The Best of Intentions by Mary Dutta

Are you planning to celebrate Quitter’s Day? The second Friday in January, Quitter’s Day, marks the day most people abandon their New Year’s resolutions, at least according to the fitness tracking app Strava. 

Different sources cite different numbers about what percentage of people (64%? 80%? 92%?) abandon their resolutions, and how quickly they do so (January? Valentine’s Day?). They are consistent, though, in their contention that most resolutions are doomed to failure.

Given those discouraging statistics, there has been a shift in thinking about how to approach self-improvement aims by encouraging people to choose intentions rather than resolutions. Intentions are meant to focus on the process more than the goal, to prioritize not so much meeting specific targets but rather moving along a pathway toward the person we want to be.

That reframing could be helpful in achieving the most popular resolutions for 2025, which include saving more money, living more healthfully, and losing weight.

Writers share their own subset of resolutions. Perhaps the most common is to write more. That might mean committing to a daily word count, finally starting that novel, or finally finishing it.

There are resolutions about getting that writing out into the world and in front of readers. People vow to submit a certain number of stories, or enter more contests, or start seeking an agent.

If the writing is published, there are promises to do more marketing, build that author website, and pursue blogging and podcasting opportunities.

Writers may decide this is the year they will join a writing organization, attend a new writing conference, or venture out to their first one.

A new year might mean taking a stab at a new genre, or a fresh look at an old project. It could be time to step away from a series and create a world for new characters.

Call them what you will--resolutions, intentions, dreams, or aspirations--what we write on the blank slate of a new year is up to us. And even if that slate is wiped clean on Quitter’s Day, it’s never a bad thing to make a good start.

 

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? What are your intentions for 2025, writing or otherwise?

The Joy is in the Journey, by Lori Roberts Herbst

 

This time last year, I set these writing goals for 2024:

·      Publish GRAVEN IMAGES, book 6 in the Callie Cassidy Mystery series.

·      Outline the first three books of a new series, the Seahorse Bay Mysteries.

·      Draft, revise, and ultimately publish book one, LARCENY AT THE LIGHTHOUSE.

·      Draft the second book in the series, ARSON AT THE AQUARIUM. Get it ready for early 2025 publication.

 

These were just a few of my marketing goals:

·      Learn to use BookFunnel to increase my newsletter subscriber numbers.

·      Branch out on social media, to include Threads and Bluesky.

·      Contribute more to the cozy Facebook sites on which I so enjoy lurking.

·      Bundle the first three books in the Callie Cassidy Mystery series.

·      Find libraries and bookstores in my new area that might carry my books.

 

Here’s what I’ve completed on those lists:

·      …zzz…

 

So, what happened to all those lofty plans? Life, I suppose you could say.

 

After publishing GRAVEN IMAGES on schedule in April, the rest of my goals fell by the wayside. See, it’s like this: my husband retired last January, and we moved from our nearly lifelong home state of Texas to beautiful Colorado. We contracted on a new build home in sight of Pikes Peak and moved in just days before GRAVEN IMAGES released. 

 

And I got terribly distracted. 

 

Our new home is in a 55+ community, and we have access to so many fun activities and new friends. Our new state boasts a plethora of stunning locales to explore. And now I have a husband who is home…well, let’s just say a lot more than he used to be. So, I put aside my goal sheet — just for a few weeks, I told myself. That became a month. Then…I’m sure you get the picture.

 

Somewhere along the way, I began to question whether I’d ever get back into my writing — whether I’d ever meet the old goals or even make new ones. Maybe it simply wasn’t meant to be…

 

But recently, I’ve found myself really missing it all — the fingers flying across the keyboard as a new scene comes to life, the creation of characters and all their foibles, the telling of stories. Lately, each morning I wake up with a brain crammed with possibilities.

 

That’s how I know I’m ready again.

 

Here’s what I’ve learned from all this: there’s nothing wrong with a little flexibility. My nature is to be driven, goal-oriented, all-in. If I miss a deadline, self-imposed though it may be, my instinct is to label myself a failure and throw in the towel. Instead, I’ve realized I can cut myself some slack and simply enjoy the fact that I am able to veer from my path, revel in the side trip, and eventually find my way back. My goals and plans will be waiting.

 

I have an almost complete outline for book 1 in the Seahorse Bay Mystery series. Next week, I will begin writing the words and stories that live in my head, clamoring to get out. And if somewhere along the way I get distracted again, so be it.

 

The joy is in the journey.

 

How do you handle unmet goals — or are you one of those extraordinary creatures who meet them all?

 

The Callie Cassidy Mystery series is available on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

 

***

 

Lori Roberts Herbst writes the Callie Cassidy Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in Rock Creek Village, Colorado, and the (hopefully) soon-to-be-released Seahorse Bay Mysteries, set in a Texas cruise port town. To find out more and to sign up for her newsletter, go to www.lorirobertsherbst.com 

Books, Books, Books by Susan Van Kirk

 From the time I began reading in first grade to the present, I’ve surrounded myself with books. Besides the thousands of books I’ve read, I also taught high school English and suggested book titles to high school students for thirty-five years. Now I write them.

 Books, books, books.

 

In my current semi-retired life, I read books or listen to them in varying formats and for various purposes. Right now, I’m reading or listening to four books. They’re all quite different. Why four?

 

Here’s why…

 

When I’m reading in bed at night, I want a mystery on my Kindle that is snappy, interesting, and funny. My Kindle allows me to read without my glasses on since I can adjust the text size. Right now, I’m reading Robert B. Parker’s Hot Property, the 52^nd Spenser book written by Mike Lupica. Lupica took over from Ace Atkins, and he now is the author of multiple Parker mystery series. I’ve read every Spenser mystery.

 

This newest book features all the old Boston gang, characters that are familiar to Spenser fans. Martin Quirk and Detective Frank Belson from the Boston police department are here, along with Hawk, Susan Silverman, and various politicians and underworld types. When the story opens, Rita Fiore, complex and controversial lawyer, has just been shot and is hanging between life and death in the hospital. Since she is a close friend and always flirts with Spenser, he must find out who pulled the trigger.

 This leads into the underworld of Boston. Boston itself is a character in the Spenser books from the Boston Globe to the Boston Red Sox and all the familiar streets in between. I love the short scenes and crisp dialogue of these books. Especially clever is the repartee between Spenser and Hawk, often hilariously politically incorrect. Great reading before I turn out the light.

 

I’m also in a mystery book club of two people, the local college librarian and me. We’ve been reading A Most Efficient Murder by Anthony Slayton. It’s a Mr. Quayle Mystery, Book 1, and I’m reading it in paperback. This format allows me to stick pieces of paper in and write comments and questions in the margins. This is an English castle mystery with many of the British golden age classic features but a modern writing style.

 

There is a party at Lord Unsworth’s castle in 1925, and a body is found in the garden of the castle. Before long, it’s obvious that family secrets abound in this plot, and Mr. Quayle, Lord Unsworth’s secretary, is asked by his lordship to run an investigation alongside the police. Even Quayle has secrets. Perhaps Quayle can keep the family secrets intact while finding the murderer. He’s efficient, but is he that efficient?

 

During the daytime, I like to read a chapter or two between jobs I need to finish. So, I’m reading the hardcover version of Erik Larson’s Demon of Unrest. I was a history major in college, and I love reading nonfiction historical books. This one concerns the period between Lincoln’s election and the

firing on Fort Sumter. It’s a country strongly divided. Larson writes history in the form of stories about people, and he narrows in on several real people to tell varying viewpoints about a country strongly divided.

 

Major Robert Anderson is the commander of Fort Sumter, a former slave owner but loyal to the Union. Edmund Ruffin is a Southern radical who stirs up the reading public with secession ideas. I’m sure today he’d be a podcaster. Mary Bodkin Chestnut, the wife of a southern planter, is known for her diaries, so the reader hears her point of view. And of course there is Lincoln, overwhelmed, dealing with errors, out-sized personalities, and betrayal. Larson used diaries, secret messages, slave ledgers, plantation records, and recorded conversations of the time. He weaves them into a seamless narrative. I read a few chapters during the day with this nonfiction book. It’s a nice getaway from whatever I’m doing.

 

Finally, I’m listening to an audiobook of Nora Roberts’ Hideaway. I like to listen to audiobooks while

I’m walking on my treadmill. They must be page-turners. The more interesting they are, the longer I manage to stay on the treadmill. Caitlyn Sullivan is the 10-year-old daughter of a huge Irish family that is Hollywood royalty. Early in the story, someone she loves betrays her, and she is abducted for ransom. Through intelligence, common sense, and nerve, she manages to escape her captors and turn the tables. But putting the kidnappers behind bars is only the beginning of the effect this event has on her life. The story moves from Los Angeles to Ireland to New York City to Los Angeles again. I’m not done with it yet, but I’m putting in a lot of miles.

 

Four different books, four different formats. Each has a different place in my life.

 

 

Susan Van Kirk is the author of two mystery series, the Endurance Mysteries and the Art Center Mysteries. You can read about them at www.susanvankirk.com

How Our Blog Started by E. B. Davis

 

In a recent poll by Feedspot, Writers Who Kill placed eighteenth in the category of mystery blogs. I’m not sure how many mystery blogs there are, but they rated the first sixty. I’m proud we were rated in the top third. I don’t know much about Feedspot, but according to their website, they have over four million registered users and serve over one hundred-fifty countries—so their sample size seems to have been large enough to validify their results. But that begged the question: How did this come about?

If you know me and have read my interviews here on Writers Who Kill, it will not surprise you to learn that our blog started with a question—made by me, of course. I was a new member of Sisters in Crime and the Guppy Chapter of SinC. The year was 2009. At the time, blogs were new and everyone was starting to blog. As a new writer without publishing credits, I posed to the Guppy listserv discussion board, “Why should I blog when I haven’t been published?” Every published author replied that they wish they had started a blog and created a website prior to being published. Why? Not only does a writer have time before publishing to establish both, but also agents look for how much public and social media exposure a newbie writer creates. If the newbie had both, they were a better bet than one who did not have that exposure. Agents would more readily sign a newbie because chances were they would promote their own work, leading to higher sales, which then would lead to more publishing contracts. Yep—in short—the blog was a means to an end—getting an agent and a publishing contract and continued contracts.

I didn’t like that answer. Although I conceded to their justifications, I wanted a blog I was devoting considerable time to create to be more. When I reached out to others who were at my writing stage of development, three other authors decided to test the waters with me, one of whom I am proud to say, is still blogging with us, albeit having taken some time off, James M. Jackson. Because we were all unpublished writers and, at least I felt like a poser, we decided to blog about being writers, not just about our publications, because, of course, we had no publications. To establish the blog, we scouted for platforms. Jim led us to Blogspot because it was easy to use and served our needs (at the time—better than it does now). Luckily, one of the bloggers, Jordaina, had artistic talent and knew photoshop. She created our masthead. 

We wanted to:

1.     Highlight our publishing successes and failures because these experiences were common to all writers.

2.     Share empathy with other writers to cheer or provide sympathy, depending.

3.     Show how these ups and downs could be weathered regardless the writer’s experience level.

4.     Create a place for writers where there would be no snobbery or competitiveness.

5.     Navigate this new-to-us writing industry, getting help when we didn’t understand something or get information on “how to do” something (i.e., writing blurbs, writing book reviews, writing letters to agents, etc.), which is how I ended up being Class Guppy, now the Educational Coordinator for the Guppy Chapter. It was a “find the answers” assignment that I often blogged about.

 

Pauline Alfred and Jordaina Sydney Robinson started with us, but later decided blogging wasn’t for them. Jim, Jordaina, and I are still writing. I’ve sadly lost track of Pauline. The first post was written by me to introduce myself on May 2, 2010, as did Jim two days later. I was surprised to find out that Warren Bull, who blogged with us for a long time, was not an original member, but signed on for a long haul later that year. Warren stopped blogging for us a few years ago due to health issues, as did Linda Rodriguez. I was proud that editor Ramona DeFelice Long blogged with us for a time until she decided it was a conflict of interest to her business. We all learned a lot from Ramona, who, sadly, died a few years ago.    

Many writers have come and gone through our blogging doors over the years. But I am grateful to the professionals that have joined the blog. They have shaped WWK into one of the best mystery blogs in the world. (Wow—how about that!) Now, in our fifteenth year, we have twenty-four writers who blog with WWK. We’ve learned that blogging shouldn’t be a full-time job. To be able to write about our writing experiences, writers must have time to actually write. Most of our writers not only are published, but have established mystery series and often, multiple mystery series. We’ve gone through winning and losing contracts, getting and losing agents, gone through publishers going out of business, being acquired by new publishing houses or have gone indie by establishing our own publishing houses. We’ve discussed everything writing from how to avoid gain weight while our butts are in the writing chair to the financial end of the business.

I hope WWK has become the haven for writers that was an important part of why the blog came into being. We are here to promote, but we are also here to share.