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Guest Blogger ~ M. E. Proctor

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

The Long and Short of It

If writing a novel is a long-lasting love affair—and it better be passionate because there’ll be a lot of time spent in close quarters—what are short stories? A brief encounter burning bright, a summer romance, a little walk on the wild side … It sure feels like that for me at times. Short fiction is a gulp of fresh air after completing a book draft, a welcome reprieve from obsession, and a new way to look at writing when the work-in-progress leaves me so cross-eyed I don’t see anything anymore.

Short stories are like stretching exercises. Tension is released, relaxation ensues.

A character pops into my head, a place triggers an image, a memory surfaces, a sentence rings true, and an idea is born. Could it turn into a book? Maybe, and some have grown wings and gone the distance, but not all stories deserve a 300-page treatment. Often their strength is in the instant. Their intensity cannot be sustained without dilution in a full-length narrative.

“Rabbits”, one of my favorite stories in the Family and Other Ailments collection, is a good example. It is told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy who blanked out a dramatic event. We meet him when he starts remembering. There’s fear and confusion, and a growing sense of panic that is more acute and more immediate for being at the core of the story instead of distributed over book chapters.

I love the spontaneity of short stories, and the best ones are written in a feverish rush with very little rework. They scream to get on the page. I often go back for inspiration to Ray Bradbury, who knew quite a bit about short fiction. One of his quotes is printed in my brain: In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.

I can ponder a scene in a book for days, finetune and rewrite it endlessly. That kind of needlepoint doesn’t work for my short stories. The struggle doesn’t improve them, it tends to suck all the life out of them. My files are full of false starts and abandoned fragments. No regrets, they just didn’t make the cut.

Then there’s the guilty pleasure of genre-hopping. I write mostly crime, both in short and long form. The rules of the genre are infinitely flexible and accommodate pretty much everything. Yet, sometimes I feel myself slipping into horror or science fiction. I have a soft spot for cool vampires and conflicted androids. They would not fit in my contemporary detective series. Or I may decide to take a stroll in the 1950s because I’m a sucker for fedoras and hardboiled dialogue. Short fiction is like a pastry shop. All these colorful macarons. And there’s no sin in wanting to sample them all.

There are twenty-six tasty treats in my short story collection, Family and Other Ailments. Have a bite and tell me which one makes you want to come back for seconds. The main character of the book’s title story has already earned a return engagement. In a book.

Family and Other Ailments – Crime Stories Close to Home

Blood ties. The family we’ve been given, the friends we make, the loves we keep, and those we lost. The twenty-six stories in Family and Other Ailments (Wordwooze Publishing) teeter on the brink, hover at the periphery or even the possibility of crime.
The collection opens with “Spy Head,” a tale of friendship after a crushing trauma. In “Texas Two-Step,” brotherhood leads to a wicked double-cross. “Razorbills” shows a young woman seeking freedom from the prison-like caring of her sibling. “Black and Tan” slips into domestic horror, as does “Mutti,” with a hint of the fantastic. “Hour of the Bat” and “Bag Limit” are deep woods Texas noir, while “A Head for Numbers” and “No Recoil” go west, to the stark unforgiving beauty of the desert.

Buy Links:

Family and Other Ailments is available in eBook, paperback, and audiobook.

All links are accessible here: https://books2read.com/u/3Lx0v5

From reviews:

“Channelling distinct voices, subtle humor, and endings that plant a fist in your gut, Proctor’s Family and Other Ailments is a terrific collection of crime, suspense, and fear. The tales are carefully calculated, with each scene, each piece of dialogue building to that oh so important final strike: a crescendo point that leaves the reader jarred.”

M.E. Proctor was born in Brussels and lives in Texas. Her short story collection Family and Other Ailments is available in all the usual places. She’s currently working on a contemporary detective series. The first book comes out in August 2024 from Shotgun Honey. Her short fiction has appeared in Vautrin, Bristol Noir, Pulp Modern, Mystery Tribune, Reckon Review, Black Cat Weekly, and Thriller Magazine among others. She’s a Derringer nominee.

Author Website: www.shawmystery.com

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEProctor3

Age or Too Much Juggling?

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

It’s only the first month of the new year and this is the second group blog I’m on that my Google calendar told me I had a blog today. Yeesh! I have never in twelve years not had a blog already scheduled to go.

In fact, yesterday, Sunday, the day I plan out my week, I wrote down to write my Ladies of Mystery blog post on Tuesday, because, when I looked at January in my date book, which is my bible to keep things straight, I had written down my post was the third Monday of the month instead of the second.

How I managed to do that FOR THE WHOLE year when I received my new datebook in July, I don’t know. All I had to do was look to my left and on a corkboard there is a list of when each Ladies of Mystery author blogs during the month. Now, I have to go back through my datebook and cross out the LOM on the third Monday and put it on the second. And yes, cross out. I use different colored ink pens for different things that are happening.

Orange for the days I post on my Writing into the Sunset blog, Purple for the days I post on here and the other group blog. Bright pink for book specials and events, Blue for when my6 newsletter goes out. And black for personal appointments and events.

I use pencil for guest bloggers on Ladies of Mystery and to keep track of how many words I’ve written.

I also have a whiteboard with three columns where I write the months in one column in purple, the next column is in green and it is the title or number of the book in which series I’m writing, and a column in pink with the title of the book releasing that month.

Then below that, I have a new keeping track project that a very successful Indie author uses to keep track of her specials and events. I decided to use it this year and see if it can help me do a better job of staying on top of promoting my books. It is a 2′ by 3′ write on calendar of the whole year. It is to help me keep track of what book, where, and when I promote it and to keep the promotion flowing all the time. That has been my biggest problem. I start out promoting and then I get caught up in the other sides of being an Indie author and forget to keep promoting. This calendar with everything scheduled is a visual of what I need to do and what is happening. I hope it works.

And again, it is color coordinated. Blue for audiobook promo, green for ebook promo, and pink for special events.

And yet, with all of these reminders, I forgot my group blog post last Monday and today’s for this blog. I’m wondering if I need yet another calendar or whiteboard to keep me in line. What do you think? I’m off to change the purple LOM in my datebook to the second Monday. Have a great day!

Guest Blogger ~ Mollie Hunt

~ patyjag ~ 9 Comments

Ten years, ten Crazy Cat Lady mysteries.

Ten years ago, my high school best friend said to me, “Let’s publish your book.” She was an editor. I was a writer, unpublished even though I’d recently completed my ninth fiction manuscript. I’d been trying the query route, but I never had the patience to carry it through. When I finished a book, I’d send out a frenzy of query letters to everyone in the marketplace manual but then get tired of waiting for that one good response and start another book. Writing books fascinated me; trying to pitch them did not.

I’d completed three mysteries, a thriller, and three and a half sci-fantasies when on a trip to Mazatlán Mexico, I began something new. With the warm breeze off the Pacific Ocean and the sound of marimbas playing in my ears, I penned the first chapters of a cat-themed cozy featuring a cat shelter volunteer. This one felt different; even then I knew it could be a series.

That story, Cats’ Eyes, was the one my friend the editor said we should publish, and we did.

After Cats’ Eyes came Copy Cats and then Cat’s Paw. The Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries found its voice and established its living characters. I kept coming up with new things for my shelter volunteer Lynley Cannon to do and new crimes that only she could solve. Her varying clowder of cats helped in their catly way, along with her octogenarian mom, her teenage granddaughter, her shelter buddy, and a hunky humane investigator. When I sat down at the computer, the stories would write themselves.

And now, ten years later.

I’m about to publish a new Crazy Cat Lady mystery, Cat House, and this one is special for a few reasons. It’s the tenth in the series, ten being a milestone. It takes place in my own neighborhood, and though the exact locations are fictional, anyone familiar with the Hawthorne district of Southeast Portland, Oregon will be able to visualize some of the features. And if you’ve read any of my series, you know I incorporate cat information into each story and include cat facts and snippets at the beginning of each chapter. Like my character Lynley Cannon, I am an devoted cat person, a volunteer, and an advocate for all cats. If my stories can not only entertain but teach something about cats, I’ve achieved my objective.

In Cat House, I’ve incorporated a secondary storyline involving a cat being treated for Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Up until recently FIP has nearly always been fatal to the unfortunate cats and kittens who contract it, but now there is a cure. Sadly, however, the drug to treat FIP isn’t approved in the United States, so sufferers have to look elsewhere. To get this storyline right, I needed to do quite a bit of research, and not just the internet kind. I reached out to a friend who had successfully treated an FIP kitten with “black market” drugs she obtained through an online group. I also learned of FIP crusader Peter Cohen and his cat advocate work. I was able to interview Peter and find out a whole lot more about why we can’t get this lifesaving drug in the US.

I included Peter’s interview as an afterword in Cat House. My new book may be cozy fiction and light reading for those who like cats, mysteries, and happy endings, but the reader might just learn something along the way.

Right now you can pre-order Cat House for its release on October 29th. Link to Pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGSXLYTP

Cat House

Book 10 in the Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery Series

This Halloween, the cats are hiding, and the monsters don’t wear costumes.

Young men from the Portland-Seattle area are going missing. It’s just another sad headline to Lynley Cannon—until she starts her new cat sitting job for an enigmatic neighbor.

An off-limits room, a suspicious phone message involving drugs, and the sudden appearance of a missing man’s cat arouse Lynley’s suspicion, but how far can she go before the consequences of her cat-like curiosity turn deadly?

https://www.amazon.com/House-Crazy-Lady-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B0CGSXLYTP

Cat Writer Mollie Hunt is the award-winning author of two cozy series, the Crazy Cat Lady Mysteries and the Tenth Life Mysteries. Her Cat Seasons Sci-Fantasy Tetralogy features extraordinary cats saving the world. Mollie also released a cat-themed COVID memoir. In her spare time, she pens a bit of cat poetry as well.

Mollie is a member of the Oregon Writers’ Colony, Sisters in Crime, the Cat Writers’ Association, Willamette Writers, and Northwest Independent Writers Association (NIWA). She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a varying number of cats.

You can find Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer on her blogsite: https://molliehuntcatwriter.com/

Follow Mollie’s Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/molliehunt

Facebook Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/MollieHuntCatWriter/

Guest Blogger ~ Deni Starr

~ patyjag

My interest in mysteries may stem from my sister’s attempt on my life when I was young, re-enacted in this photo by my father some time later. Knowing my father, he probably did ten takes of this before he got one he was satisfied with.

            I have a series put out by Silverleaf Publishing which has co-protagonists Sean O’Conner a retired boxer and his friend- then business partner then wife, Cindy Matasar, FBI trained private investigator. By book five, “Down for the Count” they are engaged and running their own private investigative service, Sean providing the money and muscle, Cindy the expertise.

            The plot for “Down for the Count” originated because I was watching a documentary, “Spotlight” about how the Boston Globe exposed child abuse by local Catholic priests and I thought this subject would be a good back story for a mystery, so I did an intensive amount of research on the history of the problem and the legal proceedings in America. I was surprised to learn that celibacy has nothing to do with it. That had been my original assumption.

            In my book, I tried to very hard to be fair, and being a former public defender who believes in presumption of innocence, the priest in my book (spoiler alert) proves to not be guilty of abusing a boy. I tried to balance that out with real victims so as to not give the impression that its common for children to lie about having been victimized, and include both unfair prejudices against priests and some documented bigotry on the part of priests, hoping to cover all the angles. Several of the books I read were by priests who want the church to fix this problem, as well as one book by a woman who was abused as a child, became a nun, and now leads a SNAP (victims of priests) support group. I also added current events since during the time that I wrote this book, there were a number of articles about a formal Seattle archbishop being accused, and a meeting of the American Bishops on this subject and some of the changes they made to address it. There was also a spate of articles regarding a dispute between a cardinal and Pope Francis because the cardinal in question felt the problem would be solved if Pope Francis would kick out all the gay priests, and there were claims that suspected offenders were being moved around so claims against them could be ignored. It was a change for me to see current newspaper articles on my subject since my former subjects have been World War I, World War II, and Victorian England. I did the research of World War II for book four of the series, “Saved by the Bell” because the villain (and I have no idea why I did this) belonged to the Arrow Cross after the Nazi’s invaded Hungary, so I checked out that history and learned about the Gold Train- a train loaded with loot stolen from Jewish Hungarians that the SS tried to sneak out of Hungary when it looked like the Russians were going to win. That train was captured by Allies and the goods redistributed, but there is also believed to have been a similar attempt made in Poland with the “Ghost Train” which so far, no one has found, which I’m thinking of using as a subject for another book.

DOWN FOR THE COUNT

Very reluctantly, retired boxer Sean O’Conner and former public defender investigator Cindy Matasar now running their own investigation firm, agree to look into charges of sexual abuse on behalf of a priest accused of molesting a little boy. Sean hates the idea, but his brother, Father John, knows Father Damien and is confident there is something wrong with the allegations. Sean has his fingers crossed that it’s a simple case of mistaken identity. No such luck

            Sean and Cindy set about interviewing men who had been in the Catholic Youth Boxing Program as boys, and other priests who coached in the program, or who will vouch for Father Damien. Just when they think they’ve locked in evidence to exonerate the ninety-year-old defendant, they receive a mysteries missive that heads them in the other direction and just when they think they got that sorted out, Father Damien is found dead in what Sean thinks a clear-cut case of suicide, an admission of guilt, but which the Church insists was an accident.

            Dogging their footsteps and filing professional complaints against them, are the investigators who are in-house with the law firm hired by the Church’s insurance company who are investigating the rest of the allegations against all the other named priests. They are supposed to be on the same team, but professional jealous is causing more than just friction. When Sean figures out that Father Damien’s death was neither suicide nor accident but murder, his rivals take credit for the discovery, leading to yet more complications and additional deaths.

            Now Sean and Cindy are in a race against time to find out who is responsible before the killer discovers that they are the one’s finding all the clues, and gets to them first.  

Buy link:

https://a.co/d/gS0tum3

Deni Starr, a native Portlander and fourth generation Oregonian, a fact she intends to mention prominently should she ever run for office, started devoting her time to writing novels after out-growing the practice of law. She has five novels published by Silverleaf Publishing featuring her ex-professional boxer, Sean O’Conner and his professional investigator friend, Cindy Matasar who investigate boxing themed mysteries set in contemporary Portland. They are “Below the Belt” “Sucker-Punched”, “Throwing in the Towel.”, “Saved by the Bell”, and “Down for the The Count”. She also has “Murder by the Sea” by Launchpoint Press

            The author attended Occidental College in Los Angeles and graduated with Honors and Special Distinction majoring in English with an emphasis on creative writing and journalism. The Author then attended Willamette Law School in Salem, Oregon, and practiced law while also obtaining her black belt in Wu Ying Tao karate. Her law practice emphasized representing women victims of gender crimes, appellate law, and indigent criminal defense. She also has a background in private investigation.

            She lives in Portland with her two dogs, Ekaterina Vitalia Dementiava, and Alexandretta Elena Dementiava, and her two cats, Mad Max and Mocha.

Denistarrmysteries.com

Deni Starr Author- FB

Guest Blogger ~ Suzanne Baginskie

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

How Entering a Contest Advanced My Goal to Authorship

Readers and writers are always interested in how I started writing my first romantic suspense book and developed it into a series. After nineteen years of submitting and selling short mystery and romance fiction, I entered a Harlequin Romantic Suspense novel contest in 2018. Their guidelines asked for a blurb and a synopsis. I literally had to devise a fictional story plot! Challenged, I sat at my desk and created Dangerous Charade in less than two weeks. I submitted my idea and waited for the results.

When the email for round one arrived, fifty novel premises were accepted and one of them was mine. I’d made it in. Now the next request required three written chapters. Time of the essence, I thought of nothing else. I fleshed-out the characters, added the crime and suspense, and weaved in romantic affairs of the heart. I worked hard, rewrote, and polished them again, and when the due date arrived, I hit send.

Three weeks later I heard the news, my entry made it in along with twenty-four other writers. Their last instructions asked for the full novel. Competition was stiff. We had a month, but time flew by fast as life got in the way. It wasn’t easy, but I applied myself and soon wrote: The End. I submitted my manuscript and hoped for the best.

In the meantime, I started another book and patiently waited. The day that final emailed response appeared in my inbox, I held my breath and clicked it opened. The message brought both good and bad news, I’d made it into the last ten entries but only one novel could win, and it wasn’t mine. Rejection hurt, but I had completed my first novel.

When COVID-19 reared its ugly head for the second year in 2021, I saw a call out for romance novels from a traditional publisher, Magnolia Blossom Publishing. I immediately revised and submitted Dangerous Charade. A couple of weeks later, I was offered a contract through a Zoom video call. When they asked me for a series name book two was half finished. It had a different set of characters and crime, but I used the same FBI agents premise. The terrible danger these partners faced together trying to catch criminals and stay alive allowed an emotional relationship to blossom between them. So, I chose FBI and the second word Affairs for the title. It hinted at the hazards of working undercover and affairs of their hearts. Thus, the FBI Affairs Series was born.

I continued the theme and completed Dangerous Revenge-Book two, and Dangerous Innocence-Book three. Each of my novels introduce you to new FBI protagonists who are involved in bizarre criminal situations. They can be read in or out of order, as each novel is a standalone.

Entering that contest in 2018 advanced my goal for authorship. Thankfully, it pointed me in the direction of writing characters who thrived on dangerous ventures, took ultimate risks, and in the end fell in love along the way. Check out my FBI Affairs Series.

Suzanne Baginskie

Dangerous Charade

Book one of the FBI Affairs Series

When an undercover sting in a Las Vegas Casino goes wrong, FBI Agent Noelle Farrell’s cover is blown, and someone wants revenge. Noelle’s sent to Florida under the Witness Protection Program where she runs into her old partner, Agent Kyle Rivers. A man she worked closely with and admired. Kyle’s mourning his father. He failed to keep him safe from a deadly stalker. Deep in hiding, someone targets Noelle. She fears for her safety. Noelle leans into her faith and struggles to keep her independence. Kyle vows to protect Noelle, unaware she has a secret—one her assailants already know. 

Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JPCX2CX

Suzanne Baginskie and her husband, Al, left New Jersey and relocated to the west central coast of Florida. She’s been writing ever since her mother gifted her a five year diary for her eighth birthday. Unknowingly, her mother’s inspirational nudge helped the writer inside her emerge. She recently retired from a law firm as a paralegal-office manager. Now she writes daily spinning tales of romantic suspense that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. She starts each day with a four mile walk and meditates on her current writing project. A voracious reader, she supports her local library association as a friend. She loves traveling, especially on cruise ships. Most sea days on board, you’ll find her plotting stories outside on the deck gazing at the ocean. Currently, she is working on her fourth book in the series.

Website: http://www.suzannebaginskie.com