A writer friend recently suggested to me that I might do well to publish an excerpt from my current work in progress, a Cozy Murder story, called “Kissing Cousins At Talloola”. I’d mentioned that my initial strong interest in this project had waned for me, a little, and the friend (John Malone) felt getting some feed back on what I was doing, may be enough to re-pique my interest.
The fact that I recently fractured my ankle, giving me lots of time, but little interest in doing much that seems like hard work (as writing a series of Cozy Mysteries feels right now), this is probably part of the reason the “At Talloola” project has slowed down. I’m more interested at the moment in Social Media (Facebook and Twitter), rather than novel writing.
However, I feel that John’s idea certainly has merit, so here is an excerpt from chapter one of “Kissing Cousins At Tallola”, which will be the second book in the “At Talloola” Cozy Mystery series, of which there is proposed to be at least eight books.
“KISSING COUSINS AT TALLOOLA
Chapter One
The museum seemed to be closing when I arrived, even though it was still too early for that, as far as I knew. People were milling around the entrance, or walking toward the cars parked alongside the museum, or judging by the direction they were headed, maybe to the Talloola Hotel.
Closing time for the museum was five o’clock, two until five, every single Sunday, no matter what, as I’d been told by one of the museum volunteers recently. And if anyone should know those details, the museum volunteers certainly should, I mused, to myself. I’d presented a brief presentation recently in Talloola, on the “The Importance of Getting Out the Most Important Thing”.
It was certainly an important thing with the museum volunteers, going by the answers at the workshop.
Surely, if there was something special happening at the Museum, they would have let me know? I felt a little miffed at missing out on the news of something happening, I should have been the first to know …
Usually, people leaving the museum would be chatting about the interesting things they’d seen or found out about, but most of the people here, looked like been told some very bad news. I figured I’d better take off my “On Holidays” hat, and put my “Community Worker” hat back on, and find out what might be going on.
And if I wanted to know what was going on, I was in luck, there was Gert, she’d know for sure. I picked up my place a bit, and strode toward the Museum entrance, and waited while dear Gert gently ushered out Museum visitors. I couldn’t catch everything Gert was saying, but as I got closer, I picked up a bit of the words.
‘Yes, it’s shocking, never seen it here before,’ Gert told a woman I didn’t think I knew. ‘Not since, when was it? Fifty-five? No, ninety fifty-six, I think it was. Now you drive safely, and keep safe. And please mention my name to your dear mother, and let her know I fondly remember her orange sponge cake.’ Gert reached up and patted the woman on the shoulder, and closed the door, with a heartfelt sigh.
I walked over to her and was again amazed that such a tiny person could hold so much knowledge and energy. ‘Hello Gert, how’s things going?’ I asked her. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Oh Miss Meredith, I hardly know how to start telling you,’ Gert said. ‘Can you come with me to the Hotel, or perhaps not,’ she corrected herself. ‘It’s got too busy there, come to my place, this needs a good strong cuppa! Follow me. I’ll get the machine going, and we can gave a good long talk about it.'”
So, there it is, if you think it sounds interesting, and you’d love to know more, please leave a message. Or really, any feelings you have, whether you like it or thing it needs work, please let me know, I definitely want to get back the sense of excitement I had about this project at the very beginning.
I have around 8000 words of this book written, and also have book titles and ideas for at least eight books or more for the series. If I can get my headspace back into this, I can see it becoming my life’s work, but if not, I can go back to being a published poet, no worries, not really …
The Cozy Mystery genre though, it is certainly calling to me in some ways, more strongly than the thriller genre did, when I first created the characters which are now moving into the Cozy Mysteries instead. So if you have any thoughts about this, please leave feedback, y main character Meredith would like to have more of her stories told!
Thank you!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 