We are delighted to welcome author Julie Mulhern to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of Great Escapes Book 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.
Julie's second mystery in her Country Club Murders series is Guaranteed To Bleed (Henery Press; October 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we asked her to tell us a little more about her writing process.
— ♦ —
Photo provided courtesy of
Julie Mulhern; Photo credit
Larry Levenson
Every so often someone asks me about process. It's a question I prefer to sidestep. But now, with a deadline racing toward me (racing, I tell you) how (and how quickly) I move words from my mind to the page is more important than ever.
I always carry the last ten pages of my manuscript with me. Always. They are usually stuffed in my purse along with three pens that don't work, whatever my daughters have entrusted to me for safekeeping (foolish girls), a checkbook with no checks in it, and a wallet. But they're there — just waiting for me to find ten minutes or get stuck in an especially slow drive-thru.
On a good day, those ten sheets of paper will end up covered in chicken scratch. This means that those ten pages are now fifteen and that those fifteen are strong enough for me to move on.
There's also a composition notebook in my purse. I'd like to be one of those elegant, serious writers who jots brilliant bits of prose in a Moleskine notebook. I would. But the truth is, I am probably better off with a wide-ruled notebook purchased from Target at their back-to-school sale (I stock up).
A recent Sunday afternoon found me at a kid's event in the middle of nowhere. I sat in my car and filled page after page with Ellison's adventures. Those long-hand pages were edited as I typed them, then carried around until there were enough notes to justify a return to the computer.
The process is not elegant (no Hemingway inspired Moleskine) but it works for me. Hopefully quickly — that deadline is still looming. If (when) I meet it, readers can look forward to Clouds in My Coffee in May.
— ♦ —
Julie Mulhern is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean — and she's got an active imagination. Truth is — she's an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at JulieMulhern.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
Guaranteed To Bleed by Julie Mulhern
A Country Club Murder Mystery
Publisher: Henery Press
With his dying breath, Bobby Lowell begs Ellison Russell, "Tell her I love her."
Unable to refuse, Ellison struggles to find the girl the murdered boy loved. Too bad an epically bad blind date, a vindictive graffiti artist, and multiple trips to the emergency room keep getting in the way.
Worse, a killer has Ellison in his sights, her newly rebellious daughter is missing, and there's yet another body in her hostas. Mother won't be pleased.
Now Ellison must track down not one but two runaway teenagers, keep her promise to Bobby, and elude the killer — all before her next charity gala committee meeting.
— Guaranteed To Bleed by Julie Mulhern
