My Writing Process Blog Tour


I'd like to thank author, Holli Castillo, gumbojustice.blogspot.com/ for inviting me to participate in the
 "My Writing Process Blog Tour." She asked me to answer four question, here they are with my answers.

1. What am I working on?

I'm finishing the rewriting/editing of my next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, and beginning to formulate the ideas for my next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery series.

2. How does my work differ from others of their genre?

Both series are mysteries, but they are nothing alike. In the Tempe Crabtree series, the heroine is a Native American resident deputy sheriff in a small mountain community in the Southern Sierra. Sometimes Tempe resorts to Indian spiritualism in order to solve crimes. (Central California). 

The Rocky Bluff P.D. series is a police procedural that focuses on the men and women in the department and how what goes on at the job affects their private lives, and what happens in their private lives affects the job. It is set in a small beach community in Southern California. Most crimes are solves in the old-fashioned ways--asking lots of questions and following up clues.

3. Why do I write what I do?

The Rocky Bluff P.D. series came first and was inspired by the stories my police-officer son-in-law told me. It took a long time to find and keep a publisher. My goal was to show the private lives of the men and women in law-enforcement as well as the crimes that confronted them.

I did a ride-along with a female police officer, interviewed a female deputy sheriff for the newspaper, and met and became friends with a young Indian woman from our local reservation. The attributes and personalities of these three women combined became Deputy Tempe Crabtree. I began learning a lot about our local Indians and the reservation, and have included much of what I've learned into my mysteries.

4. How does my writing process work?

Because I'm writing two series, I have the main characters already. With a new book, I start thinking about what personal ongoing issues need to be updated, what crime(s) will need to be solved, if there's a murder, who the victim will be, cause of death, who would want that person murdered (usually several), and then I start building on that. Sometimes the murdered changes as I'm writing.

I compose on the computer, but keep notes as I'm going and ideas occur to me.

I read each chapter to my writing group and when I'm through, I go back through the book looking for typos and any inconsistencies, the overuse of words, and any other problems before I sent it off to an editor.

Marilyn
 
(Unfortunately, I couldn't find four participants to continue on with this roll--everyone I asked was already involved in it.)

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