As the days and nights are starting to cool, I’m looking forward to dressing in cozy sweatshirts, wrapping up in fuzzy blankets and settling into a routine of writing and quilting.

During the summer, there isn’t time to quilt. I spend a lot of time on the road either to attend events to sell my books, to attend family events, or do research for my writing. When I’m home I’m writing, pulling weeds, doing gardening, or helping hubby.

But come fall and winter, there are my walks and housework, but then I write until 3 or 4 pm and then I work on whatever quilt I have going until it’s dinner time. If I’m cutting fabric for a quilt, I’ll continue doing that after dinner.

It’s funny, I don’t like putting puzzles together, but I enjoy moving pieces of fabric around to find the right pattern in the colors and adjusting them. I can have fabric pieces laying on the guest bed for several days, or even weeks, as I wander in and out rearranging and deciding if I like the way they look. Once I’m satisfied I start sewing them together.

That’s kind of how I write. I start with the idea of a story in my mind and rearrange the characters and the setting as I formulate where the story will start and who will be murdered. It’s a process that I recently realized is crucial to my being able to write an enjoyable story.

My book Merry Merry Merry Murder that is releasing October 15th is the first book of what I hope will be a new series for me. I had the idea for it last fall. And then in January, I wrote the book in one month and felt I was on to something I could do to give my readers something extra to read in between my Gabriel Hawke Novels and Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries releasing.

I sent the book to my beta readers and they all said that they didn’t like the main character and the story fell flat. That is not what a writer wants to hear. I didn’t have time right then to work on it, because I was busy getting the next Hawke book written.

The Christmas book sat and I thought about it when I wasn’t deep in the Hawke book. And then I needed to get the next Spotted Pony book written. I talked to my beta readers some more about the Christmas book as I wrote the Spotted Pony book.

I swirled the main character Andi around in my mind a lot when I wasn’t actively writing or thinking about the books I was writing. After a couple of chat sessions with a beta reader and having a break between my other books, I sat down and went through Merry Merry Merry Murder. ( I know too many Merrys, but sing it like the Carol of the Bells song and you’ll get it)

After letting the character “ferment” in my brain for nearly a year, I dug back into the story. In that year, I’d learned more about my main character, so I “knew” her better. I rewrote the beginning of the story and gave her a new interesting friend and sent the new version to my beta readers.

It was a hit!

Every time I’ve started a new series, I’ve lived with the main character in my head for a year or more. So I knew them inside and out before I started writing their first book. I didn’t do that with Andi and now that I have had her in my head for longer, she is a complete character.

I’ll be sharing her book with you next month, but it was the idea I came up with for this month’s post.

I do have the next Hawke book, Wolf Moon, available in ebook, exclusively at my website right now or you can preorder it from your favorite ebook vendor and get it on September 19th.

In the remote, snowbound wilderness of Oregon’s Eagle Cap Mountains, a sled dog race turns deadly.
State Trooper Gabriel Hawke is teaching winter survival to Search and Rescue recruits when he’s called in to find a missing musher. Arriving at the race camp, he discovers the musher isn’t just a name on a list—she’s someone his friend Justine cares about deeply.

As Hawke searches rugged trails and icy backcountry, the case quickly shifts from a rescue to a murder investigation. Then a second body turns up, and it’s clear the killer is hiding among the racers, handlers, or volunteers. The deeper Hawke digs, the more he uncovers buried secrets and dangerous rivalries.

Now, with a killer on the loose and Justine possibly in the crosshairs, Hawke must navigate blizzards, betrayal, and bloodshed—before the race ends in even more tragedy.

Buy Direct for $1 off and read now! https://www.patyjager.net/product/wolf-moon-ebook/

Universal Buy link or pre-order https://books2read.com/u/bWO1dD