A New Year, A New Me?

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 7 Comments


by Janis Patterson

Don’t worry – this isn’t going to be an evangelistic paean about how I’ve totally remade myself to claim a glorious and bounteous New Year and the rest of my life. That would be nice, though, but I’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work. For long, at least. I think my record is about two weeks.


No, I’m the same old curmudgeonly, opinionated, workaholic biddy I’ve always been. The only changes are that I am a year older and – for a blessed change – rested. From writing stuff, at least. I finished my 22 novel republishing blitz on 25 October. I was so tired (and cranky, I will admit) that The Husband insisted I take November and December off.
And that proved to be a good thing. I am indeed rested and the creative mind is starting to percolate again. I would like to say that my house is cleaner, but I don’t tell lies. Sadly, it probably never will be, as I totally lack the housekeeping gene… and I thought I’d never marry anyone who was as bad a housekeeper as I, but… A sterling man in every other way, but…


We spent the early part of December in Germany, redoing our favorite Christmas market tour, enjoying good German food and beer and a refreshingly enthusiastic attitude toward Christmas everywhere from the markets to the stores to the street decorations. And the people. Love the people.


It’s a good thing I had no other commitments, as since the third week of December I have been at war with Lufthansa airlines about their last-minute cancellation of the final leg of our inbound flight and the subsequent disappearance of our luggage. My bag was found – in the hands of a thief, no less – but The Husband’s is still among the missing. Not to go into details, Lufthansa has handled the thing very badly and withheld information we need if we are to go forward, information that none of the dozen or so of Lufthansa employees we talked to said we needed. Needless to say, it is going to get very ugly.


Back to writing. Aside from the Lufthansa unpleasantness it has been a lovely two months. Germany was – as always – beautiful and fun. My writing mind is unfolding and starting to bloom. I’ve contracted for two novellas – one a Regency romance for a ‘summer weddings’ anthology, the other a WWI mystery for an anthology centered on July 4th. The other novellas include the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII and Viet Nam.


And that doesn’t address the two nearly-finished books of my own done for my own publishing company and a major new release that has to be stage-managed. I’m even considering releasing a compilation of my blog posts from years past. Plus, we’re off to Egypt again in a short time. This will be my 8th trip and this time I get to see Abu Simbel for the very first time! I’m so excited!


Sounds like I won’t be rested for very long.


A writer’s work is never done. But – it is a lot easier when you are rested both mentally and physically, even if that desirable state only lasts a short time. You have to let the well refill. A happy new year to all of you –

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 ~ Erica Miner

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Prelude to Murder: Bringing Murder and Music Together

Everything about my journey to the mystery genre was connected to my love for writing and my life as a violinist with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Though I had played the violin most of my life, I had started writing before I began studying the instrument. In grade school, at the age of 7 or 8, I was placed in an afterschool program for Creative Writing. I don’t remember much of what I wrote (it was about 100 years ago!). But I do remember loving the entire process: creating characters and plot lines and weaving them all together to tell stories. Then I discovered I also had a talent for the violin. That fiendishly difficult instrument monopolized my creativity, though my passion for writing never left me.

Eventually I ended up in the orchestra of the most prestigious opera company in the world, where I was part of a uniquely exciting, glamorous subculture. What I hadn’t anticipated was the hotbed of intrigue behind that famous “Golden Curtain”—an operatic Tower of Babel with clashing egos, rampant jealousies, and nefarious happenings. I then realized an opera house was the perfect place for mischief and mayhem. Why not bring murder and music together in that milieu? My Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series was born.

When it comes to the old adage “Write what you know,” I was not immune. My main character, Julia, is a young violinist much like me when I first started out at the Met: a starry-eyed neophyte who knows nothing about the backstage conflicts that take place between the fascinating but maddening characters who work there. In the first book of the series, Aria for Murder, on the night of Julia’s debut performance at the Met, an unthinkable tragedy occurs, and suddenly she becomes entangled in a murder investigation. Julia’s sleuthing makes her the target of the killer, and she uses her own ingenuity to survive.

There was little research involved in my Met Opera mystery, since I had been there for 21 years; but Prelude to Murder, the recently released sequel, takes place in a totally different atmosphere: Julia goes off to the desert to perform with the Santa Fe Opera. I had never been to Santa Fe, so I visited the area to do copious amounts of research on its history and culture. It was a revelatory experience, and the book is infused with rich details. Of course, no sooner does Julia arrive in Santa Fe than operatic chaos ensues, and she finds herself involved in yet another murder investigation, this time with the added element of Santa Fe’s ghostly activity. Her wits carry her through, and in Book #3 she goes to San Francisco for more operatic mayhem.

Though I find the mystery genre the most difficult to write, it also is the most challenging. The potential for murderous intrigue against the background of a theatre, where the turmoil behind the scenes is often more dramatic than what occurs onstage, is limited only to the number of opera houses in the world—and to my wicked imagination.

Prelude to Murder

Young, prodigious Metropolitan Opera violinist Julia Kogan, having survived her entanglement in an investigation of her mentor’s murder on the podium, and a subsequent violent, life-threatening attack of a ruthless killer, is called upon for a key musical leadership position at the Santa Fe Opera. But at the spectacular outdoor theatre in the shadows of the mysterious New Mexican Sangre de Cristo Mountains, she witnesses yet other operatic murders, both onstage and off. Dark and painful secrets emerge as, ignoring warnings from her colleagues and from Larry, her significant other, Julia plunges into her own investigation of the killing. Ghostly apparitions combine with some of the most bloody and violent operas in the repertoire to make Julia question her own motives for searching for the killer. But this time the threat to her life originates from a source she never would have imagined.

Buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Prelude-Murder-Julia-Kogan-Mystery/dp/1685124429/ref=monarch_sidesheet

Barnes and Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prelude-to-murder-erica-miner/1144067662?ean=9781685124427

https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781685124427

After 21 years as a violinist with the Metropolitan Opera, Erica Miner is now an award-wining author, screenwriter, arts journalist, and lecturer based in the Pacific Northwest. Her debut novel, Travels with My Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. Erica’s fanciful plot fabrications reveal the dark side of the fascinating world of opera in her Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series. Aria for Murder, published by Level Best Books in 2022, was a finalist in the 2023 Eric Hoffer Awards. The second in the series, Prelude to Murder, published in 2023, glowingly reviewed by Kirkus Reviews (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/erica-miner/prelude-to-murder/), finds the violinist in heaps of trouble in the desert at the Santa Fe Opera. The next murderous sequel takes place at San Francisco Opera. As a writer-lecturer, Erica has given workshops for Sisters in Crime; Los Angeles Creative Writing Conference; EPIC Group Writers; Write on the Sound; Fields End Writer’s Community; Savvy Authors; and numerous libraries on the west coast.

https://www.facebook.com/erica.miner1

https://twitter.com/EmwrtrErica

https://www.instagram.com/emwriter3/

AUTHOR WEBSITE:

https://www.ericaminer.com

To Cuss or Not to Cuss, That Is The Question by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 10 Comments

I have to admit it. Even though I write cozies, and mostly humorous cozies at that, I am sometimes at a loss as to whether or not to have some of my characters talk the way they would in real life. Putting aside I am half-Italian and a quarter-Irish, for the most part, I’m considered a pretty mellow soul, and try to err on the lady-like side in my daily life. However, I have been known to let a few colorful words rip when I bang my toe or lose the tip of a freshly manicured fingernail. And do NOT wake me up with a spam call at six am asking me to buy your storm windows. It will not go well for you.

But, but, but, that is my private life. Professionally, I receive emails and comments about the fact that I write a pretty clean novel. I do. No body parts are fleshed out or described in a way that could be called salacious. I do not salache. If you want salacious, please visit Joan Collins. Who, by the way, sells about a gazillion more books than me. That should tell me something right there, but I’m not listening.

While I do write a peppery word upon occasion in my books, I don’t think it can be described as vulgar or offensive. I have Lee Alvarez describe her buttocks as her derriere. The upper, front portion I don’t talk about much. The word bosom comes to mind and if I’m feeling peppery, boobs. But I try to keep that kind of jargon or slang to a minimum. Possibly someone, somewhere might be offended. I once said “hello” and was challenged as to what I meant by that.

But what I really try to keep to a minimum is having that sway my writing or make me back off on what I’m trying to say. Because you can’t please everybody all the time. And if you play it wrong, you’re going to please nobody at any time. So, I try to please myself. I write what I am comfortable writing. I say what I want to say. But I am always aware of my contract with the reader. This is especially true for the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries and Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries. There are expectations and I respect that. When writing these two series, I sometimes have to rethink the selection of a word or phrase and not use the first one that came to me. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, I pick and choose with care. I never dilute or sell out, but try to be clever.

The reality is it’s easy to throw the “f” word into every other sentence. It’s easy to shock people, titillate them, and make them remember your writing for its sensationalism. That’s not me. I focus on things I consider to be important in life: honor, respect, truth, positivity, family, standing up for yourself, being good to people and animals, and making a difference, even in a small way. Oh, yes! Then I throw in a dead body. Maybe two. But I try to do it with a clean sense of fun, a lot of humor, and from a point of view that’s a little off the beaten path.

Because we’re all different. We all go our own way. And we’re all wonderful.

Happy New Year, my friends.

A Year of Possibilities

~ Janet Dawson ~ 4 Comments

There’s a song lyric I think of a lot. From the musical Follies by Stephen Sondheim—it’s called “I’m Still Here.”

In the lyrics, a character reviews the hills and valleys of her life. With equal parts humor, bravado, triumph and bittersweet, she declares that she made it through all of last year.

That’s what I feel like on this New Year’s Day. Particularly since 2023 has been one for the books. The year was far more dramatic and eventful for me than I would have liked. Lots of hills and valleys. One of the ups was the publication of The Things We Keep in March. The 14th Jeri Howard novel was my 20th book and that’s quite a milestone. Hey, call it a mountain.

As the year progressed, I had my share of downs—a computer crash and the loss of a book I was working on, followed by my mother’s passing, then the condo flood. But another up—I finally took that trip to Greece I’d been contemplating for several years, after taking an art history course. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Climbed all the way to the top of the Acropolis, marveled at the remnants of ancient civilizations in Delphi, Corinth, Mycenae, Crete and Akrotiri on Santorini. I ate delicious food. Olives, especially Greek olives. And the scenery! Lots of hills and valleys there.

A year of ups and downs may hold true for you as well.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Haven’t for years. I prefer to think of the new year as a new page in the journal, where I can write dreams, aspirations, and list the things I’m grateful for.

It’s also a time when I make year-end donations to various charities, my way of making the world a better place in the new year. For the most part I keep it local—the food bank, Meals on Wheels, the animal shelter, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Season of Sharing Fund.

Things that happened in 2023 will affect what happens in 2024, and that can be good as well as bad. The past is always an influence. For me, this is a time to let go of the bad things that happened last year, the things that can clutter up my life and impede my progress. It’s time to consider the possibilities of what comes next.

So here comes a year of possibilities. New Year’s Eve will be a quiet evening at home with a favorite movie, surrounded by my feline foursome. New Year’s Day will bring a celebratory brunch with friends of long standing. After that, I’ll take down the Christmas decorations and work on my book.

Happy New Year to all of you and all the best for 2024.