Today's Mystery Author Guest: L. C. Hayden

 As promised yesterday, fellow mystery author L. C. Hayden is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. Also, L. C. is running a contest for a free autographed copy of one of her books with TWO winners. One will win a copy of the latest mystery in her Harry Bronson series, When the Past Haunts You, and the other will win a copy of the first Aimee Brent mystery, ILL Conceived. L. C. will choose the winner from among those who leave a comment!

In When the Past Haunts You, retired police detective Harry Bronson is forced to face a painful, secret past when his estranged sister begs him to help her. What he learns about her life over the past decades leads him on a serpentine path through the corrupt underbelly of the rich and powerful. The novel’s many twists and turns will leave the reader breathless and will keep him guessing until the very end. The book goes beyond the mystery novel as its themes explore family relationships, bitterness, and forgiveness. If Bronson is to solve his sister’s murder and ultimately become a better man, he must confront yesterday’s ghosts, not an easy task When the Past Haunts You.


Sounds pretty exciting to me, and I can't wait to read the first book in L. C.'s new series, too! Below is L. C.'s guest article. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question for her, ask it!

The Birth of a New Series

Readers seem to like my mystery series character, Harry Bronson. He’s tough and determined. Yet he has a gentler side to him. The series has been an Agatha Award Finalist for Best Novel of the Year (Why Casey Had to Die), an Left Coast Crime (LCC) Award Finalist for Best Regional Novel (What Others Know), and is now a nominee for the LCC 2013 Watson Award (When the Past Haunts You). In addition, this book hit number two on the Kindle Best Seller Police Procedural List and is my best selling mystery novel.

You could say that the Harry Bronson Mystery Series is both popular and successful. If so, then why did I decide to leave the series and start a new one, the Aimee Brent Mystery Series? Simply because I’m looking into the future. What if at one time or the other, I get tired of Bronson? What if I can’t come up with a fresh plot? Is that when I should start thinking of a new series?

No, by then it would be too late. Why? Because if you lose interest in your series, chances are that so will the readers. This is the one point authors who write more than one series are adamant about. They all advised the same thing: start the new series at the height of the previous one. It stands to reason. Your readers feel enthusiastic about your series, and when they learn that you’ve started a new one, they’re likely to give it a try.

On the other hand, if readers don’t care for the original series, they’ll be less likely to try the new one. If this is the case, what can you as the author do to generate interest in the new series?

Several authors said that this is the time to reinvent yourself. Start the series using a different name. Make no reference to the previous series and go with the idea that you’re a new author who’s written that first book.

Another piece of advice I received from established authors who pen two or more series is to make each series unique. Don’t use characters that act the same way or are similar to each other. The settings should contrast. Dialogs must be different and so should the relationships between your characters.

Some authors prefer to take the idea of creating two different series to the extreme. They’ll make one series a cozy and the other noir. However, I feel that isn’t necessary. It’s okay to pen two different thrillers or two different romantic mysteries or whatever the case you want to write about. The key here is to create a different series with different characters.

One question that often pops up when an author decides to deviate from the original series is should the author forget about that series. That would depend on the reason why the author chose to create the new series. If it’s because that first series is at its death bed, then of course, trash that series.

On the other hand, if the author started a new series to prevent future stagnation and if that series is popular, the author would be foolish to abandon the series. Authors who write one more series recommend that you write two or three of the second series before releasing another title from the first series. From there on, it’s up to you. One of each, some suggest. Others disagree. Better to do two or three from each series, they say. I suppose, the decision will depend solely on the author.

As for me, I’m introducing the Aimee Brent Mystery Series, which focuses on Aimee, a reporter based in S. Lake Tahoe, California. Her first book ILL Conceived will be released in late February. I’ve already written the first draft of the second Aimee Brent mystery, Vengeance in My Heart. I expect that book will have a late 2013 release date.

Soon as I finish with Vengeance in My Heart, I’m back to the next Harry Bronson book. Harry and I have been having some late night conversations and a plot is starting to form. I’m excited and looking forward to working with Harry again.

But in the meantime, I’m enjoying the heck out of Aimee Brent.

I hope you will too.


Love those late night conversations with my characters. Thanks, L. C.! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Good luck in the contest!   

Tomorrow's Guest: L. C. Hayden

Tomorrow, fellow mystery author L. C. Hayden will be a guest on my blog. Also, L. C.  will run a contest for a free autographed book, with TWO winners. One will win a copy of the latest mystery in her Harry Bronson series, When the Past Haunts You, and the other will win a copy of the first Aimee Brent mystery, ILL Conceived. L. C. will choose the winners from among those who leave a comment.

L. C. Hayden is the creator of the award winning Harry Bronson Mystery Series. Critics are hailing her latest release When the Past Haunts You as the best mystery of 2012. This month, the book was nominated for the 2013 Watson Award and hit the Number 2 Kindle Police Procedural Best Seller spot. Hayden has also just introduced a new mystery series. The first Aimee Brent Mystery is ILL Conceived and will have a late February release. You can visit L. C.'s website and check out her books on Amazon.  She invites you to be her Facebook friend at Lc Hayden and Tweet her @LCHayden1.

In her guest post tomorrow, L. C. talks about The Birth of a New Series, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, please make a comment or ask her a question in the comments, and good luck in her contest!

Fun Punctuation Marks

A writing friend of mine alerted me to this fun article about "13 little-known punctuation marks we should be using." I personally like the certitude point the best. What's your favorite, and which one would you use the most if it was on your keyboard?

Summit County Senior Winter Games

As those of you know who follow me on Facebook, I competed in four events of the Summit County 2013 50+ Open Winter Games. The Games offered many different kinds of winter sports events, including figure and speed skating, hockey puck shoot, nordic and alpine skiing, snowball throw, snowshoeing and a biathalon. I entered three alpine skiing events, the Giant Slalom, Rally Race (where you try to match a time), and the Obstacle Course, and I entered the Short Snowshoe Race (about 1 km). The photo below is of me primed for the snowshoe race.

The medal count for the Summit County Senior Winter Games is sky high, because they award gold, silver, and bronze for each event for men and women separately for every 5-year age group. It's like kindergarten! Anyway, I earned a medal in every event I entered. Gold for the Short Snowshoe Race, where I was the fastest woman OVERALL, silver for the Giant Slalom and Rally Race and bronze for the Obstacle Course (got to work on my backward skiing speed). The award ceremony/party was a lot of fun. The photo below is of me and my husband with our medals.

I will admit that I was also the youngest woman in the short snowshoe race. But there are some really athletic seniors in their 70s here that I huff and puff to keep up with on my summer hikes and winter snowshoe excursions. The oldest woman competing in the games is 86, and the only woman in her age category (85 - 89). She entered LOTS of events, and her neck was weighed down with gold medals by the end of the award ceremony. Gals like her are my role models! 

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Judy Alter

As promised yesterday, fellow mystery author Judy Alter is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. Also, Judy is running a contest for a free autographed copy of Murder at the Blue Plate Café, and will choose the winner from among those who leave a comment!

The photo above is the cover for Judy's February 10th release, Murder at the Blue Plate Café, the first book in the new Blue Plate Café series. In the book,when twin sisters Kate and Donna inherit their grandmother’s restaurant, the Blue Plate Café, in Wheeler, Texas, there’s immediate conflict. Donna wants to sell and use her money to establish a B&B; Kate wants to keep the cafe. Thirty-two-year-old Kate leaves a Dallas career as a paralegal and a married lover to move back to Wheeler and run the café, while Donna plans her B&B and complicates her life by having an affair with her sole investor.

Kate soon learns that Wheeler is not the idyllic small town she thought it was fourteen years ago. The mayor, a woman, is power-mad and listens to no one, and the chief of the police department, newly come from Dallas, doesn’t understand small-town ways. Worst of all, blunt, outspoken Donna is not well liked by some town folk. The mayor of Wheeler becomes seriously ill after eating food from the café, delivered by Donna’s husband, and the death of another patron makes Kate even more suspicious of her grandmother’s sudden death. When Donna’s investor is shot, all fingers point to Donna and she is arrested. Kate must defend her sister and solve the murders to keep her business open, but even Kate begins to wonder about the sister she has a love-hate relationship with. Gram guides Kate through it all, though Kate’s never quite sure she’s hearing Gram—and sometimes Gram’s guidance is really off the wall.

Sounds like a fun read to me! Below is Judy's guest article on her path to publication. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question of your own for her, ask it!

Beth, thanks for inviting me. It’s exciting to get a chance to talk about my long career in writing and my devious path to mysteries. I believe what we always hear: Persistence pays off.

I always knew I would write, starting with short stories when I was ten or twelve, a story submitted to (and rejected immediately by) Seventeen in high school, a career as a medical editor while in graduate school, with quite a few articles on medicine for lay readers: “Tell me, doctor, if I have a pain in my side, is it appendicitis?”

 I majored in English because I liked to read. I kept going back for another degree because it was easier than looking for a job. Then one day I had a Ph.D. in English with a special interest in the literature of the American West and no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I planned to get married, and some man was going to take care of me—it didn’t quite work out that way, and I raised four children as a single parent, supported by a career in academic publishing.

Academically trained, I didn’t think I could write fiction. I’d been trained to support, defend, document but not give way to my imagination. One day, as if a light bulb went off, I realized I could turn a memoir I’d been given into a novel: I did, and it was sold by a New York agent to a major publisher as a young-adult novel. I was pigeon-holed by that 1978 novel, After Pa Was Shot.

For the next 25 years I wrote fiction and non-fiction, primarily about women in the American West. I won some nice awards, was president of Western Writers of America, and eventually earned their lifetime achievement award. Some of my earlier titles are available as e-books on various platforms. But a series of changes in the publishing world and the death of my agent left me adrift, so I wrote nonfiction for children on assignment from companies that sold to libraries.

All my life, I’d been an avid reader, and I was addicted to mysteries. Finally I thought if others can do this, so can I, and I leapt blindly into the world of mysteries. Oh, my, what I didn’t know! The best advice I ever got was from Susan Wittig Albert:  join Sisters in Crime and the sub-organization, Guppies. I kept telling myself if I could get just one mystery in print, I would be content.

It took six long years and some hard lessons about publishing and agents plus lots of rewrites before I decided the small press route was for me. Turquoise Morning Press published Skeleton in a Dead Space in August 2011, and two more Kelly O’Connell Mysteries followed: No Neighborhood for Old Women and Trouble in a Big Box.

This month, we’re launching a new series, Blue Plate Café Mysteries, with Murder at the Blue Plate Café. Another Kelly O’Connell will follow in July, and two books, one in each series, are under contract for 2014. So much for just one mystery! I’m particularly excited about the new series because it’s based on a café in East Texas where my family shared many good times with dear friends. And it’s fun to move my settings from inner-city Fort Worth and a historical district to a small town in East Texas.

I remember the days when I used to sit at my desk and think I’d write if I knew what to write. Now retired, my days are so packed and full I don’t know how I ever worked. But I love my new life and am so grateful to the many, especially Sisters, who have helped me along the way. Quit writing? Never.

Follow me on Facebook or my website. My blog is Judy's Stew and my food blog is Potluck with Judy. Or write me at j.alter@tcu.edu – I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks, Judy! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Good luck in the contest!   

Tomorrow's Guest: Judy Alter

Tomorrow, fellow mystery author Judy Alter will be a guest on my blog. Also, Judy will run a contest for a free autographed copy of the first release in her Blue Plate Café mystery series, Murder at the Blue Plate Café, choosing the winner from among those who leave a comment!

Born in Chicago, Judy Alter moved to Texas in 1964 and promptly became a Texan, eventually writing countless books about women in the American West. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Texas Christian University and was for many years director of the TCU Press. A dedicated cook in her spare time and a dog lover, she is the single mother of four grown children and grandmother of seven. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her Bordoodle puppy, Sophie. Her priorities? Family, writing, reading, and cooking. Oh, and that mischievous dog.

In her guest post tomorrow, Judy talks about her path to publication, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, feel free to make a comment or ask her a question in the comments.

This sounds like fun!

 The following casting call has appeared on-line. Do you think you've got the stuff to apply? It sounds like a fun time for anyone who is a mystery fan! What do you think?

NOW CASTING FOR NEW ABC MYSTERY REALITY COMPETITION

Are you a budding Sherlock Holmes looking to put your amateur crime solving skills to the test? Do you always figure out the ending before everybody else? Have you always seen yourself as the main character in mystery novels?

From the creator of *CSI*, Anthony Zuiker, and 51 Minds comes a brand new mystery reality competition for ABC. We are currently scouring the nation for armchair detectives, perceptive problem solvers or anyone who believes they have the mental acuity to go up against other like-minded sleuths for $250,000. This show is for everybody from ex-detectives who’ve solved
crimes all their lives, to a mother of three who has to figure out when her children are lying or where they hid her keys.

If you or anyone you know fits the mold of an ASPIRING GUMSHOE then APPLY today. You MUST be at least 21 years old and a legal US resident to be eligible.

For more information and complete eligibility requirements visit ABC.com/Casting or email us:

In Raleigh/North Carolina please submit to castingcatrina@gmail.com
Other areas please submit to: mindycasting@gmail.com

Include name, age, phone number, brief description of yourself, why you think you would be a great crime solver and two (2) recent photos. Make the subject line your current city and state. All submissions become property of producer. Good luck.

This casting notice was posted on auditionsfree.com

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Triss Stein

As promised yesterday, fellow mystery author Triss Stein is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. Also, Triss is running a contest for a free autographed copy of Brooklyn Bones and will choose the winner from among those who leave a comment!

The photo above is the cover for Triss's February 5th release, Brooklyn Bones, the first book in the new Erica Donato series about Brooklyn neighborhoods, Brooklyn history, family life, teenagers and crime. In other words, real life plus mystery. Triss thinks of it as “urban cozy” or “soft boiled.” In Brooklyn Bones, a crime of the past comes much too close to home when Erica Donato's teen-age daughter Chris finds a skeleton behind a wall in their crumbling Park Slope home. Erica - young widow, over-age history Ph.D candidate, mother of a teen, product of blue-collar Brooklyn - is drawn into the mystery when she learns this was an unknown teen-age girl, hidden there within living memory. She and her daughter are both touched and disturbed by the mysterious tragedy in their own home.

Sounds fascinating! Below are triss's answers to my interview questions. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question of your own for her, ask it!


1. Who or what inspired you to start writing and when did you start?

Beth, these are great questions. I came up with some answers that surprised even me!
Thank you for inviting me and giving me that chance to visit with your readers.

Now, back to the question. Probably Jo March, everyone's favorite Little Woman, and I’m not the only woman writer who would say that. I started writing my first book in fourth grade. It was about a little girl in New Amsterdam. I have no explanation whatever for this, but how interesting and weird that it was about history and New York – just like Brooklyn Bones. 

2. What tools and process do you use to “get to know” your characters before and while you’re writing the books?

It might be an exaggeration to call it a “process.” Mostly I wait to see who shows up, though I also scrawl a lot of random ideas in a notebook or on scrap paper to prime the pump. Hearing the narrator’s voice is the crucial beginning. For me, it always begins with someone telling a story. The next crucial part is the characters start talking to each other when I put them in a scene I need.  Eventually I get organized and make a list or even a spreadsheet to keep track of the details.

3. How do you construct your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?

“Construct” would another exaggeration. I am definitely a seat of the pants writer; I find out what I think by writing it. I honestly don’t recommend this method–it is very inefficient and I do a lot of rewriting–but though I always swear the next one will be outlined, I usually lose interest as soon as I try. I begin with a situation, some characters, and usually I know where they will end up.  Everything else is a journey without a map. 

4. In the age-old question of character versus plot, which one do you think is most important in a murder mystery and which one do you emphasize in your writing? Why?

I am a lot more interested in character than plot in my own reading, and it is the characters that keep me reading series. Naturally that is what interests me in my own writing, too. The pitfall–of course!–is that mysteries also need a plot. Those fun and interesting characters need to do things, and have things happen to them. Mystery plots are particularly challenging because there are always two. One is what seems to be happening in the present and the other is the underlying, real story. 

5. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer and what inspires you and keeps you motivated?

The challenge is a long story. Here is the short version: my first publisher dropped its mystery line right around the time I turned in the third book, which was the beginning of a year of many stresses in my life. I lost the energy, focus and even the desire to write. Had I retired, which was fine? Or given up, which probably was not? A wise person told me, “Don’t try figure it out. Write something.” I did, and discovered that I missed it. I dug out a book I had started years earlier, junked the terrible second version and rewrote the original one. More than a few times. Here it is now, Brooklyn Bones. 

6. What is a typical workday for you and how many hours a day (or week) do you devote to writing?

Ideally, I head for the computer right after breakfast, and write until lunchtime. I struggle, though, with a contrary impulse to just get all those little chores out of the way first, thus clearing my mind for writing. The cyber age has proved many, many more of them, too. (This is otherwise known as procrastination.) By then it is time to break for lunch, and I have wasted my most creative time of the day.

7. What advice do you have to offer to an aspiring author?

Understand that knowing how to write a sentence does not make you a writer, any more than playing Chopsticks gets you to Carnegie Hall. As the old joke goes, it takes practice! Treat it like a job, keep learning, and glue yourself to the desk chair. 

8. Now here’s a zinger. Tell us something about yourself that you have not revealed in another interview yet. Something as simple as your favorite TV show or food will do.

Since morning is my best creative time, I often write in pajamas. I go straight to the computer after breakfast.  Sometimes I wonder what the UPS driver thinks of seeing me in a bathrobe at every delivery. 

9. What are you working on now and what are your future writing plans?

I have another Erica mystery in the second draft stage. (As I am a seat of the pants writer this is not as far along as I would like. There will be about two more drafts, I think.) It involves historic and beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery, the theft of a Tiffany window from a mausoleum (this really happened, thought not there – too weird not to write about), and a charming (I hope!) turn of the last century mystery.

10. Is there anything else you would like to tell my blog readers?

Please visit my website. It has writing thoughts and news, a Fun Brooklyn Facts page, and contact information. I am on Facebook as Triss Stein for writing activities. I also belong to two group blogs, Poisoned Pen Authors on the 4th of the month and Women of Mystery, twice a month on varied dates. Come visit!

I am an experienced book panelist and currently co-chair the MWA/NY library program committee. I love to talk books and mysteries at book clubs, library programs or any time at all.


Thanks, Triss! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Good luck in the contest! 

Tomorrow's Guest: Triss Stein

Tomorrow, fellow mystery author Triss Stein will be a guest on my blog. Also, Triss will run a contest for a free autographed copy of the first release in her Erica Donato mystery series, Brooklyn Bones, choosing the winner from among those who leave a comment!


Triss Stein is a small–town girl from New York state’s dairy country who has spent most of her adult life living and working in New York City. This gives her the useful double vision of a stranger and a resident for writing mysteries about Brooklyn, her ever-fascinating, ever-changing, ever-challenging adopted home.


In her guest post tomorrow, Triss answers my interview questions, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, feel free to ask her some questions of your own in the comments.

Engineering a Mystery

Today I am blogging on Inkspot, the blog for Midnight Ink authors, about Engineering a Mystery. I outline the essential ingredients for the recipe of a mystery novel. I hope you'll head over there, read my article, and leave a comment letting me know what you think of it!

An Award Nomination for WICKED EDDIES!

I am absolutely thrilled that mystery fans who will be attending the Left Coast Crime 2013 conference next month (one of the three largest annual mystery fan conferences in North America) have selected my Wicked Eddies mystery novel as a finalist for THE ROCKY award, for the best mystery novel set in the Left Coast Crime geographic area (essentially the Mountain Time Zone and west to Hawaii)! You can read the list of award nominations HERE. I've got some heady competition with two of my favorite authors, Margaret Coel and Craig Johnson, in the running, along with a fellow Midnight Ink author, Darryl James. I'm honored to be in their company.

If YOU are attending the Left Coast Crime conference, I hope you'll read Wicked Eddies, if you haven't already, and consider voting for it to win the award. Another of my books has finaled for a mystery fan-selected award, A Real Basket Case, for the Best First Novel Agatha Award, but I have yet to make it from finalist to winner status. I'd love to be on that podium!

Today's Mystery Author Guest: Ellen Byerrum

As promised yesterday, fellow Colorado mystery author Ellen Byerrum is visiting my blog today. To read her bio and see her photo, please page down to yesterday's post. Also, Ellen is running a contest for a free autographed copy of Veiled Revenge and will choose the winner from among those who leave a comment!

The photo above is the cover for Ellen's February 5th release, Veiled Revenge, the ninth book in her Crime of Fashion mystery series. A haunted Russian shawl is featured in the book: a dark family legend come to life—and stalking the living? Washington fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian has always believed clothes can indeed be magical, but she’s never thought they could carry a curse. Until now. Lacey’s stylist and friend, Stella, is finally getting married (with a lot of luck, and a little help from her friends). Lacey's fellow bridesmaid (and psychic fortune-teller) Marie Largesse arrives at Stella's bridesmaids' bachelorette bash wearing a stunning Russian shawl. A shawl, Marie warns, that can either bless or curse the wearer. When a party crasher mocks the shawl and is found dead the next morning, Stella and her guests fear the ancient curse of the Killer Shawl has been unleashed. Cars crash, guns blaze, and puzzles dwell within puzzles. Lacey will need all her famous “Extra-Fashionary Perception” to stop a shadowy villain, one who vows that nobody at this wedding will live happily ever after.

Extra Fashionary Perception! I love it!  This looks like such a fun read. Below are Ellen's answers to my interview questions. Please leave a comment for her, and if you have a question of your own for her, ask it!


1. Who or what inspired you to start writing and when did you start?

It seems I always wanted to be a writer and was always a voracious reader. I studied journalism in college, but I also started writing plays in my senior year. Plays were much more fun than journalism exercises but certainly not profitable. Still I have had several produced and published under my pen name Eliot Byerrum. (A Christmas Cactus and Gumshoe Rendezvous are available from Samuel French, Inc.) Getting to the point of writing novels took a while. I always knew I wanted to write them, but I felt I needed some seasoning and experience before I produced a book. The first one, Killer Hair, was published in 2003.

Why Lacey Smithsonian and crimes of fashion? I remember distinctly why I came up with Lacey.  There were so many books that featured female sleuths who were rough and tough and smart and always got their man (or woman). But they only wore jeans and t-shirts pulled out from under the bed, and there was always a point where they explained how fashion just frightened them. Oooh, scary. It drove me crazy, and so I wanted a great female sleuth who could also dress herself without apology. However, my choice is a mixed blessing and it can be challenging to write about clothes and style in every book. Some readers reject them out of hand with the explanation, “I never read about fashion,” or something to that effect. Nevertheless, the clothes we wear tell stories about us, and that’s the way I use them in the books. They aren’t about Fashion with a capital F.

2. What tools and process do you use to “get to know” your characters before and while you’re writing the books?

Oh dear. I know there are writers who create character bibles and outline their entire lives, they know who doesn’t like spinach, but I am not one of them. However, I have my own quirks. I can’t write a character without a name. The name always gives me a picture of the person I want to describe. A name can suggest a nationality or a geographic area. It can be harsh or soft. Boring or evocative. In one of my plays, I decided Jericho Starland was better than Craig Golden. Once I changed the character’s name, a whole new back story and way of speech were suggested.

From my playwriting experience, I try very hard to give all the major players their own voice, so they can’t be confused with another character. I really want to be able to hear them and see them through what they say and what they do. Oh yes, and how they dress.

3. How do you construct your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?

My publisher requires an outline for my books, so I must submit one as part of the process. Sometimes they are helpful, but there is always the danger of expending too much energy on the outline and being exhausted by the time I write the book, and losing interest. Outlining definitely requires a balance when I write them. When I write, I love the moments when something occurs to me out of the blue, which is perfect for the book and leads me into completely different story territory and makes it deeper and richer. I can’t foresee that in an outline.

4. In the age-old question of character versus plot, which one do you think is most important in a murder mystery and which one do you emphasize in your writing? Why?

Characters inform the plot and manipulate the plot, so I’m a character writer. Hopefully the plot and characters are so entwined that you could hardly pull them apart. But plot mechanics without a motivated character pulling the strings are simply drudgery for me. Then it simply becomes moving your people around on a chessboard.

I’d like to say you can’t have plot without character and character without plot, but that’s not true. I’ve read heavily plotted works with paper thin characters and character studies where nothing at all happens, which some might call literature. But I’m not highbrow enough to enjoy that. In my book, something has to happen.

5. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer and what inspires you and keeps you motivated?

With all the distractions of marketing and publicity and the Internet, I find focusing on the writing is difficult, and finding the quietude for writing remains a constant challenge. I envy writers in the past who never had to check their e-mail and Facebook updates, who weren’t distracted by television. (Of course they didn’t have spell check or a cut-and-paste function on a computer.) Studies suggest we have lost our ability to concentrate. . .and um, what was I saying? Motivation?  Heaven only knows. I just keep going in spite of what might be sensible.

6. What is a typical workday for you and how many hours a day (or week) do you devote to writing?

I wish there was a typical workday, but there really isn’t. However, when I was working a full-time job, I would head toward a bookstore, coffee shop, or library where I would write, by hand, for an hour or two. Then I’d be able to key it in and revise later.  Now, in the beginning stages of a project, I still head to the coffee shop or library (where have all the bookstores gone?) to write. I couldn’t say how many hours a week I write.  It can vary from a couple hours a day to eight or ten when I’m under deadline. And of course, rewriting and editing are part of the equation. There are days that I am only editing and inserting corrections and complaining how hard it all is. In any day, I generally need some kind of physical activity, mostly walking, to keep the ideas coming.

7. What advice do you have to offer to an aspiring author?

I’m not exactly the best go-to person for the aspiring author. Writing takes a lot of work, dedication, pigheadedness, and Butt Glue. There are no shortcuts, really, although some people think you’ll succeed if you only know the right people. All you need is to do is to be connected and bingo, bango, you’re a bestseller! Maybe it works for some people, but not for me. A friend once commented on my published books: “Look at all you’ve done and you don’t even know anyone.” And I didn’t go to Yale either. So take heart, you don’t have to know anyone or go to Yale necessarily. It might help, it might not. You have to follow the beat of your own drummer and ignore what all your personal critics say.

Just so you know, I have personally discouraged a number of people who wanted to write. Not by anything I said, oddly enough. By example. At least three coworkers in the reporting business told me that after watching me juggle the job, the writing, the varied marketing duties, and show up every day an exhausted wretch, they decided writing a book was not for them. It was too hard: not the writing, but all the rest of it.  So I hope that works in my favor when I stand at the Pearly Gates.

8. Now here’s a zinger. Tell us something about yourself that you have not revealed in another interview yet. Something as simple as your favorite TV show or food will do.

When I was in college, I worked at J.C. Penney in the Housewares Department. When the department was expanded to include cake decorating supplies, we all had to take a Wilton Cake Decorating Course. Not only do I have a degree in journalism from a university that has scuttled and downgraded the program, I have a cake decorating diploma! I can make a frosting rose on a pastry nail. I forgot everything else. It was a long time ago.

9. What are you working on now and what are your future writing plans?

My next Lacey Smithsonian Crime of Fashion is being outlined right now. I have a title I love, but don’t want to divulge just yet. And I am bound and determined to finish a thriller I started a few years ago. I hope to have it finished in a couple of months.

Also, I recently published a middle grade/YA mystery novella, The Children Didn’t See Anything. It is available on Amazon, but will eventually be available for the Nook and other platforms.

10. Is there anything else you would like to tell my blog readers?

If you want more information about me or my books, please check out my website. I am also on Facebook and Twitter and Live Journal and Goodreads.



Thanks, Ellen! Now, who has a comment or question for her? Good luck in the contest! 

Tomorrow's Guest: Ellen Byerrum

Tomorrow, fellow Colorado mystery author Ellen Byerrum will be a guest on my blog. Also, Ellen will run a contest for a free autographed copy of the latest release in her Crime of Fashion mystery series, Veiled Revenge, choosing the winner from among those who leave a comment!

Ellen Byerrum is a novelist, playwright, reporter, Washington journalist, and a graduate of private investigator school in Virginia. Her Crime of Fashion mysteries star a savvy, stylish female sleuth named Lacey Smithsonian, a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington D.C. (which she calls "The City Fashion Forgot"). While researching fashion, Byerrum has collected her own assortment of 1940s vintage dresses and suits, and the occasional accessory, but laments her lack of closet space. Although she currently resides in Denver, Colorado, fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian will continue to be based in Washington. Veiled Revenge is the ninth book in Ellen’s series.

In her guest post tomorrow, Ellen answers my interview questions, and I'm sure you'll be intrigued by what she has to say. Then, feel free to ask her some questions of your own in the comments.

The Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championship

Last weekend was the culmination of the 23rd year that my hometown of Breckenridge, Colorado, has hosted the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championship. My husband and I worked as volunteers, serving breakfast to the sculptors Saturday morning and collecting People's Choice votes Saturday afternoon. Fifteen teams of artists from all over the world began sculpting huge blocks of stomped snow on Tuesday morning at 11 AM, and the sculptures had to be completed by 10 AM on Saturday morning. So, we had some sleepy folks coming in for breakfast that day, having worked through the night or only gotten a few hours of sleep before the final push to 10 AM.

My husband took hundreds of photos of the works-in-progress and the finished sculptures, and I selected a few of the photos to share with my blog readers. In the first one, the Canada/Yukon team works on their sculpture of an Inuit fable about a grandfather and young grandson hunting for meat for their starving village (all the menfolk were hunting whales far away). The only weapons they had were a knife (grandpa) and a harpoon (grandson). When they encountered a grizzly bear, grandpa went after him, but the bear ate him whole. Then as the grandson prepared to fight the bear to his death, the grandpa cut his way out of the bear's stomach with a knife, killing the bear, saving his grandson and providing food for the village. The moral of the story? Chew your food! ;-)

This is the  Singapore team working on their sculpture of the mythical Merlion (head of a lion, body of a fish that is the mascot of the country) and a surrounding pod of dolphins.

Here the Mongolian team works on their warriors charging on horseback. The Mongolians swept the awards, winning First Place in the official judging, People's Choice, and Artist's Choice.

Below, the Germany team works on their geometric sculpture of an exploding star.

And here's the Breckenridge team working on their sculpture of a bull-riding cowboy and a rodeo clown in a barrel behind him.

This is Iceland's egg, inscribed with the pattern of a typical Icelandic sweater.

This is the Second Place winner by Estonia, symbolizing a fairy tale where two lovers could only meet two times a year.

And here's the third place winner by Catalonia, an abstract tribute to Picasso.

This is Mexico's mechanical whale. We watched the team chip away the last extra supports minutes before 10 AM on Saturday, and the precariously balanced sculpture collapsed the next day.

Here I am, standing in front of the award winner and my favorite.

This is China's entry, of a Chinese family enjoying the advent of winter.

Below is Alaska's entry illustrating another fable about Raven, who transformed himself into a white bird to please his love. Then he stole the sun, moon, stars, water, and fire, which were all in her father's lodge. He hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, and brought the water and fire to the earth. The smoke from the fire turned his feathers black.

Here's the finished Team Breckenridge sculpture, showing the rodeo clown in the barrel behind the cowboy.

And here's the finished Canada/Yukon sculpture, showing the amazed grandson holding his harpoon off to the left. This sculpture won the Kid's Choice award.

This is the sculpture  by the Great Britain/Wales team, showing huge faces that exemplified each of the seven deadly sins.

And last is a shot of the large parking lot in which the sculptures were created and displayed.

I'm already looking forward to next year's event!