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Thankful

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

It’s November the month when we have a small thing called Thanksgiving. Whether you sit down with family, friends, or just yourself it seems to be the day when we think about all we are thankful for.

Of course, Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that has been spun to make us be grateful for what we have. Which is wonderful, but we, well I know I wouldn’t be here, if it hadn’t been for the Native Americans who back in 1621 helped the pilgrims make it through that first winter in North America. According to my grandmother, I have an ancestor who came over on the Mayflower. If they hadn’t lived, who knows who I would have turned out to be. Which makes me grateful that the people who lived here were willing to share with the ones who invaded their land.

I’m thankful to have been born in the decade where we have lived through so many good inventions. But lately a few too many that I’m not so excited about. I feel their need to “help us or make things easier” is making use dumber.

Being a kid in the 60’s & 70’s was like being a feral animal. LOL During the summer, I could do my chores, saddle up my horse and be gone all day riding on the mountainside. As long as I made it home to do my afternoon chores and have dinner ready when my parents got home from work, they didn’t care what I did all day. And they didn’t worry harm would come to me or my brothers as we rode cardboard boxes down a long, steep hill, fished in the stream in the cow pasture, swam in the river, and sat out at the county road trying to sell lemonade to the summer tourists.

What I’m the most thankful for is my husband who early in our marriage realized that I needed to write to not be grouchy. There were times he’d come into the house and say, “When was the last time you wrote something?” When I’d say, “A few days ago.” He’d tell me to go write. I’d drop whatever household chore I was doing and write. It is my happy place and my therapy.

I finished the 9th book in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series, Santa’s Beard, last week. It’s with my editor while I’m on a short vacation with hubby. I hadn’t planned on working on the next book in the Gabriel Hawke series until after the first of the year because I have a lot of “marketing” things I need to deal with. But not writing isn’t in me. While I was walking my dog the other day, the beginning of the next book came to me and I’ve written it down. I know it will change several times before I actually start the book, but that’s how my mind works.

Now that the starting point for the next book came to me, I’ll be running things over in my head to find the best beginning and figure out suspects. 😉 One of my favorite parts is putting together the cast of characters who might be the killer. I like to have 4 options for the killer and yet, many times it ends up being someone who I pluck out of the air and don’t realize they are the murderer until I get near the end of the book. I love it when I surprise myself! Especially, when I go back to add in the clues and realize I had added them already. That’s when I’m thankful for my subconscious!

One of the things I’m the most thankful for are the Ladies of Mystery. The authors who post on the blog monthly and share about our guest spots with other authors. Without all their wonderful posts about writing and life, this would be a boring place. Our guest bloggers are mystery and thriller writers from all over and different careers. I love learning about other writers and picking up some good reads.

What I am thankful for the most are the people who follow and read this blog and who purchase our books. Our fans are what keep us writing. Thank you to everyone out there who reads and purchases books whether they are print, ebook, or audio.

If you’d like to stay up to date with my writing or learn about how I became a write, you can subscribe to my Substack. I post all the blog posts from the Ladies of Mystery there, share author friends and their books, and of course, my newest books and sales. https://substack.com/@patyjag

Have a wonderful month and fabulous Thanksgiving!

Guest Blogger ~ M. E. Proctor

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

Making a Scene

By M.E. Proctor

One of the questions most frequently asked to a writer (on par with where do you get your ideas?) is if they know the entire story from the get go or if they figure it out on the fly—the planners versus the improvisers conversation.

I’m a hybrid. I put together a rough outline and then inevitably veer away from it as I start writing. This happens because I love to work individual scenes. What happens here and now tends to take my attention away from the high level perspective of the complete narrative.

Here’s an example from the new Declan Shaw detective novel, The Way You Say My Name.

In Chapter 4, Declan meets Sam, the local vet. He waits for her in her small office, intending to ask her about an incident with a dog. It’s a critical scene that will set in motion a succession of dramatic events. Declan is attracted to Sam and her reaction is ambiguous. She could put a firm end to his flirting attempts but she doesn’t, leaving him wondering why she’s aloof and what she isn’t telling him.

I must have imagined, pictured, and acted this scene over a dozen times in my head. I moved my actors around and changed their lines of dialogue endlessly until the interaction sounded and felt right. I didn’t sit at the keyboard to write until I was sure I’d nailed it down. This is how I built the book, scene after scene. In editing, with the full story laid out, I reworked parts to smoothen the flow.

I’m a ‘visual’ writer. I need to see the scene to be able to write it. And I need to hear it too. A storyboard with speech bubbles won’t do the trick. Like the movies, maybe closer to stage work. Two characters, face to face. They react to each other, there’s tension, and the story happens.

Here’s a small part of that scene, can you picture it?

“Please take a seat. You’re a detective who wants to talk to me about an injured dog, what’s the catch?”

“Senator Spencer hired me to find his daughter, Amanda. Have you heard about the incident?”

“Vaguely. There was a search and it was called off? Senator Spencer is the closest we have to a celebrity around here.” She sat on the corner of the desk, denim-clad legs swinging. “What does it have to do with the dog?”

They were very close. There was barely any room. If she tipped forward, she would drop in his lap. Declan hoped she would tip and drop, so he could catch her. The office door was open, which alleviated the claustrophobic feeling. Sam Chandler smelled of soap and something medicinal, like a freshly opened jar of multivitamins. It should have put Declan’s thoughts on an antiseptic track, and it did the exact opposite. He pictured her scratching the reception cat under the chin, and his head tilted back in an unconscious reflex. She sat higher than he did, and he had to look up to her, so his neck stretch wasn’t completely ridiculous.

I rolled these lines in my head so many times, I could swear I was in the room with them. The scene is told from Declan’s perspective, but I’m Sam’s head too.

So I am more a plotter than an improviser after all. I’m a compulsive nitpicker who needs to have every detail just so. The kicker is that I do it at the scene level, not knowing in Chapter 4 how it will go to hell in Chapter 6. Not until I get there. I have the general direction: Sam is in serious trouble and Declan will be dragged into it, they’ll be running from people who wish them harm, there will be a painful climax and illusions will be shattered …

But the scenes, ah, the scenes! They take shape in my mind one by one, and I ruminate over them, night after night. The guy holding the clapperboard shouts: Scene 25, Take 6 … 7 … 8 … 32 … until I get it just right.
Isn’t it wonderful that writers have no budget to worry about, and no unionized crew members who need breaks to eat and sleep?

The Way You Say My Name

A Declan Shaw Mystery

A short blurb …
On New Year’s day, P.I. Declan Shaw is hired to investigate a disappearance. Amanda Spencer, a young mother of two, slipped away from a Christmas concert without leaving a clue. What made her run and who is she running from?

While digging up shreds of info from Amanda’s parents and friends, Declan meets Sam Chandler. She’s the kind of woman who stops him in his tracks. Sexy, smart, and complicated. And skilled at keeping secrets. So skilled Declan questions his abilities as a detective. What began as an intriguing missing person case soon shifts into a cross-country pursuit with Sam’s life in the balance.

For once, Declan isn’t the searcher, he’s the one who cannot afford to be found.

“This time Proctor does something remarkable. She pulls back the curtain on Declan Shaw’s past, revealing the trauma that helped shape the man readers have come to know. This is a version of Declan that feels unexpectedly vulnerable, stripping away any illusion of invincibility and replacing it with something infinitely more compelling. His evolution across this series is exceptional, and understanding his history makes his compassion, restraint, and fierce loyalty all the more meaningful. Proctor doesn’t simply give readers another mystery to solve. She gives them a character worth investing in, a man whose imperfections make him impossible not to champion.”

—Teresa Brock for Best Thriller Books

Buy Links:

The Way You say My Name is available in eBook and paperback.

All formats on Shotgun Honey website.

M.E. Proctor was born in Brussels and lives in Texas. She’s the author of the Declan Shaw detective mysteries: Love You Till Tuesday, Catch Me on a Blue Day, The Way You Say My Name. She’s the author of two short story collections, Family and Other Ailments and A Book to Live By, and the co-author of the retro-noirs, Bop City Swing and Kansas City Breakdown. Her fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She’s a Shamus and Derringer awards short story nominee. Catch Me on a Blue Day was recently nominated for a Shamus Award in the Best Original Paperback P.I. Novel category.

Social Links

Author Website: www.shawmystery.com

On Substack: https://meproctor.substack.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/martine.proctor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEProctor3

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/meproctor.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/proctormartine/

I HATE to miss deadlines.

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

I’m an Indie author. That means I make all the decisions from characters to plot to the endings of my books and when they will be published. I have a whiteboard that I use to keep track of a year’s work/publishing schedule. When I get behind or have to erase and change the dates, it makes me edgy and angry. I like to stay on schedule.

I knew the move I made in March would mess up my schedule. I made concessions for it on my whiteboard. Fast forward to June when I had expected to have a good chunk of the next Cuddle Farm book written and I was slogging in indecision.

Sorry about the reflections in the middle of the photo.

From the moment I finished book 1, Merry Merry Merry Murder, I knew what book 2 would be about. I’d run some scenes in my head and had already researched what I needed to know. I started the book, but it wasn’t flowing. Things didn’t feel right.

I took a break and went to a play with my daughter in an opera house built in 1912. I fell in love with the building and the ambiance, and then my height-conscious daughter walked along the balcony railing and was scared. The railing didn’t come to her knees, and the balcony felt as if it were pitching you forward onto the stage.

After that visit, I couldn’t stop thinking about that opera house. A story was forming in my mind and I had to go back. I bought tickets to the next play and dragged my daughter along again. The play was good, I paid more attention to the stage, the exits, and the short railing. When the play finished, we waited for everyone to leave the balcony and I did some experimenting and then we went down and I took pictures of the balcony from the stage. I wanted one for the cover the next Cuddle Farm book.

Yes, I set the book I’d been working on aside, realizing I needed more time (another book) in between book 1 and the book I’d been writing. It has to do with the discord between the main character and her sister. I wanted to show a bit of a change there before, what is now book 3, is written since it deals with the reason for the discord.

Back to my switching books. Because what had started out as book 2 was now book 3, and I had been brewing that story in my head for almost a year, I was switching to a book I hadn’t even thought of until 4 months ago. As I’d glance up at my whiteboard and see the looming date for the release of book 2 in the Cuddle Farm mysteries and I was still trying to pull all the suspects, the motive, and everything else into place so I could start writing it, my tension grew that I was going to miss the publish date and it would throw off all of the release dates through the rest of this year.

When I was complaining to a friend, she asked me, “But will it be a better book for the series if you write it now?”

My answer was yes.

“Then that’s the book you need to write and move the other publish dates out. They aren’t made in stone.”

Oh, but they are chiseled in my head. My greatest flaw is my greatest strength. I don’t like to be late for ANYTHING. It makes me nervous when I think I’m going to be late. I purposely give myself extra time for everything. And I had for book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries. But I had to wipe off my whiteboard and redesignate publish dates for this book, the next Spotted Pony Casino book, and the next Gabriel Hawke book. I wasn’t happy, and it made my stomach twist as I erased the dates and reset them.

However, this is going to be a good book and will hopefully pull more readers into this series. It also gives me more time to decide the direction I’m going with the next Spotted Pony Casino book. I’ve been back and forth on how to approach it, and hopefully by the time I am ready to start, I’ll have that story ready to rock and roll.

Titles: How does an author choose them?

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

In case you couldn’t guess by the title of this post, I’m having trouble figuring out a title. Not for the book I’m writing but the next one in the series. Yes, when I know what the book is going to be about, I start trying different titles to see what fits the story and how to make it fit with the series.

I didn’t have any trouble with titles for my Shadra Higheagle series, they came from the story I was telling: Double Duplicity, Tarnished Remains, Deadly Aim, Murderous Secrets, Killer Descent, Reservation Revenge, Yuletide Slaying, Fatal Fall, Haunting Corpse, Artful Murder, Dangerous Dance, Homicide Hideaway, Toxic Trigger-point, Abstract Casualty, Capricious Demise, Vanishing Dream, Christmas Chaos.

As you can see, they were all two-word titles with some reference to murder or mystery.

Then I have the Gabriel Hawke novels. I wanted these to have animals in the title because he is a Fish and Wildlife State Trooper, and I wanted them to sound like the title of an Indigenous story. Murder of Ravens, Mouse Trail Ends, Rattlesnake Brother, Chattering Blue Jay, Fox Goes Hunting, Turkey’s Fiery Demise, Stolen Butterfly, Churlish Badger, Owl’s Silent Strike, Bear Stalker, Damning Firefly, Cougar’s Cache, Wolverine Instincts, Wolf Moon, Captured Hummingbird.

Sometimes it is hard to decide which animal to use in the title. Some stories have the animal in it, and some, I allude to the animal. Then, coming up with other words for the title can take a bit of time. As Heather said in her last post, finding the perfect word is sometimes a struggle.

When I began plotting the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries, I decided to use gambling terms as the titles. Poker Face, House Edge, Double Down, The Squeeze, The Pinch, Down and Dirty, Crapshoot, Full House.

I have the list of gambling terms and when I decide the plot of the story, I go down the list and figure out which term best fits. Which makes coming up with a title much easier.

But now, I have the Cuddle Farm Mysteries, which I am trying to keep on the lighter side, more cozy than the Shandra Higheagle series. The first book’s title, Merry Merry Merry Murder, came from a Christmas song. As you can guess, the story was set during the Christmas holiday. This second book is set in a century-old opera house during the rehearsal of a local play. I’ve come up with the title, Monologued to Death. It shows there is a murder and with the cover of the old opera house I have been frequenting and Monologued, the reader should figure out the death happens in the opera house. It doesn’t have the same wording as the first book, but with the Cuddle Farm logo across the top, the same font in the titles, and a similar look, I’m hoping it will work to make them look like a series.

My problem? Book three is a bit darker than the first two. It has to be the third book to make the secondary plot work right. I’m struggling with the title of that book, because I don’t want it to be too dark, and all the titles I come up with have been overused as titles.

It has to do with an evil that has been lurking within a character for decades. And the body that is dug up and upsets the world of my main character. Here are what I have so far:

Fiendish Folly – feels like a cozy, but it also feels too cutesy for the storyline.

Wicked Ways – has about 8 other books with that title, and it sounds morel like a witch is involved.

Evil Never Sleeps – This one has been used many times.

The Water Knows – again it has been used multiple times.

Haunting Memory – Used a lot.

Hints of Evil – This one I like, but not sure it fits with the series feel.

Here is the gist of the book if you want to help me with some titles: A child’s body is found when the river that runs through Auburn is diverted to work on drainage culverts. The body turns out to be a boy. The brother of Viola. He had been missing for decades, last seen with his sister, Andi (my main character), and Nina( her sister). The older girls said he was taken by a man in a blue car. Andi doesn’t remember very much about the day because she was only 4 and Nina was 9, Viola 10, and her brother was 6.

Moving + Writing = Behind

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

I am just about moved into our new-to-us home. One more week and I’ll have everything moved and will be settled into the smaller house. Downsizing is not easy! After 47 years, 4 kids, 12 grandkids, 2 great grandkids, I have boxes of photos that I’ve been going through. getting rid of duplicates and bad images from the days when you took the film in to be printed.

I have more furniture than this house can hold, but at the same time, I need to purchase furniture to fit in smaller spaces.

And don’t get me started downsizing from a walk-in closet to a 7 ft long closet in a 1952 older house. I see some remodeling going on in the bedroom down the road. Right now we are concentrating on making the kitchen and dining area larger.

  • Many of the things I’m doing to move relate to my writing.
  • Watching for duplicate words or words that aren’t strong enough.
  • making better word choices that fit the scene or the character even if the word had worked well before.
  • Shortening sentences to be more concise and not take up so much space in the story.
  • And expanding on the mystery and subplots to show the development of my characters and explore more reasons for the murder.

While I’m making the 4-hour drive back and forth from the old place to the new, I’ve summoned up several scenes and reasons for the actions of my characters in the work in progress.

But the words aren’t popping up on the computer screen because when I do finally have time to sit down at the computer, I have emails and promotions to tend to before my brain gives out.

In the last couple of days, I’ve thought about moving my deadline for this book out, but then it feels like I’m copping out. Instead, I’ll spend the rest of the month pushing to finish the book and know it will be published a bit later than I’d planned, but I managed to write it within my deadline.

That is the hardest part of writing for me. Not lambasting myself when I miss a deadline. When I put it out to the universe that something will happen or be finished, I don’t make excuses. I push and make it happen. It is my greatest strength as a writer. Self-discipline.

I can’t remember if I mentioned that Book 8 in the Spotted Pony Casino is now available in print and ebook.

When the past knocks on their door, the future they planned begins to unravel.

On the brink of their wedding, Dela Alvaro and Heath Seaver’s plans shatter when a ten-year-old boy appears, claiming to be Heath’s son. The truth is even darker: the boy’s mother—the woman Heath thought died years ago at Pine Ridge—was an FBI informant hidden under a new identity, left to raise his child alone before dying of addiction.

As Heath wrestles with awe for the son he never knew and fury at the FBI’s deception, the past turns deadly. When the agent who lied to him is found murdered in Pendleton, the FBI shows up on Dela’s doorstep, bringing danger straight to their home.

With their future on the line, Dela and Heath must confront a web of secrets before it destroys the family they’re just beginning to build.

Universal book link: https://books2read.com/u/3LzAxJ

Buy direct from the author: ebook – https://www.patyjager.net/product/full-house-ebook/

Autographed print book – https://www.patyjager.net/product/full-house/

You can also now purchase Merry Merry Merry Murder in audiobook format.

Where comfort and cheer meet scandalous secrets—A holiday mystery set in a small town.

Audiobook website – https://www.patyjager.net/product/merry-merry-merry-murder-audiobook/

In my next post, I’ll be talking about my 20th anniversary as a published author.