These are the first writing reference books I bought, the Howdunit series from Writer’s Digest. I didn’t get the all at once as a group but over the course of my junior and senior years of high school. Some of these books are 20 years old! I can’t remember the first one I bought, possibly the Police Procedural one? Because I was such a huge fan of Law & Order and In the Heat of the Night. These books set me on the path of writing mysteries, and I still keep them close on the bookshelf behind my desk. I can’t imagine not having them close at hand, just in case I need them!
Preptober Day 10: Inspiration
Inspiration finds me in several ways, but locations tend to inspire me the most. Often, it’s comes from the places I’ve lived in or traveled to, less from pictures of places I’ve never actually experienced. The Motosu Mysteries came into being while I was living in Japan, and many of the settings I have planned for that series are also some of my favorite places in Japan. I also have plans for a contemporary murder mystery series set in the city I currently live in, and I would love to work on a series - either historical or contemporary - set in St. Augustine, Florida where I went to college and lived for seven years. It’s a beautiful town with a lot of history, and I always feel inspired when I’m visiting there again.
The courtyard of Flagler College, formerly the Hotel Ponce de Leon. Someday, I’ll set a mystery here!
Preptober Day 9: Logline
Logline for The Florida Bride, Motosu Mystery #4:
While on holiday, Helen Motosu investigates the disappearance of a young Japanese bride who vanishes before her wedding at the Yamato Agricultural Colony in south Florida.
This is already the second version of the logline, and I’m sure it will change again as I actually write the book during November and December. Some aspects that will stay the same: my sleuth Helen takes a vacation to Florida to visit a cousin, a Japanese girl disappears before her arranged marriage, and the main setting is the Yamato Colony that existed near what is now Boca Raton, Florida.
Preptober Day 8: Writing Music
I actually don’t like writing to music all that much! I prefer ambient sounds or background noise. I can write in a busy, noisy Starbucks without getting distracted at all. It’s how I used to write in college - I would go to Barnes & Noble with a pen and notebook, and I’d write for four hours. For a long time, I didn’t have a laptop or an iPod or anything else to turn off the B&N noise, so I just got used to it. And now I sometimes think I write better with all the background noise. When I do have my earbuds in, I’m usually listening to ambient noise channels on YouTube. And sometimes I’m not actually listening to anything, but having the earbuds in keeps random people from talking to me, which is a distraction, particularly at NaNoWriMo write-ins!
Preptober Day 5: Goals
In the 17 years that I have participated in National Novel Writing Month, I have always stuck to the 50000 word goal, even though none of my manuscripts have ever been finished at that count. This year, I want to finish a manuscript draft, which means going after 90000 words total. That is never going to happen in one month, so I’m giving myself until December 31st to do it. My actual goal for November is 54000, which I’ve done before and think I can do again. The real challenge will be doing another 36000 in December. I have done 30000+ words in a month before, but never on the heels of NaNoWriMo. Also, my Decembers tend to be busier than my Novembers, adding even more to the difficulty level of this endeavor. But I want to see if I can do it, so I’m going to go after that daunting number 90000 and see what happens!
Preptober Day 3: Genre
Over the years, I’ve written in a lot of different genres. I even wrote fanfiction for a while, including for one (unsuccessful) NaNoWriMo. For a long time, fantasy was my preference, inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia and In the Land of Unicorns. Then, in high school, I started watching Law & Order and In the Heat of the Night, and I was bitten by the mystery bug. I wrote fantasy for a while after that, but then, for NaNoWriMo 2009, I plotted a steampunky murder mystery set in late-Meiji era Japan. It wasn’t my first NaNo win, but it was my most successful (56000 words written!), and I’ve been enamored with mystery ever since. I have plans for historical mysteries (starting with the steampunk, which has become less steampunky over time) and contemporary mysteries in the future.
What I Write
The first stories I remember writing were about horses. I was seven, and I was obsessed with horses. (I am still slightly obsessed with horses, but I am more practical about what it takes to own one, so none of that for me right now.) I read many MANY horse-related books, and that was how I discovered The Chronicles of Narnia. A Horse and His Boy is still my favorite Narnia story. I started writing fantasy because of it.
Once I started writing, I didn’t stop. I wrote at every opportunity, even in the middle of class. Especially math class. I became skilled at not getting caught writing (or reading) in class. Those early stories were short and not very nuanced, but they were practice, and every writer needs to practice. In middle school, I started writing poetry, but it was never something I was serious about.
By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. It was the only thing I could imagine myself doing as an adult. I was encouraged to write, but as it came time for me to go to college, I wasn’t encouraged to be a writer. I was told all the things most young writers are told: “you won’t make money writing,” “writing’s not a real job,” “teaching would be a better career.”
When I went to college, I planned to become an English teacher. I majored in English and Secondary Education, because that was what seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Except I didn’t like my Education classes, and when my counselor asked me why I wanted to be a teacher, I told her I didn’t. I just wanted to write.
And she said, “So write. We offer Creative Writing courses, do that instead.”
So I did. I dropped the Secondary Education part of my degree and stuck to English, Psychology, and Creative Writing courses (with the odd History and Anthropology course thrown in). I took part in my first National Novel Writing Month in 2003 - I wrote 16,000 words, which did not make me a winner, but it was the most I had ever written on a story before, and I was happy.
I wrote fantasy almost exclusively through my 20’s, aside from an interlude in my first year of college during which I wrote Star Wars fanfiction. I read much more than fantasy, and I regularly watched Law & Order and In the Heat of the Night, my introduction to the world of mysteries. I didn’t like reading police procedurals, though, preferring cozies and historicals, but I didn’t think much about writing them. Then, while I was living in Japan, a student introduced me to Agatha Christie. I almost immediately stopped writing straight fantasy and switched over to murder mysteries.
I wrote my first murder mystery during NaNoWriMo in 2009. It was a steampunk mystery set in the latter part of the Meiji period in Japan. I was inspired by the recent release of Sherlock Holmes and the country I was living in at the time. I wouldn’t have considered myself a fan of steampunk - and I’m not sure I would now either. I’m not all that interested in the tech, more the setting and the tone, the aesthetic. That story has evolved over time, and now it’s more “alternate history” than straight-up steampunk.
It was the first novel I ever finished, the first one I ever edited, the first one I ever let other people read. Next year, it will be the first book I self-publish.
Pretty much everything I write now is a historical mystery, alternate history or otherwise. I do have half a manuscript for a cozy mystery that might see more development in the future, but for now, I’m sticking with historical mysteries.
My first mystery series is alternate history, set in Japan in 1907. The first book has recently gone through its fifth draft and has been handed over to a handful of beta readers. It will be ready to publish in the summer of 2020.
I am currently working on a draft for Book Two, which should be finished before this year’s NaNoWriMo, when I plan to get the first 50,000 words of Book Four. (What about Book Three? I already have a half-finished draft for that, and since I like to start new projects in November, I’m saving the rest of Book Three for next year.)
I have done some work for other historical mystery series, but I’ll be saving those for 2021 and beyond.