Will You Join Me Over A Cup Of Coffee?
Over a Cup of Coffee
A Newsletter for Friends and Fans
Welcome to the first edition of Over a Cup of Coffee, my official newsletter. When I was growing up in rural Minnesota, my father edited the Wheaton Gazette, the county newspaper, and my mother wrote a column for the paper called “Over a Coffee Cup.” She was my first writing mentor and I remember every Sunday evening she’d take out her Smith-Corona typewriter, mutter about never doing this again and produce a column. She was paid $2.00 for each column. My intent is to give you a taste of my writing process and the little things that come to mind that might be of interest. Much as I’d like to also get $2.00 for each newsletter, “Over a Cup of Coffee” is free (but alas, my books aren’t.)
As Mom said in her first column in August 1952, “If you are just sitting around with nothing in view, read on!”
Where Do The Stories Come From?
Confession: Death of an Editor, my first in “A Cabin by the Lake” mystery series, was not the first novel (mystery or not) that I had written. In fact, Death of an Editor came to me in a fit of gloom. I’d been working on a book that was harsh, dark and totally depressing.
If you picture a cartoon with someone at a computer with a cloud over her head, that was me. Desperate to write something less dismal, I set that book aside and wrote about a place I love—the northwoods of Minnesota. I added a mystery, a rescue dog named Bronte and a transplanted New Yorker. I decided each book would feature a season so my readers could experience the wonderful and sometimes not so wonderful theater of seasons in Minnesota. Death of an Editor features summer (and mosquitoes), Death of a Starling fall (and mosquitoes) and Death of a Snow Ghost winter (and no mosquitoes.) The fourth book coming in May 2023—Death of a Fox brings the reader to spring and the awakening of the forest (and a new batch of mosquitoes.)
File ‘n’ Forget
Back to my beginnings, my father the editor also wrote a column he called File ‘n’ Forget. I’m borrowing the name from him to feature bits of trivia from my books. All writers do research. Google and YouTube have made life easier than having to haunt the local library. For example, thanks to YouTube I can now change the clock on my car without changing miles per hour to kilometers per hour. (It’s a long story.) In Death of a Starling, I had a scene that included Jamie fumbling to open a padlock. How do you describe the mechanism? Here’s what I found: The U-shaped locking mechanism that slips into the body of the lock is called a shackle. For a book I’m working on right now I needed to define Occam’s Razor. In case you forgot it’s “All other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than complex ones.” Using Occam’s Razor, instead of Jamie “messing around with the doohickey of the padlock” she simply unshackles it. Who knew?
From the Family Vault
Here I am at eight months. I believe I’m reaching for a pen to write, “Help! Get me out of jail!”
Upcoming Appearances
September 9th, 2022
Bouchercon 2022 panel on The Getaway. Minneapolis
September 25th, 2022
Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference presentation on “Mired in the Messy Middle.” Seattle
A Final Note
My new mystery series is coming in November 2022! What Goldie Witnessed will be the first “Liza, Mrs. Wilkens and the Ghost” mystery. Stay tuned for more about his.
Until next time,
Linda