Tag: Lois Winston

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 14 Comments

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.

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

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

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 29 Comments

The Importance of Character Arcs

Every book needs two elements—a plot and characters. Most writers understand that their story is comprised of a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is about the Call to Action or what makes the protagonist get involved in the story’s events. In the case of mysteries, this is a murder or another crime. The middle details the steps the protagonist takes on her way to figuring out whodunit. The end is all about how the protagonist solved the crime—the finale, where the perpetrator is caught, and the denouement, where all the various strands of the story are satisfactorily explained.

What many newer authors don’t understand, though, is that the characters in a book must also have their own arcs. This is especially true in series where reader follows various characters through the course of many books. Character growth is essential. No character should be in the same emotional and mental place at the start of either a single title book or a series. When that happens in a series, the author is merely writing the same book over and over with only the names, places, and crimes changing in each subsequent story.

All recurring characters in a series need arcs, not just the protagonist. However, the arc doesn’t have to be in the reader’s face. An arc can be subtle and develop over time as the series progresses.

In Sorry, Knot Sorry, the recently released thirteenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, Anastasia’s relationship with Detective Sam Spader takes a major turn. Detective Spader was first introduced in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in the series, when he suspected Anastasia’s communist mother-in-law Lucille of murdering her roommate at a rehabilitation center.

Readers of the series know there’s no love lost between Anastasia and Lucille. However, although Lucille has many flaws, Anastasia knows she’s all bark and no bite. So she sets out to find the real killer. Spader has continued to pop up in subsequent books in the series, and his relationship with Anastasia has grown from adversarial to one of grudging respect.

In this latest book, a man is gunned down in front of Anastasia’s home. There is little in the way of clues and no witnesses. The sheriff’s office is short-staffed due to vacations and a summer flu bug that has hit many county employees. Plus, there’s no money left in the annual budget to hire more officers. The detective admits he needs Anastasia’s help. He knows she has a way of seeing things that others often miss.

Over the course of eleven books, Spader has grown. He’s not the only one. The story arcs of many of the characters in the series have continued to develop. Some character growth has been for the better, some for the worse. But everyone changes in some way, making for a series that continues to grow beyond just the number of books.

Sorry, Knot Sorry

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 13

Magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack may finally be able to pay off the remaining debt she found herself saddled with when her duplicitous first husband dropped dead in a Las Vegas casino. But as Anastasia has discovered, nothing in her life is ever straightforward. Strings are always attached. Thanks to the success of an unauthorized true crime podcast, a television production company wants to option her life—warts and all—as a reluctant amateur sleuth.

Is such exposure worth a clean financial slate? Anastasia isn’t sure, but at the same time, rumors are flying about layoffs at the office. Whether she wants national exposure or not, Anastasia may be forced to sign on the dotted line to keep from standing in the unemployment line. But the dead bodies keep coming, and they’re not in the script.

Craft tips included.

Preorder Buy Links (releasing 6/4/24)

Amazon https://amzn.to/4a8JyVJ

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/sorry-knot-sorry

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sorry-knot-sorry-lois-winston/1145047275?ean=2940186076698

Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/sorry-knot-sorry/id6479363569

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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” 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 her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 5 Comments

Truth, Lies, and Fiction

My plots have always been influenced by real-life crimes and human-interest stories. However, with Guilty as Framed, my latest Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, the story is more than influenced by an actual crime; it incorporates that crime, one that has fascinated me for decades, into the story. This, of course, posed various challenges, especially since it involved a cold case that was rife with lies, misdirection, and botched investigations.

The crime in question was the 1990 burglary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, considered the largest art heist in history. The theft consisted of priceless masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet, Degas, and others. It involved such disparate characters as a pot-smoking security guard, the Irish mob, and even the Pope. It included the unsolved murders of some of the suspects and as the years passed, the deaths of most of the persons of interest.

There were sworn statements by mob relatives and associates claiming to have seen some of the missing paintings over the years, as well as speculation that the artworks are in Saudi Arabia. And in what must be one of the oddest law enforcement press conferences on record, thirteen years after the robbery, the head of the Boston FBI announced the crime had been solved, although he presented none of the missing artworks nor announced any arrests. He then ended with a plea to the public for help in solving the case.

True crime and cozy mystery are two distinct genres. One is fiction; the other is not. But in weaving a true crime into my fiction, I wanted to hone as closely as possible to the actual events of the case. To do so, I had to take some creative liberties. I decided to focus my story around one specific incident that involved a mob associate and his wife, weaving that aspect of the actual investigation into my plot.

Even though these people have since died, I changed their names and the names of other suspects and persons of interest who I incorporated into my story. (When dealing with members of organized crime, even ones long dead, it’s best to play it safe!) I also created additional characters, thus enabling me to weave a thirty-two-year-old Boston cold case into a series that takes place in present-day New Jersey.

Guilty as Framed is the eleventh book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. In each book I’ve challenged myself to create stories unlike my previous ones. No reader wants to read a book where only the names and places (and possibly the murder weapon) differ from other books in the series. This current book was my greatest creative leap to date. I’m hoping readers find the book as enjoyable to read as I did to write.

Guilty as Framed

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 11

When an elderly man shows up at the home of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack, she’s drawn into the unsolved mystery of the greatest art heist in history.

Boston mob boss Cormac Murphy has recently been released from prison. He doesn’t believe Anastasia’s assertion that the man he’s looking for doesn’t live at her address and attempts to muscle his way into her home. His efforts are thwarted by Anastasia’s fiancé Zack Barnes.

A week later, a stolen SUV containing a dead body appears in Anastasia’s driveway. Anastasia believes Murphy is sending her a message. It’s only the first in a series of alarming incidents, including a mugging, a break-in, another murder, and the discovery of a cache of jewelry and an etching from the largest museum burglary in history.

But will Anastasia solve the mystery behind these shocking events before she falls victim to a couple of desperate thugs who will stop at nothing to get what they want?

Buy Links

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3QLEYU5

Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3Ans5s6

Kindle: https://amzn.to/3tLnT3d

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/guilty-as-framed

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/guilty-as-framed/id6442846272

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/guilty-as-framed-lois-winston/1141500980?ean=2940185728703

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 under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” 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 her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Guest Blogger – Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 9 Comments

Killing Two Birds with One Stone

By Lois Winston

When I began writing A Sew Deadly Cruise, the ninth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I set myself two separate tasks. First, I thought it was high time I gave readers some additional background about Zachary Barnes, Anastasia’s love interest. Zack is introduced in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, as Anastasia’s new tenant. A photojournalist, he’s looking to move from Manhattan to a quieter location in the suburbs where he can work in his darkroom without crazy neighbors suspecting he’s running a meth lab out of his apartment. The apartment above Anastasia’s garage provides the perfect location for him.

Almost immediately Anastasia suspects Zack’s career as a photojournalist is cover for a more covert government gig with one of the alphabet agencies. After all, when he’s not traveling back and forth to Washington, D.C., he’s flying off to questionable locations full of political and social unrest. Not to mention, he’s got a badass gun! Was he really photographing lemurs and pochards in Madagascar, or is he there for other reasons?

Of course, Zack denies he’s a spy, but wouldn’t any spy deny he’s a spy? So, is he, or isn’t he? Neither Anastasia nor my readers know at this point. Other than mentioning Zack’s brief marriage twenty years earlier, I’ve never delved further into his background. This all changes in A Sew Deadly Cruise when I finally reveal more about Zack’s history—or at least a substantial part of it.

In addition, for some time now I’ve been itching to write a locked-room mystery. A year ago, while on a cruise up to Canada with my husband—pre-pandemic—I began plotting a murder on a cruise ship, an ideal location for a locked-room mystery. However, to write a truly locked-room mystery, I needed to find a reason to keep the ship’s passengers from disembarking at any scheduled ports of call. Covid-19 hit as I was writing the book, but I certainly wasn’t going to use a pandemic or even an outbreak of norovirus, no matter how common they are on cruise ships.

How would Anastasia investigate a murder if passengers were all confined to their rooms due to illness? And really, who wants to read a humorous cozy mystery with characters suffering from gastrointestinal issues? Where’s the humor in that? Any reader with a weak stomach would be running for the porcelain throne!

I was at a point in my plot where I had to make a major decision about the story. Since I really, really wanted to keep my passengers stuck on the ship, I started hunting around the Internet for stories about stranded cruise liners, searching for a plausible excuse to keep the ship from being allowed to dock at any of its scheduled ports. Of course, I’m going to keep you in suspense, but I did find the perfect solution for keeping everyone onboard the ship but not confined to their cabins due to illness.

A Sew Deadly Cruise

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 9

Life is looking up for magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack. Newly engaged, she and photojournalist fiancé Zack Barnes are on a winter cruise with her family, compliments of a Christmas gift from her half-brother-in-law. Son Alex’s girlfriend and her father have also joined them. Shortly after boarding the ship, Anastasia is approached by a man with an unusual interest in her engagement ring. When she tells Zack of her encounter, he suggests the man might be a jewel thief scouting for his next mark. But before Anastasia can point the man out to Zack, the would-be thief approaches him, revealing his true motivation. Long-buried secrets now threaten the well-being of everyone Anastasia holds dear. And that’s before the first dead body turns up.

Craft projects included.

Buy Links

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3fwHR7X

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-sew-deadly-cruise

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-sew-deadly-cruise-lois-winston/1137427499?ean=2940162697930

Apple iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-sew-deadly-cruise/id1526052822

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” 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.

Website: www.loiswinston.com

Newsletter sign-up: https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z1z1u5

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

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

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

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