My first cozy mystery has something I haven't seen in any other book of this genre, links in the text to original music written by the author.
I described in a previous post how I came to write the songs…
Read moreMy first cozy mystery has something I haven't seen in any other book of this genre, links in the text to original music written by the author.
I described in a previous post how I came to write the songs…
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I have seen unambiguous requests, by agents and publishers, for characters who represent groups society has, historically, pretended do not exist. I have read advice from "experts" who suggest any manuscript will be improved by including characters who embody different…
Read morePeople often ask if a particularly personal sounding song lyric is taken directly from my life. Sometimes it is.
In my early days of songwriting, it almost always was. As I tried to grow and improve as a songwriter, I…
Read moreWhen I first put pen to paper, I imagined I was writing the first in a series of musical mysteries. I wanted each of the books to have a music-related setting and to be filled with the sounds and experience…
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I wrote my first cozy mystery in about a year. It added up to seventy-eight thousand three hundred words, two hundred seventy-nine pages, twenty-three chapters and five original songs. It was fun but also hard work, and I was rather…
How do I choose a name for the main character in my first book?
That's the question I wrestled with as the ideas that eventually coalesced into a cozy mystery rattled around in my head.
Stephanie Plum, Claire Malloy…
Read moreI wanted each book in my series of cozy mysteries to be steeped in music, infused with the sounds and experience of music making. So, what better location for the first murder than a music festival?
In creating the Oak…
Read moreJust about the time I finished the second chapter of my cozy mystery, the opportunity arose to join a writer's group facilitated by Pauline Hahn, an amazing writer, actress and teacher. Members of the group included a poet, a…
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I told my mother I was writing a book.
"What's it about?" she asked.
I said it was a murder mystery.
"Oh," she said, unable to hide her disappointment, "why would you want to write about murder?"
Why indeed.
The…
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