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It's raining this morning. I love rainy days and they are usually perfect for writing. And of course, since you are reading this, you know that I have been writing—blog posts, but writing nonetheless.
The problem is, I'm not working on my current project. That's not to say that I haven't worked on it. In fact I finished a chapter yesterday and made a small start on the next chapter. But when I started the book last year, having receieved encouragement for my idea and my first page, I was excited. I wanted to write it. In fact, when I sent the first two chapters to a well-known thriller writer, her advice—jettison the first chapter and start the novel with the second, which she said approached terrific—gave me a new burst of enthusiasm.
Video I made for my cozy mystery.
My lifelong dream has been to write mysteries. My idols were Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, snd so on throught the roster of Golden Age authors I gobbled up insatiably since childhood. And this would definitely be in that genre. Maybe more cozy than Christie, but an English village mystery.
But I had another book to write, At the Ready. And I was committed to write an almost-novella for the anthology Mistletoe and Markets. (It releases in November with my story, "Partridges and Gold Rings.") I wrote "Leaving Cleveland" for a new Blackbird Writers anthology, Provoked, to be released early next year. All productive work, but I also took on several more projects due in the first half of next year.
Maybe I was procrastinating. Certainly my addiction with the design program, Canva, which I use for marketing, gobbled up huge amounts of time. I also came up with a long list of future ideas for my various series. I have enough to keep me busy for years.
The other thing is launching a book. There are a lot of pieces in involved, and my month of promotion is still going on. The goal is as many sales, KU reads, and reviews as possible to send it in the world. August was mostly about promoting first Austen Tea Party and At the Ready. At the end of Novembr the audobook for At the Ready will release, so more frenzied promotion is on the horizon.
This summer I finally returned to this manuscript and the difficulties began. My murder plot wasn't going to work. I realized that I not only hadn't pinpointed the right murderer, I hadn't created the actual murderer. By that time I was about five chapters in and had to change direction.
I'm still having issues fitting in the police investigation. The amateur dectectives are more important, but the police need to be more of presence. Still pondering that.
As an inveterate reader of mysteries from an early age, I expected that figuring out the clues and how to hide them wouldn't be that hard. Hah! I always knew this would be my Achilles' heel and so it has proved. I also have a second murder to fit in and I'm not bringing the suspects in enough.
The goal is to have the first draft done by the end September because I have another book to write in November and December as well as the three novellas for next year—one on protectors that will also be part of the Global Security Unlimited series, one on office romance that will be about Max Grant's older sister Meggy, and finally a sports romance that will eventually be part of a new hockey romance series.
In addition to Dead in the Studio, my November-December project and the second in the Murder in the North Country series, I also plan to finish off my Regency romance, Colonel Fitzwilliam Meets His Match. The short story was published in the Austen Tea Party anthology in August.
So what happens now? I've filled today with new ways to procrastinate—the final stage of the Vuelta a Espagna, a live video tour of Prague, and the Blackhawks prospect team playing their Minnesota Wild counterparts. I also have one more blog post to write for my Blackbird colleague Valerie Biel.
And writing? I have thought of just shelving the book, but I like to finish what I start. For now, I push on and hope things come together. Stay tuned and see what happens next.
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