Category: Guest Blogger

Guest Blogger ~ Susie Black

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

How I Develop My Characters and Plan My Mysteries

By nature, I am a people person, so, developing characters is where I begin when planning a story. Once the characters are created, the plot is built around them, not the reverse. So, how do I develop my characters? I have kept a daily journal chronicling all the interesting, difficult, and oddball people I have encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of during my apparel sales career.  The journal entries are the foundation of my mysteries. All my characters are based on people I have encountered in my career as a ladies’ swimwear sales exec. I take the characteristics, quirks, traits, and personalities of these real people as the foundation and then build upon them to create the cast members I want in the tale. Basing my characters on people I know has given my cast a ring of authenticity and that believability has translated into memorable characters readers root for or boo at, but either way, invest in.

To illustrate my character development technique, I’ll detail how I created Holly Schlivnik, the protagonist of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. Holly Schlivnik is based on me. She is the me I always wanted to be and more. She is fearless, loyal to a fault, and smart. 

Holly is infused with me in every respect- from her physical description to her personality to her life experiences, career, family, friends, the kind of car she drives, and where she lives.

Physical Description:

Holly is slim as I am and is my height- 4 feet 8 inches to be exact. I have made the consequences of her height lack of it, a key component of the messes she gets herself into and the adjustments she’s had to make in her everyday life to accommodate her height. These situations add to her personality and turn into some of the funniest schticks of the series. She has brown eyes and short brown hair like mine.

Personality:

Like me, she is funny, sarcastic, stubborn, wise-cracking, and irreverent.

Idiosyncrasies, and inherited traits:

I inherited a fear of death from my maternal grandmother that we both overcompensated with the nervous habit of laughing, often inappropriately. I incorporated this idiosyncrasy into Holly’s personality and made it one of the main characteristics that identify her. I also inherited my grandmother’s rapier wit and a love of perfume and jewelry. I blended these into Holly’s personality as well.

Family: My dad was a ladies’ apparel manufacturer’s representative and I started my career working for him and so is Holly’s dad. I got into the rag biz by accident and so did Holly.  Holly also started her apparel career working for her father. My parents were complete opposites who had a very successful marriage and so are Holly’s. Holly’s parents, bigger-than-life maternal grandmother, and siblings were all based on my family. 

Religion: Like me, Holly is Jewish and the traditions and history are woven throughout the series and add to the richness and authenticity of each story.

Love Life: While I lived in the South, I did have two men in my life one of who I have introduced into Holly’s life.  Unlike Holly, I have never had a personal relationship with a police detective.

Pets: Sigmund Freud, Holly’s wildly popular standard poodle/psychiatrist and amateur sleuth, is based on the personalities of my own two springer spaniels. While he can’t talk, like my two hounds, Siggie gets his point across. He shakes his head yes and no, rolls his eyes, barks if he disagrees with Holly, and has been known to pull her in the opposite direction if he doesn’t think Holly is going the right way.

Health and habits: To keep my girlish figure, I am a dedicated walker I walk three miles every day- and have made Holly’s daily walks with Sigmund to the Washington Street Pier an important part of her routine. “Pop,” the senior citizen fisherman she has befriended and shares morning coffee with on the pier has helped her solve several murders.

Hobbies: I have been an avid stamp collector since my pre-teen years. In book number six, which was recently released, it is revealed that Holly is a stamp collector. She encounters someone tangentially involved in a murder while at her stamp dealer’s store.

Car: I have owned convertible cars throughout my driving career. I incorporated my love of convertibles into my stories by having Holly drive a bubblegum pink classic convertible passed down to her by her mother. 

Home: I lived on a houseboat in Marina del Rey for ten years. I loved living on the water in a houseboat and amalgamated that into the series by having Holly live on a houseboat in Marina del Rey, California. I have used Holly’s houseboat and marina locale as an integral part of Holly’s personality as well as the site of her adventures and misadventures as an amateur sleuth. 

Age: Holly is on the shady side of her twenties when she is promoted from a sales rep to a management position. This is the same age when I made the leap from sales rep to executive management.

Friends and colleagues:  Like me, Holly is in a traditionally male-dominated industry and is one of the very few females in a management position. I surrounded her with a group of female professional colleagues and friends who supported her and mentored her like the ones I was fortunate enough to have had to do the same for me. The Yentas are based on that group of wonderful women.

Career:

Holly is the same successful ladies’ swimwear sales exec based in the Los Angeles apparel center as me. 

Employment: Ditzy Swimwear and Mermaid Swimwear are based on two swimwear companies I worked for.

I have created a fictionalized me that has been fun to bring to life. Fortunately, unlike Holly Schlivnik, I have never discovered a murdered person or hunted down a killer…at least, not yet!

Death by Jelly Beans

“Brings a whole new meaning to the rabbit died.”

Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik discovers the Bainbridge Department Store Easter Bunny slumped over dead and obnoxious swimwear buyer Sue Ellen Magee is arrested for the crime. Despite her differences with the nasty buyer, Holly is convinced the Queen of Mean didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But the trail has more twists than a pretzel and more turns than a rollercoaster. And nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Jelly-Beans-Swimsuit-Mystery/dp/B0D88FNBSS

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-jelly-beans-susie-black/1145804565?ean=2940186124580

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212700868-death-by-jelly-beans?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=PWl56Hmfkz&rank=1

https://www.bookbub.com/books/death-by-jelly-beans-holly-swimsuit-mystery-book-5-by-susie-black

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Contact Susie at:

Website: www.authorsusieblack.com

E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

Book Bub: www.bookbub.com/authors/susie-black

Facebook:    https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=susieblack&qid=MDCXK0T4FC

Instagram:   Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1_saved/

Twitter:    http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit

Guest Blogger ~ Pamela Fagan Hutchins

~ patyjag

Vigilante with a Badge in the Modern West: Delaney Pace

My Delaney Pace Series is set in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, present-day—the real-life Modern West. It’s a setting I know well. I live there, right on the eastern face of the Bighorns near Sheridan. For the book, I created the fictional town of Kearny. Its name was inspired by Fort Phil Kearny near Story. My husband and I used to live across the street from its ruins and the museum that now stands in its place. That setting has fueled many of the books I’ve written.

But any good series is driven by its lead character more than anything, so it is with that in mind that I present to you my vigilante with a badge, Deputy Investigator Delaney Pace. My friend Daisy is the inspo for Delaney, and you couldn’t get more Modern West than Daisy—or more kick ass.

A few years ago, my husband Eric posted that we were giving away rusty, fire-damaged barbed wire. One of the takers was Daisy, who showed up with her family to claim some to use for a project.

We soon learned that she’d given up oil field trucking in North Dakota—and a side gig as a reality star— for taking over the family homestead, raising her second daughter twenty years after her first, and being a service to others through philanthropy and her physical labor. She was a key player in organizing one of the largest agricultural relief efforts in the history of the United States through a huge convoy of truckers, donors, and volunteers after historic fires devastated America’s Midwest. She and her family raise (and butcher) a large flock of turkeys every year to feed 300+ people at a free community Thanksgiving dinner.

Daisy’s the one you want as your second in a knife fight, who could have been a model or actress instead of a rodeo star and extreme trucker, and she’s the friend you can knock back a cold one with or take to meet your pastor (after you’ve done your best to prepare them for the encounter). If by some small miracle you find her in a church, you won’t see her sitting in the pews… she’s the one standing in the back.

She was forged in the kind of volcanic upheaval that can result in smoking rubble or beautiful rocky mountain ranges. Daisy, through character and force of will, is the latter. If you enjoy Delaney as much as I do, it is because of my friend Daisy. {Daisy, thank you for agreeing to let me reshape you in fiction.}

Whether it is her love for her niece, her desperate need to find her father’s killer and unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance, or her passion for hunting down killers (and for the handsome deputy she works alongside), Delaney goes all in. Her spirit embodies the Modern West. Rugged, self-reliant but selfless, with one foot in 1950 and one in 2024.

I think she and I have a long road to travel together, and I’m thrilled to ride shotgun on her fictional journey.

Hop in with us—we’d love to have you, too!

Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Catch Delaney Pace in her latest adventure: HER FORGOTTEN SHADOW https://amzn.to/3Nh54xYA violent storm erupts over the small town of Kearny, bringing a devastating mudslide. Amongst the debris, the worn threads of a child’s blanket, hides the body of a young girl, her long dark hair matted with the fallen earth that killed her.

When the rescue team find rope marks around the ankles of the teenage girl, they call in Detective Delaney Pace. Fourteen-year-old Marilyn Littlewolf went missing five years ago after moving to Kearny from a local reservation. Fearing she was dead, nobody expected Marilyn to ever come home. So where has she been? And why is her body covered in bruises?

Delaney thinks Marilyn was held captive in the mountains that tower above the town, but with acres of remote wilderness to search, the investigation seems impossible. Diving into Marilyn’s case, one name stands out that makes her blood turn cold as ice: her friend and longstanding babysitter to her two adopted daughters, Skeeter Rawlins.

Racing to his home, she finds it in disarray, it’s clear he left in a hurry. In disbelief, Delaney takes in the empty whisky bottles and wonders if she was wrong to trust her reliable old friend with her darling girls?

As evidence piles up against Skeeter, Delaney’s heart shatters when another girl is reported missing. Tracing her to a remote cabin deep in the woods, she fears she’s about to finally uncover the truth about her once-trusted friend. But when she bursts into the disheveled shack nothing could have prepared her for what she finds. Was she wrong to suspect Skeeter as the twisted mind behind the missing girls? And is she already too late to save another innocent life?

Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a USA Today bestselling and Amazon All Star mystery/thriller/suspense author with books in ten languages, who believes in soulmates, loves to laugh, travels too much, and lives out the adventures in her books at a rustic lake camp at Maine’s Mooselook Lake and in an off-the-grid lodge on the face of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains with her husband, sled dogs, and draft horses. She’s currently along for her husband’s year-long assignment on the Mediterranean coast of France, writing her fifth Delaney Pace crime thriller in a tiny village where no one speaks English or has ever seen Alaskan malamutes before… and loving it.

Website: http://pamelafaganhutchins.com

Mailing list with free starter library: https://pamelafaganhutchins.com/pages/the-next-chapter-with-pamela-fagan-hutchins

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pamela-fagan-hutchins

Facebook http://facebook.com/pamela.fagan.hutchins.author

Pamela’s Posse for Readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pamelasposse

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/pamelafaganhutchins Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamela_fagan_hutchins/

Guest Blogger ~ Margaret Mizushima

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

Moving and Moving On

This is my first guest post for Paty’s Ladies of Mystery, and I’m so happy to be here. I write the Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries, a series comprised of eight published books and a new episode titled GATHERING MIST that launches on October 8th. I’m excited for this book to be released, because it’s set in an entirely different place than the rest of the series, resulting from a move that my husband and I made in 2022.

Our move across country from northern Colorado to the state of Washington began two years prior to the actual event. My husband Charlie is a veterinarian who established his practice of forty-two years on our property outside the city limits of a small town north of Fort Collins, CO. We also raised a herd of Angus cattle, quarter horses, and a multitude of pets there. It was our beloved home, and we planned to stay there forever.

But then…the school district bought the plot of ground next to ours and began to build a three-school campus, complete with football, baseball, and soccer fields. Oh my! The construction noise rocked our home. The atmosphere of our peaceful country life was destroyed. We looked at each other and said, “We’ve gotta move.”

Fortunately, it was time for my husband to retire. It took two years to disperse our cattle herd, sell our farm equipment, close the vet practice and get ready to go. We decided to head to Washington to be closer to one of our daughters. Because of the boom in the real estate market, cash buyers reigned. Since no one would entertain an offer from someone with a contingency, we were unable to buy a place to move to until after our property sold.

The last month before we left was intense. We pared down our belongings and loaded what was left into one stock trailer and a container strapped to our hay trailer, which we stored on our friends’ property. We loaded our two German shorthaired pointers into the car and headed west to Washington State. What a trip! Both dogs and humans were shell-shocked when we arrived.

Our daughter had found a place for us to rent near her home in a beautiful river valley. It was on a rural property surrounded by giant Douglas fir that smelled amazing at night. Our landlady let us bring our dogs and they had a large meadow they could run in each morning. We’ll always be grateful for her gracious hospitality.

Four months later, we found our new home and made the final move. We settled in and I discovered a wonderful setting for the ninth book in my series, a fictional spot on Washington’s Olympic peninsula.

In GATHERING MIST, Deputy Mattie Wray and her K-9 partner Robo leave their home a week before Mattie’s wedding to join a search and rescue mission for a celebrity’s missing son. They face unfamiliar territory and unfriendly locals on the misty, rain-soaked Olympic peninsula, and they uncover secrets that have lain buried in the dense forest. When it becomes apparent that there is something more sinister than a lost child in play, the searchers grow desperate as they strive to find the missing boy before he is lost forever.

We’ve not only found a new home here in Washington, but I found a new setting that I loved using in this book. I invite you to read Mattie and Robo’s adventures that are set in both Colorado and Washington, starting with book one, KILLING TRAIL. Or, if you prefer, start anywhere in the series, because the mystery in each episode stands alone. I hope you enjoy the books!

GATHERING MIST

Secrets hide within the fog deep in the mossy forests of the Pacific Northwest, in this ninth thrilling installment in award-winning author Margaret Mizushima’s Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series.

Deputy Mattie Wray, formerly Mattie Cobb, is summoned to Washington’s Olympic peninsula for an urgent search and rescue mission to find a celebrity’s missing child. With only a week left before her wedding, Mattie is hesitant to leave Timber Creek, but her K-9 partner Robo’s tracking skills are needed.

Dense forest, chilling rain, and unfriendly locals hamper their efforts, and soon Mattie suspects something more sinister than a lost child is at play.  When one of the SAR dogs becomes ill, her fiancé Cole Walker suspects poison. Fearing for Mattie’s and Robo’s safety, Cole joins the search and rescue team as veterinary support.

Secrets that have lain hidden within the rugged terrain come to light and when it is uncovered that the missing child was kidnapped, the search becomes a full-blown crime scene investigation, forcing Mattie, Robo, and Cole into a desperate search to find the missing child before it’s too late.  

Here is a buy link:https://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Mist-Timber-Creek-Mystery/dp/1639108947

Buy Link in Tiny URL:  https://tinyurl.com/5n9xx8un

Margaret Mizushima writes the internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She serves as past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is the recipient of a Colorado Authors League Award, a Benjamin Franklin Book Award, a CIBA CLUE Award, and two Willa Literary Awards by Women Writing the West. Her books have been finalists for a SPUR Award by Western Writers of America, a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, and the Colorado Book Award. She and her husband recently moved from Colorado, where they raised two daughters and a multitude of animals, to a home in the Pacific Northwest. Find her on Facebook/AuthorMargaretMizushima, X @margmizu, Instagram @margmizu, and her website www.margaretmizushima.com.

Guest Blogger ~ Kathleen Donnelly

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

Crime Solving K-9s

As a retired K-9 handler for Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines, I spent the last 19 years working to help keep schools safe with my four-legged partners. We used friendly dogs to find drugs, alcohol and gunpowder. When I started this career, I had no idea how much it would influence my writing and genre.

I have so many stories and memories about my experiences with the dogs. One that always comes to mind happened with my first dog, Sammy. Sammy and I arrived at one of our schools and the principal said, “I believe we have a kid dealing drugs here, but we’re not sure where he’s keeping them. Do you mind if we check the parking lot?”

KATHLEEN & SAMMY

I agreed and off Sammy and I went to sniff around some vehicles. I insist on keeping any checks random so that we’re never targeting a student, but I did ask the principal to tell me the color of the car. It was black. So that day, we started checking black cars in the parking lot. After checking a few vehicles, we came upon a black four-door coupe and Sammy’s body language changed. Her tail pointed straight up in the air and her muscles tensed. Even her breathing changed as she inhaled the air and worked to pinpoint a scent. She alerted on the front passenger door.

But she didn’t stop there.

Whipping around, she ran back in front of me and went to the trunk of the vehicle, promptly alerting there as well. The phrase, “trust your dog” kept repeating through my head. I told the principal that we needed to check not only the interior of the car, but also the trunk. Sammy had alerted on both spots on the vehicle for a reason. I would soon find out it was a very good reason.

In the front glovebox, there was marijuana. But what was in the trunk? The student didn’t want to open it and I soon discovered why. When he did, there was a sawed-off shotgun. I rewarded Sammy with her toy and praised her for a job well done. She’d not only helped to keep a school safe and maybe even saved a life, but she had also solved a mystery.

NELLIE WORKING A LOCKER

As I continued to work and gained experience with more dogs, I started to realize how much dogs, or more specifically their noses, could help us solve mysteries. When we would recertify with our trainer in Oklahoma, he would always show us the dogs he had in training for law enforcement. I watched him work the dogs for tracking, apprehension, finding narcotics, and much more. Our trainer had arson dogs and even told stories about training dogs to find human remains.

Meanwhile, I was pursuing my other passion of writing. As I learned more about writing mysteries and thrillers, I thought, why am I not including a K-9 character in my books? They are the ultimate crime solving partners. At this point I had worked K-9s for about ten years and I had a better understanding of the bond between dog and handler. I knew that my next book would have a K-9.

That was the beginning of the National Forest K-9 series. Now, three books in, with the latest release being KILLER SECRETS, I have found as much passion for writing dogs on the page as I did working dogs. In fact, this fall I am not going back to school. I am now a retired K-9 handler. I’m looking forward to continuing to write my stories and let my main character, US Forest Service law enforcement officer Maya Thompson and her K-9 Juniper, a two year old Malinois, solve mysteries in a fictional Colorado forest.

I love weaving in the strong bond between dog and handler. Along with Maya and Juniper, I have a new series coming out in late 2025. This is a romantic suspense series and the first book will feature an FBI Crisis Canine and his handler. As I wrote a new canine character, I enjoyed diving into a different type of K-9 work. They are amazing animals.

I’m not the only one who thinks so. In fact, I think over the past few years, there are enough K-9 crime solvers that I would say it has become its own genre. I’d love to know, do you love K-9s in books? I look forward to hearing from you and I also want to thank the Ladies of Mystery for inviting me to their blog as a guest.

Killer Secrets:

A small town’s deadly past is exposed in the newest installment of the suspenseful National Forest K-9 series by Kathleen Donnelly.

Until an avalanche ripped down a mountainside, exposing a serial killer’s dumping grounds, Antler Valley, Colorado was a quiet town. Now Forest Service officer Maya Thompson and her beautiful K-9, Juniper, must catch the murderer before they become the next targets.

With the neighboring town’s new overconfident sheriff deterring the entire investigation, a murderer on the loose and heartthrob deputy Josh Colton racing through her mind, Maya is at a crossroads. Josh is ready to go all in, but Maya has one foot out the door. As she lets her guard down, she needs to accept that she’s falling deeply in love with him, no matter how risky it may be.

When evidence from the Antler Valley victims links the murders to deaths in other ski towns, secrets long buried are unearthed. Maya and Juniper must run toward an answer, though finding it might lead them directly into a fatal trap…

Where to Purchase:

My Website—Killer Secrets—Book #3 in the National Forest K-9 series

Amazon: https://a.co/d/7e62hR9

Award-winning author Kathleen Donnelly is a retired K-9 handler. She loves crafting realism into her fictional stories from her dog-handling experience. Her debut novel, Chasing Justice, won a Best Book Award from the American Book Fest, a PenCraft Award and was a 2023 Silver Falchion finalist in the Suspense category and Readers’ Choice Award. Her second book, Hunting The Truth, was a Colorado Authors League finalist in the mystery category and a Silver Falchion finalist for the Readers’ Choice Awards. She lives near the Colorado foothills with her husband and four-legged coworkers. You can sign up for Kathleen’s newsletter to receive her free short story eBook collection, Working Tails.

Website:

www.kathleendonnelly.com

Newsletter Sign-up:

https://kathleendonnelly.com/#newsletter

Social Media:

Facebook–@AuthorKathleenDonnelly 

Twitter–@KatK9writer

Instagram–@authorkathleendonnelly

Goodreads–https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22280955.Kathleen_Donnelly

Guest Blogger ~ Joanna Vander Vlugt

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Lost in Plot

As a writer, what excites you? What makes your heart speed up and you experience that eureka moment? What causes you to type so fast your typing teacher would be impressed? Yes, I’m showing my age.

One piece of advice I was told when I started writing was write what you know. We’ve all heard that. Before I retired, I worked for 33 years in the provincial government. My career began as a Supreme Court Assistant in the Nanaimo Crown Counsel Office (prosecutor’s office). The files that came across my desk involved murder, sexual assault, break and enter to commit theft, and more.

The authors I read were Minette Walters and Dick Francis. Given my job and what I liked to read, no wonder I like writing legal thrillers. However, I cannot write a novel involving an innocent victim, because of what I’d seen at work. An author once told me that if you can’t write a fictional scenario where a character is murdered, then you shouldn’t be writing mysteries. There were times when I questioned writing thrillers.

Over the last five years I wrote and published three legal thrillers. In the back of my mind an idea for a time travel book, inspired by a black and white photograph, was itching to be written. After the publication of my last thriller, Spy Girls, I jumped genres and began writing that time travel. I usually write in the first person, but for the time travel, I chose third person to separate myself from my heroine’s voice in my previous novels. Writing in third person is a challenge, because I still find myself slipping into first. However, I’m enjoying seeing my heroine through other characters’ eyes.

In the first draft (the draft no one will see) the story takes place during the second world war. As much as I tried, I didn’t feel a connection to the story I’d been waiting so long to write. What was my problem? At my book club, my neighbour commented about the unfairness of the legal system. I had my first eureka moment.

While researching my story, I had become fascinated with women’s contributions to the war effort, which included much more than giving up silk stockings, and my story had turned into a war novel. That wasn’t what I wanted to write. I spoke with Christina Strasbourg of Agents Helping Writers. I asked how I could work in this additional legal plot line? Christina advised that I was trying to cram too many plot lines into a single story. She said, “You have enough going on here for two novels.” My editor of my previous novels has pointed out fizzling plot lines during constructive edits.

Guilty.

Christina suggested that my time travel could have the second world war as a backdrop, but it didn’t have to be the focus. She mentioned the novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, as an example. She then asked, what excited me about my story? I told her, my heroine and the legal undertones. Then, write about that. For some reason, I thought writing a time travel meant it couldn’t have a legal slant. That thirty-minute discussion with Christina saved me hours of work. Christina also said that what I cut, could always be used in a second book. Once I locked into the main plot line, my elevator pitch was a snap.

If you’re wondering if being a pantser caused this dilemma, my answer is no. Before I began writing my time travel, I had converted to being a plotter.

I started with the first chapter. I cut scenes which didn’t contribute to the main legal story line. I’m halfway through this draft of rewrites, and I have cut approximately 14,000 words which I’ve saved on a document titled “extra”.

My time travel is coming together. I’m excited writing it, and I’m connected to the story and the characters. There’s still hard work ahead but that’s part of writing. I read an article about drafts and cutting words. I can’t remember the author, or the exact words. But basically, I’m not to despair about the words and scenes I cut, because those words and scenes, although they didn’t make it into the story, they had the important task of propping up the story until the final words and scenes could take over.

SPY GIRLS

A CIA action officer is released from prison. A Chief Justice is murdered, and the Law Society is scrutinizing Jade Thyme’s conduct. Jade’s life can’t get much worse until she is coerced into finding an elusive double agent. Tangled in lies and political agendas, high speed chases and sticky bombs, can Jade outplay a dangerous Hungarian assassin before her own life is terminated?

“Spy Girls is adrenaline-fueled, adventure packed with heart-pounding action, unexpected twists, and a riveting plot that keeps readers hooked from the first page. With lives hanging in the balance and loyalties questioned, trust in each other is the only way to survive. But even the strongest bonds can be tested when faced with external threats and personal demons.”

—Joe Goldberg, author of the award-winning The Spy Devils thrillers

Buy links:

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Spy-Girls-Jade-Sage-Thriller-ebook/dp/B0CJ3P9Z1B

Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1999068440

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/spy-girls-joanna-vander-vlugt/1144627069?ean=2940179143550

Joanna Vander Vlugt is an author and illustrator. As a teenager, she drew charcoal portraits and wrote mysteries. Now, she uses Copic markers to illustrate motorcycles and graphic novels. Under the pseudonym J.C. Szasz, Joanna’s short mysteries Egyptian Queen, and The Parrot and Wild Mushroom Stuffing were both published in Crime Writers of Canada mystery anthologies. Her essay, No Beatles Reunion was published in the Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle anthology.

Joanna draws upon her 13 years’ experience working in the prosecutor’s office and 10 years working in the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner for inspiration for her novels. Joanna is the VP of Memberships for the Sinc-CW. Joanna has just released her novel, Spy Girls, the third in her Jade & Sage series. Spy Girls was selected as the Chick Lit Book Cafés International Book of Excellence Award for best spy thriller and suspense. Joanna’s novels, art and podcast can be found at joannavandervlugt.com.

Website: www.joannavandervlugt.com

Instagram: joannavandervlugt_author_art