It Was Worth It!

Let's see. I've been writing my fantasies now for 4 decades. I began writing in high school. Told by my English teacher (who taught creative writing class), that my grammar and spelling sucked (not her words exactly). Nothing about whether or not I had talent, nor did she give me encouragement. She told me that I should find other employment when I told her I wanted to become an author.

Nice.



I wanted to kill her in terrible ways. 
In the library. 
With an ax.


In my head, of course. Possibly on paper.

And I've decided to murder a terrible teacher in a future book.



Not this next murder mystery, but the third one after I finish WIP. In this current one, Invitation to Kill, a teacher is murdered. His wife is also murdered. And another innocent is also killed. We've got a serial killer on the lose in a college. You won't believe who it is!

Meanwhile...
My first murder mystery is now out. Party to a Murder, about a seventeen year old young adult who discovers she has a penchant for poking into murders and solving them when she begins to look into the murder of a girl she went to school with. She is murdered with a knife. Much like the picture on the cover.

Lainey Quilholt has to wonder why people--especially the girls--hated Arline so much. And why was her ex-boyfriend continuously asking her out for a date when they were an item all during high school, and rumor had it they were going to get married.

It all begins when Arline and AJ (boyfriend) went to a cabin up north for a few days with her best friend and her boyfriend. On the last day Arline's girlfriend died from accidental drowning. After that, nothing was the same. Her car was totaled in an accident on the way home. She is later seen in a brand new car and shopping in the mall and in the small town where they lived. What could that be all about? Where did she get the money?

Just a few of the questions that Lainey asks, especially after the big fight between Arline and her ex one night at a party in the local woods--which neither one of them were asked to join.

After the two split, no one ever saw Arline again, until the next morning. Her body is discovered by joggers along a trail in the woods.

Who brutally murdered Arline Rochell and why?

Lainey begins puzzling these questions out, and how fortunate for her, her aunt is dating the local sheriff, Weeks, and he is willing to share a few things about the murder, and even allows her to take a look at Arline's apartment where someone has ransacked it, looking for something. They didn't find what they were looking for. But Lainey sure does. Incriminating pictures, which she takes to Weeks.

Other clues she follows include the graduation necklace that was found clutched in Arline's hand in her death grip. Other clues pull both her and Weeks along in the investigation, until Lainey suggests a re-enactment, which at first the sheriff doesn't go for, but then, the one missing thing--Arline's cell phone--becomes central in finding the murderer.

What'd ya think? Sounds interesting, doesn't it?

Yep. I've got this and other books available. So glad I never listened to my English teacher in high school. You were soooo wrong!

So here's to Mrs. Penson, who is long dead now, you were wrong.

Nah-na-na-na-nahhhh!

I've got plenty of books yet to write and I plan on writing until for whatever reason, I can't write. You see, Mrs. Penson. Writing became a passion. My only real passion in life where I can't not do this. I worked at my spelling, the grammar is better, and your advice, I'm happy to say, I never took it. Someone tells me I can't do something, by god, I'll prove to them I can. Unless it's something physically challenging, and forget jumping out of planes, or skiing down a hill. 

Writing the mystery has always been one challenge I'd wanted to try and master. Have I mastered it? I don't know. You tell me. If you buy the ebook, I'd like to see what you think, so go ahead and make a review on Amazon, if you would please.

I thank you.

It's the best I can do at the moment

I'm happily in my writing cave working on #2 murder mystery - "Invitation to Kill". (My first one has been renamed "Party to a Murder".)

Funny how at the beginning of a new book I've only got ideas that may, or may not turn into anything worth while. There's always that certain fear of simply starting the book. Toying with scenes and characters in my mind, turning them over, trying to see which way to go with them. Once I feel certain that my brain cells have fired well enough over this, I open a document and begin to work.

Anyway, I'd had the beginning of this one written out in my notes. Definitely rough, and still things would change, certain aspects and details, but I put it into the new document, happy to commit to this. And since then I've worked on that scene, adding or changing something. That's fine. I think every writer has to have instinct on how to proceed, how they want to write. After so many years, one gets the hang of it. There are some writers who wouldn't think of going through their work until they've got the whole thing finished. I can't do that. I have to meddle with it until it suits me, until everyone and so forth is in line with the way I want it.

I go by the adage that "no one can teach you how to write." I've seen and heard this echoed throughout my writing life.

There's another saying which I just heard only yesterday--in all places on a "Murder She Wrote" show. Not so surprising, since JB Fletcher is a writer and she connects with writers all the time.

It is title of today's post. "It's the best I can do at the moment". Somewhere someone had to have said this to a class, to him/herself. Anyway, it's good and I'm borrowing it for now. Mainly because it's so true for a writer. We don't become over-night successes (some of us never become really successful), but you work hard at writing, at making it better today than it was yesterday. You are doing the best you can do at the moment of inspiration, or when you go in to correct. Hopefully you are better than you were a year ago, five or ten years ago. You keep getting better, but at the moment you are as good as you can be.

It also occured to me that writing is like movement. Like walking or jogging. Sometimes you can only take baby steps, because you're unsure. But that's okay. Being unsure is all part of being a writer. And that's where this saying comes in handy. You have to give it your best shot and say to yourself, "This is the best I can do at the moment".

And once you get beyond your fears, you're walking (writing) at a good gate. My husband goes for a brisk one hour walk every morning--prefers before sunrise. I, meanwhile, do my yoga. We're different in what we need to do in order to get our hearts pumping. I like walks, sure, but my knees can't take the punishment of a brisk walk in the park.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is everyone is different. We all have our way of getting through a manuscript. Whatever you are comfortable with, do it, or find it. I like to make notes in the evening while drinking a light wine and in between reading a John Grisham--or whatever--novel.

The next day, I look  at the notes, already thinking about how to approach the object of the scene ahead, or have a character figured out and can add that to the notes. It's a process of notes, mulling, and then writing it all out, and then later on, my editing, adding or taking stuff out. If I can get even a little bit down, just a thousand words, or maybe only 300, I'm okay with it. I'm not a marathon runner, and so I'm not pushing myself beyond my abilities.

I'm doing the best I can at the moment.