumulate a surplus of food. What about bees or ants? A New York Times science article from last week states that in some species, animals can inherit high status or even tools from their parents, which give them an edge.) It would have been helpful to have footnotes on the page with the text instead of at the end (though since the Notes section was about 80 pages, that might not have been practical.) Still, in a world where most of us are not able to relocate easily or disregard orders, a book that restores the ability to imagine other lifestyles is invaluable, especially for speculative fiction writers.

Mid-Month Mysteries: Excerpt from Restaurants and Revenge

For 2022, I thought I'd try different formats for this series. Perhaps in the next couple of months, I'll schedule interviews or guest posts from other cozy mystery authors. Today, I'll share with you the opening scene of Restaurants and Revenge, Book Two in the Abigail Ritter Cozy Mystery series. This scene may change since I still have to revise, edit, and proofread the book. I hope you enjoy what I have so far!

“Another day, another delectable drink created by Abigail Ritter, owner of the finest restaurant in Magic Lake!” I declared to Sherlock. “How does that sound?”

Sherlock, the crocheted fox I’d found in my grandmother’s apartment, was a stand-in for a camera audience. Someday I planned to post YouTube videos to bring customers to Isabella’s, my bubble tea restaurant named after my late grandmother. But before I felt brave enough to do that, I wanted to gain some experience recording myself. Sherlock, always willing to play with my phone, acted as both cameraman and critic.

Sherlock tapped the phone with a pencil held between his front paws. “Could be punchier,” he said. “How comfortable do you feel about talking and using a knife at the same time?”

I looked down at my fingers. I was still experimenting with drink recipes, but I was sure I didn’t want to add a super-personal touch like my own flesh to them.

“I’ll just take it nice and slow.” I smiled for my audience. “Today, I’m going to make a Citrus Delight. It’s going to have oranges, lemons, basil, sugar, and a couple of other key ingredients that will make this the most refreshing drink you could have on a hot summer day. So, let’s get to it.”

I already had all my tools—measuring cups and spoons, citrus squeezer, and, most importantly, the wooden spoon I’d use for stirring my creation—spread out around my cutting board. The fruit was in a mixing bowl I’d borrowed from my mom’s kitchen. I grabbed an orange and sliced it into quarters with a knife I’d found in this kitchen. After scrubbing and sharpening it, it sliced through the orange like the fruit was paper. Then I squeezed out the juice. The orange quarters didn’t quite fit into the squeezer, but I managed to get most of into the measuring cup. I grinned. Compared to what I’d seen chefs on TV do, this was so easy. I should have left my old job and opened my own restaurant a long time ago.

Sherlock held up a paw. That meant the recording was already at a minute. I couldn’t expect people to watch me all day. I had to hurry this up.

Rather than slice and squeeze each fruit individually, I chopped up the next couple of oranges. As I grabbed the second one, my grip found a soft spot. The sweet scent of orange soured. Sherlock sat up, muzzle in the air. He must have noticed something wasn’t right. I glanced down at the pieces. The insides of the oranges all looked the same. I could stop the recording and try to figure out which section had gone bad, or just keep working and hope it would be diluted out when I added the rest of the ingredients.

It’ll be fine once I add the sugar, I thought as I extracted more juice. It was just a small bad spot. It won’t make the entire drink bad. Besides, the Magic Spoon will fix it. The spoon had been carved from Magic Island wood and was supposed to make my bubble tea shop a success.

I added some lemon juice, fresh chopped basil, sugar, then diluted it with sparkling water and mixed everything with the Magic Spoon. The color was a cheery yellow-orange with green basil bits, though slightly pale. I poured the drink into a glass of ice. All I could smell now was the basil. If I’d gotten the proportions right, the herb should complement the citrus without overpowering it. I took a sip. There was the basil, the lemon, the orange, the sugar—and then a foul aftertaste that made me run to the sink and spit my drink out. I grabbed the sparkling water and chugged it down, but the taste lingered in my mouth.

Sherlock hopped down from the shelf with my phone to the kitchen island. He prodded through the discarded peels and flipped one over. The outer part of the orange was grey-white.

Apparently even the Magic Spoon couldn’t fix a rotten orange. I raced for the bathroom, hoping that getting sick now would keep me from being really sick later.

IWSG: Writing Regrets

Welcome to 2022! Here's hoping it's a better year for all of us.

This isn't just the first post of the year, but also the first Insecure Writer's Support Group post for 2022. Learn more about the IWSG on their website, Facebook page, or Twitter feed. 

Our hosts for this month are Erika Beebe, Olga Godim (no link available), Sandra Cox, Sarah Foster, and Chemist Ken.

Our question for this month is on regrets, not resolutions: What's the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

I would say my biggest regret is not finishing and publishing more of my work, specifically, Catalyst in the Crucible, which would be the third novel in the science fiction Catalyst Chronicles series. I got stuck on a story set between Twinned Universes and Catalyst in the Crucible, which made it difficult to move forward. (I have actually drafted part of this novel, but it's not finished yet.) Part of the problem with the novel is that although the first two books feature time travel, Catalyst in the Crucible would (a) throw some life-changing problems at my characters and (b) move into a new subgenre of science fiction. I'm not sure how fans would react to a mid-series change.

Of course, as long as I'm still able to write, there's always the possibility that I could go back and finish the story. I think about it occasionally. It's hard to accomplish when there are so many other writing projects I want to work on. (My writing goals for this year are to publish two books in my cozy mystery series and a collection of short stories in my fantasy Season Avatars series--so I can move forward and write more books in that universe.) Perhaps I should say my biggest regret is not being more productive, which would mean the best way to overcome that would be to stop blogging and return to fiction.

What are your writing regrets? Feel free to share them here--or, if you're here for the IWSG, leave a link to your blog post. I should also visit more bloggers this year!

2021 in Review: Reading

There are still a couple more days left in 2021, but it's time for my semiannual reading review. This is based on the tracking I do through Goodreads. I'm not always good about tracking the date I start a book (since I then have to delete it from my Goodreads if I decide I don't want to finish it), but the end dates are more accurate. 

My goal for this year was 150 books. Unlike previous years, I had no trouble reaching my goal. As of 12/26 (the day I'm writing this post), I've read 157. This doesn't include the multiple re-reads of Murder at Magic Lake that I do as part of revising and editing books before publication. There will probably be another couple of books added to this total before Friday. The average book was about 257 pages, with the shortest being 64 pages and the longest 776 pages. (It was an anthology of cozy mystery novels.) Here's the breakdown by genre:

Fantasy: 24

Science Fiction: 19

Mystery (includes regular and traditional): 86

Other Fiction: 6

Non-Fiction: 22

Mysteries have taken over from fantasy as my comfort reading, but since I'm also writing it now, I need to continue learning about the genre. The other genres haven't changed much, though I suppose I should read more non-fiction, especially books on writing and publishing. Other than reading at least one diversity read a month, I don't have many set goals for the type of books I read. (It's typically whatever I'm in the mood for at the moment.)

About thirty-eight books were paper books checked out from the library; however, I also borrowed a lot of Ebooks. I did read one paper book from my To-Be-Read stack, but that didn't make much of a dent. 

I will probably set my 2022 reading goal for another 150 books. Do you set reading goals for yourself? If so, feel free to share them in the comments.

2021 in Review: Writing

 With the end of another year in sight, I thought I'd take a few minutes to reflect on my writing this year.

A writing career can be like an iceberg; there's more underneath the surface than you might expect. I published one cozy mystery novel this fall and sold one short story, which will be published online next month. Besides that, I wrote the first draft of a second cozy mystery and a couple other short stories. I did submit my short stories to a few markets, but most of them were rejected. At least I can submit them elsewhere if I find a suitable market or save them for another short story collection. Speaking of short stories, I'm currently drafting a series of short stories featuring my heroines from the Season Avatars universe. There will be one each from Gwen's, Jenna's, Ysabel's, and Kay's point of view. Gwen's story is drafted, but I've been having trouble with Jenna's story. I've decided to skip it for now and moved on to Ysabel's story. It would be nice if I finish the first draft before the end of the year.

As for my plans for 2022, I plan to start revising Restaurants and Revenge, my second cozy mystery. The first half isn't too bad, but the second part is all over the place. Hopefully I can publish it in the first half of the year. However, I also plan to start Book Three, Bubble Tea and a Body, once I finish some initial planning. Somewhere in there I want to finish my Season Avatars collection, which will act as a bridge to a spin-off series. I think trying to write two series in two different genres will keep me busy enough without adding in other projects. However, if an anthology interests me enough, I might write something for it anyway.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Next week, I'll review my Goodreads Reading Challenge for 2021.

Mid-Month Mysteries: Christmas Cookie Cozy Mysteries--and Recipes!

 

Christmas is the ultimate holiday for those who love being cozy. Warm drinks, lights, gatherings, and so much more...it's no wonder there are so many cozy mysteries set at Christmas. It actually made it hard to decide how to narrow the book selection down for this post. Then I thought of one of my personal holiday traditions--baking cookies to share with others.  Here are a few mysteries I found featuring Christmas cookies. (Please keep in mind I haven't had time to read them yet.)

Murder at the Christmas Cookie Bakeoff by Darci Hannah

Christmas Cookies Mysteries, an anthology

 Christmas Cookie Murder by Leslie Meier

 The Christmas Cookie Killer by Livia J. Washburn

 

And here's a list of some of the cookies I bake every year:

Lemon Slice Cookies

Peanut Blossoms

Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheel Cookies  (the base recipe also works well for sugar cookies; I make my own buttercream frosting for them)

What's your favorite type of Christmas cookie? Feel free to answer in the comments.

 

 

 

Publication Announcement: "Glass, Wool, Paper"

My fantasy short story, "Glass, Wool, Paper," will be published online by Flash Fiction Magazine on Friday, January 28th, 2022. Once the link is available, I'll post it here. It's a flash fiction story, well under 1000 words, and has a feminist theme. In the spirit of the genre, I'll keep this post short as well.

IWSG: Pleasures and Pains of Writing

Here we are at the start of another Christmas season. (Yes, I insist on waiting until after Thanksgiving.) It's also time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post. Learn more about the IWSG on their website, Facebook page, or Twitter feed.

Our hosts this month are PJ Colando, Diane Burton, Louise-Fundy Blue, Natalie Aguirre, and Jacqui Murray.

Our question for December is a simple one: In your writing, what stresses you the most? What delights you?

There are many stressful things about the business of writing, but for this post, I'll focus on craft. A few things I find stressful are writing under a deadline, being unsure what happens next in the story, and having to make major revisions. As for what delights me, it's seeing the story come together and finishing it.

What do you find pleasurable and/or painful about writing? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Book Club Questions for Lyon's Legacy

I received a nice surprise last week when I found out the Insecure Writer's Support Group had chosen my novella, Lyon's Legacy, as one of this month's selections for their Goodreads book club. One of the moderators emailed me and asked me to contribute three questions to the discussion. I've listed them below:

1. Joanna’s family history plays a big role in how she perceives herself. What are the positive and negative ways families and genetics affect her identity?
   
2. Should the time travelers request permission to take DNA samples from the alternate universe, even if the people never know the true purpose for the samples? What would be fair compensation?
3. Lyon’s Legacy was partly inspired by the author’s love for a famous rock group that she never got to see perform. If you could travel to the past to meet someone, who would it be and why? What would you want to bring back with you?

If you haven't read Lyon's Legacy yet (a science fiction novella about a scientist forced to clone a famous ancestor), you can download a permafree eBook from your favorite store here. 

Have you ever had a book of yours selected for a book club? What was it like? Feel free to share your thoughts below. If you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, hope it's a happy and healthy holiday!