The Necessity of Being an Eclectic Writer

Karen McCullough Posted on by

At the end of November, I’ll have stories published in two different anthologies and those two stories are about as different as they could possibly be.

One is very short (42 words) and is included in the “Mystery” section of the 42 Squared anthology, though I’d call it more of a crime story, and a pretty cynical one at that.

The other is a Christmas story featuring several child-age ghosts and a suburban couple who lost a child of their own. I would call it a feel-good sort of story, the kind people love during the holiday season.

I’ve never been good at sticking to a particular genre or type of story. I’ve written romance, mystery, fantasy, paranormal, and romantic suspense stories over the course of my 20+ years of writing, and those range in tone from sweet and laid-back to taut and tense.

In these days, it’s not a good career move to write whatever your muse suggests (unless it keeps suggesting the same thing over and over). Consistency is the key to building readership, experts in publishing tell us. Give readers what they expect from you, based on stories they’ve read before. Not the same exact thing, but stories in the same genre, with similar themes and characters.

Readers do seem to love series, watching a few favorite characters grow and develop while meeting new challenges and reaching new goals. I understand because I like them, too. And I’ve written one series with the same central group of characters, The Market Center Mysteries. But I can’t do it all the time. My brain rebels and goes on strike because it wants to do new and different things.

To keep the words flowing, I try to vary my writing, doing a paranormal short story here, a fantasy novella there, and a different genre of novel between the ones in my mystery series. I’m slow to get series books out and my readers never know what to expect next, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to maintain my writing for as long as I have if I didn’t.

My Favorite Time of the Year

Karen McCullough Posted on by

All of the seasons have their good points—even winter, though admittedly it’s my least favorite. Of them all, Fall has my heart. In North Carolina, spring is great but lasts about three weeks before diving into summer. Summer heat and humidity wear out their welcome long before the season moves on.

Fall brings a welcome cooling trend, clearer, less humid air, beautiful swathes of color on the trees, a last burst of bloom from the roses, and, of course, the holidays.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are delightful, each in their own way. I’m not into dressing up myself, but I get a kick out of seeing the kids in their costumes. Our home’s location means we get quite a few Trick-or-Treaters. Plus, I love decorating for Halloween and fall. Orange and yellow leaf swags drape my mantel, sharing space with glittery pumpkins and a big batch of orange flowers.

Thanksgiving takes us to visiting family and time together as well as a meal replete with so many favorite foods. And we can all benefit from meditating on all the things we have to be grateful for.

Through it all, there’s preparations for Christmas. If you know me, you know I love Christmas. Decorating, baking cookies and other goodies, shopping for presents, even cleaning the house in anticipation of visitors all make me happy. For me, it really is “the most wonderful time of the year.”

Two Short Stories in November Anthologies

Karen McCullough Posted on by

(I don’t have final cover designs or order links for either yet)

Holiday Hijinks Series
Haunted Holidays		 42 Squared
42 Categories with 42-word Stories
“A Little Christmas Spirit” “Being in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time”

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Holiday Hijinks – Haunted Holidays

A long-running series of themed holiday anthologies. This year the theme was Holiday Hauntings. I’m thrilled that my story, “A Little Christmas Spirit” was accepted. A woman who lost her own child helps the ghosts of other children celebrate the Christmas they never had. Due out November 29th.

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42 Anthology

I believe this anthology is due to release on November 24th. This is the wild idea: 42 categories of stories, each with 42 stories, each story exactly 42 words long. The titles are also exactly 42 characters. My short is in the Mystery category. In keeping with the spirit of the thing, here are the first 42 characters (excluding spaces): “After the truck hit its rear bumper at 40 miles per h”

Goodbye to Baseball

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The Major League Baseball regular season is winding down, but we haven’t quite finished with it yet. Closer to home, for us, the minor leagues have finished their postseason championships.

My husband and I try to make it to as many games as possible of our hometown Greensboro Grasshoppers, the High-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. We’ve now said a mixed happy/sad goodbye for this year.

The last game we attended was on a Friday close to the end of the season. The team won with lots of action and great plays. An appearance by Miss Willie Mae Mays, bat dog extraordinaire, spiced it up. A grand fireworks display closed things out for us. The Hoppers had a very good season, going 75-55 for the season and ending as the South Atlantic League North Division champions. Unfortunately, they lost in the first round of the playoffs, going 1-2.

I enjoy watching major league games on TV and occasionally going to a game, but, honestly, minor league games have a lot to recommend them. Cost is probably the biggest difference. Ticket prices to a local game are far less than for MLB teams. A good seat behind the first or third base dugout costs about a third of the price of a nose-bleed-section seat at a big league stadium. Not to mention the cost for parking, food, beer, and even souvenirs is far less as well.

Because the stadiums are smaller, you can be much closer to the action. No binoculars needed to follow the ball. Food lines can get long on days that draw crowds, but being the second or third person in line is more common.  And the options may not be as extensive as at larger parks, there are still plenty of choices that include the standard essential ballpark fare of hot dogs, nachos, pizza, peanuts, popcorn, and Cracker Jack.

Another advantage for us is we can be home from the ballpark in ten minutes, seven if all the traffic lights co-operate.

We’ve taken visiting family members to games on several occasions this summer and we’ve always had a great time.

But now Fall is here. Pro Football has started. It’s time to put away the summer clothes and get out the sweaters and coats.

Thanks to the Greensboro Grasshoppers, players and staff, for a wonderful summer and great memories.

Back to the Real World – Writing Update – August 2024

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I’ve spent weeks getting ready for visits and visiting with family. Those were weeks where my only writing consisted of working on blog posts and doing a few critiques. And it’s true that I did fit in writing one short story. Now I need to get back to the serious business of writing novels.

Unleashed for Murder is at 31,000 words of an intended 75,000, or just under halfway. I’m working on reading through what I’ve written to refresh my memory. That should let me roll into the second half with some momentum.

I’ve made a few edits as I go through, but so far, the structure is holding up. I can’t say I know how it will all resolve. I rarely know exactly how any story I write is going to work out at the halfway point. I have a few ideas about what’s going to happen next. Maybe I know who the murderer is. I have a suspect. But I won’t be surprised if that’s wrong.

More than once in the writing of a story I’ve found that the person I thought would be the villain turned out not to be. That’s one of the things that keeps me writing. And I hope that it makes the story more exciting for readers, too. We’re both eager to get answers.

Visitors from England, 2024 – Part 8: Their Return to England

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Normally, visitors’ departure isn’t much of a story. They get in the car and go, or we drop them at the airport, pausing for a last quick, goodbye hug.

This time, though the adventures didn’t end when we left them at the airport in Raleigh. We got a call at ten-thirty that evening from Joe. Their plane had not taken off and they were now stranded for the night.

We’d worried that there might be problems with them taking off, since Tropical Storm Debby was drawing closer. However, the issue had nothing to do with weather. Though they didn’t know the details, they were told there was a security incident.

Their flight had boarded a little late but not terribly so, but then they sat on the tarmac for a long time. A very long time. Eventually the plane returned to the gate where, apparently, someone was escorted off the plane by police. For reasons unknown, though possibly due to difficulty locating the baggage of the person removed, the pilot announced he was cancelling. However, American Airlines later said they were just delaying it for 24 hours.

The line at the American service counter was hundreds of people long and it was late at night. Did we have any suggestions for what we and they should do?

I briefly considered driving to Raleigh to pick them up. My husband quickly convinced me that was a bad idea. It was an hour’s drive each way, neither of us likes driving in the dark, we were very tired, the outer rain bands of the tropical storm had moved in, and we’d each had a drink.

Instead I got on the computer, found a hotel near the airport, and called right away to reserve a room for four. I got very lucky. The desk clerk told me the very last room the Holiday Inn Express had was one with a king bed and a pullout sofa bed. And they would send a shuttle to the airport to pick them up.

It worked out about as well as it could have for them. They got to the hotel a little after midnight and were able to get some sleep. Meanwhile the storm had moved in, bringing heavy winds and rain all morning and into the afternoon before moving on.

As promised, American did reschedule their flight for that evening, so they hung around the hotel for the morning, then headed back to the airport and re-checked in. Fortunately, the weather had calmed by then.

Although it was slightly delayed, the plane did take off this time, and they arrived safely home the next morning. We miss them. A lot!

Visitors from England, 2024 – Part 7: Cooking with Freya

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Baking cookies!

Whenever grandchildren are visiting, I make time to whip up a batch of cookies with them. We make them from scratch, and they love the chance to help with measuring, breaking eggs, mixing, and, of course, taste-testing.

This visit was no exception and we did a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies on a rainy morning early in the visit. Both Freya and James were eager to help. The result more than lived up to expectations, and we had cookies for dessert after meals the next couple of days.

When it came time to bake James’s birthday, Freya was eager to help again. We used a mix for the cake, but she helped add the oil, eggs, and water, and kept watch on the batter. She took care of much of the cake decoration as well, spreading the icing, drawing white circles on the chocolate frosting with white frosting, and using a red gel pen to add the seams that turned them into baseballs.

Later she asked if there was anything else she could help me cook. I pulled out one of my favorite soup recipes, an Italian sausage and vegetable concoction. Freya helped brown the sausage and stir the ingredients in. I handled the vegetable chopping while she mixed, stirred, measured, and added things at the right time. The result was delicious and provided a very tasty and nutritious lunch for all of us. I was actually surprised by how much Freya’s help sped the process up.

She enjoyed it, too. We did a final joint baking project on the morning of their departure, a coffee cake that is easy to put together but tastes great. It came out well, too, and was enjoyed by all. I sent her home with copies of the recipes we’d used.

Interesting side note about the final project. When I first proposed the idea of a coffee cake, Freya was a bit dismayed. In England, a coffee cake is made with coffee and tastes like it. She’s not a fan. I explained that this project was a cake that was great to eat with coffee, or without it, but doesn’t contain the titular beverage. It’s simply a plain baking powder cake with a crumb topping made from a mix of butter, flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The recipe I use has been in my family for a while. My grandmother passed it down to my mother, who gave it to me. I’m thrilled to pass it down to my granddaughter.

Visitors from England, 2024 – Part 6: Playground Visits

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Near the beginning of their visit, Freya and James announced they hoped to visit as many different parks and playgrounds as possible. Given the level of energy they have and the limitations of even a fairly large suburban back yard, that seemed like a great idea.

The first one was easy. We’re blessed with a very nice park and play area just a block down the street from us. The children remembered it from previous visits and wasted no time the day after their arrival asking to go there.

Venturing just a few blocks further in either direction from our house, you come to schools that also have interesting playgrounds. With classes out for the summer, both were available, though construction near one of them limited what they could do.

The real winner, however, was Greensboro’s downtown LeBauer Park playground, which includes a splash pad in summer. The childrens’ playground itself is extensive and well designed, with lots of area for running around, obstacles to jump on or over, a sand pit, climbing wall scaled for junior climbers, slides, a tilted merry-go-round, and climbing blocks. Despite the hot temperatures, Freya and James both gave it a workout.

Then it was on to the splash pad to cool off. While the children ran around in the water, the adults discovered that one of the two nearby coffee stands was open. Win for all!

A final and unexpected treat was to find a Foosball game and a Ping-pong table set up nearby, with all the equipment needed to play provided. Those detained us for quite a while, leading to some wild Ping-pong matches and a lively family Foosball game.

Visitors from England, 2024 – Part 5: Celebrating James’s birthday

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I’ve already talked about one of the biggest parts of James’s birthday celebration, the baseball game, but there were a couple of other features.

Presents! Of course, presents. They have an interesting tradition in the family of arranging the presents in the shape of the person’s new age and having them waiting for them when they emerge from the bedroom on their birthday.

In keeping with his enthusiasm for the game, but also cognizant that everything had to be toted onto a plane back to England,  James’s presents included several small baseball related items – some cards, glove oil, batting gloves, etc. and a new mitt from his proud grandparents (i.e. myself and my husband). Along with some games and puzzles, his parents also gave him a card for a trip to a local zoo, with the privilege of feeding the gorillas.

The baseball trip described in the previous post consumed much of the day, but later at home, we did celebrate with cake, candles, and a round of “Happy Birthday.” Note the baseball-themed cake, with decorations created mostly by his sister Freya.