I’ve been married to the same guy for 42 years. We’ve known each other for 44. He’s a Type-A personality. I’m Type-Z. And thus, in order to stay married, we must compromise on many things. It’s the only way to go.
He’s easy-going in a lot of ways and loves to travel. Let me be clear about this. LOVES, loves, loves it. If he could travel two weeks out of every month his life would be perfect. Of course, he is a working musician, so gigs have to be accounted for. I am a working writer, so words have to be accounted for. The reality is, we can only travel around ten to twelve days every other month. Let me add right up front, we don’t have kids and try to live slightly beneath our means, not counting the cats. They get whatever they want.
The one thing my guy seems to love as much as travel is planning a trip. As long as he does it in his office with the door closed and doesn’t hassle me with anything except what directly impacts moi, I’m good with it. He tried going on a vacation by himself once and it didn’t work. He spent the majority of the time on the phone telling me what he did or was going to do, such as staying in the room and reading a book. I spent the majority of my time being lonely.
But what, you may ask, has this grade-B movie scenario got to do with writing? Plenty. I don’t have to tell anyone reading this post that writing a novel takes a lot of time and concentration. Taking off and going somewhere so often is an interruption that doesn’t work. At least, not for me. But staying home longer than two or three days without my guy doesn’t work, either. So, off I go. However, no matter where we travel, my mornings are dedicated to writing, unless I’m doing research for a new book. He spends his mornings exploring, loving life, and walking his feet off.
His favorite mode of transportation is a cruise ship. And no, he doesn’t walk on water. But he does walk around the Promenade deck many, many times. We’ve done thirty-four cruises, and counting. Three more are lined up (as stated, he loves to plan). The longer the cruise ship stays at sea, the happier I am. This is because I order room service, put up the do not disturb sign, look out at the passing ocean, and write my head off. He zips in and out, going to or coming from somewhere, while I get one or two chapters a day done. He sometimes brings his portable piano or guitar along and practices while I write. But the evenings are always “ours.”
If this sounds like an easy-breezy sort of life, it wasn’t stress-free to arrive at. I would say it took us a good five to ten years to find a compromise that gave us mutual happiness and rewards. Possibly, we are slow learners. But pretty lucky ones.
We’re older now and soon enough travel will be limited, at best. But we have loads of scrapbooks, some handheld, some online. And memories. Oh, yes! Then, of course, I have my novels, mostly written somewhere other than my home office.
From the very beginning, I was taught that writing should be a business. Good in theory, not so much in reality. If I think about my salad days, I made about 5¢ an hour. When I got a real job writing humorous ad copy for No Soap Radio, I made $125 a week. Even in New York City’s late 1970s that wasn’t enough to pay your bills, so I worked backstage doing costumes on Broadway to supplement my income. I was in my early 20s then and doing two jobs I loved was no hardship at all, especially if one was in the theatre. I love the theatre. Lots of talented people inhabit the theatre. I am proud to say I’ve met friends I’ve kept throughout the years. Certainly worth more than 5¢ on the dollar.
As for writing ad copy for No Soap Radio, every morning in a round table sort of setting – literally – is where I learned it was my job to produce something, whether I felt like it or not. For decades after that’s how it went. Recently, however, I took on the luxury of writing when I felt like it. It’s only been for the past 4 months and hard though it is to admit, now writing feels more like a hobby than a job. It comes, it goes, and so what? This hobby approach to things is not my style. I’m a workhorse type of person. I need to feel useful and committed. And as John Adams said, one of our founding fathers and presidents, “There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.” I knew I liked the man.
I’ve discovered — or rediscovered — it’s not the money that spurs me on. It’s the commitment. True, this has been an important break after 40 years of daily writing no matter what was otherwise going on in my life. It’s been a test of what writing means to me. But this new thing, writing whenever the mood strikes me, just isn’t working. I need to get back to work, scheduled and at the forefront. I need to get up every morning and feel driven. I need to rekindle the fire in the belly. In short, pass me the matches.
I write because I love it. I write because I have to. I write because it’s me. So I greet 2025 most welcomingly. A new year and back to being me — a crazy, driven, committed writer — who puts her work above everything else except for maybe the occasional glazed donut. Well, come on. Let’s get real.
Happy New Year to all the other crazy, driven, committed writers in my life. 2025 is going to be great.
Along with other authors, I was recently asked to be one of the judges for a mystery writing contest involving fairly new or inexperienced writers. I was honored to be asked. In reality, my acceptance was more or less for selfish motives. While reading these works, I am reminded of what to do and what not to do myself. Even still, I realized this would not be an easy job. I try to be a fair judge (and person), so would my own subjectivity about the kind of mysteries I enjoy reading bias my critiques? Of course, it would, unless I was careful.
Consequently, I tried to judge each work on technique and skill. Personal enjoyment was not expected nor part of the game. I put up a fourth wall and went back to the basics. A good journey to take from time to time. Like being slapped across the face with a wet mackerel, I was hit by the realization that not only did the majority of these stories smell, but the basics of good novel writing simply weren’t there. Bummer. For instance:
1 – The opening paragraph. Did it pull me in? Hook me while it could? Most of the time, no. The writer needs to let me know what I’m in store for. It’s the author’s contract with the reader. If I could, I would email each contestant the opening paragraph of Robert B Parker’s Judas Goat, which I feel is an excellent example. Right away, this author lets you know what you can expect from the book, his writing style, and a feel for some of the facets of the protagonist. Parker’s Spenser was and is a huge success for good reason.
2 – Was I grounded? Did I get a sense of being somewhere, even if I didn’t know where that was for the moment? Not for the majority of the stories I was judging. If we’re in an ethereal space with no sense of time or place, for heaven’s sake, let me know. Otherwise, it’s like flying around my living room in a hot-air balloon.
3 – Did flowery words and long-winded phrases distract me from many stories? OMG. I still have some silly jumble of pretty but meaningless words describing a building running around inside my head. I don’t remember anything else. Like who died. What’s the first thing most of us learn in any writing class? Kill your darlings. Tattoo it on your forehead if need be. It’s on mine. This is why I wear bangs.
4 – What is the novel about? How much time are we spending on everything else but the story? As one well-known writer said, “Get off the front porch.” Another tat moment. And if the story is about zombies, let’s get some sort of reveal fairly soon, even if it’s “You’ll never believe who showed up at my front door last night. I thought we buried him last week.” Or maybe through the title. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, has, by the way, a good opening paragraph, even though it’s not a mystery. Of course, there is the mystery of how one man could run a country, especially during a civil war, and roam the countryside looking for vampires. But let’s let that one go.
5 – Did you throw all your backstory in at the beginning? Save most for later, if even then. One newbie writer did all the right things in chapter one. I was heartened. Unfortunately, it was followed by page after page of the protagonist’s marriage from decades before. If it’s important to the story somewhere along the line, add it in drips and drabs. Don’t lay it before me like an in-depth biography. A story is like a shark. It needs to keep moving or it will die. I held on through chapter two but at the end of chapter three, the pacing was lost, the impact was lost, and I was lost.
6 – This leads me to: GET A GOOD EDITOR AND LISTEN TO HER/HIM. Regarding the above writer, I thought I had found the beginnings of a good mystery novel until I was at the point where I was pulled out of the story and landed in I know not where nor do I care territory. A good editor might have drawn a redline through chapters two and three and saved this book. We will never know. Because the author lost me, it doesn’t matter how good the story gets later on if I’m gone after chapter three.
Now these are things most writers reading this post know. Preaching to the choir, donchaknow. But now and then I need that wet-mackerel-across-the-face moment. I can be dense, forget, or get caught up in a pretty phrase. But eventually, I kill my darlings, painful though it may be. This is because I know they’re just words, I’ve got a million of ’em, and these just ain’t working, baby. Hmmm. I’m beginning to wonder if Ernest Hemingway wasn’t on the right track when he said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” The approach may be wrong but the purpose is spot on.
There was a song from 1960 called “Good Timin’” by Jimmy Jones. If you’re my age, you might remember it. Hit the link in either the title of the song or the album cover and sing along with Jimmy and me:
Oh, you need timin’ A-ticka, ticka, ticka, good timin’ A-tocka, tocka, tocka, tocka Timin’ is the thing, It’s true Good timin’ brought me to you (Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo)
Ah! They don’t write them like that anymore. I think this rock and roll song speaketh the truth about one of Life’s important things. Timing is everything. Would I have poo-pooed the love of my life, a man I’ve been with for 44 years, at an earlier time because I wasn’t ready to meet him yet? Would he have poo-pooed me if he hadn’t met me at the right time? Oh stop, Heather. You’re being ridiculous. He would have adored you no matter when he met you. That’s what Mom said, and she was always right, even when she wasn’t.
Moving on, would I have stayed in the acting business and never written a word, if I’d gotten that last audition, the one I didn’t want in the first place, but at the time, it seemed an easier career path? Would I have had that nose job if I hadn’t decided to spend the money on a French Poodle that came my way instead? Fleur was a great dog, so right decision made that day.
When I started writing the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, I couldn’t find any other series about a successful, upper-crust Mexican American family of detectives. That was in 2005. People have often asked what inspired me to write the Alvarez Family Mysteries. The answer is I’m intrigued by the dynamics of familial relationships and America’s history of immigrants rising to heights often unattainable in their native countries.
That lofty statement made – and pahdon me while I play the grand piano – the truth is there’s something about a family who does their darnedest to be supportive and positive no matter what, that can be heartwarming and often hilarious. So, enter the Alvarez Family, owners of Discretionary Inquiries Inc., a Silicon Valley based detective agency.
The lineup includes Liana (Lee), protagonist and in-house detective; Lila, CEO, aristocrat, and never-had-a bad-hair-day mother; Richard, head of the IT department, a brilliant but goofy computer-nerd kid brother; Tío, uncle and retired executive chef who gives unconditional love while frying up the best tortillas in town; and, of course, Tugger, the foundling kitten. The family drifted apart after the unexpected death of Roberto Alvarez, much-loved patriarch two years previous. But never underestimate a cat. Tugger helps reunite the family in his passive yet feline way.
Regarding Lee Alvarez, I wanted the protagonist of the series to be an intelligent, quirky, and flawed woman, but not so much she can’t learn and grow. Mainly, Lee’s happy to be in the world. She loves life. She strives to be a B&BP (bigger and better person), even while she’s spilling coffee all over herself. I adore her and hope it shows. Also, and this is important to me, she’s of blended heritage, half Mexican immigrant (her father’s side) and half Palo Alto Blueblood (her mother’s side).
The Italian half of my family came to the States at the turn of the 20th century, when it was difficult to be an Italian in the new world. Traditionally, the newest ones in are always the ones most challenged. But most immigrants work hard to integrate, to become useful and respected members of our society. No pity, just hard work, with love and good times thrown in. Olé! The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries show a family managing to capture the American dream today while stumbling over dead bodies and solving crimes in one of the most technically savvy places in the nation, Silicon Valley. All with a few laughs.
The series has been under option at two large subscription-based streaming services for about eight years, first one then the other and back at the first one again. The option money has been lovely, the idea of the stories being turned into a television series has been lovely, but in my humble opinion, the time has come and gone for it to be offered to the television viewer.
I don’t think my assessment is based on the years gone by. After all, Fences, a 2016 film directed and co-produced by Denzel Washington, was based on August Wilson’s 1985 play. That’s thirty-one years! But that was a movie. Television tends to be more faddish, today. Statistically, only one out of a thousand are going to make the transition from the written page to TV. I suspect I am one of the 999. Because timing is everything. A ticka, ticka.
But God bless the reader. The book reader, fortunately, is another kind of person, not so faddish and more loyal. I think this is due to the fact that reading a book is a highly personal thing. I hope if I continue to write a decent story with a laugh or two about a family that doesn’t always “get” one another but the love is always there, the readers will still be there.
But I do have a copy of the first option check on my bulletin board. It gives me a warm glow. Sort of like rum.
~
On another note, the holiday season is being celebrated starting November 15th by the Ladies of Mystery with our Ladies of Mystery Cavalcade of Books. Each of us is offering three books, some at special prices just for you! Please click on the image below to see what’s what, once again starting November 15th!
I don’t think any one of us can deny the pure pleasure of writing. And when others read our work, it’s an added joy. Sometimes I forget that despite being a professional writer – in that readers spend money and time on my books – I really don’t write for them. True, I make a contract with the reader in the beginning of the story, usually within the first few paragraphs, that I am going to deliver a mystery of a certain style that will have an overall happy ending. I don’t tie up everything with a pert little bow, but satisfaction of a sort is guaranteed. That’s because I would like nothing better than to tie Life up with a pert little bow. In my writing world I can. Most of the time. Certainly, in my cozies.
My standalone, Murder under the Big Top, is not a cozy, but I’m still trying to figure out what it is. It’s definitely darker than my other novels. Everyone comes on scene with a secret, a secret that has brought on unhappiness. Through the years I have called it a mystery, a noir, a docu-drama, a docu-noir, and I’m still coming up with a term to fit. As this book made its debut in 2014, categorizing it doesn’t look good.
Murder under the Big Top (originally called Death of a Clown) is loosely based on my mother’s short time in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus of the early 40s. The story and plot are totally made up. But the day-to-day existence of life during the golden age of the “Greatest Show on Earth” was much documented and is the spot-on truth. It was a world unto itself, unique and colorful. If I haven’t mentioned it, my mother began her circus career as a First of May (a novice performer or worker in their first season), and my father was an elephant handler. They met in the circus and married. My mother worked her way up to specialty acts and my father became an elephant trainer. I was actually born during the yearly hiatus of the circus. So, I really felt obligated to give the story – fiction though it may be – full justice.
The novel took me six years to write and was a success of sorts. Despite winning a silver IPPY, it was never a big seller. Some readers think it’s my best work. Others couldn’t even get through it. It was a departure from my other books, and those used to my cozies weren’t happy about that. Maybe I should have called myself H. L. Haven on the cover instead of my usual moniker, as a warning. Maybe I should have turned it into a circus series, as a few fellow writers suggested. But here’s the truth: I couldn’t face writing another book feeling that level of obligation, even though no one put me there but me.
The other standalone, Christmas Trifle, started out as a romance novel. I was dancing around Hallmark, and it was suggested I write a romance novel for them. Come to discover, I don’t give good romance. I found that out at Chapter 8 when I would have preferred to clean out the dryer’s filter or even the county’s prison lavatories than sit down and write. Writing became a drudgery.
Rather than throw-up, I decided to throw in a murder. Wow! The story had a few heartbeats and then came to life. I added a few more deceased members of the human race and was off and away. It all came together. I was happy. Apparently, there’s nothing like a corpse to make my day. Forget romance. Forget writing what I know. Toss in a few dead bodies. That’s the ticket.
The Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries came about due to a challenge from an editor. Could I create an atypical female protagonist? It couldn’t have come at a better time because I had done tons of research for Murder under the Big Top, very specifically the year 1942, and wanted to use that knowledge. Time to write a private dick of the 40s. Listening to my editor, I came up with Persephone ‘Percy’ Cole, a five-foot eleven-inch, overweight single mother, thirty-five-years old, with a wicked sense of humor and a right hook akin to that of a heavyweight boxer. A female counterpart to every male shamus of the era, but with an eight-year-old son who gives her life meaning.
I was with a small publishing house and wrote two of the novels during that time, The Dagger Before Me and Iced Diamonds. I left, became independent, and wrote two more novels, The Chocolate Kiss-Off and Hotshot Shamus. The series was never a big seller, but just mad fun to write. Percy Cole makes her way in a man’s world of seventy-plus years ago during WWII and does it without apology. Who doesn’t like a no s–t lady?
The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries hit a stride soon after I began writing the series. It is by far my most popular and sells well. That’s “well” by my standards. I don’t think I could ever buy a yacht from the proceeds should the impulse strike me. Maybe a sailboat. Hmmm. No, not a sailboat. Those are pretty pricey. All that canvas, donchaknow. A rowboat. Probably a rowboat. With a hole in it. But I’m not whining, even though I live in wine country (bada-boom).
The truth is, as an adult I don’t do one-on-one with the ocean. Having been born and raised on the coastline of southern Florida, I know only too well what lives in and under all that sparkling salt water. As a kid, I’ve stepped on enough horseshoe crabs, who are not horseshoes nor crabs. Burrowing just under the sand, their spiny exoskeleton has ruined many a lovely day and naked foot. I’ve been stung by enough snarky jellyfish who loved the backseat of my bathing suit. And don’t get me started on sea urchins who seemed to have it out for me. As a youth, I remember splashing about in the Atlantic Ocean, minding my own business, only to be hauled out by lifeguards as a shiver of sharks swam by. They may have been well-fed from their stopover in Ft. Lauderdale, but it was hard to know their hunger deficit by the time they got to Miami, so out of the water we got and waved them on to the Bahamas.
But I digress. I love to write about Lee Alvarez’s escapades and her colorful family. Readers seem smitten with the series, as well, so this is the perfect combo. But keep this under your hat: Lee is not my favorite protagonist. That would be Corliss, from a short story of the same name, from Corliss and Other Award-Winning Stories, my one and only anthology. I love Corliss. I’m not even sure why. She’s my youngest protag, vulnerable and easily pushed around. But she has resilience, and learns life lessons fast and well. When I think of all of the characters I write about, she’s the one who makes the greatest changes in her life yet still remains who she is at her core. Wait a minute. I may have solved why I like her best. But she is done. Completely done. And there’s no reason to go back and write more about a character I am totally satisfied with.
Another of my favorite protagonists is a dog. I wrote Jemma and the Shoe, another short story included in Corliss and Other Award-Winning Stories, as a gift for my dearest heart-sister who lost her beloved Bulldog to old age. I have to say it was more than a labor of love. It became a testament as to why I like to bring people and animals alive again through writing. In this way, my beliefs are similar to that of the ancient Egyptians who carved names of pharaohs and others on the walls of temples, tombs, and pyramids. Say the name, think of the individual, love them, revere them, and they are alive again, if only for that moment. I did this with my own cats, Tugger and then Baba, now characters in the Alvarez Family. This passion is not unique to me, for sure, but I try to practice this ritual every day. The older I get, the more loved ones I have to remember, revere, and miss.
Oh, jeesh. Now I’ve not only digressed, I’ve become maudlin. But we’re back to the truth of things for me. I love to write, whether it’s short stories, articles, posts, plays, ad copy, newspaper columns, or novels. I’m grateful to the readers who enjoy my work, because that is the wondrous byproduct of what I do.
But I write for me. It gets me through the day. It makes me feel alive. It keeps me sane. Okay, saner. And for a time, a fleeting moment, I sometimes feel the touch of a hand or paw from those no longer with me but always in my heart.
Ladies of Mystery 
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