Creepy is as Creepy Does

Hi, I’m Eileen Rendahl and I’m new to Midnight Ink and to the Midnight Ink blog. My first Midnight Ink book, Cover Me in Darkness, is scheduled for release in December. It seems like a long way away, but in publishing years it’s about a nano-second.

The genesis of this story is something that has been bubbling under the surface since my childhood. In the quiet Midwestern University town I grew up in, a mother killed one of her children. What made this extra scary was that after killing one of her three children, she woke a second child to ask for help in killing the third.

I was about ten when this all happened. Grown-ups talked about it in hushed voices and stopped talking about it when kids came into the room. We still heard about it, but I doubt what we heard was all that accurate. To give you an idea of what my home life was like, it had never occurred to me that a mother would hurt her child. Mothers were the source of comfort and care and love. The idea that a mother could be anything else was terrifying. Over the years, I’d think about it and wonder what it would have felt like to be the kid who was asked to help. That was terrifying, too.

A lot of that wondering went into creating the character of Amanda Sinclair, heroine of Cover Me in Darkness. Like the case from my childhood, a mother killed a child and sought help from a second child to kill a third. Unlike the case from my childhood, Amanda’s mother was caught up in a cult-like religious group called Children of the Greater God or COGG.

When Amanda’s mother commits suicide in the mental ward where she’s been locked up for the past decade, Amanda isn’t surprised. But when she looks through the personal belongings left behind, it seems her death may be related to the upcoming parole hearing for COGG leader Patrick Collier. Amanda must dig into the past and expose her own secrets as well as her mother’s to get to the truth.

To write this book, I’m definitely digging into my dark side. It’s always been there. I doubt I would have been as fascinated by a murder as a ten-year-old otherwise. How about you? Do you have a creepy side? Is there something from your childhood that makes you want to take a closer look at it?

All the News That's Fit to Print - from 1888

Edith here, working on a short news article about Quaker Midwife Rose Carroll in 1888 Amesbury, Massachusetts.

Grove Cleveland was President of the country, which now proudly featured thirty-eight stars on its

flag. The Great Blizzard of 1888 hit the east coast hard in March, with hundreds dying.

Textile mills filled downtown Amesbury, and boardinghouses full of mill girls from New Hampshire farms or western Massachusetts villages kept the mills running. The news in early April wasn't good for the bustling town.

The world-famed carriage industry was in shambles after many of the factories burned to the ground on Carriage Hill one night. Midwife Carroll finds herself in the middle of the arson investigation. Here's a draft of my news article.

Local Quaker Nabs Arsonist

Area midwife Rose Carroll apprehended a local man attempting to set the Friends Meetinghouse aflame Sunday morning.

The Chronicle has learned that Carroll, twenty four, ran from the worship service after she deduced the identity of the man, Stephen Hamilton, whom she thought was the Carriage Fire culprit. She’d planned to go directly to the police station to inform them. Instead, she caught Hamilton red-handed starting a fire at the back of the thirty-year-old wooden structure on Friend Street.

She raised the alarm within, and members of the church joined her in putting out the fire and restraining Hamilton, son of mill owner Cyrus Hamilton. Famed poet John Greenleaf Whittier assisted in the effort.

Will young Hamilton also be charged with setting the Carriage Fire? Detective Kevin Donovan was close-mouthed about the investigation. “Miss Carroll is to be commended for her insight and bravery,” he offered instead.

Readers: What do you think? Did Stephen set the big fire, or? What else do you know about 1888 history?

Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries from Midnight Ink, among other series. The first book, Delivering the Truth, releases April 8 and is available for preorder wherever books are sold. You can find her at edithmaxwell.com, on Facebook, and elsewhere.

BOOK LAUNCH MONDAY | Deirdre Verne and Drawing Blood

Your friendly neighborhood web mistress here--Lisa Alber--to introduce our first guest author since we relaunched the InkSpot blog. We hope you like the new look and our new schedule! Please welcome Deirdre Verne, whose latest novel, Drawing Blood comes out today! ~Lisa

Bad Habits, Good Books by Deirdre Verne

Quirky characters, strange settings, unsavory professions—maybe you’ve read one of my books? As a new writer, I was initially taken aback by early reviews until I realized that my unconventional characters had become my calling card. A big thanks to Kirkus Reviews for being the first to spot my fondness for the peculiar: “A dysfunctional family to die for...” and “an oddly effective sleuthing team” are two Kirkus quotes I happen to love. 

But my all-time favorite review comes from a Goodreads fan who recently wrote “The regular characters are a quirky but lovable bunch that form a supportive family.”

If you’re not familiar with my cast of characters, my protagonist, CeCe Prentice, is a Dumpster diving artist who lives on a self-sustaining farm with an extended clan of far-out friends. There’s an eco-friendly clothing designer, an MIT dropout, CeCe’s wealthy but soused mother, an eccentric doctor, the manager of the town dump, a pawn shop owner and well, many more.

Apparently it takes a village to solve a mystery and CeCe seems to have a habit of recruiting the more interesting folks in town.

If you’re wondering where I find inspiration for the off-beat, I’d be happy to reveal my source. For years, I’ve watched boatloads of junk television, although I reject the term “binge watcher.” In fact, there’s a method to my research that involves a steady diet of low quality programming, dished out on a nightly basis. Portion control is my guide as I spend no more than ten minutes on any one channel before clicking frantically through shows for a minimum of two hours.

Too short, too tall, too heavy, too much skin, too many tattoos, too many coupons, controlled substances, kids or just plain too much junk in your house? I love it all, every last weird and wacky display of humanity makes my heart beat that much faster. And it’s not just the visual ridiculousness of it all. I pay careful attention to the words, the phrasing and the terminology of these people that live such unusual, yet real lives. A few hours in front of the tube and I’ve got reams of dialogue dancing through my head. I’m like the cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead, but without the hassle of world travel.

As if publishing a mystery series wasn’t reward enough, I’ve also discovered an unintended side-benefit to my television addiction – writing off my cable bill. A stretch you say? Absolutely not. I long for a call from the IRS so I can hand an unsuspecting auditor the complete Sketch in Crime series as evidence of my legitimate expenses. My day will come!

In the meantime, I invite you all into the weird and wacky world of CeCe Prentice, criminal sketch artist, Dumpster diver and big-hearted friend. You can catch CeCe in Drawing Conclusions (2015) and Drawing Blood (2016).

Deirdre Verne is a mystery author and college professor. Her AirBubble Blog unravels the mysterious, weird and often hilarious happenings on both sides of the classroom door. There are helpful tips for students and teachers. Taboo topics such as missing class, favoring students, sleeping in class and cheating are all covered in an honest open forum. You can find her online here:

www.deirdreverne.com

https://www.facebook.com/deirdreverneauthor/

https://twitter.com/DeirdreVerne

Dying for New Sins for Old Scores

There are few things more satisfying as an author than completing a book. Typing “The End” is both a thrill and a moment of, well, sadness. You’ve exhausted yourself on your hero’s latest caper, spent sleepless nights second-guessing your plot, and worn yourself out with hours and hours of edits, proofs, discussions, and all manner of craziness trying to get it just right. Then, “The End” hits the the last page and you sit back, contemplate the story, and wonder what you’ll do with your characters next. And for me, there’s that moment of panic—I’ve got a dozen outlines in my folder for new books, five or six with my current series and characters, and not enough hours in my life to write them all. ARGGGGGG! What to do? (Oh, God, what to do???)

Then, the dark clouds part. The light shines. The music plays. I know just what to do. It’s simple, really. Very, very, simple.

I start a new blank page, copy and paste the template of my title page, set up the footers and headers, and start with CHAPTER ONE of a new novel … and I’m off. Another adventure awaits. Someone has to die. A hero has to catch a killer or track down a spy. There is no choice. No one can stop it. Murder and chaos must reign once again.

Oh, wait. I better close my last book and save it into the back-up before I start this one. Oops.

For those of you wondering, there are three more Tuck mysteries planned and I’m going to start one of those this coming summer. For now, I’m finishing up my ninth novel, a thriller about domestic terrorism, and I’m reviewing New Sins for Old Scores, the first of a murder mystery series I wrote a couple years ago (my agent is shopping this around as we speak).

New Sins was originally completed about three years ago after my agent, the amazing Kimberley Cameron, signed me for Dying to Know. She wanted a second series with a historical subplot and a paranormal storyline.  It took me four months to craft New Sins for Old Scores, the story of Richard Jax, a Virginia BCI detective saved by the spirit of a disgraced OSS operative, Trick McCall, who was killed in 1944 on the very spot Jax was ambushed. My website summarizes New Sinsthe best:

Murder, like history, often repeats itself. And when it does, it's the worst kind of murder.

Detective Richard Jax was never good at history. But after years as a cop, he was about to get the history lesson of his life.

After Jax is gunned down and lay dying at an old inn while on a case, he's saved by Captain Patrick "Trick" McCall—the ghost of a World War II OSS agent—who’s been waiting since 1944 for the chance to solve his own murder. Soon, Jax is a suspect in a string of murders—murders linked to smuggling refugees out of the Middle East—a plot similar to the World War II OSS operation “Operation Paper Clip” that brought scientists out of war-torn Europe. With the aid of a beautiful and brilliant historian, Dr. Alex Vouros, Jax and Trick unravel a seventy year-old plot that began with Trick's murder in 1944. Could the World War II mastermind (code named Harriet) be alive and up to new sins and old scores? Is history repeating itself?
 

Together, Jax and Trick McCall hunt for the link between their pasts that will lead them to Washington's elite and to one provocative, alluring French Underground agent, Abrielle Chanoux. Somewhere in Trick's memories is a traitor. That traitor killed him. That traitor is killing again.

Who framed Richard Jax and who wants Trick's secret to remain secret? The answer may be, who doesn't?

As I began re-reading New Sinslooking for opportunities to refine and improve it, it struck me that my evil mind had recreated the foundation of Tuck Tucker’s Gumshoe Ghost series—a traditional murder mystery surrounding a historical subplot that culminates into a grand, surprising ending. Oh, but in Tuck’s stories, he’s a dead detective telling the story in the first-person, er, first-spirit, and in New Sins, the story is delivered in third-person and shares both Richard Jax’s and Trick McCall’s point of view throughout the story. Similarly, there are scenes with a historic subplot that follow Trick’s 1944 OSS operation that lead to his death and disgrace. Those chapters form the connection between past and present and lay the foundation for several characters involved in the modern murder plot for which Jax is the prime suspect. In the end, it’s the settling of the past’s old scores that sets the stage for present-day new sins.

I’m looking forward to digging back into New Sins for Old Scores and updating the storyline. I began reading it late one evening last week and found that I still love this story and characters. I’m looking forward to finding a home for it on bookshelves.

Strangely, while I’ve written eight novels and four of them are mysteries with a paranormal twist, I never set out to be a mystery writer. With my life and background in anti-terrorism and security consulting, I see myself as more of a thriller writer. I’m finishing a new thriller now and penned three before Dying to Know, the book that was accidentally written for my daughter, and that also became my first published work. Just yesterday at a book signing for my latest release, Dying to Tell, I responded to a question about my work saying, “No, I’m really a thriller writer …” then I felt silly and added, “Except I’ve written four of these mysteries all with a paranormal subplot. So, I guess I am a mystery writer. Yeah, that’s me, a mystery writer.” Nothing proves that more than my return to New Sins for Old Scores in the middle of working on my thriller. And while New Sins has both the mystery and thriller touch and feel, it’s certainly more mystery.

How twisted is my mind when I’m working a thriller and a mystery at the same time? Don’t answer that. I already have my own diagnosis.

So as winter progresses into spring, I hope time does not get in the way of finishing both new projects in a  timely manner. I’m anxious to get them out into the light of readers and fans. New Sins is chomping at the bit for an audience.

As you can see, I have more projects than time. If only I hit the lotto or found the lost Templar treasure I could write full time and make my life complete. But alas, I don’t play the lotto and have no clue where the treasure might be. (I know for certain it isn’t under my back deck.) So for the forseeable future, I’ll be consulting by day and writing novels by night.

Hopefully, New Sins for Old Scores will be out there for you to read this year or next. In the interim, I’ll finish my thriller and launch into one of the other dozen novels I’ve planned.

What choice do I have?

We’ll again chat next month …

Tj O’CONNOR IS THE 2015 GOLD MEDAL WINNER OF THE INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS BOOK AWARDS FOR MYSTERIES. He is the author of Dying to Know, Dying for the Past, and Dying to Tell, available in bookstores and e-books from Midnight Ink. He is currently working on a traditional mystery and a new thriller. Tj is an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism, investigations, and threat analysis—life experiences that drive his novels. With his former life as a government agent and years as a consultant, he has lived and worked around the world in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Americas—among others. He was raised in New York's Hudson Valley and lives with his wife and Labrador companions in Virginia where they’ve raised five children. Dying to Know is also the 2015 Bronze Medal winner of the Reader’s Favorite Book Review Awards, a finalist for the Silver Falchion Best Books of 2014, and a finalist for the Foreword Review’s 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award.

Learn about Tj’s world at:

Web Site:  www.tjoconnor.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tjoconnor.author
Blog: http://tjoconnorbooks.blogspot.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7148441.T_J_O_Connor

Why Dogs?

Hi, InkSpot fans,

My Inkspot blogs appear on the first Monday of each month.  How fun that the first Monday of this month is also the first day of the month!

I was motivated by Tracy Weber's recent InkSpot blog about her lifetime love of animals and how they inspired her writing to consider my own love of animals, especially dogs.  Yes, I know they inspire my writing.  Of the four mystery series I write or have written, every one of them features dogs. 

In my first mystery series, the Kendra Ballantyne Pet-Sitter Mysteries that I wrote for Berkley Prime Crime, Kendra was a lawyer who lived in the Hollywood Hills with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lexie.  At the time, I was a practicing lawyer, and I still live in the Hollywood Hills with my two Cavaliers, including Lexie.  I haven't tripped over murder victims, though--except in my mind.

My second series, the Pet Rescue Mysteries, were a spin-off from the Kendra books.  And now I'm writing two series simultaneously for Midnight Ink which both feature dogs: the Superstition Mysteries, where the protagonist runs a pet boutique, and the Barkery & Biscuits Mysteries, where the protagonist is a veterinary technician who bought a human bakery and turned half into a barkery where she sells healthy dog treats.

In addition, one of the other two series I write, romances for Harlequin, consists of paranormal romances for Nocturne, featuring Alpha Force, a covert military unit of shapeshifters.  Yes, many are werewolves and they happen to have cover dogs while they're in human form.

So why dogs?  I'm not sure why I started loving them, but I do know I convinced my grandfather to buy me my first puppy from a pet store when I was eight years old.  I learned a horrible lesson then about pet stores.  My mother took Cuddles to a vet when I was in school the next day, and she had distemper.  We returned her to the store and learned that all the dogs there had distemper.  In those days we couldn't even bring a dog into the house for a three-month quarantine period after that, and I used the time to research breeds.  My next puppy was a Boston Terrier from a qualified breeder, and I had Frisky for quite a while.

And then, years later, on my first trip to LondonI saw my first Cavalier King Charles Spaniel on the Underground.  The rest was my history.  I hunted for a Cavalier puppy when I returned to the States and have been owned by them ever since.

Dogs have inspired other aspects of my life, too, and I absolutely love writing about them.  In fact, I'm always dreaming up new story ideas but don't have time to follow up on all of them.  Someday, maybe...  But meantime, I love writing my current mysteries and hope to for a long time.

I actually could tell you more about my love of animals and how they inspired me--and that can be a topic for another blog!

Mystery and Mayhem—Animal Style!

I have adored animals for as long as I can remember.  From my first German shepherd, a lovely animal named Duchess, to my Holstein cow Beauty, to my first kitty, Smokey. Then there was my childhood horse, Becky, and the other assorted, dogs, cats, turtles, fish, parakeets, gerbils, canaries—even a pigeon named Lollipop—that followed.  Each has commanded a special place in my heart.


My favorite childhood cow, Beauty.

When I was a child, cats followed me wherever I went like children chasing after the Pied Piper. I nursed injured butterflies back to health. One day, I tearfully convinced my fourth grade teacher to let me release the winged grasshoppers she’d accumulated for the science class’s dissection.  I’m pretty sure the grasshoppers were happier about my success than the school’s groundskeeper.

Hanging out with a herd of cats on "Cat Island"

Not much has changed since then. When I see a drowning earthworm, I relocate it. I move caterpillars off walking trails so they don’t get smashed. I save snails and slugs.  (Don’t tell my neighbors!) If it weren’t for my husband, I’d surely be locked away in whatever prison they use to hold well-meaning hoarders. 

So it’s not surprising that animals play prominent roles in my mysteries. How could they not?  After all, I write what I love, and I love nothing more than animals.  The mystery in Karma’s a Killer gave me the perfect opportunity to weave in some unusual animal characters.  The story revolves around an animal rescue group, a wildlife rehabilitator, and a group of animal activists who clash with deadly results.

Animal rescue and animal activism collide in Karma's a Killer

As always, my writing is fiction, but it’s strongly informed by my life. Many of the animals in Karma’s a Killer are based on real-life creatures.  Bella, the German shepherd, is in many ways a carbon copy of my own special needs German shepherd, Tasha. Blackie—a rehabilitated crow who plays a prominent role in the story—is modeled after a wild crow that has befriended her. Their relationship has touched me and changed my opinion of crows forever.



Tasha and a murder of her crow friends at Green Lake--one of the pivotal locations in Karma's a Killer.

Mister Feathers, the pigeon that “decorates” the entrance to Kate’s yoga studio, is similar to a pigeon that roosted above my own yoga studio, Whole Life Yoga, a few years ago. I saved him from a hawk attack, and the experience changed me in a profound way.  If you're interested, here's a blog I wrote about that day.

Raising goats is still a pipe dream, but I’m chiseling away at my husband’s resolve a little more every day.  If I have my way, pigs and a few chicken-girls will soon join the menagerie.  ;-)

Someday I'll have some chicken-girls!

How about you?  What animals are important in your life?  Tell me about your favorite furred, feathered, scaled, and exoskeletoned creatures in the comments.  Who knows?  Maybe they’ll end up in my next mystery!

Tracy Weber

PS--all three books in my Downward Dog mystery series are now available!  Learn more at http://tracyweberauthor.com.  Thanks for reading!

5 Sure Signs That I Can Let Go of My Manuscript (Finally!)

By Lisa Alber

Over the weekend, I read a printed copy of my manuscript for WHISPERS IN THE MIST (August 2016). I read it fast, looking out for loose ends and moot remnants still hanging around from previous versions.

At this point in the writing process, I always know that I'll feel compelled to read the manuscript just one more time before hand off, and I know I'll still find things that need fixing, and I know I'll worry about whether the newest changes have themselves caused inconsistencies (or typos!) that will require me to re-read the manuscript AGAIN ... 

It could go on forever, but there comes a point when I have to let my baby go. Given that I can always continue improving my stories, when do I feel that "yes" feeling about letting a manuscript go?

1. The latest manuscript read-through was mostly clean. Changes were only for clarity, consistency, and pruning. Nit-piks.

2. I have no more questions to myself about nitty-gritty plot points. (My stories are kind of complex.) Yes, all the bits and pieces are there.

3. I've considered every piece of beta reader feedback. I've incorporated what my gut says "yay" about, and I've ignored what my gut says "nay" about.

4. I've gone through a copyedit (as best as I can since I'm not a copyeditor) on my own. I catch a lot of weird prose quirks when I focus on the line-by-line. We all have our easy-way-outs when we're writing. For example, I love m-dashes, but they can be used in place of properly crafted sentences.

This is also when I deal with rhetorical questions, such as this example from a previous draft of WHISPERS:   

Danny still couldn’t fathom why Malcolm had offered up the alibi unless it was to humiliate Danny. But why? Because he was pissed that Danny hadn’t prioritized the graffiti vandalism? Because he didn’t like Danny prying into McIlvoy’s life?

This is just lazy writing. Really. At least for me. A bunch of rhetorical questions in a row tell me I need to go deeper and get to the heart of the matter in a more precise fashion. This might mean adding word count, but that's OK. So now it's this:

Danny still couldn’t fathom why Malcolm had offered up the alibi unless it was to humiliate Danny. He hadn’t prioritized finding the phantom graffiti artist, true, but surely Malcolm understood that vandalism didn’t rate as high as murder.

No, the alibi had to be a good-old-fashioned diversionary tactic. Most likely to distract Danny from prying into Malcolm’s relationship with McIlvoy.

 
5. Last but not least, I've word-searched words I know to be problematic, such as the "just"s and "really"s. Excess adverbs. The verb "was," which could indicate a yucky passive voice sentence or a sentence that needs rewriting with a stronger verb. I have a word list that I keep handy for this tedious, final task.

It's not that I get rid of every "just," "really," and "was" -- but I do consider them carefully. It's so easy to fall back on them -- another easy way out. (Oh, look at that, falling back on m-dashes again!)

Also, during all of this, I'll have noticed other words -- not the usual "blah" words -- that I fell in love with for some reason. For example, while writing WHISPERS, I used "flicker" a lot. Everything was flickering, from candle and sconce light, to gazes, to birds in flight. It was a positive flicker-fest, enough to cause a migraine!

All of this may be tedious, it may add to my writing time, but in end, I love the satisfaction of knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I've done all that I can do.

There's no such thing as perfection; there's only doing the best we can.