I’ve lost my mind. Again. I have begun a new novel on a subject about which I know absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada. I did it again. Did I not learn my lesson from the last Alvarez Family Mystery, The Drop-Dead Temple of Doom? Apparently not. But that’s a writer for ya. Or at least, that’s me for ya. I get an idea, I embrace it, I love it, it becomes mine, and I’m off and away.

It’s only when I plop myself down at the keyboard and have no idea how to start the first sentence do I realize I am in deep doo-doo. That’s what happened with Drop-Dead. My fingers hovered over the keyboard waiting for words to come to me. They didn’t. I had no idea what a Guatemalan jungle was like. I didn’t know the first thing about archeology. And, truth be told, an ancient Mayan could have risen from the dead, bit me on the knee, and I wouldn’t have had the first clue as to who, what, or why. I left my office and dove headfirst into a martini, the first of many. Ernest Hemingway may have said, “Write drunk, edit sober,” but you gotta know SOMETHING about a subject before you can write about it.

I have to do a little research for all my novels, but I had pushed the limits on this. A Guatemalan jungle? Even though I was born and raised in South Florida and have been to Parrot Jungle, it’s not the same. Archeology? Simply because I’ve streamed “Lost Cities With Albert Lin,” that didn’t mean I knew the first thing about digging anything up other than weeds. And the ancient Mayans? Ditto, ditto, and ditto.

But I had a fire in the belly. I wanted to tap into the real-life story of a young woman who is an Indiana Jones of today. I’ll call her Indiana Josie. She tromps around the jungles of Guatemala uncovering all kinds of wondrous things. And thanks to the development of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), the exploration of ancient Mayan cultures has exploded. This is truly the golden age of discovery for this remarkable culture.

So began a crash course in not one, not two, but three subjects. As the world was in lockdown from Covid, even if I’d wanted to fly to the jungles of Guatemala for firsthand experience, I couldn’t have. Instead, I bled Indiana Josie dry of any knowledge she could give me. I watched every documentary on archeology, not merely as a spectator, but as a student. I read anything I could find on the ancient Mayan culture, gasping at pictures of their paintings, jewelry, and tombs. I marveled at what they had created, believing as many do, they rival the Egyptians in many ways. Eight months later, while not an expert on any of these subjects, I was able to sit down at the computer and write.

After completing the latest novel in my other series, Hotshot Shamus, Book 4 of the Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries, I now return to the Alvarez series, with Bewitched, Bothered, and Beheaded as the next project. For whatever reason, I decided to write about a magic trick gone wrong, a dead magician, and the protagonist, Lee Alvarez, as the chief suspect. Belly fire returning. No antacids working.

Of course, I find I am in deep doo-doo again. I know nothing about the subject, nothing about magicians or their tricks. Leave it to me to have a misadventure with a guillotine trick front and center, basically starting the story off. Naturally, I can’t write a word until I investigate this. So it’s off to Vegas for a crash course in magic. I recently contacted David Copperfield for an interview. Start at the top, right? Maybe he’ll give me a few tips. If not, I’ll work my way down. I hear there’s a magician, Melvin the Magnificent, performing in a San Jose parking lot. Maybe he’ll talk to me.

Meanwhile, I need to face it. I just never learn.

Occasionally, we writers write ourselves into a corner. In some ways, it can be fun. It can be a challenge. And being the inventive sort that writers are, we often come up with a pretty nifty bit of business to get out of these scrapes. The bonus is the story often improves, becoming more colorful and interesting.

However, you can’t do that sort of thing with Mother Nature. You have to stick with what is scientifically possible. Unless you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi, of course. Then you can have a green sky and 6 moons. But here on earth, we are stuck with one orbiting satellite, which tends to do its thing consistently. In fact, we have come to expect the moon to behave in a certain way. I happen to write cozy mysteries such as the one I’m doing now, Book 4 of The Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries. They take place on earth, so I can only diddle around with the truth of it so much.

As I neared what I hoped was the final round of rewrites for Hotshot Shamus before sending it off to my editor, I realized I had several scenes and chapters taking place during two full moons. Unfortunately, these full moons occurred only 10 days apart within the story.

I am not a scientist but even I know there have never been two full moons in that short a space of time. Something catastrophic would have to take place for that to happen. Given the state of the world right now, I didn’t want to go there.

I tried not to panic. Maybe I could turn one of the full moons into a new moon? No, no, no. A new moon is just a full moon coming back within the same calendar month. And it usually happens 25 to 28 days apart.

Time to panic? I couldn’t leave it as it was and I couldn’t abandon the moon being a part of the prose, either. Like many writers, I often make the atmosphere a character in the story. So, it was with this stupid moon. A driving character, too. Did that mean I would be rewriting 4 to 6 chapters worth of story to correct this error?

If I had to, I had to. But I wouldn’t be happy.

After several pieces of chocolate washed down by a martini, I decided to research the moon in all its glory. Maybe the moon did something I didn’t know about that would bail me out. After all, it’s a good moon, a lovely moon, a romantic moon. I even look ten years younger in the moonlight. Moon, don’t fail me now.

Then I stumbled upon what is called a waxing­­­­ gibbous moon. Somehow that particular phase of the moon got by me. I’d never heard of it before. Waning, yes. That rang a bell. But waxing? No. Gibbous, excuse me?? Come to find out gibbous means marked by convexity or swelling of the moon or a planet. Well, I never. Maybe I was in Study Hall when that lesson took place.

Panic avoided. The beauty of a waxing gibbous moon is it turns into a full moon after about 8 days. That’s close enough for my needs. And bless its little heart, it can shine enough light the entire time to save my scenes and chapters. Just a tweak here and there and all became perfectly reasonable.

Ain’t Mother Nature wonderful?

Most of us pride ourselves on getting facts and figures right in our novels. And in order to do that we must do research. I come tooth to jowl with that all the time because no matter how much I try to convince my husband I know everything, I don’t. So, whether the story takes place today or yesteryear, I have to do a certain amount of research.

I love doing research most of the time. But truth be told, I have found historical research can come with a few problems, due to time and distance. And information isn’t always readily available. But tough togas. I need to keep at it. Accurate information grounds the reader. Inaccurate info can throw them out of the story. The kiss of death for any writer.

I don’t write this because readers chastised me for getting something wrong. Hmmmm. Well, okay, yes I am, and they did. Frankly, being told you’re a ninny just once is enough. I remember the incident well. I’d written a sentence in the Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries, where I state the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade took place in 1942.

Wrong. I got emails, some not so nice, telling me the parade had been canceled due to the United States’ entrance into WWII. I was ashamed and chagrined. In this case, I was worse than a ninny. I should have made sure I got that fact right. Lesson learned.

Currently, I am writing Hotshot Shamus, the 4th book of the Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries. The series takes place in New York City during WWII. Percy Cole is one of the City’s first female private detectives. At 5’11” and a full-figured gal, Percy is physically bigger than many men of that era. Between that and her brains, she’s quite comfortable living in a man’s world. I love writing about her but sometimes, finding out about the world around her is hard. After all, there was a war on. And living three thousand miles away in sunny California these days doesn’t help. I can’t just hop on a bus.

In Hotshot Shamus, much of the action revolves around the Cloisters, a museum completed in 1938. While living in Manhattan, I visited the Cloisters often, but small details have escaped me. I do know it’s a gorgeous museum dedicated solely to Medieval art and owned by the Metropolitan Museum on 5th Avenue. Unlike the Met, though, the Cloisters is in the middle of nowhere, way up in Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park. Even today the Cloisters doesn’t see the number of visitors it should. In its salad days, it saw even fewer. Probably because the United States had been drawn into yet another world war right after the depression. Life was scary and hard. Most people simply didn’t have the mindset or the luxury of a visit to a museum.

How does this tie in with my historical research? What all of this means is not a lot was written up on the Cloisters during that time. I can get large details, but things such as was there a gift shop, not so much. I have to count on the cooperation of the Met, which they are willing to give. In fact, I recently found out from one of their return calls that they discovered the room that is currently the gift shop was a cloakroom back then. So, the gift shop as a crime scene is out and a chapel is in.

But I have more questions. How big is the Unicorn Tapestry Room? Was the cafeteria opened for Mother’s Day in 1943? Did it even exist then? Which rooms open onto the gardens? The list goes on and on. Once again, the Met is trying to be helpful with this, but even their knowledge of that time has its limitations.

Does that give me carte blanche? Does that mean I can write whatever I want? Not on your tintype. Someone out there has a book, pamphlet, story, or journal about the Cloisters. They may even know someone who trod the grounds of the Cloisters during WWII. Maybe they trod the grounds themselves. But you can bet whoever they are if they read my book and I have made false statements, they will have a fit and tell me off. So, if I can’t verify something, it’s out.

And that’s only as it should be. But man, sometimes research is tough!