by jphilo | Mar 15, 2016 | Mystery Update, Top Ten Tuesday
The wait for news from publishers about the fate of the mystery novel See Jane Run! continues. Pretty typical in the book world, so instead of checking email 10 times a day, I’m plowing ahead with the second book in the series, See Jane Sing! Since the last update on that book’s progress, I’ve written her out of the snowdrift, where her cherry red VW bug was stuck fast during her return trip from Thanksgiving with her family in Iowa. I am quickly discovering the challenges of writing mystery novel sequel snowstorm scenes. Here are ten of them.
10. Creating a recap of the previous book that gives new readers enough information to read the second book in the series and is so captivating, they are compelled to purchase the first book in the series.
9. Perfecting the timing so the driver has gone too far down a desolate, gravel road to turn back when the snowstorm hits while leaving enough miles and time for the formation of a large snowdrift, so the beaching of a VW Beetle to seem plausible.
8. Describing how to substitute an empty orange juice can for bathroom facilities when snowbound without providing TMI.
7. Unearthing a variety of verbs for walking through deep snow. As in wading, plowing, plodding, etc. (Your suggestions welcome in the comment box.)
6. Finding verbs for putting on winter gear. As more ways to describe donning gloves, hats, boots, coats. (Once again, your suggestions are welcome!)
5. Cooking a variety of turkey leftover dishes popular 30 years ago. (Yup, your suggestions are coveted.)
4. Deciding what mistakes to fix and what changes to make immediately and which ones to leave until the second draft.
3. Writing dialogue when the character who rescues Jane and her snowbound car hardly says a word.
2. Conveying the joy an elementary teacher feels when she returns to school after vacation and can once again enter the world of childhood with her students.
1. Keeping from getting in the car and heading west when writing about a tiny, fictional, South Dakota town makes a writer homesick for the place where she once lived.
by jphilo | Feb 8, 2016 | Mystery Update
Yes. it’s true. I am posting a mystery novel update only 2 weeks after the previous one. Not because a publishers who received the proposal has issues a contract, though one requested the entire manuscript last week.
Which as my agent, the Man of Steel and I agree is a good sign.
I’m posting this update because I have finished the backstories of the new characters set to debut in the second book in the Tipperary County Mystery Series, chosen its title (See Jane Sing!) outlined the plot, and have completed the first chapter.
Which ends with dear Jane stuck in a snowbank.
In her bright red Super Beetle. Imagine the car on the right painted the color of the car on the right with the front bumper and half the hood buried in a snowbank during a blizzard on an isolated stretch of gravel road in far western South Dakota.
Which never happened to me or the Man of Steel during our years in South Dakota.
But it could have happened. And we did have a bright red 1973 Super Beetle. It was cool. And kind of impractical for stocking up on groceries at the nearest supermarket 70 miles from home. So we soon traded it in for a VW Rabbit.
Which was slightly more practical, but most of the ranchers thought we were nuts.
But I digress. Back to Jane who is stuck in a snowbank without a cell phone. Because cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. Even so she knows the whole town, and possibly the National Guard, will soon be looking for her.
Which is why she’s calmly eating Thanksgiving leftovers instead of panicking.
I have to admit that this week’s snowstorm put me in the mood to write the scene. And I should warn you that no more tidbits about the opening of See Jane Sing! are forthcoming, Thought you should know that the person who rescues her is a new character who may or may not bear a slight resemblance to the Man of Steel.
Which is a good place for me to stop.
Don’t worry about Jane. She has a peanut butter jar full of water for drinking and an orange juice can to pee in if worst comes to worst. She’s gonna be just fine.
by jphilo | Jan 25, 2016 | Mystery Update
Lest the title of today’s post gives you the wrong idea, Jane’s not smiling because the mystery novel, See Jane Run! has found a publisher. She’s smiling because her creator and author (that would be me) has come up with a new name for the series.
Some of you may recall that copyright issues nixed the original moniker, which was The Fun With Dick and Jane Mystery Series. Thanks to brainstorming sessions with my big sister (who wanted the series title to reflect the remoteness of the setting) and my agent (who thought Tipperary, the name of the fictional county where the novel is set, should be used) and the history of the far away corner of South Dakota where we once lived, a new name for the series has been chosen. Are you ready?
The Tipperary County Mystery Series
Here’s why I–and the Man of Steel agreed with me once we reviewed the history behind it–think the new series title is superior to the previous one. Far, far away in Camp Crook, South Dakota in Harding County where the Man of Steel and I lived for 7 years, and long, long before we moved there a colt was born just across the border in Montana. Not an unusual occurrence in 1905 before the automobile age began. The owner hoped to break the colt to ride, but the 4-year-old horse was spooked during a thunderstorm and became unmanageable.
In 1915, the owner took the horse to Camp Crook and a highly regarded, local bronc rider saddled up the horse and gave him a whirl. As it turned out, the horse gave the cowboy a twirl, bucking him to the ground. The cowboy was carried to the hotel to recover. When he caught his breath, he quoted the lyrics of It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, a popular song of the era. The horse was immediately named Tipperary. Over the next ten years, only 1 cowboy completed a successful ride on Tipperary, an event that occurred at the very end of the horse’s fabled career. During our years in Camp Crook, Tipperary was still the talk of the town. We were friends with an old bachelor rancher whose father had owned the horse.
Back then, the name Tipperary intrigued me for two reasons. First, my uncle, who also my high school world cultures teacher, mentioned it became a sort of anthem for British World War 1 soldiers headed for the Western Front. Second, just a year before we moved to Camp Crook, the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show sang it at the end of the season finale. So the tune ran through my head when my husband and I first drove the winding road to and through Harding County for job interviews.
30 years later, the name Tipperary intrigues me for two more reasons. First, the lyrics are more than 75 years old, so they are public domain. That means no pesky copyright issues. Second, the chorus to It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary still ring true. They come to mind whenever I think of the dear people we left behind in 1985 when we moved to Iowa.
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye Piccadilly,
Farewell Leicester Square!
It’s a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
In so many ways and on so many days, my heart wings its way back to the little town where cowboys still ride broncs and the descendants of Tipperary’s first owners still live. My dearest wish is that one day, if the first book in The Tipperary County Mystery Series is published, Tipperary will win the hearts of all who read it, too.
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
by jphilo | Jan 11, 2016 | Mystery Update
January’s cold. Frigid even. So I thought an update on the status of the mystery novel See Jane Run! might cheer folks up. Before writing this, I checked to see when the the last update was posted and was shocked to discover it was September 21…just a few weeks before day of my fateful kitchen accident that left me one-handed for 3 months.
But because I’m as hearty as Jane, the heroine of the novel, I used the hunt and peck method to complete the book proposal and send it off to my agent. The couple of weeks I thought we would spend polishing it turned into months (the hunt and peck method does that to a person), and by mid-December my agent said it was ready to send to publishers.
She sent the proposal to 2 publishers before Christmas, and my best guess is that both copies spent the holidays stacked on the editors’ desks, looking on glumly while those in charge of their fate sipped eggnog and gathered round the Christmas tree to open presents. My agent agrees with the scenario and assures me that with the northern half of the northern hemisphere in the deep freeze, those editors are now curled up by roaring fires, sipping hot chocolate, and reading my proposal.* This week she’s also sending the proposal to another publisher, a long shot, but as she said, “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”**
The other big news about the novel is that after 3 months, 4 departments, and 2 answers to questions I didn’t ask, the publisher who holds the copyrights for the old Dick and Jane reading series finally sent an answer to the question I did ask. Which was this: Does using A Fun with Dick and Jane Mystery as the title of the series and See Jane Run! as the title for the first book break any copyright laws?
Their answer was yes. It does. No big deal now, but my agent and I will soon have a brainstorming session about new titles for the series and the novel. If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comment box. They would be most welcome.
That’s it. That’s all. As soon as we hear something, I’ll let you know. Which I hope is soon. Because I hate to think of the book proposal languishing on the editors’ desks until mid-February or beyond, watching glumly while those in charge of its fate open Valentine’s Day cards and work their way through a box of chocolates.***
My baby novel deserves better than that.
*Those were not her exact words, but she did say editors go back to work with renewed vigor after the holidays.
**Those were her exact words.
***Those are my words, not my agent’s.
by jphilo | Sep 21, 2015 | Mystery Update
In what may be a first at Down the Gravel Road, this mystery novel update comes less than a month after the previous one. Hard to believe, isn’t it? How can a writer, especially one who’s been hacking away at this manuscript for 2 1/2 years, make enough progress in one short month to warrant another update?
All I can say is that motivation makes a difference.
In this case, the motivation was a visit from my daughter over Labor Day. The same daughter who gave the marvelous feedback mentioned in the previous update. The daughter who I hoped would have time to reread the manuscript with the revisions she suggested. While I watched her baby.
Getting my hands on him was extra motivation.
Motivation worked. The rewrite was ready for her, she got it read, offered a little more feedback and then said, “You got it. It’s done. You should send it to your agent. And let Dad read it, too.”
I sent it my agent last week.
And am waiting on pins and needles to hear what she has to say. Since she’s mother to 3 young daughters, I’m doing my best to cultivate self-restraint and resist the hourly urge to email her and ask, “Are you done yet? Whaddya think? Did you like it? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
The Man of Steel loaded a copy onto his iPad, too.
He finished it in a week. Not an easy feat for someone who doesn’t like to read very much. Because he tends to fall asleep when he reads. But this book kept him awake. He really liked it and gave some good feedback.
To celebrate, I printed out a hard copy and am proofreading all 315 pages.
And making minor changes based on the Man of Steel’s suggestions. Partly out of desire to make my manuscript the best it can be. Partly because burying myself in the novel keeps me from emailing my agent and asking,
“Are you done yet? Whatddya think? Do you like it? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
by jphilo | Aug 24, 2015 | Mystery Update
Progress has continued on my mystery novel set in the wilds of northwest South Dakota since the last Gravel Road update about Jane and her excellent adventures. Of course, every good mystery novel is replete with twists and turns, and this one is no exception. What are the latest twists and turns?
The first is this.
My agent, a wonderful woman and mom to 3 lovely little girls, had planned to read it on vacation. But because that vacation included entertaining 3 lovely little girls, so she didn’t have time to read anything. Which turned out to be a good thing.
Because of the second twist.
My daughter did read the book and returned it with the most marvelous feedback. Feedback that, if implemented, will improve the novel immensely. Feedback that shows she could be a professional editor…and as a literature major she has the credentials. So if you’re looking to hire someone to shape up your manuscript, just let me know. But I digress.
Back to the second twist.
The feedback was so good, I emailed my agent and said, “If you haven’t read the book yet, don’t. Wait for the next draft which will incorporate the feedback from my daughter.”
On to the third twist.
My daughter’s feedback is as unique as she is, consisting as it does of items like the following:
- Beef up the scene at the dump
- Start the butterfly thing earlier
- Get out of Jane’s head and into dialogue more often
- Make the bad guy seem gooder (yes, I know that’s not a word) early on
And so on. My goal is to have this revision done by the last week of August when my daughter and her family come for a visit. So I can entertain the baby while she reads through it. Obviously a doubly self-serving goal, but worthwhile none the less.
Which leads to the fourth and final twist.
When I am deep into revision zone, my little inner voice pipes up every now and then with its favorite public service announcement:
Stop playing around and get back to work.
I stop and feel guilty for a moment until the realization dawns on me.
This is my work.
And I keep writing.
