2018 is here and thought I’d share a bit about what my writing plans are so far. Of course, all of these plans could change in a moment based on real life happenings or even a random inspiration causing me to change direction. This happened last year when I had to spend a lot of time with doctors and a week in the hospital over the Christmas holiday. That little side trip unfortunately delayed the release date of “Betrayal At The North Pole” as well as the Audible release of “Murder At The North Pole.”

The third book of the Mistletoe Mysteries will take an initial break at the beginning of the year. There’s plotting work I’ll still be doing, but most likely it will not be my main focus. Last summer I plotted out the short stories that will comprise “Santa Claus and the Yeti Wars” and I should be starting those in the very near future. Those short stories will flesh out some of the history of the North Pole.

There are also some stand alone books that I want to take another look at the plots I have outlined and perhaps take another pass with a fresh mind at their plots and characters. After reading George Pelicanos’ “Drama City,” the stories of real life have intrigued and inspired me. He touches the heart of normal people and brings you into their world with a practiced hand. And I’m anxious to give that a try myself.

Many authors often start a new series of books while writing another one. This can often come at the chagrin of readers because it delays the next book of the existing series. I have a four part story kicking around in my head that my brain won’t let go of. This was how the Mistletoe Mysteries started out and I recognize that this story won’t go away unless I write it. This is one I’m excited for my readers to get into and more will be coming about that in the near future. This series will veer away from the Christmas themed stories and will most likely cause a brand change in the overall design of this blog as well.

Which brings up working in some time to rework the website as well. There will be additional blog updates as well as marketing, getting Betrayal At The North Pole onto Audible, and then back full circle to writing the third book of the Mistletoe Mysteries.

All in all, 2018 is already packed and it’s only day one! Buckle in, people, this year will be quite a ride!

Recently I was asked some of questions about writing.  These are often questions which come up when talking to people or at a book signing.  Instead of just replying to the email, I thought I would answer those questions here.

What made you want to start writing?

Some authors say they’ve always wanted to write, that they’ve been writing stories since they were five years old or something similar.  That’s not the case with me.  I dug up some old very short stories I had tried to write back in middle school and yes, I even won a competition in elementary school.  However, those stories were just rewrites of something I had seen on TV or read in a book.  After that, I did not attempt to write anything else until I was in my late 30s. I saw a course offering at a local community college for writing classes and thought I’d give it a try.  The story I started with back then is still bouncing around in my head and maybe one day I’ll actually get it  down on paper.  That course, fired my imagination and started me thinking about what story I would write next.

What is your writing process?

It’s basically broken down into a few phases:

1. Idea
2. Plotting/Character creation
3. Outline
4. Rough draft
5. Editing
6. First draft
7. Editing
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 as necessary

How long does the writing process take?

The plotting time depends on the length of the story.  For my upcoming novel, Betrayal At The North Pole, the plotting time took about two weeks.  A quadrilogy I’ve started working on is taking significantly longer because of the main story arc that threads through all four books.

Thanks to Kallee for the questions.

Back in 2011, I was asked by the administrators of Unleaded: Fuel for Writers to begin doing book reviews for their site.  Recently, Unleaded shut its doors for new posts.  I will be re-posting the book reviews I did for Unleaded here.  The rating I gave the books were Scottish flags because my heritage is Scottish.  However, I’ll be doing slight modifications, and using the standard stars and perhaps date modifications where necessary.

Murder at the North Pole is the initial installment of the Mistletoe Mysteries.  At the heart, the tale is one of friendship and overcoming racism.  This story started as a weird dream I had one night.  I woke up and jotted down a few notes of what I could remember.  Like many stories for many authors, this one kept wiggling around in the back of my mind.  I wasn’t sure what I would do with it.  I wasn’t even sure I considered myself a writer.

On a whim, I took a creative writing class at one of the local community colleges.  The spark had been ignited and I wanted to do more.  I took more classes and began to grow a network of writer friends.  I put together a rough draft of MatNP and submitted it to an anthology.  It was not accepted and that encouraged me to take that rough draft of a short story and turn it into a novel.

That’s how MatNP was born.  By this time, I was now part of a small writing group and they were invaluable in helping me develop the story.  They were patient enough as I went through several revisions and plot changes.  My first protagonist was TSTL (too stupid to live) and ended up being the victim of the story.

After I wrote this first death, I stared at the page marveling at how this character went his own way and did his own thing as he flowed from my fingers through the keyboard and ended up dead.  I shook my head.  I didn’t know what to do.  Instead of rewriting it, I came up with a new protagonist and the story took on a life of its own.  The racism among the Elves was originally planned, but the heat of that hate surprised even me.

And then there were the “deleted scenes.”  Some scenes just don’t work with the rest of the story.  It was like ripping off a band-aid; it hurt but was necessary.  Removing ten pages of narrative can be heart rending.  In fact, I kept that scene in a separate file in case it fit in later.  It never did and I forced myself to delete the file.

Finally, I took a couple of days off from my day job and pounded out the last chapters and finally wrote “THE END.”  It was a satisfying experience.  It was worth the pain of the entire process.  For any of you out there who are trying to write, whether it be poetry, short story, or novel, you can do it.  You are a writer.