Wednesday, July 30, 2025

I'm not a gardener

Hollyhock doll (Thanks, Ruth)
Fun fact. My mother grew up on a farm. She loved her garden at home, where she grew flowers. We had a neighbor who lived behind us with acres of land. He grew iris, among other flowers. He showed my sisters how to make dolls out of hollyhocks (something I must have been too little to remember). My mother-in-law always grew a vegetable garden, and some flowers, too. Fresh food (or formerly fresh--she did a lot of canning) whenever we visited. She was very fastidious in both her garden and her lawn. Very attentive to all things green and growing. My sisters grow gardens filled with beautiful flowers and veggies. My daughter also grows gardens with her daughters. 

When I moved into my present house, the woman who lived here before us had gardens. Everywhere. There was the tiered vegetable garden filled with a dozen different types of veggies and the flower beds in the back and flower boxes on the deck. My husband moved in in July, and everything was ready for harvest. What a lovely moving in gift! 

My husband took down all the flower boxes, both inside and out. I think the rationale was men don't garden. I would have liked to have some of those flower boxes to grow herbs or even flowers. Off the ground where the bunnies couldn't get them. 

One of the authors I've followed for years - we communicated some when we both first started writing - is a gardener. She posts dozens of pictures of her expansive garden and even built a greenhouse. It's her happy place. She reminds me of my mother-in-law in the way she grows and uses vegetables. I'm envious, in a way, but gardens aren't my talent.

I've grown gardens over the years. Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans--the easy things--and I've had good luck, which I attribute to the gardens the master class gardener who lived here before me left. I grew strawberries in the tiered gardens that lasted way longer than strawberries are supposed to with very little effort. Successful gardening requires commitment, though, and I'm sorry to say the things that grew in my gardens grew in spite of me.

Several years ago now, I had some mobility issues, and surgery to repair same. As a result, I wasn't able to garden, especially in a tiered garden where I had to climb up and down and on different levels. My beloved strawberries suffered (I guess I was more committed to them than I thought). While I recovered, the gardens went to weeds. Once the weeds get out of control, I'm a lost cause. I only last so long before I have to give up. Yes, I've still managed to grow some veggies, and I've planted some bedding plants. I had a mandevilla that wintered inside and moved back outside in the summer for a few years. It didn't thrive, but it didn't die. I had one ivy that was a gift at work that survived in spite of me. It lasted WAY longer than I ever imagined, indicating it was a low maintenance plant. I've planted perennials because I do like pretty flowers. Some of them got overtaken or choked by my poor weeding practices.

This year, I bought a basket of marigolds to hang from my shepherd's hook. It was such a bright, sunny, happy plant. And then it started to get brown and sad and weepy looking. I consulted my granddaughter, who is becoming quite the gardener, and she said, "Yes, it does look kind of sad. Remember the rules of gardening." My granddaughter. Welp, I have the Picture This app on my phone and I snapped a picture. It's supposed to tell me what's wrong with my plant. It came back with "your plant is sick" and invited me to pay a fee to tell me what was wrong with it. I use that app about once every two years, so no, I'm not going to pay the fee so it can tell me I have a black thumb. I read up on marigolds, which need full sun. My shepherd's hook is in part shade. So I moved the marigold basket to the back deck as a last resort, where it gets sun all day. It perked up! I have to say, in spite of rallying, it doesn't have that same bright, happy look to it anymore, but it isn't dead. Really, that's the best I can say of most of my plants. They aren't dead.

Tomorrow, I'm going out to weed one of my gardens (after having landscapers come to dig up out-of-control weeds). I'm hoping I can keep up at least a little so it isn't necessary to hire someone to keep from choking my perennials. If I want to enjoy my gardens--and I do--I need to at least make a minimal effort. I just wish I was better at it.

We all have our talents, I guess. Gardening isn't mine.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Let's Start at the Very Beginning

A very good place to start...

FIRST - Today is release day! If you haven't gotten your copy of THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER, what are you waiting for? The ARC readers reporting have loved it (and I think you will, too).

SECOND - my editor suggested I take the secondary characters and write a story for them, which I am doing. Chapter 1 in any book almost always turns into exposition and backstory in the first draft. It's sort of a "get to know you" for the author, during which the characters reveal things about themselves that make them who they are. As the story progresses, many of those details get moved into later sections where they can be added more seamlessly, but for now, I'm starting at the beginning. 

The fun part about writing is that once you get started, it unleashes your imagination. So even if I'm writing complete drivel, it's carrying me away with "Oh! What if this happened, or what if that happens?" "Oh, what if the plot I imagined relates to such and such?" First drafts are flights of fancy. Let your imagination carry you wherever it wants to go. You can always clean it up later.

Oftentimes, somewhere along the writing process, the story stalls out, so the more thoughts I have now that I can capture (like capturing a fly, or maybe a butterfly) the easier it will be to navigate that stall. The muddle in the middle. The "where is this story going?" If I know that now, even just a little bit, it helps motor through when things start to slog. This is especially important when you have the ideas in the first place. There are some books where those ideas are elusive, and it takes a concentrated effort to see the forest for the trees, in a manner of speaking. Give yourself the freedom to create without structure, and you'll have the bones to build that structure later. You've heard the expression, "just write." That has gotten me through more quagmires than I can count, and it's no more important that when you're first starting out.

So if you're writing, start at the beginning. Write it all down. Let your imagination carry you along, and as the story gets further along, you can shape it however it needs to go. That backstory you started out with? It will be important somewhere along the way. Write it down. You can filter it in later where it's more appropriate. That crazy idea? Write it down. You can discount it later if it doesn't make sense, but if you don't write it down, you won't have it for later in case it fits in. 

So excuse me now, as I go to see how many people are buying the new book because YAY! It's release day. Your support is what keeps me motivated. Don't forget to tell all your friends about this great new book you heard about. In between checking sales, I'll be writing the new book, because I have some great ideas for those secondary characters who are stepping into the spotlight!



Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

I was having dinner with my nephew the other night and he asked what my new book was about. 

You all know by now that I was inspired by a local cold case while I was writing THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER. The story still fascinates me, even after it was solved. All the evidence the police found, all the clues they followed, the way they looked at the angles in the case. You can read my previous blog post about the case here.

At any rate, I was telling him the story, which prompted him to tell ME a story about a trainwreck in Southern Illinois from 1971 that has recently come back into focus. Eleven people died, but one victim went unidentified, and they buried the remains under a memorial stone as such. With the advances in technology and DNA identification, a reporter made the case for exhuming the body all these years later to finally put a name to the victim, but when they opened the body bag, they had spare body parts, i.e., more than one victim buried in the grave. Who else was buried there? That remains (no pun intended) to be seen. DNA has been sent for identification, which takes time.

Naturally, the story sparked my interest. I've been contemplating my next novel and planning a field trip over the weekend to walk around a spooky locale that was once owned by a macabre, eccentric locally famous person. I didn't really have a story plot in mind yet, expecting inspiration to hit while I was touring the estate, but now I'm envisioning conflating (yes, that's my new favorite word) the two stories together--the estate along with the exhumation of an unidentified body that becomes bodies. My imagination is already seeing pictures and having conversations with the characters about what happened and how this comes to light. 

This might be a good time to tell you the first ARC reader for THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER came back asking about the cold case featured in that book. It seems she lives not far from me and is familiar with that case (it made the news as far away as South Carolina, based on my dinner conversation the other night). She found the local aspect was fun, and while she knew the "real" story, she liked the way I'd adapted it to fit my story. (This is called artistic license.) Too many times, when I've tried to include nuggets of truth in my novels, people come back with "that could never happen" when, in fact, it did. This is where artistic license comes into play. I can modify things to make them more believable, OR I can make sure the characters are right beside you with the "no way" attitude. It highlights the improbability while also pointing out the fact of the matter.

So while I'm plotting and preparing to write, this is a good time to remind you that THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER is now available in paperback, with the ebook version releasing on July 23. You can preorder the ebook for a discounted price, but that price will go up once it's live, so order now! 



Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Prime Days

For Amazon lovers, this is the week they're offering all their discounts. For those of you who are NOT Amazon lovers, the good news is my new book, THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER, is discounted everywhere as long as you preorder it. (Click the title to find your favorite bookseller.)

Me? I'm not buying anything right now. I'm doing my last passes (i.e., having Word read the book back to me) to catch all those last-minute mistakes in the book that need to be corrected), and yes, I'm finding silly little things that sneak through even after I've read it multiple times, even after my editor has reviewed it. Even when I worked the day job, there was always a sense of ... shock? disappointment? surprise? ... when errors crept through no matter how many eyes had been on a project. I have a lot of confidence in the auditory editing pass. You can fool the eyes after multiple reads, but your ears will hear what you eyes miss. 

So apologies that this post doesn't have more "meat," but I'm focusing my creative juices on making the book as perfect as I can. Go buy it before the price goes up! (please? 😁)


Wednesday, July 2, 2025

In the old days... Finding my next read

When I was a kid, if you wanted a new book to read, you went to the bookstore or to the library. Both were down the street from where I lived, and I was a frequent visitor to both. The bookstore eventually moved to the mall, so the library became my sole source of entertainment.

If I wanted a mystery to read, I headed to the mystery stacks. I went through a biography phase. A Gothic phase. There was something fascinating in touching the spines, pulling one down and randomly checking it out. When I was in high school, I spent my free periods in the school library.

Nowadays, we do online book searches that have become SOOOOO complicated. Yes, you can narrow those down. I can still search for a mystery, or a biography, or a Gothic romance, but it just isn't the same. No more walking among the stacks. Discovering a hidden treasure. In the electronic age, authors are scrambling for attention. Online bookstores let you search everything from genre to trope to category. You can narrow your choices down to the exact thing you want -- and find a thousand unrelated titles.

I've been looking at my TBR pile, books I've gotten here and there that are waiting to be read. I haven't made a lot of additions in recent months, aside from books I KNEW I wanted to read. I've come to the decision I should read through what I have, then revert to old habits. Go to the library. Be among "my people" and search out my next book there. The problem is the changing landscape of books. The library doesn't give shelf space to dozens upon dozens of authors waiting to be discovered. Yes, the library stocks indie authors, but on a very limited basis. On the other hand, I have been reading many indie and "new to me" authors for the past 20 years. It might be time to catch up with some of my old favorites. But here's the thing. I've found recently that some of my favorite "big name" authors are going the indie route. Jill Shalvis, for example. She recently released a new book, and she's been telling people loudly that if you go to a bookstore, you'll probably have to order it because ... bookstores don't stock indie authors. Jennifer Crusie is another one. I don't know if she's still writing books alone or only the joint projects with Bob Mayer, but I do know Bob Mayer has taken their collabs indie. Which brings me back to...

Where am I going to go for future reads?

Another option is e-books through the library. While they don't have the same physical inventory they used to, you can easily find electronic copies, and if I want it badly enough, I could ask them to order the hard copy. I do miss reading hard cover books. Then again, hard cover seems to have gone the way of vinyl records. Available on a limited basis. 

As you can tell, I'm a tad overwhelmed. This from trying to categorize my own new release so people can find it. When I look for related titles... they're not. So I'll just tell you it's a romance. It has a ghost. It has a cold case. It has a tour guide and a photographer. If it sounds interesting, you can preorder it. Release day is July 23!

Click here for more information