Tag: Fiction

Where Did My Books Take Me in May?

“Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.” – Susan Sontag

Why do you read?

I read for entertainment, and I read to escape.

I am a mood reader. I don’t do well with a to-be-read list. I won’t follow it. I read whatever I am in the mood to read at that moment. Luckily, I have a pretty big selection of books to choose from. I am trying to get more books read now that I am retired and have more time. I would like to start utilizing the Library more.

I had a productive reading month. The past few days I have kind of fizzled out but most of the month, I always had a book or two to read.

I read seven books in May. All were mysteries.

The Agathas by Karen Glasgow – I gave it 5 stars.

The Last Word by Taylor Adams – I gave it 5 stars.

Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart – I gave it 4 stars.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden – I gave it 4 stars.

The Lost Women of Lost Lake (Jane Lawless #19) – I gave it 3 stars.

Silence for the Dead by Simone St James – I gave it 4 stars.

K is for Killers by Sue Grafton – I gave it 3 stars.

The star rating here is mine. I’m not sure how others rate them. A three or above is good for me. A three could be a book I enjoyed but I doubt I would read again. Mainly because I have so many books to read.

A four means I really liked it and would probably read it again someday.

A five is the holy grail for me. If I rated, it a five it means I felt it could someday be a classic for readers in the future.

It also is how I felt at the time and that too could change if I chose to re-read it. I think it is similar to when you go back to your childhood home as an adult. Everything always looks smaller. Re-reading could be like that and I could wonder how I ever rated it the first time.

Everyone has different interests. I may have rated a book that you felt was a five star or a one star and I rated it three. That is okay. It’s all each reader’s own perspective.

How do you decide if a book is worth keeping or re-reading? Do you re-read or keep books?

If you want to see my full review of these books, just click on the dates in the May calendar on my blog and it will direct you to all my May 2023 book reviews.

Now to answer – where did I go in May?

For the Agatha’s it was Castle Cove, California. – I am guessing that is a fictional town.

The Last Word – was on the coast of Washington State

Rose Cottage – was Todhall, England. Even though there is a Todhall England, I thought I read somewhere where the author did make it a fictional one for the book. For this one, I also travelled back in time.

The Housemaid – was the Winchester Home. I don’t think I got what state this was located in. It is not the famous haunted Winchester Mansion in California.

The Lost Women of Lost Lake – was Minnesota.

Silence for the Dead – was Portis House – a mental hospital in England. I believe this was fictional. This too involved time travel for me, as a reader.

K is for Killer – Santa Teresa, California

Out of all these locations this month, I have actually travelled to California and Minnesota so it’s easier to imagine those settings. So those are the places I escaped to this month in books. Where did you go with your reading in May?

As of May 30th – My blog visitors for May came from the United States, Finland, United Kingdom, Poland, Canada, Germany, Ireland and Chezia.

So far, my most popular post for 2023 is still – What I Read in January with 107 views. Let’s see if we can break that record. I am doubting that will happen in May but there is hope for June. If you enjoy reading my blog and know other like-minded readers, please suggest your friends check it out, subscribe, and like. I would really appreciate it.

Do you have a book you think I need to read? Let me know in the comments. What are you reading in June?

Until next time – happy reading,

Virginia

Silence for the Dead – Book Review

Imagine you’re a young nurse in an old mansion turned into a mental hospital. It’s the middle of the night. All lights out except your small lamp. It’s June and the room is freezing. You can see your breath and out of the corner of your eye you see someone rush past you to the bottom of the stairwell. You can hear them waiting for you to come down the stairs to them…

By Simone St. James

“Portis House emerged from the fog as we approached, showing itself slowly as a long, low shadow…”

I am a Simone St James fan girl. I love her books. The first of her books I read was Sunset Motel. I then read The Book of Cold Cases. After I finished those, I looked for everything she had published and discovered her older historical books. I have slowly been reading through them, not because they take me a long time to read but because I want to savor them.

If you like a good ghost story, you need to read her books. Each book is about someone trying to solve a mystery that involves a haunting. She is skilled at making it creepy. Her characters are well developed and I did care about what happened to them. Her plot pulls me in.

Summary:

Silence for the Dead is the story of Kitty Weekes. She is pretty, smart, homeless, and a liar. From the beginning we know she is on the run but not exactly why.

Kitty loses her job. She desperately needs a job. She has a roommate who is a nurse and she finds out about an opening for a nurse at a mental hospital in an isolated location. It is the kind of place where if the weather turns bad, you are unable to get there because the bridge from the mainland floods.

Portis House is dark and full of secrets. It is not a happy place for anyone. The patients want help and to be able to see their families. The staff is overworked and no matter what they do, they don’t feel like it is enough. The Matron is harsh and makes life unbearable for everyone with her strict rules.

Kitty gets the job and soon finds out that they are desperate for help. The staff is stretched to the limit. The matron discovers that Kitty may not be who she says she is. She knows Kitty is not a nurse, but Matron doesn’t say anything because Kitty was hired by the owner. Matron does test Kitty by giving her disgusting jobs and pushes her, in a way that feels like torture.

Kitty had thought this would be an easy job. Soldiers from the war, recuperating. How difficult could that be? She quickly learns that the men have varying degrees of madness. Some are almost catatonic while others are violent and are not her friends.

She gets to know them but is afraid to always trust them, and she learns that they all have similar nightmares. Like her own. After she has been there a while and experienced the night shift, in a mental hospital, in total darkness except for a small lamp she carries. Kitty starts seeing things she can’t explain. She wants to help the patients and she knows she needs to find out what exactly is happening to be able to do so.

Kitty, with the help of a handful of patients and staff that she can trust, makes it her duty to find out exactly what is going on. Are the patients insane, is she insane, are there ghosts?

Review:

I gave this book 4 stars. It is definitely a keeper. Another book I stayed up late to finish.

St. James feeds us the information slowly, a little at a time. She hooks you and doesn’t let you go.

I loved the story line. I collect haunted house books, so these are perfect for me.

Each of her stories are stand alone and she is adept at spooky. All of her stories have scared me but I need to know what is going on so I suck it up and keep reading. Her books are not gory. They create a psychological fear.

Nominee for Best Horror 2014.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery with a ghost storyline.

Title: Silence for the Dead

Author: Simone St. James

Year Published: April 1, 2014

Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal

Pages: 374

Rating: Goodreads 3.92

Setting: Portis House – a mental hospital in England in 1919

About the Author:

Award Winning author Simone St James worked in Canadian television for many years before turning to writing full-time. She lives in Toronto with her husband.

I often find it difficult to give a good summary and review without telling too much information. There is a fine line between telling just enough and too much. I hope you enjoyed this review and if you’ve never read this author’s work, you will give it a try.

I hope you’re managing to enjoy a good book now and then. Let me know what you are reading.

Happy Reading,

Virginia

The Lost Apothecary

How Many Books Have I Read This Year?

Are any of them your favorites?

The Lost Apothecary is the last book I read for March and I do look forward to reading more from this author. This novel is set in London with a duel timeline. Caroline, in the present time, arrives in London to celebrate her tenth wedding anniversary alone. We learn early on that she recently found out that her husband had cheated on her. She had received the trip as a gift from her parents so without explaining anything to them decided she needed some time alone. Caroline had a degree in history that her husband had discouraged her from taking advantage of. She’d found herself stuck in an unfulfilling book keeping job for her family. As soon as she arrives in London she is approached by someone who asks if she would like to go mudlarking with a group. Mudlarking is where you sift among the mud alongside the Thames River looking for historical treasures. While doing so, she finds an old Apothecary jar. She starts to research the jar and discovers there had been an Apothecary Shop owner accused of murder in the 1700’s.

The second timeline takes us to the Apothecary shop in the past and we learn that the shop started out dispensing homeopathic medicines for women. We soon learn more about life for women in that time period and how some came to the shop for remedies for abusive, cheating husbands, lovers, and other family members.

The characters are well developed and I did come to care about them both in the past and in current time. The author expertly weaved the timelines together to show how Caroline becomes a suspect for a crime in the present time much like Nellie, the character from the past, but needs to know what exactly happened in the past to help prove her own innocence.

I gave this book a 4 star rating while Goodreads currently shows it at 3.76 stars. I have already purchased the second book by this author – The London Séance Society and I look forward to reading it.

Now onto my stats for the quarter:

I have read seven books in March, six books in February, and 3 books in January, with sixteen books so far for the year. All were books I own and one was an audio book. They were in the following genres:

Romance 2

Mystery 9

Memoir -1

Biography -1

Horror -3

My 5 star ratings for the first quarter are:

The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey – Serena Burdick

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman – Lucy Worsley

Risky Biscuits (Sugar and Spice, # 2) – Mary Lee Ashford

Death on the Nile – Agatha Christie

J is for Judgment – Sue Grafton

Finlay Donovan is Killing it – Elle Cosimano

The Moving Finger – Agatha Christie

I had a great first quarter for reading – Seven out of sixteen books I rated 5 star. These are my ratings and I may have rated some books lower than you but that is fine. Everyone has their own tastes about reading. I also think it has to do with what my mood is at the time. I might read the same book at a later date and give it a different star rating. I have rated some books by adding a half star. Going forward, I think I will either round them up or down, depending on how much I actually enjoyed them.

I continue to read mostly mystery but I plan to add a few classics this year as well as maybe a sci-fi or fantasy. There is an author coming to talk at an Avid event this month who has a pretty popular book out that I might not have chosen on my own to read. I will let you know more when I make up my mind about either reading it or attending that event, since I really have not been a fan of that genre.

It has been kind of eye opening to review my reading so far. I plan to do this again at the end of June. I am having a hard time deciding what my most favorite book has been so far. I think it is a tie between Finlay Donovan is Killing it and The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey. Guess we will see what it is next quarter.

Hope this post finds you all well and safe from this wild ride spring has hit us with, so far. It will soon even out with more warmer days than cool. On those less comfortable days it gives me pleasure to curl up with another good book.

Happy Saturday and until next time,

Virginia

February Reads 2023

My Goodreads goal for the year is 40 books and February was good for my goal. I managed to read six books and since this is the 28th, there is a possibility I might finish a seventh. Since I am not positive I will finish the last book, I will leave it out of this post and count it toward March.

Booktubers read romance in February so I did include a couple. I am following some of the Booktuber’s monthly themes but will add other genres to spice it up. I tend to be a mood reader. All of my books came from my home library and that is another one of my goals, to get through my to be reads. How do you choose to read a book?

I started out the month reading a biography about Agatha Christie written by Lucy Worsley. You can find Lucy doing documentaries on PBS or Masterpiece. I had seen a few about English history and the witch trials and enjoyed her work so when I saw she’d written a biography about one of my favorite authors it was a given that I would read it. The book is 363 pages full of information about Agatha’s life. She did have a section about the time that Agatha disappeared. It wasn’t anything startlingly new but the information was written in a warm style that almost felt like I was reading a novel. If you have an interest in Agatha Christie, I would highly recommend this book. I have a few more I hope to read about Agatha later this year. I would give this one 4.5 stars.

My next book was a romance – Beach Read by Emily Henry. I had heard a couple other Booktubers talk about this being their favorite book so I had to read it even though I had recently purchased a more recent Emily Henry romance that now sits on my shelf. This story was about Augustus Everett, a literary fiction writer and January Andrews, a romance writer. January’s father died recently and left a lake home to her. When she goes to sort through his stuff, she discovers that her father had been living a second life with another woman. While January is trying to digest that information, she finds herself in a slump with her writing. That is also when she discovers her famous author, August living next door. The book has quirky characters and a budding romance. It was an entertaining book but I can’t say it was my favorite but that may be because even though I used to read a lot of romance many years ago, I haven’t consistently read them recently. I have had stories from the past that touched my heart and made me cry. I can’t say that this story did that for me. Even though I am giving it a 3 star, I would still recommend it as an interesting read. It is definitely a good example of a modern romance. I guess I will have to read a few more to see if the modern authors have eliminated the heart felt emotion I remember from the past. Do you read romance? What do you recommend?

The third book on my list this month is How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. I have to admit this is my first Grady Hendrix novel but I have picked up his earlier one The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I just never crossed that line and purchased it. This one intrigued me because I used to be a Realtor and had a little experience with a haunted listing or two. This was an enjoyable read. It was about a couple of siblings whose parents died in a car accident, leaving their home to be sold by the sister and brother. The two siblings had not been close over the past several years so they had to work through their own issues until they could trust each other enough to deal with the haunted property. I don’t want to give too much away but the mother was a puppeteer so there were some scary puppets and dolls in the house. It was an enjoyable read. It wasn’t as scary as I had hoped it would be but it entertained. I would recommend this one to anyone who likes a little supernatural and again quirky characters. I would give this one four stars.

The fourth book I read was a cozy mystery written by a friend of mine. Risky Biscuits by Mary Lee Ashford. This was an enjoyable read. Set in small town Iowa, the protagonist and her friend publish those cookbooks used by different organizations to raise money for charitable causes. This series is called the Sugar & Spice Mysteries. There are three in the series and this is the second. Sugar Calloway is a former magazine editor and in this story their newest project is a fundraiser organized by the St. Ignatius Crack of Dawn Book Club, famous for their all-you-can eat biscuits and gravy events. The back cover says – When a group member is found dead. Sugar and Spice’s priorities change from raising dough to figuring out who put murder on the menu. This series has a cozy Murder She Wrote feel but set in a small town in Iowa. I wish this publisher had given this series another chance. Mary Lee’s writing flows so well and I loved the premise of this series. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves cozy mysteries. I know we will see more from this author in the future and I will keep you posted when something new is available. I am giving this one 5 stars because this is one of my keepers and will give this a re-read.

The fifth book on my list is another romance – Better than Fiction by Alexa Martin. This book is set in Colorado. The protagonist is Drew Young, she was named after her father. Her grandmother, who she was very close to, owned a book store. Drew spent a great deal of time there helping her grandmother even though she calls herself a book hater who doesn’t read. So when her granny dies, it seemed pretty obvious why she left the store to Drew who is also feeling guilty because though she loves the bookstore, she’s had to give up her passion for photography. As she mopes through life, a book group of old ladies called the Dirty Birds. I loved that group of women. If I could give any advice, I would have liked to see more of their story in this book but I guess I read enough to make me interested. When the Dirty Birds invite Jasper Williams – a sexy male romance author – to come talk, sparks fly between Jasper and Drew. As the story goes, Jasper helps Drew become a reader and Drew takes Jasper around Colorado to get background information for the setting of his next book. Well if you read romances, you know there will be a happy ever after and there is. It is an enjoyable read and I would give this book 4 stars.

The last book on my list for February is Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. This was a re-read and I plan to do a post next week going into more detail about this book and maybe a couple of screen adaptations, so for now I will say that I do enjoy most of Agatha’s work and this is one of her more popular stories. I am giving this book 4.5 stars and will probably read it again one day.

Next month is Mystery March and since my favorite genre is mystery I anticipate another good month.

What do you enjoy reading? Have you read any of these books and if so, what are your thoughts. I would love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Virginia

Happy New Year 2018l

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While sitting in my family room with my first cup of coffee this morning, we noticed tracks in the back yard. A deer had passed through while we slept. Wish I had seen it.  But then if I’d looked out in the night and saw it looking in, I might have been a little less enthusiastic about the whole experience.

Which brings me to my reason for this post – my  2018 writing project. I will be writing a mystery with a paranormal twist that involves death by werewolf. I know sounds a little gruesome but hey, it is a childhood fear. We’ll see how it goes.

I am sending this message out a few hours early. The new year won’t start until after midnight but I decided to get a head start.

This is in the very beginning stage of writing. I have been thinking about the idea for a while and taking notes but I haven’t actually started putting words on the page.

I plan to share my writing process this year. Hopefully it will help you with your project and help push me forward. If I have learned anything over the years it is that there is no one way to write a novel and from what my author friends have shared, it changes with each novel. Writers are always looking for their process. Hoping that it will make the next one easier. But once you’ve written a few, you know that is not true. Each project is different and you just have to do the work until you get to the end.

I am not a plotter or a pantzer but something in between. So my goal for this week is to figure out my plot points. I use those to guide me through telling the story. If I can figure out my plot points, then I can create scenes that will get me from say the beginning to plot point one and then on to plot point two and then to plot point three and then the resolution. Sounds easy but it’s not. There will be lots of writing and editing before it is ready for publication. This is all about the first draft and I do know that when it is done, it will not be done. It will be crappy because that is what first drafts are. So this will be my journey to write my crappy first draft. I can blog later about edit and revision.

Once I have that figured out, I’ll have a loose outline.

I need to know my characters so they can help me tell the story. So I will also be completing character sketches this week. I use the term complete loosely because as I write, I discover more about my characters and continue to write down information all the way through to the end. I will go into more details about this with my next post.

To help me get there I purchased my planner for the year. I am a geekster when it comes to office supplies. I have used several planners over the years and this year I have settled on the Top Down Planner. The concept is to help you discover your goals and the steps needed to accomplish them. It is supposed to help  you focus on what is most important. It looks like an upside down food pyramid except food isn’t involved, unless you snack as you plan but that wouldn’t help my other annual goal of weight loss but again, we won’t go there.

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Besides writing my other favorite pastime is reading but if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you already know that. Currently I am reading – Magpie Murders. I won it at a Christmas gift exchange with my local SINC chapter – SINC-Iowa. It had been on my radar for a while so it was a huge win. And by the way, if you live in Iowa and write either Romance or Mysteries and are looking for a writer’s group, I belong to both chapters. In fact I will be President again this year of the local Romance Writers of America Chapter. Both organizations are always looking to add membership so comment here if you’d like more information. Or go to the National websites and sign up and then you can locate our local chapters or one near you for more information.

I have had personal issues that have kept me away from my blog longer than expected but I plan to post more often, at least a couple times a month.  I hope you will follow my posts and feel free to comment often. Maybe together we can make 2018 a productive year.

Feel free to share your writing process and books you’ve read and since I’ve been fighting a Holiday cold and staying in from the bitter temperatures – a little chicken soup wouldn’t hurt also.

Stay safe and have a wonderful New Years Eve – see you next year!!!

Virginia

A Few of My Favorite Reads

Books Read2

 

“Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.” – Susan Sontag

Often when I find it difficult to write, I read. I have been dealing with some life changes, some health related and probably the most difficult was my brother’s death. He was in home hospice for several months before he died this past December. I tried to spend as much time with him as I could while working full-time and trying not to neglect my husband and kids.

I wanted to write but my heart wasn’t in it. During those months when I did have some spare time, I spent much of it reading. That has always been my favorite escape.

As you can see I got through quite a few since September. I discovered some new authors and caught up with some of my favorites.

I have been a fan of Jodi Picoult for years. “Breathing Time” is her newest and it was fantastic. It was one of those stories that surprised me at the end. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone. The twists and turns will keep you up late.

Dorothea Benton Frank was an AVID (Author Visiting in Des Moines) author this past year. I picked up a couple of her books and because she talked so much about “Sullivan’s Island”, I bought it even though it was not her most recent book. She said there is a scene in there that actually happened so of course I had to read the book to find out what she was talking about.  I can’t tell you about the scene here, I really think you need to let her tell you about it. If you get a chance to hear her speak, do it. Her stories are women’s fiction – set in the south.

Mary Kay Andrew’s “Christmas Bliss” was one of my holiday choices this year. I love her books. The characters are spunky and you never know what they are going to get into. She is another author I have read for years.

I discovered a new author to me – Julia Keller. I read a couple of hers – “A Killing in the Hills” and “Bitter River”. She has a third out and I plan to get it as soon as I get my to be read pile down a little bit more. Her stories are set in the Appalachia area. Her protagonist is a prosecuting attorney who has a teenage daughter and an ex-husband. Her stories are a little more nitty-gritty about the side of life that isn’t so pretty. She has won awards for more than one of her books. If you like suspense, you will like these.

I met an Iowa author –  Heather Gudenkauf. I had read her first book a while back – ” The Weight of Silence” and didn’t realize that she was from Iowa. This time I read – “These Things Hidden” Her stories are well crafted and will keep you guessing. She also is a great speaker. It was one of those really cold Iowa winter nights that she spoke at the West Des Moines library. I ran into some writer friends and it was so worth it.

My Sisters in Crime group has a book exchange every year at our Christmas party. We share a book that we really liked. This year I got one that had been on my wish list for a while. William Kent Krueger’s “Ordinary Grace”. It was just as wonderful as I thought it would be. His protagonist told the story of a murder that happened in his hometown when he was a boy. It is no wonder he won so many awards with this book.

The last book on my list is from one of those authors that I have been reading since his first in the series. Alan Bradley writes cozy mysteries with a little girl sleuth named Flavia De Luce. It is set in England in the 1940’s and they are so cleverly written. I have reviewed some of his books here before and I continue to look forward to each new one. This one was “The Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust”. If you like cozy mysteries, you have to check this series out.

One of my goals is to read more this year. I can’t count all of these toward my goal but I am starting with this Alan Bradley novel as my first for this year.

I read for pleasure but I also read because it motivates me to write. I read novels and books on the craft of writing too but novels are what I turn to most. What do you read? Do you set reading goals?

This year I also want to review more, not just here but on Goodreads, Librarything, and Amazon. Do you know that reviewing a book could be one of the best things you could do for your favorite authors?

I hope you add at least one of my suggestions to your to be read pile.

Until next time,

Virginia

Stuck But Digging Out

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Again I apologize for the time between posts. I know it isn’t a real excuse but I have been taking classes since before Thanksgiving on the writing craft. I think I have hit a wall where I need to take all the information I absorbed and actually use it for my story.

Luckily I have a strong support group of writer friends who have been taking some of the classes with me. One of the organizations I belong to is Iowa Romance Novelists. It is our local chapter of Romance Writers of America and the source for some of my free classes.

Each year we try to put together programs to help our members at whatever level they are with their writing to move forward and succeed. We do have a handful of published authors including Sparkle Abbey who I have featured here before who write the Pamper Pet Mysteries and Kathy Bacus who writes the Calamity Jane series. This years Theme for IRN is Survivor. In January, our challenge was to write a synopsis. It didn’t have to be ready to submit but a work in progress. Our reward was chocolate. February we had to write down our goals for the year and our reward was a nifty Survivor bracelet.

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All of this activity has prompted me to move forward and I am feeling pretty darn good about meeting my goals this year. My synopsis helped me to determine exactly what my story is about and I have been using that to plot it out with note cards. I am using Scrivener, not actual note cards. I continue this week to fill in the holes.

With all the changes in the publishing world, it could be easy to get discouraged. But instead of looking at the negatives, I’ve decided to look at the positives and embrace the changes. I look at it as more options for everyone.  It is always easier to go with the flow than try to swim upstream against the current. Disliking the direction things are going in will not stop change from happening but it could affect your mood and your writing.

I found myself trying to force a story and I kept getting stuck. No matter how much I wanted it to work, it wouldn’t so I asked myself what would make me excited about this story?. That question led me to bring back a couple characters I worked with on another project and always felt they should be part of a series.  Picture two old ladies wearing polyester slacks and matching sweatshirts with a slot machine embroidered on the front. Those characters are Agnes Hughes and Frieda Kirkpatrick. Both over 65 years old, friends since childhood, like to play slots and bingo and are always getting into trouble. I could have fun spending time with these two. I merged them into the story I have been struggling with and now I have something I can’t wait to write.

 

Our challenge for March is entering a contest. I plan to enter the Montezuma short story contest again this year. Hoping that will count. The reward is a drawing for a paid entry fee.

What have you been doing to keep yourself moving forward? Do you have a support system of other writers? Do you take classes to sharpen your skills? Do you attend writers conferences and support local authors when they come to speak?

My mantra this year is “I will survive.”  Will you?

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Tuesday Tip

What comes first the characters or the plot? I’m not sure it matters. If you are inspired by a character, go with developing that character. What are the goal, motivation, and conflict? After you determine that start asking story questions and the plot will develop.

If you have a story idea that comes to you first, play with the idea for a while until you start seeing a plot. Start asking questions about who might be involved in that kind of story? Start adding characters to the story and developing them.

Either way that you enter into a story, I think the key to developing it is to ask questions and keep asking questions until you figure out enough to write the story. Unless you are a writer who has to have a complete outline. Answer enough questions to get into the story and go with it.

How do you start out? Do you start with characters or plot?

Virginia

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What’s Up Wednesday

This has been a fun, busy week. Had two meetings Saturday. Iowa Romance Novelists met in the morning and Sisters in Crime in the afternoon. Katy Madison from the Kansas City chapter of RWA presented a program in the morning – Writing Blind – Revising Brilliant. She is a pantzer who whips through her first draft as soon as possible and then spends her time revising. She broke it down in the steps that she uses to revise. This was a great workshop with six pages of detailed information.  Very thorough. She must be doing something right, she is a 2012 Daphne Award winner.

Sara Humphries gave a talk at the Sisters in Crime meeting about ‘Fifty Shades of Red: A Study of Reader Expectations and the Contemporary Mystery. This lady likes details. She found “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories by S.S. Van Dine from 1928 and we discussed whether each rule was relevant for contemporary mysteries.

We meet the third Saturday of the month and it feels like a monthly mini-conference. I always leave feeling motivated.

I have been writing a scene a day on my current story and feel like it is finally starting to come together. I understand that this will take me a while to complete and will keep pushing forward.

Lots of writing events coming up. The Montezuma Writer’s Conference is mid September and I am going to a Debra Dixon Workshop for ‘Goal, Motivation,and Conflict’ the end of September so I am trying to get as much writing done before those events.

If you live in the area and want any information on either the group meetings or workshops, feel free to comment. I would be happy to share that information with you.

Have a great week writing.

Virginia

B is for Backstory

“A writer is a man who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do.” – Donald Barthelme

If you have ever started a story and got stuck in that first act and couldn’t go on, maybe it’s because you never really understood what happened before the story starts. Knowing where to start can sometimes be confusing. Do we go back to the very beginning or do we jump in with the action. Most times you will start with the action but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know what happened to get the characters there. The key word is know. You need the information to put all the pieces together. You don’t necessarily need to share that information with the reader. At least not all of it. The important stuff can trickle in with the telling.

I shared this other little trick in an earlier post but I think it is worth sharing again, in case you missed it the first time. Determine the back story of each of your characters. Go back a month before the story starts with each character individually. What was the character’s goal, motivation, or conflict at that time? What was going on in their life? Determining that information for the secondary characters and antagonist and suspects or victims, depending on the genre of book you are writing can help you develop sub-plots.

I hope the past week has been a productive writing week. I have to admit I spent more time reading than writing. When life throws me a curve it’s easier for me to escape into a book than push myself to write. As some of you know, my brother passed away so I have been dealing with his loss. I also had a medical procedure at the end of the week. Everything turned out fine but these little personal detours seem to wreck havoc on my writing goals. It boots me out of a healthy writing mind set and it takes me a little while to climb back in the saddle and point that pony toward my book’s completion.

No matter what happens though, if I stay away from writing too long, I get that urge that won’t leave me alone until I sit down and put some words together.

If you live in the Des Moines area and are looking for a writing group, Central Iowa Fiction Writers meet the third Saturday of each month at the West Des Moines Community Center in Valley Junction at 10:00 AM.  If you have an interest in mystery writing or reading, Sisters-in-Crime Iowa meets the same day at Smokey Row Coffee Shop at 3:00 PM. Maybe I’ll see you there.

May this be a productive week for all of us. Look forward to seeing some of you Saturday.

P.S. Finished ‘Get Fluffy”. Now I gotta get it autographed.

Virginia

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