Now that January is practically history, what are my writing goals for 20 21?
1) Finish my Mennonite mystery set in south central Kansas. Too long, too long, I've been hammering away at it. This has never happened before, that it's taken so many years to finish a book. I've got about eight scenes left in 1953 and some scenes in 2019. (Notice I am avoiding the Pandemic.) It is really hard to write about nice people, although not everyone in the book is nice, but most are. You need conflict. This is like pulling teeth.
The story is about a thirty-nine year old Mennonite widow who practically trips over a body as she leaves a cafe in her small hamlet. She is so outraged about this crime, that she gets involved in the solution, so we have an unusual amateur sleuth.
I took a research trip to Kansas a few years ago, It was wonderful and so many ideas presented themselves. Developing all the ideas has not been easy.
The photo above is why my grandparents lived in this tiny town Kansas. I have given my main character, Lizzie Bender Ledoux, a small Sears Roebuck house. It has been so much fun to fix the interior as Lizzy would do it.
2) Once "Lizzie" is done, I need to finish my short story "The Powwow," set in 1956 at the time of a terrible plane crash over the Grand Canyon. Shelly, the protagonist has traveled to Flagstaff with her father who is looking for a new business. Shelly is looking to get away from small town life in the summer. The problem with this story (unfinished for years and years) is that it is based on a real trip I took with my Dad, which had, in retrospect some odd and worrisome aspects. Now, I need to create an event that never actually happened, which I am squeamish about. No one knows that this is almost a true story except you folks reading this post. I have to finish, but it will be hard.
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| A Douglas DC-7 similar to one of those that crashed. |
3) What's next? To do concurrently, beaucoup PR is needed for my recently published mystery, Murder In the North Woods.
Murder in the North Woods is an amateur sleuth mystery.
She’s into high tech. He’s into homicide. The North Woods rock and roll when a savvy cyber-sleuth teams up with a hunky homicide cop to route corporate miscreants and to solve a murder.
When she arrives in Wisconsin’s North Woods, Laura Goode discovers her only contact is now a corpse. The information officer at Great Northern Shoe Company was a local Lothario whose killer could be anyone from an enraged husband to a bitter factory worker whose job is heading overseas
Working undercover, Laura digs in, but office politics thwart her mission to determine who is g subverting the project. Adding more complications to her life, boyfriend Jack, a homicide cop visits unexpectedly, and makes friends with the local cops. Her soon-to-be ex-husband also makes an appearance. Laura welcomes Jack’s help, but he’s also a distraction as she segues from boardroom to bar room, trolls for bass, hunts hackers, and tries to rescue her kidnapped cat, all while getting closer to the murderer. The raft trip from hell provide a bizarre but thrilling climax.
It's hard to write and to publish during the Pandemic.
Here are some excellent writers who will have their own thoughts on writing in 2021.
| Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blo Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspo Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/ Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2bY Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.w Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/ Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/ Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/ Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.co |
I hate, hate, hate this new version of blogger. This post took 3 times as long as it should have. The help was hardly any help. Grrrr.
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