Getting down to the nitty gritty

You'd think after reading a manuscript multiple times, the mistakes would be minimal, but each pass has its purpose. 

The new book goes to the editor this week, and for the first time probably ever, I’m scrambling. Usually I have it to her early. I’ve had things interfering. Trips and surgeries and projects, oh my. On top of that, the program I rely on to help me with edits is no longer “a thing.” Instead of having something visibly show me usages, I’m back to searching for the overused and filler words, among other grammatical snafus. Here’s hoping I haven’t misspelled my heroine’s name (yes, I’ll check for that). I’ve removed dozens of instances of “just” and “up” and other adverbs that don’t belong. I’ve fixed instances where I misused “that” and made vague references clear.

After a high level review to make sure things flowed, I’m doing an overall read for the mistakes I’ve created while editing, but because of all the distractions, I’m finding so much more that snuck through. In Chapter 1, my hero is using a notepad and pen. Then a notebook and pencil. He puts his pen/pencil down, and a paragraph later, he does it again - without ever picking it up. All of this in Chapter 1. The story as a whole flows, but now I’m in the nitty gritty. Does everything make sense? Clearly, I still have work to do. Too many silly mistakes. Don’t ask my critique partners about the number of incorrect homonyms I’ve used. My mind has been elsewhere too often this time around, but that’s what editing passes are for, and I’m in the home stretch.

Assuming everything holds together, next week’s blog post should have preorder links for anyone who likes to do that. Baby steps, but I’m getting there!

Torn From the Headlines

Recently, the cold case unit where I live publicized one of the cases they were working on, looking for help. They have a podcast called SOMEBODY KNOWS SOMETHING, and somebody knew something. As the buzz intensified, I got sucked in. It's right where I live, after all. The podcast was easy to find, and while the case was progressing - they had new evidence - I was following along in real time. 

The police department "opened up" the investigation - it was forty years old - after exhausting dozens of leads and dead ends. They shared information never before shared. Details previously unknown. Listening to them investigate the case, step by step, was fascinating. A woman disappeared. Poof. Vanished into the ether. She disappeared with her car, so the original conclusion was that she chose to disappear. Got in her car and left. But where did she go? There was no trace of her. No trace of her car. Once she'd been reported missing, the police searched her apartment and found the title to her car. - a paper trail they could follow. Someone would have to buy the care eventually. Or sell it. Or wreck it. For any of those options, they'd need the title, and police were in possession. Nothing ever pinged. 

The inclination is to blame a spouse or lover. She had a boyfriend, the man who reported her missing (three days after she disappeared). Didn't anyone miss her prior to three days? They looked at him, suspecting him of foul play, but there was no evidence to support that theory. The case went cold, unsolved, but never closed. 

When the cold case unit took another look, they checked all the options again. Interestingly, a serial killer had rented the missing person's apartment before she did. Was it possible he'd returned? Then there was the possibility that the woman, who'd been at a bar immediately prior to her disappearance, might have been harassed/abducted/disappeared by a biker gang who had been hanging around in the parking lot that night. They had lots of suspects, and had to consider whether her disappearance had been orchestrated. Unfortunately, they were short on witnesses who could pinpoint the woman's last moves.

Forty years later, a witness came forward who said they'd seen this woman leave in her car. So what happened to her if she left of her own volition? 

The cold case team started looking into details. Forty year old topography maps. Weather reports. Climate reports. Since she'd been seen driving home, the police looked at what routes she might have taken and a new theory began to form. One of those routes runs beside a river. During their historical investigations, they found the river had been at record flood stage when she disappeared. The weather had also been colder than normal, which might have led to slick conditions and possible patchy ice. If she'd been drinking at the bar, she might have been impaired. The road ran through a wooded area where deer (or other animals) might have darted in front of her. No street lights back then. Could she have lost control and ended up in the river?

For the first time in forty years, the police called in a dive team, Chaos Divers, to check the river. They used sonar to check the river for targets - submerged vehicles and the like. They found three targets on a chilly March day and went in to check. After two strikes, the diver came aboard to warm up. They were already making plans to check other nearby bodies of water the next day when the diver made the decision to go back down to eliminate the third target. Checking off boxes. He came up with a license plate from a vehicle submerged upside down in the water. It was the license plate from the missing woman's car. 

The podcast highlighted the entire investigation from following leads to recovering the car, which all happened in a surprisingly short period of time. I decided to adapt the case (read "artistic license") for my upcoming book, and as I'm now in the editing phase, I stopped to watch the video Chaos Divers did of the investigation. Now I had visuals to accompany the story. While my book isn't primarily about the cold case, the story does feature prominently.

The recovery was fascinating to follow, as evidenced by the multiple media outlets visible in the video the divers produced. Even after the recovery, the police investigation continued. Was it an accident? Suicide? Foul play? The podcast followed the case beyond the recovery of the missing woman into the remainder of the investigation. They were able to determine the emergency brake had been engaged. The woman had tried to stop the car in a hurry. There was no other visible damage to the car to indicate a collision of any sort. Whether the river carried her in (it was a smaller vehicle, low to the ground) or she encountered something on the road that sent her into the river is a question they might never be able to answer. The parking brake was enough to rule out foul play, but we'll probably never know exactly what happened that night. The end result is they brought the missing woman home and gave her family closure after forty-plus years. 

Torn from the headlines? Absolutely. Inspiration is where you find it.

Shout out to Chaos Divers, who do this sort of work on a regular basis, relying chiefly on donations. Noble work. They've solved dozens of cold cases related to water disappearances. Check them out. If you are so inclined, donate to their GoFundMe efforts, or other fundraising efforts. 

The book? I'm looking at a July release date. 

Where do you interact with your favorite author?

Remember MySpace? "Tom" pioneered social media as we know it today. Then along came Facebook. Then Instagram. Now there are multiple places to catch up with your favorite authors. TikTok. YouTube.

I’ve long relied on Facebook, but I’m becoming disenfranchised. It pops up reels in my feed that are clearly AI generated, easily dismissed garbage. Even the recipes that show up are generated by bots. Are the recipes tried and true? Can I trust anything in my feed? I saw an "article" today that featured Ron Howard and Henry Winkler with "then and now" photos. Except the "then" photo wasn't Henry Winkler. Seriously? Do they think people won't notice? That wasn't the first time I'd seen "not the celebrity advertised" in a photo, a clear sign this article is click bait or spam or something equally horrifying. THIS is why AI/bots aren't the future. 

Still, old habits are hard to break. Where should I hang out more often? I don't do TikTok, sorry. I do have book trailers on YouTube. Instagram is pictures, right? How much interaction is there? I have one author friend who posts multiple reels a day as she goes through cancer treatments, updating people on her journey. She's very brave, but I wonder how much traction she actually gets. Still, I post my out and about pictures. BlueSky seems like a friendly place. Substack? I'm still trying to get a feel for that place, but it looks promising. Kristan Higgins convinced me it was a good place to meet readers. But is it?

So I'm asking you. Social media is rapidly changing - there's no question about that. Has it outlived its usefulness? I find I'm spending less time "engaging," largely because I find myself doom scrolling, or not finding any real people. Yes, I still keep tabs on friends and family, but they get buried in all the other miscellanea brought to you by Boris and Natasha (hypothetically speaking, of course).

Inquiring minds want to know. As I finish up this next book (cover reveal coming in my next newsletter!), I'm weighing the value of "live" posts on each of the platforms to see whose out there and what the value is. Where will I find you?

Research, and the things we take with us

There is an adage that you should write what you know. I agree with that, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know. The idea is that if you write about something you have zero experience with, that lack of experience will come through and the writing won't be as genuine. 

Sometimes you have to write to learn something new. 

My first book, TOUCHED BY THE SUN (The Treasure of St. Paul) had me crawling down all sorts of holes doing research. In an effort to "get it right," I learned Italian. I read every guidebook I could lay my hands on for Pompeii and Herculaneum and Southern Italy. I interviewed people who had been to those places, and one told me unless I actually went, I couldn't possibly get it right. When she read the book, she told me I got it right. When I visited, I found more things I might have incorporated, but overall, yeah, I got it right. I ordered little jeweled goblets for swag for my first book signing, and I still have one today.

For every book I write, I inevitably have to conduct some sort of research in order to make sure I have the facts right. Sometimes, the research is to provide a deeper look into something I don't know much about. I learn something from every book I write. I have souvenirs I've collected from some of that research, or as reminders of what inspired a book.

The bulk of my research comes from interviewing people. I've interviewed firefighters and police officers and monument shop owners. When I wrote INTIMATE DISTANCE, I bought myself a gryphon statuette to hang over my computer.  When I wrote COOKIE THERAPY, I learned how to fight off a panic attack. My favorite piece of research was while writing THE TWINS. I needed something my hero could use for "good juju" (essentially). He's a finish carpenter, so I was particularly focused on something wooden. I stumbled upon Palo Santo, and in an effort to know more about it, I bought myself a little cat, carved from palo santo wood. The instructions suggested hanging my cat in the shower to release the fragrant smell, but it sits on my desk. Once I'd discovered there was such a thing, I noticed natural soap makers who sold bath products scented with palo santo. Go figure! How could I resist? Do I buy it for good juju? Eh. Not really. Mostly because I like the way it smells, but it is a luxury item, and the superstition behind it makes it more appealing to someone like me. 

New book is almost done! Final edits from the editor at the end of the month. Make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter for release information. 

On Moms and Dads

Today is my mom's birthday. It still is, even if she isn't still with us. 

For Mother's Day, my daughter gave me a book entitled "I Want to Hear Your Story, Mom." It's a journal thingy with prompts to help me tell her my life story. I get it. I would have liked to know more about my mom, too, but here's the thing. I'm really bad at journaling, and part of that is because I tend to revisit things that are better left unvisited. I started filling it out, and quickly remembered why I didn't keep a diary growing up. This process did, however, remind me of some fun parts of my history, including the day I was born. My dad was traveling on business (I arrived a week early). My dad's secretary typed up a list of things the people in the office did to track my dad down (this was way before cell phones and instant contact were invented) while they awaited the birth of daughter number four. 

At any rate, while I'm working to finish the next book, I thought I'd share the mayhem of the day (after) I was born.

Reader Feedback

As an author, they tell you not to check reviews. They can mess with your headspace, but sometimes they can motivate you. They also help point out things you might have overlooked. Reviews seem to have slowed since the pandemic. I've seen stars, but not feedback. Well, this is me doing a happy dance.

I recently received several new reviews on Chirp from people who have enjoyed my books! This comes at a crucial time, because I'm in the home stretch with the new book. Knowing there are people out there who enjoy what I'm writing motivates me to keep going. 

The new book? It's sort of along the lines of the Epitaph series, a romance with a ghost in the background. It's tentatively titled THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER. Inspired by a cold case that was recently solved where I live. A photographer rediscovers his passion for taking pictures only to find he's taken a picture of a ghost. On top of all this, the struggling tour guide who inspired him, who told him the urban legend behind the ghost's appearance on one of her tours, finds herself in someone's crosshairs. 

I have a date with the editor, but haven't set a release date yet. Should be mid to late summer. I'll keep you posted as details become available.

Writing is rewriting and "chaos"

Part of the writing process is relearning lessons over and over. Usually different lessons with each book. The lesson I’m sharing with you today is "writing is rewriting," because I have my seam ripper in hand to fix what I stitched together incorrectly this week.

Because I'm a pantser (I write by the seat of my pants), I often don't know exactly where my story is going at any given time. I know my plot, I know what I'm writing toward, but I don't necessarily see the stepping stones along the way. One of the tricks of the trade is that each chapter should end with a "hook" that will pull readers into the next chapter. The saying is that trouble is interesting, so often an author will write their characters into a corner and then have to find a way to extricate them. I did that. The problem is the trouble I wrote requires a major plot point, and I already have one of those. Now I have two plots competing for page time instead of a plot and a subplot. Enter the seam ripper. Now I need to tear apart those references and soften them into a subplot, a blind stitch, to continue the sewing metaphor, that holds the story together without calling attention to itself.

In line with the "trouble is interesting" guideline, I've been reading author threads recently talking about how difficult it is to write trouble in these turbulent times. While we live in times of chaos - every day is a new affront to the rule of law - I find I'd rather look for smooth sailing and peace. People say they use writing to escape the troubles of every day life, and I completely agree with that, but that applies to every day troubles, not a constant state of chaos. I've definitely had a much more difficult time focusing on the writing this year, hence the need for a rewrite to fix a runaway thread. With that being said, I do like how this new story is coming together, and the farther into it I get, the more I can't wait to see how it turns out! 😉 Spoiler alert - I know how it turns out, but life is about the journey, not the destination, right?

So back to rewriting this story into something you'll all love!