Only Slightly Embarrassing Writing Tips and Tricks

by Shari Randall

We’ve all had moments when the writing won’t flow. The ideas won’t come. We’re stuck. It’s
not writer’s block exactly, but more a feeling of spinning wheels on a muddy road. With a bit of
traction, you can get back and get writing.

How to get that traction and jumpstart your writing? Here are a few tips and tricks.

Stay In Bed – This is my most self-serving and embarrassing tip. But there is nothing like
lying in bed, hovering in that relaxed and fertile state between sleep and waking, for gathering ideas. When I was on deadline with my third book, Drawn and Buttered, I kept my laptop next to my bed, typing late into the night and starting up again upon waking, with no interruptions except sleep.
If you use this tip, you get points if you have someone bring you breakfast in bed.

Take a Walk - Walking briskly is probably the healthiest way to spur a mind relaxed and focused
on plotting. Fresh air, exercise, and possibly catching the neighbors doing plot worthy things
always helps my writing.

Doodle - When I was in eighth grade, my English teacher was a nun named Sister Arlene. I don’t
remember everything she taught us, but I do remember one surprisingly effective trick. When
we were stuck, Sister Arlene had us write the word “Idea” on a piece of scrap paper, over and
over. Perhaps she was also trying to get us to improve our “chicken scratch” handwriting, but
neuroscience has backed up this approach. Here are two articles that explain how handwriting
sparks more and more complex connections within the brain than keyboarding. Here and Here

Busy Hands, Free Mind – Doing a task that doesn’t require a lot of thought – folding laundry,
sweeping, knitting – frees the mind to wander. Plus you could end up with a really nice
potholder.

Act It Out – I’ve discovered that stuck feeling happens for a reason – it’s my subconscious telling
me that I’ve gotten off track, that a plot point or bit of dialogue doesn’t work. So I’ll read the
dialogue out loud and mirror my characters’ actions. This helps me figure out what doesn’t
work and makes my kids laugh.

Light a Candle – Yes, prayer works, but I use a candle in a slightly different way. I have a pure
white unscented candle I call my focus candle. I light it and breathe, watching the flame
waver. I’m more ADD than a five year old on birthday cake and Coke but I’ve found this to be a
very effective way to quiet my mind and transition from a busy day to writing mode.

What do you do when you feel stuck? Share your tips and tricks in the comments - because I could sure use them!

An Interview with Shari Randall by E. B. Davis

Welcome back to the seaside village of Mystic Bay, where someone’s been found sleeping with the fishes. . .

Ballerina Allie Larkin is still back home, healing up from a broken ankle and lending a hand at her aunt’s Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack. But now that the famed restaurant is branching out into the world of catering, Allie’s help is needed more than ever—even on the lobster boat. The last thing she expects to find once she’s out on the bay, however, is the dead body of a beautiful young woman.

When days pass and not even the police can ID the corpse, Allie takes it upon herself to learn the truth about what happened. Her investigation leads her all the way from the local piers to the secluded estates of Mystic Bay’s posh elite. But how can she crack this case when everyone seems dead-set on keeping their secrets beneath the surface?

US.MacMillan.com

My mind churned with memories of last night, a night that had begun

so magically, champagne and music and a nighttime glide across the bay to

a multimillion-dollar yacht with a star and a handsome musician.

And ended with my sister smeared with her boyfriend’s blood.

Shari Randall, Against The Claw (Kindle Loc. 2102)

Against The Claw, the second book in Shari Randall’s Lobster Shack Mystery series, will be released by St. Martin’s Press on July 31. I interviewed Shari when her first in the series was released, Curses, Boiled Again, which was a wonderful read. But so often an author spends years developing the first book. It’s the second book, written under time constraints, that is critical to the success of a series. I’m pleased to report that I liked Against The Claw perhaps even more than Curses, Boiled Again.

Why? It’s the authenticity. In cozies, the main character inevitably finds a body. Shari builds scenarios that smack of realism. When main character Allie Larkin innocently finds victims in the course of her life, there is no stretch to believe the contrived. Readers are just as shocked as Allie. It’s the author’s gift and a blessing to readers who are jaded and immune to another body find. There is an emotional connection on the visceral level that enables this authenticity. As a writer, I’m reading and studying.

There’s also a lot of fun reading. Shari must have anticipated the first question I was going to ask because at the very end of the book she supplied the recipe of Aunt Gully’s Love Sauce, which surprised me due to it also being a bisque.

I have no need to welcome Shari to WWK, old-timer here that she is—so just drop by and give Shari a high five and a virtual champagne toast.                                                                                     E. B. Davis

Thank you for inviting me for an interview, EB. Champagne and lobster rolls for everyone!

Miranda, the mother of Allie and Lorel, died giving birth to Allie. How does Allie feel about that?

Allie doesn’t miss her mother the way she would if she’d known her. She does have a sense of longing, a sense that there is a missing piece in her life, but it’s wistful, not painful. Her Aunt Gully, who stepped into the mother role for Allie and her sister, Lorel, has been too much fun and too big a presence in Allie’s life for her to feel a sense of loss.

Does Lorel resent Allie?

We would have a field day if we could get Lorel to a therapist! On some level, I think she does but it’s expressed mainly as exasperation. Allie and Lorel are opposites - Allie is intuitive and artistic, Lorel is businesslike and all about the numbers. Oil and water. Plus, Lorel is the older sister and can be bossy. That’s why their relationship is so much fun to write – they are two characters who want the same things but go about them in different, usually opposing, ways.

Is Allie and Lorel’s difference in perspective due to their mother’s death?

I’ll leave that up to the armchair psychologists among our readers.

Bertha Betancourt plays a pivotal role in Against The Claw. Does Bertha play Bruce Springsteen on her boat?

I love to picture Bertha blasting “Born to Run” while she’s out on the lobster boat with the wind in her hair!

           

How did Bertha become Mystic Bay’s Lobster Lady?

Bertha’s family has been lobstering in the Mystic Bay area practically since the town was founded in the 1600s. Some folks whisper that the Betancourts were also pirates and Bertha loves playing that up. In my research I’ve discovered many women who captain their own lobster boats, so Bertha is part of a fine tradition.

Why did she offer housekeeping services to those owning homes on islands in Mystic Bay?

Lobstering is a difficult profession and it’s seasonal. Bertha, like many lobstermen and women, often has to take other jobs to make ends meet. Mystic Bay has plenty of wealthy residents who need their stunning vacation homes cleaned.

Is the Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack open for dinner or is it a lunch place?

It’s open for lunch and dinner. Actually, if Aunt Gully is there before opening and thinks you look hungry, she’ll make you a lobster roll. She has an inner Italian mama in her that makes her want to feed everyone.

Lorel has an MBA, but it seems like she mostly does PR work. What is her Boston job?

Lorel’s just turned 30, but she’s flown up the ladder to vice president at her Boston-based social media company. In Book Three, I’ve given her a stunning office with floor to ceiling windows overlooking Boston Harbor.

Aunt Gully is asked by Stellene Lupo, the owner of a premier modeling agency, to cater her famous July 4^th party at her nearby estate. The Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack hasn’t ever catered before. What were the factors they considered when deciding whether or not to accept the job?

Mostly they considered the insane amount of money that Stellene would pay to get famous Lazy Mermaid lobster rolls for her party. But also everyone is dying to get behind the doors of one of the biggest, most secluded mansions in town to be part of this gala party for celebrities and other one percenters.

Stellene’s estate is called Harmony Harbor, but is there a cove or harbor in Mystic Bay that lends the estate its name?

Yes, Harmony Harbor (the estate) is on Harmony Harbor (the harbor). Sorry if it’s confusing! I dream of having a map in my books (are you listening, St. Martin’s?).

Why does Allie characterize Lorel as looking like “the cool blond heroine of a Hitchcock movie?”

Allie’s like me, she’s a fan of classic Hollywood movies. When I picture Lorel, I see an actress like Kim Novak or Grace Kelly, whose cool exterior masks a passionate interior life. As a side note, I’ve had male readers tell me that Lorel is “hot.”

Have tourists ever stolen Aunt Gully’s mermaidabilia that decorates the Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack?

Not yet. Great idea, EB!

Are a lobster’s claws sharp enough to cut off a human finger?

It depends on the size of the claw, but you should never, in the words of Hector the cook, get casual around a lobster.

There are times when you break past for present tense. Why?

I’m still figuring things out as a writer. When I’m having Allie go through a stressful or exciting experience, I want to get as much into her head as I can, so the reader can share that experience.

Is the stage a place where Allie can escape?

Absolutely. Since her injury, she’s struggled with her sense of self. She’s spent most of her life working toward a dance career. Here she is, just about to take on dream roles, when she’s injured. If she’s not a dancer, who is she? Luckily for Allie, she’s discovered a love of sleuthing.

After finding a body entangled in a lobster trap, Allie experiences trauma. What happens to her?

She comes very close to going into shock. I don’t want to give too much away, but though she’s affected greatly, Allie’s good in an emergency. When she’s faced with difficult situations, she’s able to kick into another gear to keep functioning.

Allie eats ice cream with her friend Bronwyn, who is in police training, in the morning and with another friend Verity, who owns a vintage clothing shop, at night on the same day. Does Allie have an ice cream problem?

This one hits close to home. One person’s problem is another person’s party.

I didn’t know that ballerinas coated their pointes with rosin. I also didn’t know it was sticky. I thought rosin was a powder. Does the stage get sticky and can that be dangerous?

I learned so much from my research with Boston Ballet. Some dance companies travel with their own floors, which are made of a nonslip material called marley. But sometimes on tour, dancers will work in a theater with a slippery floor – sometimes the custodians will wax a wooden floor so it’s nice and shiny – which is a disaster for ballet dancers. So they’ll step into a box of crushed rosin (same thing that violinists use on their bows) to make their shoes slightly sticky. There’s a whole art and science to dancers treating their footwear to work on different stages. But you’re right – too much rosin can be a problem, also.

Detective Rosato commands a Harbor Patrol boat to go after stolen evidence. When Allie leaps into the boat, does she reinjure her ankle? Will she have more time away from dance?

Can’t give away any spoilers, but there is a Book Three….

Allie makes a promise to stop interfering in police stuff. She lying, isn’t she?

Allie is an honorable woman, so she means what she says – at that moment in time. But there is a Book Three….

Will Aunt Gully get a new van?

I thought she would, but then things took an interesting turn. (sorry about the pun!)

Thank you again for the interview, EB. I love being a Writer Who Kills!

To celebrate Against the Claw, I’m doing a giveaway. Just say hello and let me know if you like lobster, and I’ll send a copy of ATC to one commenter. U.S. only, please!

At the Boston Ballet

By Shari Randall

Oh, the Places You’ll Go is a popular Dr. Seuss book often given to graduates as they take their
first steps into the world after school ends. As I take my first steps into the world of the newly-
published mystery author, I’ve thought about that book. The title came to mind as I sat in the
rehearsal studio of the Boston Ballet last fall.

Research is part of the author’s tool kit. Sometimes it leads to endless hours of internet sleuthing. Sometimes it means interviews. And sometimes it means a trip to experience the real life of a character. That’s the kind of trip that brought me to Boston and let me check off the bucket list item I thought I’d never attain: to sit in on a professional ballet company class.

In one of those unbelievably lucky Six Degrees of Separation moments, I was chatting with a
friend about my main character, Allegra Larkin, a ballerina whose injury leads her to return
home to recuperate and take a job in her aunt’s Lazy Mermaid lobster shack. My friend told me
that her sister volunteered with the Boston Ballet and that she’d ask if I could take a tour and
meet one of the dancers. I thanked her, thinking that there was NO way that would happen in
my lifetime, especially since it was the fall and the company would be preparing for The
Nutcracker.

Not two weeks later, I walked up the steps of the Boston Ballet’s headquarters, a sleekly
renovated brick building in Boston’s south end. Men and women with impossibly good posture
passed me on the steps. I was in the right place.

The charming Assistant to the Artistic Director, Elizabeth Olds, met me and proceeded to take
me through five floors of magic. I don’t know if she could tell that I was floating…. I know I
couldn’t stop smiling.

Ever since I was a little girl at the barre at Miss Patriciann Wallet’s dance studio in Meriden, CT, I’ve
been in love with the ballet. Pursuing it as a career was not ever really my dream. I had a
“modern dance” body, as my teacher gently put it. I love to dance and I’ve tried many forms,
from jazz to country line dancing. I’d say my specialty is mortifying my kids when I hit the dance
floor at weddings. But I’m a fan, as passionate about dance as any football fan is about their
team.

And what a team dances at the Boston Ballet. I took a seat in their soaring studio, tall windows
overlooking the Boston skyline, surrounded by what Martha Graham called “the athletes of God.”
Dancers warming up don’t look very godlike – they’re draped in layers of wool, ripped leggings,
t-shirts. One young man wore plastic pants held up by one strap, kind of like farmer’s overalls.

But then they started to move. I forgot that I was supposed to be taking notes. The show began.
For an audience of one. Me. It passed all too quickly, dear readers. All I can say again is: Magic.

I floated to a meeting room where I talked with Dawn Atkins, a dancer who suffered an injury much like my main character. We talked about her recovery and the dancer’s life. I can’t help but think that she is the image of my main character - are you listening, Hallmark Channel?

Then, when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Elizabeth took me to the costume shop. Did
you know that the tutu is separate from the corset-like top of the ballerina’s outfit? Me,
neither.

Be still my librarian heart – they have a dance library.

And the shoe room! Hundreds of shoes lined the walls, stacked with cubbies that held several
pairs of each dancer’s shoes. Here I learned that when dancers attain a certain level, they work
with their very own shoemaker, who can tailor their pointe shoes to their personal
specifications. Just the kind of detail that makes dance fans swoon.

What else did I learn from this visit?

I learned how generous the dancers and staff of the Boston Ballet are with their time. My visit was during the build-up to Nutcracker, the busiest time of the year for most ballet companies, and still Elizabeth and Dawn made time to answer my questions and never made me feel rushed. I learned so many details that will bring my dancer, Allie Larkin, alive on the page.



The biggest thing I learned? Talk about those bucket list items, even the ones you think are
unattainable. Sometimes the universe is listening.

Any bucket list items you’d like to share? And writers – where has your research taken you?

A librarian and military wife, SHARI RANDALL lives in a mid-century money pit in Connecticut. When she's not committing murder (on the page, of course), Shari enjoys walking the beach near her house, traveling and eating the local cuisine, reading, and dancing. When she isn't writing the Lobster Shack mysteries for St. Martin's Press, she is the Library Liaison for Sisters in Crime. John Valeri of Criminal Element called Curses, Boiled Again! a "trifecta of triumph: engaging characters, a welcoming backdrop, and a compelling plot" and Donna Andrews declared it "suspenseful and entertaining."

You can see what's new with Shari at https://us.macmillan.com/author/sharirandall/.

The Art of the Book Cover

An Interview with Lesley Worrell, Senior Designer at St. Martin’s Press

by Shari Randall

Few things are as exciting to an author as that moment they see the cover of their book. Before that, questions swirl - Will the illustrator capture the heart, the essence, the feel of the story?  Will the cover entice readers? Will I love my cover?

How does the mysterious art department of a publishing house work? Who makes the decisions about the look of the cover? Who hires the illustrator?

When I started wondering these things about the cover of my book, Curses, Boiled Again!, I decided to contact the Senior Designer at my publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for answers. She kindly offered to answer my questions about the process of making a book cover. 

 
Please welcome Lesley Worrell to Writers Who Kill.

Thank you for joining us, Lesley.

1. Please tell us about your art journey. Are you an artist yourself? What medium/media do you work in?

I do consider myself an artist though I don't practice as much as I should. Art was always my favorite subject in school, and I've explored a lot of mediums from drawing to painting to printmaking and sculpture. Most recently I took a pastel class and found that I liked how you can get results similar to painting.

I used to look at book covers as a kid and wonder how you get to be the person who makes those. I'm truly fortunate to be doing something for a living that was a childhood dream.

2. How did you come to work at St. Martin's?

I worked for number of years at Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House. After leaving two years ago I freelanced for a while, working for other publishers and a nonprofit, when the former publisher from Berkley (now at St. Martin's) recommended me for this job. I came in to interview and the rest is history!

3. Can you walk us through the process of creating a book cover?

First comes the cover conference where the editor presents the book and talks about what is wanted for the cover. In this case she had an artist in mind that she wanted to use and a clear concept. I hired the artist, someone I'd worked with before on other covers, and gave her the manuscript and the concept from the editor. This particular artist is great at picking out details and creating great compositions, perfect for cozy mysteries. She sent three sketches and the publisher and editor picked one. The artist finished the painting, and I added the type and logo. I like to present at least two type treatments to the editors. One is picked and sent to the author for approval.

About seventeen people work in the art department, of which fifteen are designers and/or art directors, one, the studio manager, and another serves as an administrative assistant.

4. Do authors typically have any say in their covers?

Typically an author will discuss the idea for a cover with the editor before it's presented at a cover conference. Sometimes the publisher disagrees because there may be a better way to package the book. Publishers and editors have the expertise of knowing the marketplace and what covers may do better than others. Ultimately we want to end up with a cover that the author loves.

5. Do you have any favorite covers - ones you've designed or the work of other designers?

I'm inspired every day by book covers. I follow a lot of designers on Instagram along with book cover blogs. I'm working on a new cozy mystery right now that's going to be super cute, but as I haven't shown it to the editor yet, it has to stay under wraps!

Two of my favorite covers I've worked on were for The Lost Daughter and Another Woman’s Daughter. Both books were a pleasure to read and, as a designer, I have the most fun figuring out how I'm going to translate what I read to a cover.

                                              

6. Have you noticed any trends in book covers? What's next?

I've noticed a lot of hand-lettering on covers, something I've done twice since working at St. Martin’s and I've been here less than a year. I've also noticed covers that use some sort of paper art, whether it's creating a collage by hand or creating a diorama. Maybe this trend of stepping away from the computer and doing more by hand will continue.

7. What do you like to read?

A lot of Young Adult novels, some Women's Fiction, and Sci Fi/Fantasy. I mostly read fiction though there's a long list of nonfiction I should tackle soon.

8. What do you enjoy doing in your free time? 

Reading, music, hanging out with friends, and spending time outside now that summer is approaching. Oh and shopping!

9. It's traditional on our blog to ask "Mountain or beach?"

Definitely beach!

Thank you, Lesley! It was a pleasure having you on Writers Who Kill.

 

Readers, please feel free to share a photo of your book cover or a favorite book cover. Do you judge a book by its cover? 

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