A Blog a Day: Month of July 2017
Plucking of My Heartstrings
Cheryl Wright is featuring A Blog a Day for the month of July 2017. Reluctant Medium at Large in Santa Fe is scheduled for July 29th. Check out the variety and scope of the blogs she has chosen. Click on the photo above for a direct link to her blog, Plucking of My Heartstrings.
And don’t miss her Musical Mondays! Cheryl chooses a word or theme and adds songs that have these traits. And then, you can vote on your favorite, add additional songs or just chat about music. Join the fun!
Follow Cheryl on Twitter: @PluknHrtStrings
Writing Cozy Mysteries
The Hazards of Writing a Cozy
by G G Collins (Copyright 2017)
Available at Amazon September 15, 2017
Mystery cozies were originally just called mysteries. Even before Agatha Christie, there was Mary Roberts Rinehart. She introduced the “had I but known” device. I devoured Rinehart’s books but soon attacked Christie’s as well. But I owe it all to a book by Shirley Jackson entitled We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The ending blew me away and it was my introduction to mysteries.
Cozies, a term introduced during the 1980s, have a few things in common. The murder happens “off screen” and is usually poison, a simple wallop to the head with say a candlestick or a clean shot without a lot of blood. Please no hollow R.I.P bullets, a .22 will do nicely.
These murders happened to people and in places where, well, these things just don’t happen: a mansion, bookstore or in my case a book publisher who specializes in mysteries. Did you see that coming? Often the sleuth is an amateur, although they can be a promising amateur.
In the early days, the emphasis was on the puzzle and the suspects. And everyone was and is suspect. The cats, recipes and delving into characters backgrounds and careers is a more modern concept. And if there is romance, it’s discreet. Like those kisses from the early movies that only allowed a 3-second kiss. And please, no bedroom scene unless you only see the lights go off from outside.
But here’s where I got into trouble; swearing! I admit it. I curse. And frankly, I don’t see how a someone who kills people would not use profanity. “Excuse me,” the killer said. “I’m going to cut your blankety-blank throat now.” Really?
Okay, I get it. Cozies are about having fun with murder. Someone gets the axe and we spend the rest of the book drinking tea, petting cats and maybe do a little baking until the perp is identified and all’s well with the world again.
My first cozy is due out in September 2017. I’m having a ball writing the Dead Editor File. But I’ve had a really difficult time, er, not cussing. I’ve even got my protagonist trying not to, you know; swear.
However, there is nothing I can do about her Abyssinian cat, Oscar. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing my life with an Aby, and believe me he could let loose with the four letter words; in Cat of course. He lives on in Oscar. Oscar is known to leave “surprises” for Taylor when he isn’t fed on time or in the way he’s grown accustom to dining.
So I’ll be washing my mouth out with soap and tossing quarters in the “swear jar” before the book is complete as I try to think of clever ways to not write well, you know.
And when I use the term “dang it,” well I think you’ll know what I was thinking. It’s the cozy way.
I hope you enjoy mystery editor Taylor Browning in her first outing in the Dead Editor File. Available on Amazon September 15, 2017.
Coming Soon: G G Collins New Book Series
Teen Fiction & Cozy Mystery Series
New Teen Fiction debuts with “Flying Change” in July 2017.
Available Amazon Pre-Order
Fourteen-year-old Molly O’Connor aspires to become an Olympic equestrian. Despite her father’s disapproval, she lands a job at the Reintree Stables. It doesn’t hurt that the owner’s son is her age. Her work pays for riding lessons, but just when she sees her objective on the way to fruition two incidents occur that frighten her. Now she sees herself as a coward. Even the horse she loves can’t help her. The big riding career seems over before it began. Little does she know another test of her courage is coming, one where life hangs in the balance.
New Cozy Mystery Series begins with “Dead Editor File,” The Taylor Browning Mysteries. Coming in September 2017.
Preston Endicott, Jr. was hated by most of his staff at Endicott Publishing, at least until he turned up dead in his locked executive office. Taylor Browning, a new mystery editor at the book publishing house, sees plenty of possible perps right in the office suite, but his employees are hardly the only people to count as suspects. His ex-wife wasn’t a fan either. Dominique Boucher, their bestselling author, has just submitted her latest manuscript. It’s a locked room mystery with a story line similar to the real life puzzle. About the only non-suspect is Tayor’s cat, Oscar. Soon Taylor doesn’t know who to trust and discovers her own life in jeopardy. She can’t edit her way out of this one!
Santa Fe, New Mexico Museum Hill
It’s Summer! Explore Museum Hill.
By G G Collins (Copyright 2017)
Four world-class museums to discover the Native American Southwest and all it has to offer: arts, culture and history. Lunch at the Museum Hill Cafe. Listen to music as it floats around the huge plaza, compete with its on contemporary labyrinth.
Enjoy the sculpture garden at Museum Hill.
Museum Hill Mountain Spirit Dancer
Labyrinth Courtesy Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM
And don’t forget the Santa Fe Botanical Garden just across the street. The Art Walk has changing exhibits.
Santa Fe Botanical Garden, Art Walk in Background
Have a great day exploring Santa Fe’s Museum Hill!
#MysteryWeek @Goodreads May 1-7, 2017
Mystery & Thriller Week at Goodreads
Goodreads asked G.G. Collins:
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
G.G. Collins You’d think after I wrote a book (Reluctant Medium) about the pitfalls of trying rituals you know nothing about, I would pass on performing one in real life. Oh noooo. Grief does strange things to us and when a dear friend died I, with no experience at all, enacted a “transitional blessing” for her. During the blessing, I asked if she could let me know she was okay, never expecting anything would come of it–but you know they do this in movies, and it works in that concept.
Short Story
Available at Amazon.
Click on Cover
The following morning I was mundanely applying toothpaste to my brush when suddenly a small clock flew off a shelf, hit the wall on the other side of the room and fell into the bathtub. I was shaken and confused at this occurrence, but the clock was intact so I replaced it on the shelf.
All day I puzzled over this. The shelf was secure and level. How could this have happened? I even measured the distance from the shelf to the wall: eight feet. The clock had not fallen off, but streaked across the room like a UFO!
The following day as I prepared once again to brush my teeth, I touched the clock. It was stable. Reassured and about to believe I’d dreamed it all, I squeezed the toothpaste tube.
And then, the clock rattled on the shelf! At that point, I was actually a little afraid.
That’s when I ran for my laptop and began writing what would become a Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mystery short story. The title is “Presence” and it’s available at Amazon. Read it and discover what the message meant.
–G G Collins, author of the Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mystery series.
#MysteryWeek is Coming
Mystery & Thriller Week at Goodreads May 1-7, 2017
Stayed tuned to Goodreads for Mystery & Thriller Week (#MysteryWeek on Twitter) for clues and thrills.
Check out my page at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6427518.G_G_Collins
Re-Covered: Atomic Medium
Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mysteries Get New Look!
How can an old man in a wheelchair be so frightening? But Rachel is even more terrified by what his assistant does inside the building that once housed the Manhattan Project, the secret government project to build the first atomic bomb. What he does makes the old man young again and may change history forever.
To get your copy, just click on the cover above.
Cover design by Tatiana Vila of Vila Design. Check out all her designs at https://www.viladesign.net
G G Collins