A writerly day

Today I spent the day in the writerly world, answering emails, reading list servs, and most important to me: writing the first 500 words of a new novel. I’d been stuck in a quandary: try to market a completed manuscript which hasn’t so far received much interest, picking up the novel I abandoned in mid-stream, or play with a new idea. It’s an idea I’m not ready to make public, but I shared it with a small writers group, women whose opinions I respect highly, and got some enthusiastic responses. So two ideas went through my brain, and I wrote 500 words.

Let me say that’s not the ideal way to start a mystery. I know writers who do detailed plots, charting out not only chapters but scenes, making sticky notes about characters. When they put pen to paper they know where they’re going. When I put pen to paper I have no idea who’s murdered, who does it. Mostly at this point I have a setting, which takes Kate Chambers away from her Blue Plate Café to far West Texas. The rest will come as I write—I hope.

I realized immediately that my 500 words were like an outline of the first chapter—missed so many chances to add details and the like that might make the situation and the characters come alive off the page. So tomorrow I’ll go at it again. Nice to be writing again.

Meantime, Murder at Peacock Mansion should be live in a day or two on Kindle and other platforms. Print will follow shortly.

In line with country café cooking, I just had a fried pork cutlet with cream gravy—so good, so rich, so heavy. I’m ready for bed at an astoundingly early hour.