Full Circle for a Debut Author

by Shari Randall

Many thanks to the Stiletto Gang for inviting me to be part of the, well, gang. This year marks my debut as a novelist with the January 30 publication of the first in my new Lobster Shack Mystery series, Curses, Boiled Again! I'll be sharing the debut author journey with you here on the third Friday of the month.

As I gear up for my first author panel as a novelist, I can’t keep a verse from the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime” from going through my mind: “How did I get here?”

The panel will be held at the same library in Virginia where I was a children’s librarian for more than 12 years. We’ll sit in chairs in the same room where I sang “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt” for toddlers, introduced The Reptile Lady, and dressed up as Professor McGonagle for a Harry Potter birthday celebration. Talk about a crazy journey!

Fast forward to my panel. I’m thrilled that two of my favorite authors and friends will be with me, Donna Andrews and Sherry Harris.

How did I get here?

Many writers can point to the moment they started on the road to becoming a writer – a prize for an elementary school poem, a spot on the high school yearbook, a sale to a magazine.

My road started as a voracious reader in the library of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Meriden, CT. The librarian, Mrs. Macri, was an energetic lady who wasn’t much taller than her students but tried to gain a few inches on us with very high stiletto heels. How I marveled at those heels. (And how I still marvel at those who can wear them!)

One day in fourth grade, a thick book on a high shelf caught my eye. Mrs. Macri saw me looking and pulled it down for me. “Oh, you’ll like this,” she said as she put the book into my hands. She didn’t say, “Oh, that’s too old for you” or “Try something easier.” The book was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

I didn’t just like it, dear reader. I devoured it and started trying to write my own stories.

That started my lifelong love of mysteries.

Fast forward through unfortunate high school poetry, an English degree, work at my hometown newspaper, editing for a Boston publisher, freelancing, teaching, doing a masters in library and information science, to my job in a mid-sized library in the lower level of a shopping mall in a county of almost a million people near Washington, DC.

Deep into years of budget cuts, our teen section was looking particularly tired. I was searching for grant money to buy fresh copies of books when I came across the We Love Libraries program from a writers group called the Sisters in Crime. I did some research, got my boss’s okay, and applied for the grant.

We won! One thousand dollars with no string attached. Let me tell you, ain’t no party like a librarian party where you can buy books with somebody else’s money!

Four Sisters came to the check presentation ceremony: GM Malliet, C. Ellett Logan, Terri Bishop, and Ellen Byerrum. They told me about the local Chesapeake chapter, the Chessies, and the yearly short story anthology. Did I write? Did I know anyone who had a short story to enter?

Did I ever! Me.

The thrill of having that first short story published, and holding that book in my hands, is something I’ll never forget. I thought it would be different with this novel, but the thrill is the same with Curses, Boiled Again!

Eight years, two short stories, four novels (one published, one ready for submission, one in pieces, one in a drawer awaiting the light of day) and scores of blog posts have been part of my journey from that grant and inspirational meeting with the sisters of the Chessie Chapter.

Am I grateful? You bet. As the Sisters say, you write alone, but you’re never truly alone with sisters. My novel wouldn’t have happened without them. Thank you, always, Chessies and Sisters in Crime.

I'll send a copy of Curses, Boiled Again to one commenter - please share something that makes you feel grateful. Thank you for stopping by!

When she’s not committing murder (on the page, of course), Shari enjoys walking the beach near her house, traveling and eating the local cuisine, reading, and dancing. She’s currently trying to talk her husband into a tango class.

She's had two short stories published in the Chesapeake Crimes anthology series: "Disco Donna" in Chesapeake Crimes: Homicidal Holidays and "Keep It Simple" in Chesapeake Crimes: This Job Is Murder.  A third, “Pet,” will be published in Chesapeake Crimes: Fur, Feathers, and Felonies in spring 2018. You can see what's new with her at https://us.macmillan.com/author/sharirandall and check out her mermaid obsession on Instagram @sharirandallauthor.

What I’ve Learned So Far

By Kay Kendall

Are you writing a book…or contemplating doing it? If so, here are things I’ve learned since finishing my debut novel. Maybe these tips will help you, or at least you’ll find them interesting.

1. Keep reading. Just because you’re writing your own book, that doesn’t mean you can stop reading other ones. In fact, I’ve read more, not less, since I began to write fiction. I submerged myself in the mystery/suspense genre for almost two years before I started Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery. Picking up the tricks of the trade by osmosis suits me better than gulping a dozen dry how-to tomes. Of course, I read those too!

2. Keep a writer’s notebook. Brilliant thoughts are fleeting. You need to pin them down before they get away. Because I write about the sixties, I often find character traits and plot points when reading obituaries in the New York Times, for example, and if I don’t capture those flashes of insight, they will leave me. I annotate my clippings and put them in my bulging notebook. Some ideas are for the second book I’m writing now, while others will fit in the third or fourth of my Austin Starr series. I’ll be delighted to find the clippings a few years from now when I start writing the relevant stories. My mind is like my bulging notebook, and sometimes things fall out because of crowding. It’s far easier to keep the physical clippings together. Or online digitally.

3. Keep note-taking material beside your bed. Lesson learned the hard way. Early in my transition to becoming an author, I’d be on a hot streak writing a first draft, go to bed, wake up at two in the morning, have a fantastic revelation about plot, turn over and go to sleep, confident I’d recall everything in the morning. Wrong! Scintillating night thoughts went poof in the light of day. Twice was enough to teach me to keep paper and pencil on the night stand. Whatever the technology you choose, be sure to keep it handy. A tiny voice recorder works too, or making notes on your cell phone or tablet.

4. Keep up with your pals. Writing can be a lonely pursuit, and trying to get published these days is a killer. I needed all the support I could get, and my friends stepped up and stayed there right beside me on my journey. They kept me going through the darkest days and have been my staunchest supporters and shared my joy upon publication. I’ve also made new friends as I’ve joined writers’ critique groups and associations. Many writers are said to be introverts, but I’m not. Two new pals who write mysteries are extreme introverts, and I keep in close touch with them and actively encourage them to mingle with other writers. I’m a staunch believer in the truth of what Barbra Streisand sang back in the sixties. Remember this? “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

5. Keep walking the dog. Or running, spinning, or dancing. Whatever exercise you used to do before you became an avid or full-time writer, don’t stop. Health gurus are adamant that sitting all day is a terrible habit that can lead to early death and/or dementia. Besides, when I’m on my exercise bike, I zone out and then, given enough time, ideas for my writing zone in. The mind-body connection is worth protecting with sufficient exercise. Even when I’m on a deadline, I try to stick to this rule. However, it’s time for a true confession. I have trouble with this one, actually walking the talk.

6. Keep the faith.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” When I first saw that quote on a coffee mug for sale at Whole Foods a decade ago, I was too scared to pick it up. How dare I think I could write a novel? But I forced myself to buy that mug, and after using it for two years and writing my first manuscript, I began timidly to call myself a writer. I began to have faith that I would finish a book and eventually get it published. When the first one didn’t sell, I wrote the second. My friends (see #4 above) helped keep me going. I persevered until the second manuscript sold and became Desolation Row. Now my work in progress is Rainy Day Women, and I’m outlining the third, Tangled Up in Blue.  I have faith I will complete those because I’ve pushed through the dark times, “getting by with a little help from my friends.” Footnote to the Beatles for that one, plus maybe you can tell by my book titles that my amateur sleuth Austin Starr is a huge fan of Bob Dylan.

7. Keep on keeping on. Once I found what works to make my writing life roll along as smoothly as possible, I’ve kept on doing it. Sometimes I find guidelines in how-to articles suggesting that my way is not the right way. The best writing coaches add the caveat, though, that there is no perfect method of writing a novel.

I’ve now been at this venture long enough that I’ve come across some authors who do have habits similar to mine. While most experts advise that a first draft should be done as rapidly as possible, without editing as you go. I find I cannot do that. Just can’t. Feeling a little guilty, I wrote my way through Desolation Row, editing obsessively, until one day—lo and behold—I found an interview in which the bestselling author explained that he always began his writing day by editing what he’d written the day before. Well, what a relief! I was okay. Now I count this as a lesson learned. As we used to say back in the day, just keep on truckin’. 

~~~~~~~
Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations executive who lives in Texas with her husband, five house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Alan Furst does for Europe in the 1930s during Hitler's rise to power--write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age.

Discover more about Kay's debut book, DESOLATION ROW, here at
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com

True Writing Crime

By Cindy Jones

I’m thrilled to be a guest of the Stiletto Gang today. However, now that I find myself in the bosom of mystery writers, I feel the urge to confess a crime.

I stole a house.

What can I say? I needed a house for my novel. An English Country House to be exact. We don’t have them in my neighborhood so I looked on the internet. Bingo. When I found the house, I knew it was perfect. I studied the pictures, read everything I could find, and began lifting that house, brick by brick from the website, via my imagination, into my story. I did not reproduce any pictures or commit plagiarism, and if the operation had stopped there, I could live with it. But I visited the scene of the crime (in England). And that’s when it got bad.

The downside to helping yourself to another person’s house (without actually seeing it) is that you might get it wrong. If my understanding is flawed or incomplete, the depiction will seem inauthentic. So there I was driving on the wrong side of the street in a foreign country, worrying that I might have missed the point of the house I’d already appropriated for my book. Or missed the point of English Country Houses, which might mean I’d missed the point of England, for all I knew. What if I had to re-write the whole book? My hands started sweating and butterflies danced as I anticipated actual reunion with the house I’d spent years imagining.

When I finally found the sign on a rural road in the middle of nowhere directing me to my Manor House’s parking lot, I was giddy with excitement. A man on a backhoe was shoveling dirt. I got out and stretched my legs, making sure I had my camera. The man on the backhoe asked if he could help me. When I told him I was there to see the house, he told me they were closed.

What?

Backhoe Man did not care that I had come halfway around the world to see my house. The fact that the concierge at my hotel spread misinformation about their hours of operation was my problem, not his. The fact that I was an unpublished novelist in love with his house was also my problem. He would not even allow me walk close enough to glimpse the house through the thick copse of trees.

Really?

We got back into the car and pretended to leave. My mother (who loaned me her wedding dress when I needed a queen costume in 6th grade) masterminded the plan to stop the getaway mobile at the end of the driveway long enough for me to run up and look at the house. Backhoe Man was shoveling dirt again. There was no time to lose.

Frightened and desperate, I snuck up the drive. It was worth it. The house rose magnificently from the grounds, far more beautiful in reality. I memorized the look of the old bricks, the swirly glass windows, the serene grounds. I’d gotten it all completely right. I hated to leave. But it was too late. Backhoe Man saw me looking at his house. He dismounted and came after me, not even civil.

I offered to pay.

Writing can lead to a life of crime. Being creative—joining unlike things to make something new—is not a crime, but sometimes acquiring the unlike things to be joined raises problems. (My sisters never greet me without first narrowing their eyes and asking, “Is that mine?”) The English Manor house is just the tip of the iceberg.

So don’t show me your membership roster or your high school yearbook—I’ll be memorizing names to use in my next novel. Don’t talk on the phone around me, I harvest unguarded conversations. Do not tell me secrets because secrets are pure gold in my business. Above all, do not reveal your humanity to me, because I will take that glimpse of your inmost heart and apply it to my character, breathing your life into my creation so that my fiction might resonate with readers I’ve never even met.

If you would like to tour the house I virtually stole for my novel, check out My Jane Austen Summer. The House first appears in all its glorious splendor on page 42—brick by virtual brick.

**The gracious Cindy is giving away a signed copy of My Jane Austen Summer to one lucky Stiletto Gang reader!  Just leave a comment sometime on this post between now and Sunday, April 24 at noon (Central Time), and Cindy will randomly drawer a winner!  Thanks, Cindy, and good luck, everyone!

About Cindy:  Born in Ohio, I grew up in small mid-western towns, reading for escape. I dreamed of living in a novel and wrote my first book in fifth grade. After a business career, husband, and the birth of four sons, I wrote My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park, winner of the Writer’s League of Texas Manuscript Contest. I have a BA from Mary Washington College, an MBA from the University of Houston, studied creative writing in the SMU CAPE program, and belong to the The Squaw Valley Community of Writers. I live with my family in Dallas where I have discovered that, through writing, it is entirely possible to live in a novel for a good part of each day.