Saturday, August 9, 2008

Welcome to Mystery Writing is Murder

You're invited to come along as I chronicle writing my third cozy mystery. I hope this log will help me with my next book and help anyone else who finds writing a novel overwhelming at the beginning.

You'd think by this time it would be easier. After all, this is a series and I know my main characters pretty well. The setting is based on a place familiar to me both on the page and in person. And I have a basic plan for the story. But for some reason it's not all that simple.

I do reach a point in the story where the words come out faster than I can record them: in the car, at the grocery store, during conversations with people that I should be listening to, in the kids' carpool line. But at the beginning, I like to research and think things through. That's the slowest, most difficult part of the process to me. I'm planning on posting websites, blog entries, and books that help me out. Since I do like taking breaks, I'll also post some mini book reviews along the way. And, because I'm a mom with a regular life (do any of us have a true 'regular life?!'), there'll also be plenty of posts on how I'm fitting this process in with parenting, being a Brownie leader, and cleaning my house. And blogging! You can find me on another blog, too-- http://www.carolinaconspiracyblog.blogspot.com/

Time to write.