The book I’m working on in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series, will be #20 and the last one. Tempe and her tribe have been a part of my life for many years. Tempe was retired from being a deputy in the last one, The Trash Harem.
The one I’m working on now is so far unnamed. Unusual for me, I often have the title before I even begin.
However this book has major changes for Tempe and her husband, as well as other ongoing characters in the series.
I’m finding it hard to say goodbye to Bear Creek and all those who live there, but my life is changing too. My husband needs a lot more of my help and I don’t have the energy I once had—but I’m almost 90 and I’m thankful I can still do what I’m able.
I also ended the Rocky Bluff mystery series with Reversal of Fortune.
Writing and getting published has given me so much pleasure in many ways. When I was writing I lived the adventures of my characters who became very real to me. In fact, in some ways I knew them far better than my friends and relatives—because I knew how the people who inhabited the books I wrote think.
Does this mean I won’t be writing anything anymore? Nope, I can’t imagine not sitting at the computer and writing. I’m considering writing a young adult mystery set during World War II since I grew up during that time. I have my own blog, where lately I’ve leaned toward reminiscing.
When the new book comes out I hope to have some local celebrations. Since one of my friends, lightly disguised with a different name is playing a major part I suspect she’ll want to join me. She’s starred in three other books in this series.
And I’m promoting The Trash Haven by offering the Kindle version for .99 cents from March 20 through the 27th.
It’s been fun hanging out with my Indian friend Tempe, her preacher husband Hutch, and her friend Nick Two John. I’m going to miss them.
Once in a while I come across a new writer asking what to do now that he’s finished his novel and is ready to get an agent. As the conversation flows I hear the optimistic assumption that even though this process will take time, it will end well. Left unsaid is the ending—the book will be published to blushingly great acclaim. I seem to come across these discussions when I’m in the deepest slough of revision. Right now I’m on the third rewrite for my current WIP (not to mention all the many drafts I did before I naively thought it was finished). It came back from my agent with lots of compliments on certain parts of it but not the first hundred pages.
“Get rid of the BOGSATs,” she wrote.
BOGSAT? This was new to me, so I had to ask. What is a BOGSAT? It’s embarrassing that I didn’t know what it refers to because I’m certainly guilty of having a lot of BOGSATs in the first third of the book. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, you can stop reading here. You know what follows.
BOGSAT refers to Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around Talking. In other words, too much talk, not enough action. In my case, the people sitting around talking were mostly women, the main character’s mother and sisters, and occasionally the MC and her best friend. One of the themes of the book is female relationships, and families. Nevertheless, respecting my agent’s judgment as I do, I set about removing the BOGSATs, and this is where it gets interesting.
What happens in place of talking? Action, of course. As I stripped out a stretch of dialogue I held onto the specific information that needed to be delivered. In one scene, it’s important for Ginny to learn that the parents of two children under the care of the social services agency where she works have been arguing about money. If her co-worker can’t tell her this and ask for her advice, how does Ginny find out there is a money issue in the family? She catches a glimpse of the husband wearing a coat that he can’t possibly afford. How does she know this? Her sister sees it, drools over it, and tells her sister how much it probably cost. Her sister wants one. That took care of one scene, about five pages in the first hundred. On to the next.
Ginny is worried about something from her teen years becoming public. It’s linked to an event long forgotten, or so she thinks. At a celebration of life for an acquaintance, the man leading the program blurts out the deceased’s role in the event. Ginny wonders how long her secret can last.
In a grocery store she can’t simply stop and chat with someone to elicit information. Hmm. She spots an out of town reporter who has been investigating the event of concern to Ginny stopping people as they come out of the store. She notices who rebuffs him, who ignores him, and whom he ignores. The chief has told her about him, and she wonders just how much he’s uncovered. She soon finds out. The reporter wasn’t in the earlier version. He appeared only as the author of an article. Now he’s on the ground, poking around, making Ginny nervous. She’s keeping track of him.
Removing dialogue does more than eliminate the “talkiness” in the ms. It means I have to use the other characters differently, use Ginny differently, uncover little bits I hadn’t thought about before. Getting rid of the BOGSATs is changing the story little by little. Ginny Means will still be who she is doing what she does, but how she interacts with other characters is becoming different. There is a place for the BOGSAT, but it’s not in the first third of my book.
I’m not one for blowing my own horn. Weird for someone who was a Creative Director at an advertising agency and sold state departments of education customized educational assessments. But waving my hands over my head, making pitches in elevators — and well — drawing attention to myself feels uncomfortable.
Yet here I am with a book, Unbecoming a Lady, available on March 15th. And, these days, if I don’t pitch it, who will? From the cover:
A torn sleeve, a bruised arm, and a lie.
A friend knocks on Cora Countryman’s front door seeking help with the torn sleeve of her work dress, claiming she ripped it on a bush. As the town’s seamstress, Cora has mended many a dress. So, when she sees a ragged tear in her friend’s forearm and a bruise left by a thumb, Cora questions her friend’s story. When Cora asks about the wounds, her friend is evasive. Worried by the lack of answers, Cora starts her own investigation.
When murder is done, Cora won’t give in, back down, or submit to the behavior expected of a young lady in 1876 in a burgeoning Illinois prairie town. Why should she, she never expected to stay. That is until her mother abandoned her, leaving her heavily in debt, her reputation on the line, and the drudgery of a boarding house to run for one boarder.
Her intended life of mystery and adventure never seemed so far away.
Fellow blogger, Heather Haven, author of the Alvarez Family Mysteries and the Persephone Cole Historical Mysteries, read a review copy of Unbecoming a Lady. Here is what she had to say:
“Thanks to the superb writing and storytelling skills of D. Z. Church, one of the most authentic and unique protagonists, Cora Countryman, comes alive for you page after page. A grand, grand read.”
I’m blushing right now. Thanks, Heather. Reading Heather’s review, it occurs to me that maybe Cora sells herself.
A bit of Cora
In response to a question from Cora, the Methodist preacher’s wife lists the passersby seen on the street and in the park:
“Just the liveryman, a delivery wagon of coal, Mrs. Layman and Mrs. Sullivan chatting.” (The preacher’s wife) pointed toward a stand of marsh grass along the edges of the pond. “And that new Constable, John or Jack McKie, I believe.”
“Quite the parade!”
“I was on my porch sorting roses for the vestry. By the way, Mr. Kanady is not the only eligible bachelor; Mr. McKie is unmarried, as well. He is a strong, handsome sort. Dashing in his uniform. And I hear seeking a wife that might ensure his position in the community. And, of course, there is that darling new doctor. He is a gentle sort and I think a bit shy that he cannot see distances, but he does have the prettiest brown eyes.”
“I think you are a bit smitten with the new doctor, Dr. Shaw, correct? Well, none of these fine unmarried men need look my way. I am determined to stay single, joining the growing number of women who choose the unmarried life, preferring a life of learning, travel, and enrichment instead.”
Cora is feisty, fun, rash, fearless, and above all loyal.
When I was in elementary school, one of my best friends and I would walk home after school each day and create stories about an imaginary friend named Ponytail. It was the 1950s, and many girls of that decade sported ponytails at one time or another. There were rock and roll songs that mentioned girls in ponytails, and TV shows and movies where the ingenues, in their swirling, petticoated dresses and bobby socks, flitted about, ponytails bouncing. Ponytails were part of the culture and fashion of the day. It was a fitting name.
I don’t remember Ponytail’s adventures, but I do remember being excited when we began our journey home to resume our ongoing saga and looking forward to continuing it the next day. Then, as my friend and I got older, the stories we created about our imaginary friend stopped, and we moved on to other discussions. Preteenagers don’t admit to having rich fantasy lives, at least they didn’t when I was growing up.
Last month I was interviewed by author LeAnna Shields on her podcast, The Cozy Sleuth. It was a lot of fun, and at the end I offered to turn the tables and interview her. Two weeks later, that’s what happened. During that interview, LeAnna mentioned that while many people have one imaginary friend, she had a multitude of them when she was growing up, which is partly what motivated her to become an author. After I thought about it a while, it made sense. If you’re an author of fiction, that’s exactly what you do-create characters that are birthed strictly from your imagination.
As I look back, I realize that Ponytail was the continuation for me of a love of creating poems and stories that began when I was about five. It started when my brother and I were on a trip with our parents, and we had a flat tire. It was a rhyming poem about the frustrations of young girl whose trip was delayed because of that tire, and I blurted it out to my mother while my dad was fixing the tire. She loved it, wrote it down, and taped it to the refrigerator when we got home.
From the time I started to read, I immersed myself in almost anything I could get my hands on, sometimes appropriate for my age and sometimes not- my parents never censured my choices- and trips to the library were frequent,. Later, in the literature classes I took in school, I was transported from my daily life into the adventures and travails of characters created by a diverse group of authors. I became an English major in college and after that, each job I had was one where I wrote, although back then it wasn’t fiction. But I always yearned to write stories with characters that were mine.
The idea of becoming a fiction author remained an unattainable dream for many years. For me, like so many of us, life got in the way. Five years ago, finally retired and with children grown, I decided to do something about it. I created and was fortunate to get published the first of the Edmund DeCleryk Cozy mystery series ( Cozy Cat Press), replete with my own imaginary characters. The mysteries take place during the present, but with historical backstories starting in the 1700s and moving ahead in time with each successive book, providing clues that help the sleuth solve the crime. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but if I keep on going, perhaps someday one of those backstories will take place in the 1950s, and one of my characters can have an imaginary friend named Ponytail.
We’re all drawn to what we don’t understand. It must be a primeval survival instinct. We have our daily world, which mostly consists of routine habits and familiar surroundings. But when something quirky intrudes, we find ourselves on high-alert mode. Like at night, when our usual surroundings fade into shadow, and we hear a strange noise, we stop to listen. The appeal of experiencing what’s unknown in the safety of our own cozy world creates our great demand and interest for the mystery novel.
Many authors preach “write what you know” to wanna-be writers. To me this doesn’t make sense. What motivates us to solve problems and engage in dreams comes from our not knowing. Writers are readers, and reader’s read to experience something new and maybe learn. As authors, we need to write what we don’t know.
If you don’t know something how can you write about it?
Maybe you’ve dreamed of being a double agent. Possibly you’ve longed to experience what it would be like to be in a Witness Protection Program. Perhaps you’ve wondered how it would feel to have the hot breath of a serial killer on your neck just before your heavy wrench smashes his face into the dirt. Only human beings can enjoy danger safely, living vicariously, through the words spoken or written by others. No other animal on our planet has this luxury.
My first novel, The Flapper, the Scientist, and the Saboteur, Kirkus Reviews (starred review) started with scant knowledge about an estranged aunt who was an ex-flapper. Inspiration for this novel came to me because her story felt too important to ignore. My ancient aunt had slammed into my busy life, vying for attention with my demanding career. This redoubtable, chain-smoking, rum-drinking woman made a game of criticizing me, turning the air blue with smoke and cuss words, and enchanting my husband.
I’d come home exhausted from my job of problem solving as an administrator in a heavy-handed bureaucracy of educators and also from my layman position, working with a veterinarian to evaluate research protocols at the Lovelace Respiratory Medical Research Laboratory. Every evening, I’d find this tipsy woman telling outrageous tales of her Roaring-Twenties life as a flapper in dangerous 1923 Chicago. She never revealed much about her own antics, except on occasion she’d toss out tidbits of her wild life like delicious appetizers.
Too good not to be told:
What if I combined this ancient flapper’s ramblings and fabrications with today’s devastating corporate espionage problems, using what I did know about biomedical research labs? Then this would be much more than just another Roaring-Twenties flapper story. Even though I’d fashioned an unusual combination, I thought it might be quite an intriguing mix. However, I knew nothing about the 1920s and even less about corporate spying.
Playing around with my knowledge of bits and pieces, tiny kernels of ideas developed into miniature tales. I shuffled them together using fictional characters, places, events, and conflicts. For my strange story to be engaging, each character would have to be connected with the others characters through powerful motivations. This meant even my secondary characters must be three dimensional. I had huge holes in my knowledge. I needed to know more.
Use what you know to figure out what you don’t know:
After untold hours of researching, I made likely guesses to fill in as many empty spaces as possible. I buried myself under a search and find mode. I had started out knowing only the Hollywood version of a flapper’s life along with scraps of information my aunt had given. This wouldn’t do, and I knew nothing about corporate espionage, but spies have always intrigued me. The more I learned the more fun I found in bringing my Flapper, Scientist, and Saboteur to life.
Writing the unknown:
I believe your story deserves to be startling and robust. I always research more than I can possibly use. Then I select only what’s rich and on target. For fun, I throw in some quirky stuff. Here’s the best part: I put all of the above together, mix with my wildest imagination, edit, delete, select the most powerful verbs, revise, revise, revise, then polish my story—with joy.
My award winning stories happen because I dare to write what I don’t know. How does your imagination help you write what you don’t know?
The Flapper, the Scientist, and the Saboteur intertwines a corporate espionage mystery with a generational battle-of-wills story between a dedicated professional intent on fighting chaos to restore order and a free-spirited aunt who needs her niece to live in the moment.
Beth Armstrong, a Denver biomedical scientist, wrestles with the impossible choice of saving her sabotaged, groundbreaking cure for multiple sclerosis or honoring an obligation to care for her cantankerous old aunt. Playing nursemaid ranks just a notch above catching the plague on Beth’s scale, yet her ex-flapper aunt would prefer catching anything deadly to losing her independence under the hands of her obsessive-compulsive niece.
While a murderous culprit runs loose in the science institute, Beth finds her whole life out of balance. Unpredictable nefarious activities at the institute–which is rife with suspects–cause Beth to wonder if she can trust anyone, while at home her chain-smoking aunt entertains Beth’s neglected husband with nightly cocktails and raucous stories from the Roaring Twenties. The Flapper, the Scientist, and the Saboteur creates a compelling mystery intertwined with a generational battle-of-wills story between a dedicated professional intent on fighting chaos and restoring order, and a free-spirited aunt who insists her niece listen to her heart and learn to live in the moment.
Charlene Bell Dietz, raised in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, now lives in the central mountains of New Mexico. She taught kindergarten through high school, served as a school administrator, and an adjunct instructor for the College of Santa Fe. After retirement she traveled the United States providing instruction for school staff and administrators. Her writing includes published articles, children’s stories, short stories and mystery and historical novels, winning awards from NM/AZ Book Awards, Writers Digest, Public Safety Writers, and International Book Awards, along with earning two of the coveted Kirkus Reviews (starred review) and having two books named to Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2018.
Ladies of Mystery 
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