I have just begun looking at my “At Talloola” Cosy Murder Mystery series again, after leaving it and doing something quite different recently. I broke my ankle at the end of September last year, and my head was not interested in cozy mysteries, it was interested in my ankle. So instead of murders in a little village, I was writing poems about my broken ankle and related things.
Now though, now that ankle book, a poetry chap book is written, having 21 poems about my ankle. It is called ‘Angles on Ankles’, and is available from the publisher, Ginninderra Press, here. I launched this book recently, and sold some copies, and have more copies available for sale ($5, plus postage) by simply asking me about it, in a comment.
So that poetry book is written now, so it’s time to get back to working at becoming a published novelist! The “At Talloola” Cozy Murder Mystery series is one avenue toward becoming a novelist, for sure, and I have several people who are wanting me to get on with that project, because they want to read them! I have to admit, I do too!
I also have another option though, a book that is already written, and here on my laptop, the first draft of a novel I began and finished quite a few years ago. I lost contact with that book, then discovered it again, sitting on our family PC, as if calmly waiting for me to be in the mood for it.
Once I found it, I did some word on it on my lap top, tidying up somethings, and working more on the story line, and ending. Then other things happened, and I left that one alone too, until now. So I have a bit of a quandary, which novel project do I run with? One stand alone novel, or a series of many Cozy Murder Mysteries, all with the same base cast of characters, and which I’ve begun doing a bit of work on.
I’m not sure, but I keep thinking there’s no need to choose which, I can do all of it, surely? Haha, of course I can, I am invincible! No I’m not, I’m an ideas person, but also a procrastinator … But my writing group is having a writers lock in, in just over a week, and that will give my several hours to put some good and steady work in on whichever I choose to work on.
I’m also without a car at the moment, so am basically stuck at home, mostly. So no excuses for not writing. So, I’ve sent the first chapter of the second book in my mystery series to a friend, because he asked to see it, and he liked it, so that’s another person wanting it.
But that novel in first draft stage, it’s been waiting for me to get on with it for about ten years, one little novel, already there in an early version stage, I can perhaps concentrate on that until the lock in? Maybe. I can at least spend a couple of hours on it today, perhaps to see what I actually have, and where it needs to go from now …
Yes, that feels like the best way, and if after putting this time in today, I decide I’m not that interested in it anymore, so be it, it can go on waiting. But that main character, and the others are still wandering around in my head, at the back, just reminding me now and then, that we’ve all had good times, getting the novel going, and plotted, and planned, and then written!
Yes, there are things that need fixing, but it’s there ready and waiting, and Laani and the other characters have been waiting for a long time. So that’s it, finish off this post, and get working on my novel, “An Ethical Dilemma”. I’m reading the book again, for the first time for some time.
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 