Just wrote “The End” on the first draft of Unleashed for Murder, the fourth book in the Market Center Mysteries series. It’s been a long time coming. This book really beat me up! Now some editing, then it goes to beta readers for their reaction, then probably more edits and copy editing before it’s ready to go out the door. But this feels like a huge victory right now.
The Nicest Rejection I’ve Ever Received
I try to keep as many of my short stories as I can out on submission. I have a fair backlog of unpublished tales now, so any time I hear of an interesting call for anthology submissions, I consider if any of my stories might fit the request. Sometimes the call itself will spark a story idea.
As anyone who has seriously pursued a writing career knows, lots of submissions means lots of rejections. I’d venture that in the short story world maybe one in ten of the stories I submit is accepted. So, yes, lots of rejections. You learn to deal with it, or you find another line of work. I’ve developed ways to deal.
Which doesn’t mean the rejections don’t sting sometimes. The curt “this isn’t for us” is pretty neutral and bites but doesn’t dig the knife in. Sometimes you’ll get an insulting or irritating reply of the “You suck and don’t ever darken our slush pile again” variety.
But I recently got one that said, among other things: “Your assured writing and intriguing concept pulled us in with this one, but in the end we felt that it didn’t quite fit the needs of the magazine, so we have decided to pass on it. We wish you the very best of luck in placing your story elsewhere.”
Wow! Still a rejection, but the nicest one I’ve ever received. Takes some of the bite out of it, for sure.
Progress on Unleashed for Murder
I’m getting close! After a couple of breaks, for the holidays and then to figure out the wrong turn I made in the plot, I’m finally on course and rolling. I just passed 60,000 words of a projected 70- to 75,000. The plot is rolling smoothly now. I know who the killer is and why murder was done.
My intrepid protagonist, Heather McNeil, assistant to the director of the D.C. Market and Commerce Center is about to figure it out. The connections are buzzing in her head, waiting for that spark of realization to strike. I’ve still got a twist or two in mind. And, just to keep it complicated, knowing who done it isn’t the same as being able to prove it.
There’s also the question of her complicated relationship with Scott Brandon, one of the Center’s security people. In the previous book in the series, we learned that Scott is not exactly what he seems and that he used Heather to further his own agenda. His goals are admirable. Heather is not happy with his means, even though he claims that he has come to really care about her and wants to continue their relationship.
Can she get beyond her anger and hurt? Does she dare trust him again?
Will she be able to bring another killer to justice before the current trade show (a pet products show) ends?
I’m hoping to have the first draft completed before the end of the month. Then another month for edits, off to beta readers, further edits, etc. until it’s shined and polished as much as I can manage. With any luck, Unleashed for Murder will be ready for release before the end of the year.
April Flowers
Azaleas and Hellebores; the camellia in the background still has a few blooms.
April is one of the nicest times of year in this part of central North Carolina. Although the daffodils have come and gone, along with the crocus, camellias, and most of the flowering fruit trees, the dogwoods and azaleas are just getting started and they are ubiquitous enough to turn the city into a glorious garden.
In my own gardens, the roses are leafing out and even have a few buds, so I’ve given them their first feeding. The perennials are waking up and showing new leaves. Lily bulbs have shoots coming up, the daylilies are filling out, and some of the iris have buds.
I’ve spent the last few weeks (when it wasn’t too cold or too rainy) clearing out the annual flower beds and getting the soil ready for planting. I’ve started a few seeds inside under my grow-lights and this week, I’ll start moving some outside during the day to harden off.
Our official last frost date is April 15th. A look at the long-range forecast suggests that frost is actually pretty unlikely between now and then, but we will have a few cool nights, so I’m not going to put out seeds or the tender bulbs until next week.
The only downside is the pollen! Not only does it mean sneezing and itchy eyes, we have a coating of green slime on everything. A recent shower washed most of it away for a bit but it won’t take long to cover the walks and the cars again. Still, it’s a small price to pay for the shade and the color.
Where Inspiration Happens
The creative process is a weird thing. I’ve been wrestling with the current work-in-progress for months now. I finally realized I’d taken a wrong turn and had to throw out the last 10,000 words I’d written (about four chapters). I’ve now replaced those words and I’ve been zooming on. I’m currently at 56K words of a project 70-75K. Until this morning, though, I wasn’t entirely clear how the story would resolve. Then I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. But as I lay in bed dozing, thinking about the story, playing with possible scenes, the entire rest of the story fell into place.
Teaser from The People in the Neighborhood
A teaser from my story in the forthcoming anthology: 𝐷𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠, 𝑆𝑙𝑒𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑠, & 𝑁𝑜𝑠𝑦 𝑁𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑠: 𝐷𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛 𝐴𝑛𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑟!
The People in the Neighborhood
Elle almost dropped the crumpled piece of paper in the trash.
What impulse stopped her, she had no idea. Curiosity, maybe? But then she didn’t know why she’d picked it up in the first place, instead of raking it into the growing mound of debris. She yanked off her gardening gloves, dropped the rake, and smoothed out the wrinkles in the sheet. A stray spring breeze almost snatched it from her hand, but she held tight.
The penciled lines, written in a shaky hand, might represent some schoolkid’s first attempt at a homework assignment. Elle painstakingly deciphered the spidery printing. Her first reaction—that it was a kid’s prank or joke—drowned in growing unease as she stared at it.
The note said, “Help, please! Prisoner in my own house.” It was signed, “Annie Henderson, 1606”
She didn’t recognize the name. The number belonged to the house immediately to the left of her own, and she’d found the note just a foot from the chain-link fence that separated the two properties. She’d bought her house in this pleasant Charlotte suburb three months before, and in that time the only person she’d seen go in or out of the place was the rather surly middle-aged man she assumed owned it. When she’d tried to introduce herself to him, as she tried to say hello to all of her new neighbors, he’d nodded icily, hopped into his battered F-150 pickup, and driven off, leaving her gaping.
Elle stuffed the note in her pocket. While raking up more debris previous owners had left in the yard, she considered what to do about the note. Would the police even believe her if she took this to them? Would they take it seriously? Should she take it seriously?
Maybe enough to try to check it out, at least. First, she wanted to find out if anyone even knew an Annie Henderson.
That afternoon, she talked to the people in the house on the other side of hers, but it didn’t help. The family with two small children had moved there a year or so ago. They did vaguely remember an older woman living at 1606 when they first moved in, but they hadn’t seen her in quite a while and never caught her name.
The couple directly across the street, though, did remember.
“Annie, right,” Martha Lambert, the middle-aged wife said. “I’ve wondered what became of her. She’d be in her late seventies, I think. She liked to putter around in the yard, though she never accomplished much. Seemed a bit ditzy, but sweet and friendly. Haven’t seen much of her since her son moved in about six months ago.”
“Nephew,” her husband Sam said. “Said he was her nephew. She never had any kids. He moved in to help take care of her. Dementia. She was becoming a danger to herself. I feel bad for her, though. He doesn’t seem a very friendly or caring sort. But it’s not our business.”
Martha frowned. “Come to think of it, we haven’t seen anything of her in months. But it’s been winter and she’s kind of frail for being outside in the cold.”
After a quick internal debate, Elle showed them the note she’d found.
Martha sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, my.” A moment later, she added, “I think this is Annie’s handwriting. She wrote down a recipe for me a while back. Let me get it.”
She went to a desk on the other side of the room and extracted a sheath of papers. “Here it is.” She pulled one from the stack and brought it over.
They all compared the two papers. “It is Annie’s writing,” Sam said. “Still, if she has dementia, she may not be…all there. In her right mind.”
“But what if she is?” Elle asked. “Or even if she’s not, but she’s being mistreated?”
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Books with Cliffhanger Endings – A Quick Rant
Mostly, they annoy me. When I buy a book, I want the WHOLE book, not a part of it.
There are some kinds of cliffhangers I don’t mind. Books where the main plot is resolved but a background story is left open are okay with me. Books that resolve the main story then whisk you into the beginning of the next I don’t mind either.
I don’t even mind books that spread over several volumes, as long as I know in advance that this is the case.
But recently I’ve tripped over a couple of books where the main plot just suddenly comes to an abrupt halt, with a note indicating I need to buy another book for the rest of the story. No warning in the blurb or on the first page. No indication I bought only half a novel until I get to the end.
Nope. I’m out. I don’t really care how compelling your story is.
Author, you lost my trust and it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever buy another of your stories.
My Best Books of 2024
Once again I note that my favored reading tends toward paranormal, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery, with a smattering of romance. Not really a surprise to me. I’m especially gleeful when an author skillfully combines more than one of those genres. The Martha Wells book cover is the first in her Murderbot Series and I gleefully devoured ALL of them. Highly recommended.
Goals for 2025
Well, 2024 wasn’t that great for reaching my goals, but I’m starting this year with the optimistic hope that I’ll be more productive.
So, obviously, goal one is to finish Unleashed for Murder, the fourth book in the Market Center Mysteries series. The series is planned for five books, with possibly a short story or two added in. I have ideas for the rest, but don’t really want to pursue those until I’ve finished the current work in progress. It stands at 50K words of a projected 70 to 75K, so there isn’t that much left to do. I even know what needs to happen. I just have to figure out how to accomplish it.
Once that’s done, I need to tackle rewriting Treadwell House. As I also mentioned in the 2024 goals assessment, I’ve gotten some good feedback on it, know what’s wrong with it, and how to fix it, but it will require quite a bit of work. Still, I love this story and I’m going to get it finished.
Being seriously optimistic, I’d like to get a start on the fifth and final book in the Market Center series. I already have a basic idea of the plot.
On the short story front, I’m hoping to build on my recent success with a few more new stories and continuing to submit older ones that have yet to find a home.
As noted before, I’m still working on the blogging regularly goal. I’ve been trying for two a week and was doing pretty well until we hit Thanksgiving. The holidays are always a hard time to keep up with anything writing-related, but this year I will try to keep up the two a week goal and have more in inventory. And the personal memoir hasn’t really moved forward much, so there’s that to work on, too. It’s lower on the priority list, but still there.
Another Short Story Sale!
I wrote “The People in the Neighborhood” a 5000-word gentle mystery/thriller short story, a couple of years ago specifically for an anthology of mysteries involving neighbors. It eventually was turned down for that one, but the editor took the time to tell me it was close but didn’t quite fit in with the other stories he’d accepted.
When I saw a call for another anthology of mystery stories involving neighbors, I thought of this story and submitted it. This time it was accepted.
Detectives, Sleuths, and Nosy Neighbors: Dying for an Answer should be available in ebook sometime in late spring from Inkd Publishing. I’ve already sent back the first round of edits on the story.
I believe there will be a Kickstarter for a print edition. Stay tuned for more info.