I began 2018 by carrying around a notebook with ten blank pages allocated to each of my next three books. I have a two sentence description of the book and my hope is if I start with ten pages of notes, I'll write faster. I'd like to publish three to four books this year!
CRESCENT CITY MURDER (#1) is in the homestretch of creation with a planned finish date of the end of January. It's been a rocky writing session where I'll get bursts of brilliant scenes in my head, then suffer through what feels like dull writing connecting the scenes. I've written before about being a pantser style of writer, but it can be maddeningly slow at times. When I started Crescent City Murder, I had a plan to kill a guy with nutmeg, but the why of it didn't come to me for at least the first five chapters. Sounds freakish that you can start a story without knowing where it's going, but that's how my creative mind works.
Un-Named book #2 for 2018, will be the third and final in Damian Green Series. I need to unite Hermione with her real parents and get Ariana and Damian into a personal relationship; the cold case in this story will be a child abduction. Beyond that I'm lacking for ideas. It's why book 3 is taking so long for me to begin. I understand that one of the reasons Sue Grafton didn't get to her final book of the alphabet, 'Z is for …', is that she couldn't get excited about any of her ideas regarding the final story. Granted she likely had health issues hampering her creativity, and perhaps the pressure of the final book in a popular series, but it's interesting that even a famous author can suffer from writing blocks on occasion.
Un-Named book #3 for 2018 will be the ninth book for the Jill Quint series set in Southern Italy. The story will be about Marie's sister's boss who gets killed while visiting the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri. He swims into it and doesn't come out alive. Said sister's company is convinced to hire the team and Angela is first on the scene as she is already on the Amalfi Coast doing wedding photos for her goddaughter.
Un-Named book #4 for 2018 will be the tenth book of the Jill Quint series and it's set in Toronto. Jill is visiting relatives in Toronto and decides to duck into an old Presbyterian Church as she saw a sign announcing a free noontime recital. The pianist dies about seven minutes into Chopin's Barcarolle, Opus 60 in a dramatic fashion, just as the coda was reaching a crescendo. I'm going to have to do a lot of research into classical music for this book as I know next to nothing about it.
In real life, while attending Bouchercon this past October, I did leave the convention to go and hear the concert in this church and give my brain a break from books, authors, and writing. Trip Advisor listed it as one of the things to do in downtown Toronto on a Friday. While listening to the music, I came up with the idea for this story. You can see the piano at the foot of the steps leading up to the altar. Poor pianist never knew he was going to die in a future work of fiction.
Keep your fingers crossed that I'll complete these books on schedule.
Happy New Year!