with Kathleen Delaney
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Kathleen Delaney to Omnimystery News, courtesy of Partners in Crime Tours, which is coordinating her current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find her schedule here.
Kathleen's fifth mystery to feature real estate agent Ellen McKenzie is Murder by Syllabub (Camel Press; June 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats), the first in which the character travels outside of her native California.
We asked Kathleen how she got started writing this series, and she most appropriately titled her guest post today, "Getting Started".
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Photo provided courtesy of
Kathleen Delaney
Almost everyone, at some time in their life, has an idea they think would make a great book. They know it's a great story, but have no idea how to go about putting it on paper.
It's true, it's not easy. There are many elements to putting together a work of fiction. You, of course, need a plot, characters, and a setting. All of that has to go together to make a whole story, with a beguiling beginning, an interesting middle, and a smashing ending.
Today, however, I don't want to talk so much about the process of constructing a story, and it is a process, but about authors. What makes an author? A burning desire to tell a story, a love of reading and the knowledge, deep down inside somewhere, that you have a story to tell, that you have lots of stories to tell, and you have to tell them. Authors need to have the ability to spend long hours by themselves, staring at their computer screens, thinking, plotting, writing. When your author friend is sitting at her desk, staring at a blank screen with an equally blank look on her face, she isn't catatonic. She's trying to figure out why that nice Amy Ferguson did what she did last night and how she's going to get her out of the rather messy corner she's written her into.
Authors have to have discipline. What, you say? Discipline? What for? All an author does is sit down in her comfy desk chair, turn on the computer, wait for the muse to strike and write down what she dictates. How I wish that were true. I've written five mystery novels, several short stories, a number of essays and more blogs than I care to remember and I have yet to meet my muse. I'm beginning to think she's a myth.
Someone, I forget who, said writing is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. They were right. As in any craft, and writing is a craft, you have to learn it. Just like the carpenter has to learn how to hammer in a nail without it going through his finger, the author has to learn how a good sentence is structured, how to build suspense in the story, when to end a chapter, how to make a character come alive. And how do you do that? By writing
So, if you want to write a book, this is the way to do it. Make time every day, let me repeat, every day, to write something. You budget your money and, for the most part, your time. Trips to the gym, grocery shopping, soccer practice or ballet lessons for the kids, and, of course, your day job, you make time for all of them. So carve out a little time each day to write. Do NOT think you will take the Thanksgiving weekend and sit down and knock out the first one hundred pages of that novel that's been kicking around in the back of your head for a while. You won't. You'll be so overwhelmed you'll put it off one more time and instead make that recipe for left over turkey you've been meaning to try for — how many years? Or you'll get the garden mulched. That always needs doing. But you'll never go back to that story. So, set goals for yourself, realistic ones, and write every day. Something. Anything. It doesn't matter. You're going to rewrite it anyway. Anne Lemont said, "all first drafts are s---." I say, the delete key is your friend. Give yourself a chance. That sentence is going to get better and the plot really will come together if you keep at it. Remember, all of us write stuff that makes us shudder the next morning. So, here's another little platitude to remember: Books aren't written, they're rewritten.
I don't mean you shouldn't take that creative writing class your local college is offering. Or that you shouldn't join your library's writing group, or buy that book on constructing a mystery you've been eyeing. You should. They all will offer you vital basic information. But the most important thing you can do is simply write.
So, go crank up that computer and put down something, what your great Aunt Lucille said when she caught you and your brother smoking out behind the hay pile, what happened to your kids their first year in 4H, or why you decided to wallpaper the bathroom ceiling and why you'll never do it again — you get the idea. See if any of it works in the story you are trying to wrestle to the ground, then delete it all and try again. But, keep at it. Everyday, one more little piece, a couple more pages, one more tweak of that sentence that just never reads right, and finally, one day you'll read it through, sit back and smile. You just wrote a book.
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Kathleen Delaney lived most of her life in California but now resides in Georgia. She is close to many historical sites, which she has eagerly visited, not only as research for this book but because the east is rich in monuments to the history of our country. Luckily, her grandchildren are more than willing to accompany her on their tours of exploration.
You can learn more about the author by visiting Kathleen Delaney's Blog or finding her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Murder by Syllabub
Kathleen Delaney
An Ellen McKenzie Mystery (5th in series)
This dessert drink had a real "kick" to it. A deadly one …
Click on the Amazon button to see also the special Whispersync offer associated with this title.
