Updates

I have been studying the elements of writing a mystery novel with a small group of fellow writers, and one of the critical elements is the crime scene: why the villain killed (kidnapped, or whatever) the victim, their relationship, how it was planned, the location (including time of day, season, etc.) and exact mechanism of the crime–leading to clues. This scene may never end up in the book–in fact, it likely won’t–but the author needs to know it to the minutest detail.

I have decided that my next novel will be structured as a mystery, so this week, I constructed the crime scene. Man, I learned a lot.

Finished the text of another grant application. It is not due for a while, so I have submitted it to my writers’ group for critique. As it is not fiction, I queried first, and they all were interested in reviewing it. It will be interesting to see what kind of feedback I get.

Had a great interview with Josh Pantalleresco today. Actually, it was more like a conversation–he is an excellent interviewer. The post should come out in about a month or so.

Oh, yeah! Had a cool experience this week, invited to sit in my daughter’s creative writing dissertation defense. She handled herself with terrific aplomb, and passed the exam. She will have a few minor revisions to do, and then we can all call her “doctor!” In the meantime, she is applying to professorships and post-docs for next year. We celebrated by taking her and her significant other to dinner.

Our mystery writing group finally has a name: Mystery Mavens. We met on Thursday, this month, with Mahrie Reid, mystery writer and teacher, who answered our current questions, and more. In addition, we had a lovely meal and more than one glass of wine! Now I am doing the “becauses” for my novel. For each scene, I am writing why the key events happen, so they are part of a causal chain, rather than by coincidence or left-field. Almost done!