Getting Back to 3-D

Three birds wishing you good writing luck in the new year.

Happy New Year! I’ll get tired of saying that in a week or two but, for now, the freshness of the year invigorates me and gives me renewed hope.

I touched on hope in my November post—my hope that I’d bounce back into writing shape from the doldrums I’d sunk into after finishing the manuscript for All Shell Breaks Loose, book three in my Haunted Shell Shop Mystery series. What helped was finally realizing that, for heaven’s sake, I’d just spent months pulling a book out of my head and putting it on paper and it was okay to feel flattened. Also, that I didn’t need to feel guilty about spending time doing other things until I did bounce back. (My late sister and I used to laugh at our apparent need to feel guilty; that if we didn’t have an immediate source of guilt at hand, by golly we’d go find one.)  

What I spent time on involves my affinity for flat rectangular things. Books are among them, as well as paper and the painting, printing, and marbling one can do with paper. I learned new skills over several months, and I recognized it as a good sign when I started making notes for the next book in the Shell Shop series and notes for a possible new series.

While jotting notes, and getting ready for the holidays, I turned some of my flat prints, and the paper I’d painted and marbled, into three-dimensional things. 

Little bags and boxes made from paper I painted, printed, or marbled.

Most are still rectangular but some, through artful folding, gained curves. (The birds in the picture, up top, are each made from a strip of paper tied in a knot so they're slightly 3-D.) Then, one snowy afternoon, my son and I took simple ingredients from the cupboard (almond flour, almonds, dried apricots, dates, crystalized ginger, honey, sugar, and food coloring) and made sugar plums. Sparkly, round sugar plums. They’re less complicated to make than many Christmas cookies, absolutely delicious, and magically impressive.

Sugar plums

Stories and novels are magically impressive, too, don’t you think? We take words—simple ingredients—and manipulate them into tales. Tales about sympathetic, complicated characters. Characters who inhabit believable settings that we create from the rocks, rivers, roads, towns, etc., in our memories and imaginations. And if we’re skillful in our writing, if we do what we should, then readers who open our flat, rectangular books fall into completely three-dimensional experiences. What an amazing phenomenon.

Now it’s time for me to knuckle down, outline the new book, and start research for the hoped-for new series. What writing goals are you working on this year?  

 

Molly MacRae writes the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, the Highland Bookshop Mysteries, and the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest, connect with her on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky. 

 

An Interview With Laura Jensen Walker

 by Grace Topping

 

Each spring, fans and writers of traditional mysteries who have registered for the Malice Domestic Conference vote on books that were nominated for an Agatha Award in various categories. It’s always exciting to see which books have been nominated, especially those in the Best First Novel category—those authors who have launched their first mystery novel. Among those nominated for Best First Novel was Laura Jensen Walker, who joins us today to talk about her nomination for Murder Most Sweet and her second mystery, Hope, Faith, & a Corpse, which came out recently. 

 

 

Hope, Faith & a Corpse

What the Book is About

 

Hope Taylor arrives in Apple Springs to start her new life as the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church. The northern California town’s quaint cottages, bungalows, and shops promise a fresh start for the 42-year-old widow and Bogie, her scruffy black Labrador. But where is Father Christopher? The kindly old rector who hired Pastor Hope was supposed to meet her upon her arrival, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Hope’s faith springs eternal, so she explores the little white church hoping to find Father Christopher. But when she enters the columbarium, she instead finds church elder Stanley King–his skull crushed by a fallen burial urn.

 

Hope had made Stanley’s acquaintance before, and had struggled to take a charitable view of his character. Stanley was as wicked as he was wealthy, as petty as he was pious. His soul may have been holy, but his behavior was wholly rotten. The last time Hope had seen him, he had shouted drunkenly that she would preach at Faith Chapel over his dead body.

 

Many of the townsfolk witnessed the altercation, so Hope finds herself as the prime suspect in Stanley’s murder. With Bogie’s four-footed assistance, Hope is determined to find the real killer and clear her name…even if it will require a bit of divine intervention.

 

 

Welcome, Laura, to Writers Who Kill.

 

Hope, Faith & a Corpse features Hope Taylor, the new pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church. What prompted you to make the main character of this book a priest?

 

I belong to a neighborhood Episcopal church, where we have had two wonderful women priests as our rectors in the past decade whom I greatly admire and respect. I wanted to give a tip of the hat to women clergy. Also, I adore The Vicar of Dibley and Father Brown TV shows and thought it would be fun to marry the two.

 

Mystery writers are encouraged to have conflict of some type on every page. You did that in spades. Poor Hope faces resistance to a woman priest by some parishioners, other church members resist her involvement in planning social events, and she is accused of murdering a parishioner. Not including a murder, does church life usually provide such fodder for a mystery?

 

It certainly can. I’ve attended many churches over the course of my life, and some have provided their fair share of petty squabbles between members of the congregation, particularly in the planning of social events and who’s in charge. But then, every workplace has conflicts. I also interviewed a couple of women priests who shared their stories of resistance to women clergy from some parishioners when they first started out. And not just from men.

 

Hope is a recent widow. What prompted her to become a priest, totally changing her life?

 

Hope actually got “the (spiritual) call” to be a priest while she was still married, and her older husband was proud and supportive of his wife’s career change from teacher to priest. Sadly, he passed away before he could see her become the associate pastor of Faith Chapel. Hope likes helping people; it’s in her nature, so ministering to others was a perfect fit.

 

Murder Most Sweet, the first book in your Bookish Baker Mysteries, was recently nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. What has that experience been like?

 

Unbelievable, incredible, and amazing! I still can’t believe my first cozy has been nominated for an Agatha. I wasn’t even sure I could write a mystery since I’m a pantser, not a plotter, so to have it nominated for this prestigious award is quite an honor. I feel a bit like Sally Field; “You like me, you really like me!” 

 

Please tell us about your Bookish Baker Mysteries?

 

Teddie St. John, my main character (and bookish baker) is a breast cancer survivor who chose to go flat after her second mastectomy and to follow her lifelong dream of becoming an author. She now writes cozy mysteries and lives in a small Wisconsin town where she loves to bake for her family and friends. I created these mysteries as an homage to growing up in Racine, Wisconsin, home to fabulous Danish pastries, including delectable, mouth-watering kringle, the official state pastry. Teddie becomes an accidental sleuth in Murder Most Sweet, when her scarf is found around the neck of a strangled woman and she must prove her innocence.

 

How has it been writing two separate mystery series, especially so close together?

 

Confusing. My husband still doesn’t know which book is which. And exhausting. I was still working full-time when I wrote both books. Happily, I took early retirement to focus exclusively on my writing. As for keeping the two books straight, I finally had to create a list of characters and events for each book so I wouldn’t confuse the two. 

 

Before writing this book, you wrote chick lit. What is the difference between chick lit and romance? 

 

Humor and designer clothes. Chick lit is usually fun, sassy, and snarky, and told in first person. (Think Bridget Jones’s Diary.) It usually has to do with contemporary single women’s life and struggles—finding the right job, the perfect pair of shoes, meddling mothers, longing for Mr. Right, etc. Chick lit also usually appeals to younger women, while I think romance may appeal to a broader age group.  

 

Why the switch to mysteries?

 

After my last chick lit novel came out in 2009, I was tired and burned out after writing 17 books in 12 years, so I took a long writing sabbatical, not sure I ever wanted to write another book. Happily, a few years ago, the writing urge returned, but I didn’t know what I wanted to write—I just knew it wasn’t chick lit. That ship had sailed. A longtime editor friend who knows me well suggested I try my hand at cozy mysteries. Initially, I demurred because I’m not a plotter and mysteries are all about plot. I didn’t think this pantser could write a mystery. Luckily, I was wrong. Cozies have turned out to be a perfect fit for me.

 

Which do you find more challenging to write, mystery or chick lit?

 

Mystery. But it’s also a whole lot more fun to write.

 

Please tell us about your nonfiction book, Thanks for the Mammogram.

 

As a longtime breast cancer survivor, years ago I wrote about my journey through breast cancer and how my faith and sense of humor helped me through that difficult time. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Thanks for the Mammogram initially released in 2000, and I received many letters from women going through breast cancer who said how much my little pink book had helped encourage them and gave them hope. Last fall, my publisher came out with a revised version where I brought readers up to date, including sharing the Bye, Bye Booby party I held the night before my second mastectomy. At that party, one of my girlfriends brought me “Nipples of Venus” cupcakes—white frosted cupcakes with a cherry on top. My publisher recreated that event on the fun cover.

 

Do you plan to write more Faith Chapel mysteries? If so, what’s next for Hope Taylor?

 

I hope to, but I’m not contracted for any more books (yet.) Fingers crossed. I have a few ideas brewing but am not ready to share them. I can tell you this, however… someone’s going to die.

 

What’s next in your Bookish Baker series? 

 

My second Bookish Baker Mystery, Deadly Delights, a Midwestern small-town take on The Great British Baking Show, releases June 8. Teddie competes in the local baking contest, but the morning after the first event, head judge Les Morris (the town lecher who hit on every woman in sight) is found dead, face-down in a coconut-cream pie, with Teddie’s distinctive embossed rolling pin nearby—covered in Les’s blood. With the help of her Three Musketeers pals, Char and Sharon, Teddie must concoct a recipe to clear her name.

 

I’m thrilled that Deadly Delights has been getting some great advance reviews:

 

"[An] entertaining sequel...Lively characters complement the twisty plot."
—Publishers Weekly
 
"Deadly Delights moves along at warp speed...[Walker’s] writing and story development is top notch."
—New York Journal of Books

 

 

Thank you, Laura.

 

For additional information about Laura Jensen Walker and her books, follow her at www.laurajensenwalker.com

 

 

Hope by Warren Bull

Hope by Warren Bull

Image from http://pixabay.com

Note: This seems like a good date for my blog

Some years ago a military training exercise for new recruits in the Alps seemed destined for disaster. Weather conditions deteriorated in a sudden and unexpected way. A severe blizzard was predicted to last a week. The veteran sergeant who had been in charge of the group broke his leg. A helicopter crew risked increasing winds and turbulence to reach and evacuated him. There was no way to bring the recruits in or to get experienced solders to them before the storm hit.

The blizzard raged for ten days. Search groups expecting to recover the bodies of the recruits found them together moving toward a pass that would lead them off the mountains. One of the men found a map in his pack. Together they worked out where they were on the map and where they could look for a way down the mountain. They stayed together and cooperated, sharing what food they had and sheltering in a cave for the worst of the storm. Then they had a common goal and set out with determination to achieve it.

Later one of the rescuers examined the map. He found it was a map of the Pyrenees, a different mountain range entirely.

The men had no leader, no accurate idea when or even if rescuers might find them and the map they were following could not possibly lead them to safety. But they had the three basic components that make up hope.

First, they believed that they would succeed. Second, they had a specific goal, i.e., to get down the mountain safely. Third, they knew the path they took would lead them to their desired outcome, which it did, although in an unexpected way. They saw themselves as young, healthy and determined. They used what little training they had. Rather than focusing on the obstacles they faced, worrying about the consequences of failure or lamenting about what they did not have, they had the mindset, the will and the determination to press ahead.

You might ask: How does that apply to me? I am not stuck on a mountaintop in a blizzard. I am slogging through a tough time.

The principles are the same. You can explore the options you have. You can remember and appreciate what is going well in your life. You can remember other difficult patches and what helped you then. Maybe some of what was helpful before would work for you now.

Who is a positive influence on your life? Can you get with that person not to complain but to experience happiness and to tap into the energy you feel when you are together?

What are you passionate about in terms of making the world a better place? If you get outside the room in your head that is occupied by problems and into a place where you are doing something for a cause greater than yourself, you will feel better. You can get better perspective about your problems versus the world’s problems. You can plant a seed, knowing you will not see it come to full flower, but knowing that people in the future will be able to build from your efforts.

Write, dance, sing, paint or create through whatever way works for you.

“No hope?

Look up into the stars

Or down into a baby’s face

And tell me there is no hope…”

— Ann Weems