I Made It

Progress:  I kept this thing going for a month.  Now, I have to figure out how to make this pertinent to something or other.  Don't ask me what.  Am making a few changes though.

Got Emma through another chapter.  Have some ideas about making words appear faster on the page ... that I can follow through on ... but it remains to be seen if they'll work.  I'd have to start a whole new WIP to test them.  (Actually, I've got notes on file.  Like the characters, but have no idea what they are going to do besides fight something.)  

Bottom line here:  I must devise a way to outline that'll work with the way my brain doesn't work.


Tangled continues on its introspective way.  The tone won't change -- which will probably end up with it and its siblings never getting published.  It is so 70s, and maybe too literary for genre fiction.   -- Whoever said I was a conformist?

Trivia:  Pickings are getting slim at the farmer's market:  apples and squash.  I did buy a green pepper and probably the last corn-on-the-cob (for us).  Of course, there are other vegies there, but we get most of those from our own garden.  Today is tomato sauce day since we had to pick the vines before the big frost.  (I'll sneak one of the zucchini in there so I only have the two smaller ones left on the counter.)

Critical Reading:  (For me, that is.  Like trying to figure out how published writers make it work.  Maybe I should call this:  How They Done It.)

Finished the second of Charlaine Harris' Harper Connelly series (Grave Surprise) with way too many corpses showing up in the same grave and the suspects camouflaged within a sympathetic dysfunctional family.  This is a recently written series so maybe she's continuing it.  Still, haven't looked at the third book yet so I don't know if Harris capped it as a trilogy.  -- This is a mystery ... but it does have supernatural elements so I consider it fantasy.  Paranormal mystery, anyone?


One of the things I've noticed in both of the Harper Connelly books is that Harris gives a hint at the topic of her next book in the series.  In Grave Sight, she mentioned Tabitha Morgenstern as Harper's one failure.  In Grave Surprise, I think she gave some indication the relationship between Harper and Tolliver is changing.  At least, they seem to be reconciling with their estranged family.  I'll find out in the next book.  -- An interesting way to hook a reader outside of the usual pitch.



Guess this qualifies as a "cozy" since the gruesome details occur off-stage.  I'm not too sure what constitutes a cozy mystery, outside the murderous English village settings.  In my mind, I use two classifictions -- soft and hard-boiled.  Charlaine Harris is soft-boiled.  Lee Child is hard-boiled.

Writing:  I'm going to have a hard time concentrating on writing next week.  Fantasy-reading son  sent the DVD of the Harry Dresden TV show.  What a temptation, even though I understand not all the episodes aren't up to the standards of the weaker books.  Who knows, I might hate the episodes, but they should prove an interesting illustration on how a book (s) gets adapted into another medium.

Harking back to Harris.  (Or, is that 'harping', like nagging?).  In Grave Surprise, I could almost see the incident board, as in a police procedural.  The second time the perp (No spoilers here.) was mentioned, my suspicious were raised.  Each further mention of family members dropped clues and few red herrings.  Liked the twisted motive.  Harris puts sugar on southern gothic.  -- Guess, if I add a mystery element (since I flunked at thriller), I'll have to add an incident board to my outline. 

(Nothing like more balls when you can't even juggle three.)