An Anastasia Pollock Crafting Mystery

Don’t Measure Yourself Against Another Writer’s Yardstick

By Lois Winston

My critique partner thinks I’m an organized person. When she told me this, I laughed. Like Santa, I make lists and check them, not twice, but multiple times. For instance, I have a list on my phone of items I need to pack for trips, but every time I go away, I invariably wind up forgetting to pack at least one of those essentials and need to find the nearest Target.

I walk into my office to do something, get distracted, and forget to do what I came in to do. Is it age-related? Possibly. I’m the first to admit I’m not as young as I used to be. But if I’m honest with myself, this isn’t a recent development. It’s occurred for as long as I can remember, going all the way back to my childhood. A touch of ADHD? Perhaps. Or maybe I just have an overactive imagination and so much going on in my brain that the less important things get pushed to the side.

Nowhere is this more evident than in my writing. I often can’t remember the names of all the characters in my books. Or the titles. However, I’ve been writing for more than thirty years, and most days, I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night. So how can I be expected to remember all those characters’ names from books written decades ago? Then again, twenty-four novels, five novellas, and several short stories in three+ decades isn’t that much. It’s not like I’m Nora Roberts or James Patterson, knocking out three, four, five or more books a year. (I wonder if they remember all their characters and titles.)

When it comes to sitting down to write, I’m a pantser, not a plotter. Plotters are far more organized, but the few times I’ve tried plotting a book, I became bored with it, deleted the outline, and started over with either the barest bones germ of an idea or maybe only an interesting opening sentence. Rarely more than that. Pantsing is what I do. Trying to write like someone else is counterproductive to achieving an end result that I will be proud to release into the world. Plain and simple: Plotting just doesn’t work for me.

Like readers of mysteries, I want to be surprised. If I already know the who, what, where, when, and why of a story before I write the first sentence, I’ve eliminated the surprise. Writing becomes drudgery, and I know I’ll be letting my readers down. Readers are savvy. They can tell when an author is phoning it in, and when that happens, they toss the book aside.

This is not to say that pantsers are better writers than plotters. They’ve simply found a different path to The End. One that works for them. I wish I could be a happy plotter. Plotters probably don’t write themselves into corners as often as this pantser does. However, I’ve learned plotting is not an option for me. I’m unhappy when I plot, and it shows in my writing. I imagine a diehard plotter would be equally unhappy if forced to sit down and start writing without a clue.

In life, there’s never one right way that works for everyone. The same is true for writers. You can’t measure yourself against another writer’s yardstick. No two brains work the same way. We all learn differently. We each bring unique experiences and knowledge to our writing. Every writer takes a personal path to creating a novel. We all need to find the path that works best for us.

We all choose paths as we go through life. Whether you’re a reader or a writer, have you found the paths that works best for you? Post a comment for the chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of any available Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery or Empty Nest Mystery.

Embroidered Lies and Alibis

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 15

A Stitch in Time Could Save a Life…

When Anastasia’s mother Flora is offered a free spa vacation from Jeremy Dugan, a man connected to her distant past, Anastasia and husband Zack suspect ulterior motives. After all, too-good-to-be-true often spells trouble. Their suspicions are confirmed when the FBI swoops in to apprehend Dugan. However, Dugan isn’t who he claimed to be, and his arrest raises more questions than answers.

The Feds link Dugan to a string of cons targeting elderly single women across the country, but his seemingly airtight alibi leaves investigators stumped. Then, shortly after his release on bail, he’s kidnapped. A certain segment of New Jersey’s population is known for delivering deadly messages, and the FBI believes Dugan received one of them.

Meanwhile, bodies begin showing up in the newly created public garden across the street from Anastasia and Zack’s home. With two baffling crimes, no clear suspects, scant evidence, and every possible motive unraveling, both the FBI and local law enforcement are once again picking Anastasia’s brain. This time, though, her involvement is far from reluctant. Will she stitch together enough clues before she or someone she loves becomes the killer’s next victim?

Craft project included.

Find Buy Links here.

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

By Lois Winston

First, a little literary history regarding the expression, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” It’s been around for a long time. In 1897 Mark Twain published the travel book Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Chapter Fifteenth included the epigraph, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. — Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.”

However, Twain wasn’t the first to come up with some version of the saying. Seventy-four years earlier, Lord Byron had Don Juan opine, “’Tis strange — but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction; if it could be told, How much would novels gain by the exchange!”

Why am I telling you this? It’s because I’m not only a news junkie, but I’m also a diehard eavesdropper. I developed that skill at a very young age, learning all sorts of interesting stories while listening from behind closed doors. The adults in my life thought I was off playing with my dolls or watching cartoons, but I quickly realized that far more interesting tales were being told around my grandmother’s kitchen table. I became Harriet the Spy, well before Louise Fitzhugh ever dreamed up Harriet.

My grandmother, aunt, and great-aunts loved to gossip. Consequently, I learned some fascinating stories about my relatives and their private lives. Little did I know at the time that much of what I overheard would eventually wind up decades later as inspiration for characters and plots when I first got the itch to write a novel.

Much of what I heard involved my grandfather, who had a decades-long career in law enforcement during the heyday of organized crime in the New York metropolitan area. By the time I came along, he’d risen to captain of a major metropolitan police force. However, back in the day, he was personally responsible for the apprehension of many mobsters. But get this: one of his brothers was a bootlegger! And one of his wife’s brothers was romantically involved with a woman whose family was in the Mafia! I wound up going to school with two of her nieces. Mind-boggling, right?

Is it any wonder Anastasia Pollack, my Jersey Girl reluctant amateur sleuth so often finds herself tangling with Mafia henchmen?

To date, I’ve published twenty-three novels and five novellas. The plots and subplots for all have been drawn from events I’ve either observed, overheard, or read about—going all the way back to those early childhood days of listening with my ear pressed up to the kitchen door.

However, in Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the fourteenth and most recent book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I didn’t draw on memories of conversations from my childhood. Instead, I looked no further than across the street from a former house my husband and I bought in 1998.

Over the years, I’ve had some very strange neighbors. Many of them have made their way into my books, but the couple who lived in the house across the street from us back then tops the Strange Neighbors List.

In Seams Like the Perfect Crime, readers meet the very odd Barry Sumner, a half-naked man who spends hours each day mowing his postage stamp-sized yard of weed-infested packed dirt. When the mower runs out of gas, Barry settles onto the top step of his porch, downs a six-pack or two, and passes out. Every day, year round, weather permitting.

And here’s where truth being stranger than fiction comes into play. The characters of Barry Sumner and his wife are based on the neighbors who lived across the street from my husband and me twenty-seven years ago, including the same strange mowing obsession and beer guzzling habit, as well as his wife’s suspicions regarding some hanky-panky. Luckily, this former neighbor didn’t meet the same fate that awaits Barry Sumner in Seams Like the Perfect Crime.

Seams Like the Perfect Crime

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 14

When staffing shortages continue to hamper the Union County homicide squad, Detective Sam Spader once again turns to his secret weapon, reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. How can she and husband Zack Barnes refuse when the victim is their new neighbor?

Revolutionary War reenactor Barry Sumner had the odd habit of spending hours mowing a small patch of packed dirt and weeds until his mower ran out of gas. He’d then guzzle beer on his front porch until he passed out. That’s where Anastasia’s son Nick discovers his body three days after the victim and his family moved into the newly built mini-McMansion across the street.

After a melee breaks out at the viewing, Spader zeroes in on the widow as his prime suspect. However, Anastasia has her doubts. There are other possible suspects, including a woman who’d had an affair with the victim, his ex-wife, the man overseeing the widow’s trust fund, a drug dealer, and the reenactors who were blackmailing the widow and victim.

When another reenactor is murdered, Spader suspects they’re dealing with a serial killer, but Anastasia wonders if the killer is attempting to misdirect the investigation. As she narrows down the suspects, will she jeopardize her own life to learn the truth?

Craft projects included.

Buy Links

Amazon: https://amzn.to/49KvjaG

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/seams-like-the-perfect-crime

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/seams-like-the-perfect-crime-lois-winston/1146583329?ean=2940184679983

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/seams-like-the-perfect-crime/id6738502932

Books2Read Universal Link to Other Sites: https://books2read.com/u/3LXa1e

USA Today and Amazon bestselling author Lois Winston began her award-winning writing career with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water novel about a small-town girl going off to the big city and the mother determined to bring her home to marry the boy next door. That was followed by the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception.

Then Lois’s writing segued unexpectedly into the world of humorous amateur sleuth mysteries, thanks to a conversation her agent had with an editor looking for craft-themed mysteries. In her day job, Lois was an award-winning craft and needlework designer, and although she’d never written a mystery—or had even thought about writing a mystery—her agent decided she was the perfect person to pen a series for this editor.

Thus, was born the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series now includes fourteen novels and three novellas. Lois also writes the Empty Nest Mysteries and has written several standalone mystery novellas. Other publishing credits include romance, chick lit, and romantic suspense novels, a series of romance short stories, a children’s chapter book, and a nonfiction book on writing, inspired by her twelve years working as an associate at a literary agency.

Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can find links for her other social media sites and sign up for her newsletter to receive a free download of an Anastasia Pollack Mini-Mystery.

Website: http://www.loiswinston.com

Newsletter sign-up: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/dc9t0bjl00

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Booklover’s Bench: https://bookloversbench.com

The Stiletto Gang: https://www.thestilettogang.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/722763.Lois_Winston

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-winston