by jphilo | Oct 9, 2025 | See Jane Dance!, South Dakota, West River Mystery Series
I’m homesick for South Dakota. Had our last visit been a while ago, the feeling would be understandable. But we just got home 3 days ago, so the homesickness is puzzling. The best explanation is how absolutely perfect our trip was (a week in Spearfish and a week on our friends’ ranch in Harding County), with a couple notable imperfections. You’ll soon see why, even with the imperfections, I’m homesick for South Dakota.
The Many Perfect Bits
- Participating in the South Dakota Book Festival in Spearfish was a dream come true! The workshop I presented was well-attended. So was being part of a diverse panel of mystery writers. Nat Cassidy represented horror Shannon Baker. represented adventure, and I represented cozy mysteries. We had so much fun talking about our craft and answering questions posed by the moderator and audience members.
- At the Festival, I met one of my favorite mystery authors, William Kent Krueger. He endorsed See Jane Dance!, and I may or may not have cried while thanking him for his kindness. Hiram took a picture of us while I fan girled.
- The weather was gorgeous in Spearfish and Harding County. The leaves were beginning to turn in both places. We took in the colors on a drive through Spearfish Canyon. A week later we did the same thing in the Cave Hills located in northern Harding County. On our last night there 1.5 inches of rain fell overnight. Rain is a blessing in semi-arid Harding Country whenever it falls. Local ranchers consider 1.5 inches in October to be perfect weather, and we do too.
- The West River Cousins Reunion organized by one of my two West River cousins. We three cousins and our three patient spouses gathered for lunch one day and talked for five hours straight. Then we had an impromptu boat ride at Lake Sheridan in the Black Hills on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. What a blessing to be together and remember our parents, grandparents, and our large extended family!
- Hiram and I saw many old friends at the Camp Crook Volunteer Fire Department BBQ near the end of our stay in Harding County. Several of them recounted hunting stories from the 1970s and 80s. Some of their hunting tales will make their way in the seventh book in the West River Mystery Series. Whether they do or not, listening to what people said will add depth and color to Book #7. Being with our friends was wonderful. Saying good-bye to them was hard. They are the main reason I’m homesick for South Dakota already.
- Thanks to many hours driving across South Dakota and down time built into our trip, I was able to approve the final proofreading edits to the See Jane Ride! manuscript and send it to the publisher for type setting. Arriving home without that deadline looming was a great stress reliever.
The Imperfect Bits
- Hiram’s 50-year-old root canal gave up the ghost a couple days before we drove home. The tooth split, but didn’t come out and it wasn’t painful. Setting up appointments for fixing it seems to be a full time job!
- We were about to head out on the final leg of the trip home on Monday when I tripped and split my chin open on the asphalt. Hiram bandaged it up, I called our local doctor, and was in his office getting three stitches an hour after we drove into town.
Not only did I bring home a scar for a souvenir, the experience could show up in a future See Jane book. What more could I ask for?
by jphilo | Jan 29, 2025 | Mystery Update, South Dakota, West River Mystery Series
Yesterday the plot thickened.
You may be asking yourself how can that be? Just last week, Jolene revealed the See Jane Ride! cover and said the manuscript was now in the concept editor’s hands for review. Does that mean the editor wants a total plot revision? Say it ain’t so!
Rest easy readers. It ain’t so.
The plot being referred to in this post’s title is for the yet-to-be-written sixth book in the West River Mystery series. To stay on track for its release in October of 2026, my handful of notecards about a mystery that takes place during prairie fire season needed a lot of thickening. That handful of cards was also intended to contribute to the overall arc of series and its overarching mystery. That needed some thickening too.
Yesterday afternoon’s plot workshop with Midwestern Book’s concept editor and I was thick enough to accomplish both aims.
I’m not gonna lie. It was a brutal afternoon. Mainly because the concept editor kept asking hard questions like:
- Why would such-and-such a character do that?
- What possible reason could there be for Velma to stay overnight this time?
- Is that concern big enough for Jane’s mom to get her underwear in a bunch?
- How will Jane’s students contribute to solving the mystery?
- What spiritual growth will Jane experience?
- What’s the community event that gathers the town together?
- What about Dick and Jane?
My initial answers to such unreasonable questions were:
- I haven’t thought that through yet. I just thought it would be funny.
- I’m not sure yet, but Dick is going to agree with Velma.
- Everything gets her Mom’s underwear in a bunch.
- Still working on that, but they will.
- Still working on that, but she will.
- I assumed coming together to fight prairie fires was a community event.
- What about them?
To which my diabolical editor replied:
- Think harder.
- Let’s brainstorm until we figure it out.
- True, but be more specific.
- We’re not moving on until you come up with something.
- Ditto.
- Wrong assumption.
- Time to brainstorm again.
Thanks to the editor’s uncanny ability to spot plot holes and not move on until they were plugged, we worked on thickening the plot for almost 4 hours.* The picture at the top of the page shows that by the end of the 4 hours, my handful of notecards had expanded to almost 50 and categorized into 5 “acts.” The feat is actually more impressive considering the number of cards we torn up and rewrote. They’re the messy pile visible in the bottom middle of the table.
At that point the diabolical editor abandoned me, citing a flimsy excuse. Something about frosting a birthday cake for her daughter who turned 7 yesterday. After she left I used the calendars ,also visible on the table, to fit the plot into a three week mid-September 1978 through early October 1978 timeline. Then I stacked and rubber banded the cards for each act in chronological order and then banded the acts together into one thick and beautiful plot outline.
Oh, the burden the brutal workshop afternoon lifted from my shoulders!
Oh, the joy!
Oh, the freedom!
Oh, to begin writing the first draft of Book 6** and doing research to keep the story historically accurate!
All this because yesterday, the plot thickened.
*Minus 1 potty break per person and 1 session each at the espresso machine.
**The name of the next See Jane book will be announced in a few months.
by jphilo | Aug 26, 2021 | See Jane Run!, South Dakota
The view from Lone Butte plays a significant role in See Jane Run!, the first book in the West River Mystery Series. I’m not spilling the details here because I’d rather have you read the book once it’s available for purchase in June of 2022.
However, I will provide plenty of other tantalizing details. Here goes:
- Hiram and I climbed Lone Butte this past July while staying with friends on their ranch that encompasses the butte.
- It’s a pretty easy climb. If you know me, you may have already surmised that it had to be for me to attempt it.
- The vegetation changes along the way. It becomes more desert than pasture higher up.
- The butte is peppered with animal burrows. We didn’t see rattlers or any other kind of snake, so I keep telling myself they were rodent burrows. Faulty thinking, of course, as we didn’t see any rodents either. Still, faulty thinking can be a great comfort at times.
- The view from Lone Butte is spectacular. On a clear day, a person can see for miles, Not just a few miles, but for 20 or 30, perhaps even 50 miles. Which means that a person standing on the butte can see Montana, two miles to the west; North Dakota, fifteen miles to the north; and South Dakota to the south and east.
The day we climbed the butte, haze from the forest fires in the western United States limited the view. Even so, Hiram and I marveled at the beauty stretching before us. Standing there, I realized that the words used in See Jane Run! to describe this land were inadequate.
Fierce.
Remote.
Beautiful.
Vast.
Wild.
Intimidating.
Each word describes a facet of the landscape. Even when combined, they can’t capture the view from Lone Butte and the northwest corner of South Dakota where the series is set. Still, I try. Why?
Because this place and the people in it captured my heart more than forty years ago.
Because the view from Lone Butte explains the transformation of the main character in See Jane Run!
Because it changed me.
And because, dear reader, there’s a chance it might change you.
