I am officially between books. Poison Pearl, book #3 of my Bella Blumer Jeweltown mysteries, is with my Beta Readers. This means I wrote the first draft, compiled all the scenes into chapters, read it through at least once on my computer, printed it out   and read it through (and made changes again) in hard copy. Twice. And now this well-read (let's face it, to the point of nausea) manuscript is off for multiple "second" readings with five, count them, five Beta Readers.

One of my Beta Readers turned that baby around in just a few days. I'm waiting on the rest. And while I wait, I've been busy.

1. Plotting book #4, 24Karat Killer. I plot much more than the murder. The story of what's going on in Bella's life---along with all the Jeweltown characters, is at least as important as the murder investigation in each book.

2. Revisiting my web site. Didn't realize how much dust had collected on it since I released Murderous Emeralds. (Of course, I've been busy writing Poison Pearl. Oh, and doing my day job. I'm a numbers cruncher.)

3. I actually started writing 24Karat Killer yesterday, and continued on this morning. Who knew the opening chapter would start with Bella in a shrink's office? Uh oh, trouble in paradise. My books might have happy endings, but they don't have happy beginnings. Or middles. That would be boring. Correction, that would be B-O-R-I-N-G. So Bella is talking to a shrink and I'll give you a clue...it's not ab out her marriage. One day, hopefully this year, you'll get to read it yourself and find out!

4. It's time for me to    shine up my Facebook image and maybe take a peek at Twitter. Somehow, Facebook seems more personal to me. Twitter is more like shouting little electronic billboards. Maybe it's just me.

5. Write a blog post.  Yes, at long last I'm writing a blog. No problem, I love writing. And writing a blog is a  lot like talking. (I  like that, too.)

So pardon me, I'm between books, and I have quite a lot to do. But consider this your head's up. Poison Pearl will soon be available both for Kindle and paperback purchase (all on Amazon). So keep your eye on my soon-to-be shiny new Facebook page. And if you can tolerate all the shouting on Twitter, I'll probably be there, too.

I must confess. In addition to writing murder mysteries, I am an avid mystery reader. If you did a body count on all the victims in the stories I’ve read, the total would be in the hundreds, maybe edging up into the thousands.
 
And yet, I’m a totally nonviolent, even squeamish person. I don’t like killing bugs, unless they are large and ugly and have invaded my home. I don’t even look when I have a blood draw at the doctor’s office. For the record, I don’t like looking at other people’s blood either. I’ve been known to irritate friends by walking out of particularly violent movies. Yes, I am a delicate little flower.
 
So what gives? Why am I perpetually reading a mystery? A murder mystery, at that. Well, one reason is I tend to read cozy or cozy-style mysteries. To me, that means all the violence and even the explicit sex, for that matter, are off-screen. These things happen; we know they happen, but we don’t see or read about it in detail. So that helps.
 
But still, delicate flower that I am (not really), why all the bodies? Why all the victims? What is it that is so satisfying about this genre?
 
Believe it or not, despite all the violence—or implied violence—the mystery novel presents a more perfect world. Yes, there is a murder. Yes, there is conflict—because without a healthy dose of conflict the book would be unbearably boring. But what all mystery books also have is resolution.
 
Not only does the bad guy or gal get caught, as readers we get to find out why  the perp felt compelled—and justified—to commit such a heinous act. Justice is served, on a silver platter. Peace reigns. And all is right with the world. Well, that might be overplaying it a bit, but you get the idea. The bad guy gets his, and it just feels right.
 
Not only that, but in a particularly good series, as a reader, you get to know the characters, and each succeeding novel is a chance to visit and see the main characters grow and change. Sometimes there is a budding romance. Sometimes, there is a love triangle. Sometimes, in my humble opinion, a love triangle persists through way, way too many novels in the series. (But that is the subject for another blog post.) The point is that it’s fun to return to the world the author has created and enjoy the setting and the characters, once again, without having to re-read the same novel over and over. It’s fun and addictive, which explains the popularity of mystery series. (It also explains all the books in my collection. The photo is but a tiny sampling that obviously does not include my Nook and Kindle titles and more.)
 
So here I am, a perfectly normal person. Okay, a relatively normal person; just ask my relatives, and I can’t wait to get back to my current read. Among my currently favorite mystery authors are: Denise Swanson, Diane Mott Davidson, Earlene Fowler, Jana DeLeon, Laura Levine, Duncan Whitehead, Amy Metz, L.L. Bartlett, Joanne Fluke, Leslie Meier, Alan Bradley, Deb Baker, Louise Penny… and so many more. I told  you there were a lot of bodies!

I've read every one of L.L. Barlett's Jeff Resnick books. Eyewitness, A Jeff Resnick Mini Mystery is a novella that delves mostly into the "mystery" at hand, which is finding the man who murdered the main character's wife two years back. While Bartlett's full-length novels blend the personal with the mystery of the book, in this novella she has chosen to concentrate on just one plot line. Because of this, minor characters, such as Jeff's sister-in-law Brenda, and girlfriend Maggie, are mostly in the background. I've enjoyed how Bartlett has given so much background history in the totality of her Resnick books. This give the reader the feeling that the author is describing the life of flesh and blood people, rather than fictional characters. I will return to the next Jeff Resnick installments, even though the books are darker than my usual read. I am hooked. I want to read more of what happens in his life and, in this case, what's happened in his past.

Upstanding citizen that I am, I believe I have a criminal mind. It occurred to me today when #1 son told me that he and his wife are planning a day trip to Point Pelee National Park in Leamington Ontario, Canada. This evoked a memory of a day trip I took many years ago with a friend of mine, a male, who was on our brother floor in my dorm at Michigan State. He was a geography major, so it made sense that he'd want to go to Point Pelee. This was a trip I wouldn’t have planned myself. My main memory is one of sadness. This friend evidently wanted more than a friendship, and I did not. It wasn't until we were out in the wilderness that I finally understood his intentions.

And then... I remember the sense of fear. Not so much because of my friend, but because of the setting.  Point Pelee is a wetland.  A swamp. It is the southernmost point of Canada, geographically south of Detroit and due east. Not exactly the Louisiana bayou, but not the Yukon either. It was a hot summer day and you could practically see the steam rising from the swamp land. I could imagine a body lying just inches below the surface of the water. Despite the heat and humidity, I had the chills. It occurred to me that while I'd told my mother -- and my boyfriend -- that I was going with a friend for this day trip, I hadn't mentioned his name. This was in the days before email or cell phones. It wouldn't have been an easy trace had he decided to bop me on the head with a severed tree limb and throw me to the animals of the bog.

It turns out I had an overactive imagination. Still do. That image, that moment of fear, is all I remember of that day trip. As it turns out, thankfully, my friend was actually a good guy. I'm certain we toured the park and I know that we made our way home because I'm still alive and well today. Fast forward forty-some years, and I still find myself reading or watching the news and thinking, "now that would be a great way to get rid of a body," or better yet, "How do you like that? It's the perfect murder." Bits and pieces of what I hear and read make their way into my stories.

Not too long ago, I bought a used book on Amazon, “The Crime Writers’ Handbook,” by Douglas Wynne, mostly to find out what a body looks like when it’s been strangled. This was for book number three in my Jeweltown Murder Mystery series, which is not yet completed. When I opened the package at work, my husband thumbed through the pages and mumbled something about Homeland Security. I explained about the strangulation thing, and it’s a credit to our marriage that it didn’t make him blink. “Just put it in your briefcase and take it home,” he said. “At least don’t let anyone else here see it.”  This was probably good advice. When I read more of this wonderful, yet out of print, book, I came up with even more tantalizing ideas of how to bump people off. Trust me, this makes no sense. I say, “I’m sorry,” (like it matters) every time I kill a bug out of necessity. And yet I think of gruesome ways that my victims will be murdered. Off stage, of course. I don’t want to see the violence.  I’m writing cozies here.

So am I an upstanding citizen? Well, I pay my taxes and, so far, haven’t had as much as a traffic ticket. Do I have a criminal mind? Well, yeah, probably. And it’s best to put this mind to work writing semi-violent cozy mysteries. It’s a blast. And eventually I’ll get these babies off to market and share them with you! 

I've discovered recently that I can greatly increase my output when I take my laptop to work. (It's a MacAir; is that  a laptop or a netbook? Not sure, only know I LOVE it!!!) For some insane reason, I'm perfectly neat at work, and a complete slob at home. (See pictures #1 and #2 for proof.) I'm working at home right now with a  mind-bending cold.  The cold has nothing to do with the state of my desk. Neither does the size of the desk. I used to have a huge workstation at home, and eventually all the piles would start to sit  between the screen and my keyboard, just like it does now in the home picture, below.  However, at work I have the habit of "tidying up" at the end of each day. I guess my day never ends at home, so the tidying up only happens when i can't stand it anymore.

I think I've had a major shift in work habits. And it's required a larger briefcase. I take all my usual items to work, and then I also bring my laptop and other assorted notebooks (journal, outline composition book) and pens, lots of pens.  I give a dedicated hour or two to my latest book in-between interruptions. Silly people. Somehow they have the impression that I'm there to do my work. My regular work.  It's okay. I can't get fired; it's a family business. In fairness to me, I used to get all my "regular" work done in two-three business days, so I'm not really hurting anyone. Just getting all  my  work done these days. And on such a nice, clean, almost zen desk. 

Consider me a jewelry brat. 
I've been involved with  jewelry since I was an infant. There I am, pictured at the right, wandering the streets of Detroit, probably sometime in 1957. My looks have changed dramatically, but I still have the same bad hair. : ) My jewelry career began as a child in the back room of my dad's store in Detroit, and later as a front-counter glass wiper. (I think my dad gave me a dollar for my hard work, and I was thrilled.) later, when the store moved to Southfield, Michigan, I was twelve years old and progressed to being counter help and in time moved on to taking inventory and even buying. That was a heady experience. I was given a budget (usually in the hundreds; I was not  the head buyer) and I could pick and choose from trays and trays of jewelry what I thought our customers would buy. Another thrill!

Moving on up to jewelry design. 
I later moved up the jewelry food chain and drew some sketches and helped customers redesign their jewelry.  (The hard work of actually crafting those designs went to the bench jeweler.) The pinnacle was when, after graduating college, I took the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) Diamond and Colored Gemstone courses and became capable of appraising jewelry. This part of my career was short-lived. At the ripe age of twenty-eight, I left the family business and started my freelance writing career. This ultimately led to writing newsletters and ads for jewelry stores across the country. I kept up this work until 2008, when I left jewelry, again, to write, always to write.  I've written two poetry books, as well as two poetry web sites (see my bio page), and many of my poems have been published in anthologies and text books around the world. In 2010, I started to work part-time managing the finances at my husband's company. Quite the yin-yang from the artsy-fartsy world of creative writing. I love the dichotomy; it works for me.

Jeweltown Murder Mystery. 
When I decided to write my first mystery book, Deadly Diamonds,  it made the most sense for all the characters to revolve around a jewelry store. Conventional wisdom says to write what you know. I set the business locally. (I've lived near Royal Oak for the past thirty-seven years, so this lovely downtown was a logical choice.) And, of course, the main character's life revolves around... jewelry.  I haven't been able to shake this connection. I still love jewelry (most women do), and other than all the editing and rewrites, I'm having the time of my life writing this series.  The longer I live, the more I see that everything seems to come full circle.  So here I am, still writing about jewelry and still trying to deal with all that bad hair. : )