How The Story Began - All Our Yesterdays

An autographed copy of All Our Yesterdays will be given to one person giving me a way to reach them. The drawing won't be until Tuesday since I will be away from the computer for the next few days.

Contrary to what people believe, All Our Yesterdays is a reincarnation novel, not a time travel. THis story actually began as a serial. But before that I had this fascination with Egypt and I began to read books about the ancient culture. I have a lot of books about ancient Egypt on my shelves. I came across a time during the invasion of the Hyksos when the land was in termoil and hit upon a name that fastinated me. Not sure why. The man was a commander of the army with ambitions. Not sure what happened to him but his character started to form. Another thing I read was that the daughter of the Pharaoh and marriage to her was required for the next one in line to become the ruler. The what if went off in my head and the heroine was born, Since I wanted to write a spicy serial, there had to be a contemporary part and some way for the heroine ot remember the past life. Thinking about this took time until I decided an antique store would be a good place.

This decision brought me to what happened next. In a reincarnation story, I believe the main characters must be there, perhaps in different persons, so I had to decide which characters should be present. Thus the hero and heroine must be there. Then I gave the heroine a father figure who loved her, a best friend. Now the time to cast the villain. What evolved were two, a woman and a man, each with a different way to challenge the hero and the heroine. The villainess was always opposed to the heroine but the villain often posed as the hero's friend. Stitting this all together gave me the basic plot for the story. Then I had to decide what time periods to choose.

Egypt was easy. For Babylon, I chose a time of chaos and followed this through with each of the other lands chosen to explore. The journey was long before I reached the end. In fact, I had written a version with the modern era different from what it ended up that went nowhere. This I discovered hand-written in a note book and realized the historical areas were great but the modern story lacked fire. Thus the change.

How The Story Began - The Hudson House Murders

An autographed copy of The Hudson House Murders will be given away to one person who leaves me a way to reach them.

Having fans of Katherine ask for another story about her, I began to wonder what would come next. Some news paper articles, some television programs all focused on medical personnel doing things to make them look like heroes or heroines. Not what I wanted for Katherine. Suddenly I discovered there could be an exclusive nursing home for people with money, almost a hotel. Then I remembered the wonderful house that had been converted to another use but was right on the Hudson River and had once had spectacular grounds. Still did. I had used this setting for a bit part in another story. So I went to look at the house behind the wall and with some expansion of the building I could use this wonderful setting. How to get Katherine there. Well Katherine has friends with money and these friends have family. I began to weave the tale.

Katherine has a new tenant, one she rented to herself. No more allowing her son to choose a tenant. This tenant is the estranged granddaughter of an old rich friend. The girl is estranged because she is blamed for the accident that killed her cousin, a bright, or not so bright, young man, There are other complications. But Katherine's friend breaks her hip and goes for her rehab to this exclusive nursing home not far from Katherine's house. During visits to her friend, Katherine hears interesting and strange things about recent deaths at the nursing home. She hears some chance remarks from a young friend. Then Katherine's friend dies. This doesn't seen natural.

The story is now on and Katherine decides to go undercover as a nurse. That's as far as I'll speak about the development of the story since from there the story moved along rapidly.

How The Story Began - Requiem Murder

First, an autographed copy of Requiem Murder will be given away and announced on Mnday. Just need to know how to reach you.

Having published Murder and Mint Tea and seeing it sell a number of copies of books I realized the heroine was a really great character. Katherine had bits of myself and bits I wish I had. I begnan thinking about producing another story with her as the character. When I first came to visit in the town where I now live, a friend who was a church organist showed me his new church. The choir loft overlooked the pews. The bench was level with the balcony railing. There was also a large back placed on the bench. My friend had this removed. For me this was frightening, especially since my friend was an animated player. I had visions of him plunging to the ground. For years this image remained tucked in a corner of my mind.

Now comes the way the story began. There were beginning to be bits and pieces about men of the church taking advantage of young boys. I could have used this in a book but I really saw maybe not red but definitely a dark pink. This had been happening to girls for centuries and no one seemed to care so I made my villain one who liked young girls and who set out to seduce them but there were some twists. The girls had to be musically talented. The story began to unfold.

Katherine is part of the committee to find a new church organist and this means traveling to a number of churches to hear the organists. The moment she hears Roger's mastery of the instrument she knows St. Stephen's must have him. The story then takes on the politics of a church choir with the jealousies and other things that go on. My first murder mystery followed the path of when is someone going to kill her. This one takes on the idea of which person is going to be killed, the church organist or the diva of the choir. The murder weapon is one very unusual one but I won't tell you what it was. This then is how the story began and how it came to fruition.

How The Story Began - Murder and Mint Tea

An autographed copy of Murder and Mint Tea will be given away to someone leaving a way for me to reach them to let them know where to send the book

This story began many years ago and originally it was to be a single story called And So We Walk On Eggshells. The first draft of the story wasn't great because of the use of First Person. My heroine put in her every observation of life and went on for pages. I put it aside and let it steep for years and then decided to look at the story again. Having learned many things about writing in the meantime, I was able to come up with ways to keep the character, Katherine, and her cat Robespierre. Unlike many mysteries, this one starts with the premise of when is the "nasty tenant and neighbor going to be murdered. WHer impact on the neighborhood and those near and dear to Katherine are shown through her eyes. This has been one of my most successful books to date and there is even an audio version of the book.

Writing in first person was an interesting idea and while I enjoyed it, I also don't like it. There are times when I would like to show another person's view but when a series is started with this. In some ways this book is based on my neighborhood. The story takes place in a Hudson River village and some of the characters are loosely based on people I have known. Loosely is the way to describe how I radically changed things but kept the flavor of the neighborhood. I moved houses to where I wanted them to sit and created a neighborhood of people who were close to each other.

Robespierre, the Maine Coon cat was a real cat and he had many of the characteristics shown by the cat in the story. My children and friends used to call him my familiar and from the moment he was found in the wire rims of my car at the time he was mine. The small kittn fit in my hand and we fed him with a baby doll bottle. He used to perch on my shoulder while I typed my stories. That is until he got too large, say 25 pounds.

Murder and Mint Tea tells the story of Rachel and her troubled past and the way she troubles everyone who comes under her sphere of influence, including her young children. There are hints of child abuse and that of an unhappy woman who seems to enjoy making the lives of other people as unhappy as hers. Like me, Katherine is a retired nurse, but I have never been a church organist or have had anything to do with murders other than in a fictional way.

How The Story Emerged - Flight - The Henge Betrayed

First of all an autographed copy of Flight will be given away to someone signing the guest book, but they must give me a way to reach them. Last week's book wasn't given away since the person has not yet responded. Had a hard time reaching those who entered since they didn't leave an addy so I could reach them.

My interest in Astrology has been a long and ongoing affair. While playing the What If game, I began to consider what if a person had an affinity for one of the four elements, Earth, Air, Water and Fire. Then I thought about my four grandchildren at the time. There birth signs fit the elements and so I decided to write a story using them, but not really. Fictionalized versions of them and using some of the traits of those with Sun Signs in each of the four areas. At night as I was going to sleep I thought about this story and in the morning wrote out the continuing story with none of the frills that end up in the book. A sort of this happened and this happened next. I had decided to call the book The Henge Betrayed. The good or bad thing was that after doing this for a week or more I ended up with about 50 pages typed of what this story was to be. The way I write, those 50 pages would translate into maybe 800 pages, much too long. What emerged was four books. I had fun breaking all this into a story.

Flight is the initial story and has the four children, two sets of fraternal twins, having to leave their home and take flight. Their parents send them forth with talismans and gems that enhance their talents. But their affinities for the elements are just beginning to emerge and they are forced to experiment because of dangers they must face. Along the way they meet a new friend and his companion. They must find a way to heal this boy and they learn he is the son of the ruler who is controlled by an evil man. This friend also has an affinity he had hidden for he cannot follow his father if the talent is seen by the people. The four are on the way to a safe place to wait for the people their parents have asked to mentor them. The destruction of their home occurs and their parents using their affinities for all the elements become a pair of birds. This story tells of their flight and their hopes of finding a safe place. The story also shows their emerging talents. The question is will they ever become strong enough to face the evil man and a shadowy creature called He Who Walks With Evil. During the nect two weeks I'll talk about the second and third books. The fourth has been written and is sitting at the publisher's waiting to hear if it will see the light of day.

Part of the chapter can be read somewhere on the blog.