I’m currently watching the German show Perfume, based on the old classic book of same name. It’s a modern take/retelling. It’s a slow burn mystery. I tried to get my wife to watch it with me, she was passing out during the first episode and called it boring, I believe. I like the slow burn, eerie, deep mystery going on myself. But then again, my favorite movie is Hitchcock’s Vertigo which is also kind of a slow burn mystery.
Mercedes Masterson, and the Sweet Sixteen Killer: Prologue.
Here is an early look at my crime novella, the first in a series, following private detective Mercedes Masterson. I’m hoping I can have it ready for you all to read by end of year or early 2019.
For now, I hope you enjoy this preview and lemme know what your think.
#amwriting #crimefiction #noir #writing #mysteryfiction
You kick the hive, you answer to the queen.
A pretty good summation of my femme detective, as I think I’ll start calling her. I’ve been working on this character for years. Since 2005 to be precise. Last year I wrote and began editing on the first in a series of short, noir books that will feature this character at the helm.
Meet Mercedes Masterson, private eye.
Added 1,832. Now up to 22,175. This novella is moving along again. I had hit a rock wall in February and couldn’t write on this project since then. Tonight was the first time since then that I was able to sit back down and get to it. Which is a good thing, because my deadline is June 1. YIKES! What was once ahead of schedule is now down to the last minute. Argh!
But I’m close. So close. I can taste the sweet savory awesoness of victory.
Jessica Wright is victim #7 in my morbid project I Will Kill You for $5. And she didn’t go down easy. I offered to write this story for her as payback for her boyfriend, Josef, recording my standup comedy gig last October. And thus began the longest, longest, longest short story I’ve ever written. Not even sure it qualifies anymore as such. Continue reading
Several years ago, almost eight, I spent 2 days in my family’s cabin on the lake writing the next, great American novel. Sounds like a horror film, right?
Well, nothing scary happened, except for a lot of cabin fever. But not that kind of cabin fever.
What I did do was pretty much what I was aiming for… I wrote an entire complete first draft of my novel. Was it perfect? Far from it. Was it there? Yeah. Did I feel like I’d made a mistake? Mostly. Did I have a lot of fun? Absolutely.
Today, I went back and started putting the numbers together, and looking at what I had. I was feeling more positive about my work, and feeling like maybe there was something there to brag about, if I’d just get back on it.
A book by the numbers.
Turns out that a) I wrote more words in 2 days than I remembered, b) I had a higher wordcount than I recalled as well. That definitely left me feeling better about the whole experience.
In the near future, I will probably be revisiting those chapters and rewriting a lot, and adding more. As you can see from the numbers, a lot of my chapters are pretty short. The result of moving so fast through writing. But the bulk of what needs to be there is there, just need to get back in and get my hands dirty. And work on those chapters.
How fast can you write? Do you have a habit of skimming on the narrative when trying to cram writing? What’s the most you’ve ever accomplished over a small amount of time?
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This post was originally shared on Google+ here:
(excerpt from The Order of the Dragon)
Tom Bradshaw sat at a table near the windows that looked out to the beach and Lake Huron. With the morning fog covering the lake, he couldn’t see Mackinac Island. But he knew it was out there, and in the back of his mind he was hoping another body hadn’t been added to the count of violent crimes being committed on its pleasant shores. Continue reading
