Writers in the Storm

by Linda O. Johnston

I’m delighted to be back for another guest blog on Writers in the Storm.  Once again, I’m blogging about cozy mysteries.

Do you know what makes a cozy mystery "cozy?"

Well, they all star amateur sleuths, for one thing.  There are a lot of Jessica Fletcher types of characters out there who just happen into murders and are drawn into solving them, even though they don’t really know the first thing about how to find a killer, at least not at first.

Sometimes they’re driven because they are the main murder suspects, or their best friends or close relatives are.  Sometimes, it’s just because they stumble over a body, either literally or figuratively, and have to figure out whodunit.

In cozies, the sleuths may be amateur but they’re not dumb.  They often have friends or relatives who are in law enforcement who can help them out.  Sometimes those friends are really good friends, like their love interests.  And, yes, most cozy protagonists are women, since their readership is also primarily female.

One thing that often pulls readers into a cozy series is the underlying theme.   The readers may share the protagonist’s interests on anything from pets (that’s my theme!), to hobbies, to one or more kinds of paranormal activities, to cooking or sewing or any other kind of personal pursuit.

Cozies tend not to be particularly graphic, although that may be changing.  Even when a protagonist stumbles over a bloody body, that blood isn’t described in gory detail.  In some stories these days there might be a little bit more description of the dead body, or even of what goes on in the protagonist’s bedroom.  Her sex life usually takes place off the page, even when she has a love interest.

Cozy mystery protagonists also often have friends who are sidekicks in addition to those in law enforcement.  They’re helpful sounding boards for running theories by, or even sometimes help to dig out those all-important clues.

Most cozy mysteries tend to be written in series, so you can get to know the character and friends, and dig further into the themes.

Do you find this fun?  I hope so--and here’s a little blatant self-promo which may also be of interest to those of you who want to write cozy mysteries:  I’ll be teaching an online class called: Kiss Me or Kill Me: Writing Cozy Mysteries for Romance Writers.  It’s offered by the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America, and starts mid-February.  Notwithstanding the name, it could be of interest to you if you’re interested in writing cozies but don’t write romance.  I will be addressing the basics of how to write cozy mysteries. Hope to see you there!

Do you read cozy mysteries? Do you have any questions for me? What is it that attracts you the most to these books vs. "traditional" mystery novels?

Linda O. Johnston is the author of 29 published novels, with more to come.  She currently writes the Pet Rescue Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime, a spinoff series from her Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries, also for Berkley .   The second Pet Rescue Mystery, THE MORE THE TERRIER, was an October release, and the third, HOUNDS ABOUND, will be available in April 2012.

Additionally, Linda writes paranormal romance for Harlequin Nocturne--the Alpha Force miniseries about a covert military unit of shapeshifters.  Watch for one in 2012.  And also coming up, in July 2012 is Linda’s Harlequin Romantic Suspense UNDERCOVER SOLDIER!

As a corporate software trainer, I’ve got to be ON each day I’m in the classroom. It doesn’t matter whether I was up all night with a teething baby or if my best friend and I had a fight. Nobody cares about those things when they come in for a day of Word or Excel or leadership training. They’re focused on what they need to learn and it’s my job to deliver.

There are personality types who would hate my job. They’d get tired by all that “on” business. I see it a little differently. Every day that I walk into the classroom, I know:

• All my problems get checked at the door.
• I’m going to provide a service.
• I’m going to have a fun day.
• I’ll get to see people learn, and light up over what they learn.

Do you see a trend with perks I listed above? It’s me, me, I, I. Even though it doesn’t look like it. Training is a vacation from my own busy head where I get to focus on other people. It works for me because it plays on some of my innate strengths.

I went to a Training conference earlier this year that was geared toward the accounting industry. The keynote presentation was called, “Building a Strengths-Based Organization” and it shined the light on a disturbing trend:

Society, starting with our schools and continuing through our workplace management teams, sure does put a mighty amount of focus on improving our weaknesses.

After hearing some speakers at that conference, I started thinking crazy thoughts. What might happen if these organizations put this same amount of energy in developing peoples’ strengths?

What kind of mountains could we move as writers if we applied our efforts toward being stellar at the things we’re good at, rather than focusing all our energy on our “faults?”

I’m not talking about turning into a bunch of narcissists that can do no wrong. I’m talking about making it a primary goal to discover your innate strengths and spend more time playing to them. This conference spun my head around and, strangely enough, most of what I learned applied more to writing than it did to training.

Let me give you an example:

We did an exercise in the conference pre-session where we listed the things we were good at – we had 60 seconds to scribble them down off the top of our head. We were directed to find the skills we’d always been good at.

Hint: Most people don’t “see” these innate skills as anything nifty or unusual. In other words, they don’t see their own special talents. (Sound familiar anyone?)

The abilities people came up with were amazing – there was so much talent in that room and the majority of it was not being used the workplace (read: writing), where we spend at least 50% of our waking hours. How sad is that? These abilities were being relegated to the hobby side of the fence.

My innate strengths, in no particular order, were: writing, teaching, motivating others, doing hair and learning software.

I felt extremely lucky when I looked at my list. Life pushed me early into a job I am uniquely suited for. Except for the “doing hair” part, my innate strengths describe the perfect software trainer. No wonder training feels so easy…it draws on at least three areas of my innate strengths, so it doesn’t feel like work.

This brings me to another worrisome trend:

I’ve noticed a disturbing trait that’s common to creative people, in this case writers. Many writers seem to think that because they have weak areas that they are bad writers.

I have a question for you perfectionists: Why is it acceptable for multiple attempts when learning to ride a bike, or dance the tango, or knit but it’s an “epic fail” to write a few books before you get good at it?

Lots of first novels remain unpublished for a reason. They were practice for the other books. I don’t get why it’s expected to take years to learn the piano but it’s not acceptable sit down at the writing page and have less-than-perfect prose fall from your fingertips.

It doesn’t mean you’re a slacker just because you like to do the things that come naturally to you. In fact, I’m going to take this further and issue you a challenge:

Pay attention to the things that are easy for you and try to do them more often.

The easiest way to bring your “A” Game to your life is to play to your strengths. In American League Baseball, they can use pinch hitters or pinch runners. Why can’t we do a little of that in our own writing groups?

Here at Writers In The Storm we have:

• Pinch World Builders (Fae Rowen)
• Pinch Steamy Scene Pros (Sharla Rae)
• Pinch Description Writers (Laura Drake)
• Pinch Theme Builders (that would be me)

I can’t write a transition to save my life. I’ve had it take me an entire page to get my characters from an elevator to the front door of a building. (Yeah, that was embarrassing.) While we’re on my biggest “weaknesses”:

• I feel like a voyeur when my characters’ clothes come off.
• I can’t figure out how to build a space world.
• The thought of writing a 400 page novel makes me sweat.

Does this make me a crappy writer? Nope. It just means that my strengths lie elsewhere. I have to go to my A-Team to get my “A” Game sometimes. And that’s OK. I want to know when the Writing Police decided that we have to be great at every single aspect of our writing.

Even though the 400 page novel makes me sweat, writing a single scene gets me all fired up. That’s the way I’m wired. Writing short is fun, and falls into the playtime category. Writing long (as in a novel) is extremely hard for me. Still, it’s a dream of mine to publish novels so I keep at it.

What are your innate strengths? I’m not talking about the things you’ve learned to be good at. What were you always good at? Share your uniqueness in the comments section – we want to hear about it.

Happy Writing!
Jenny

I suppose everyone has a favorite Christmas. The year they got the bike they had so wanted. Or maybe a Chatty Cathy doll when those were popular.

My favorite Christmas was the year my daughter Carolyn was born.

My husband and I moved to Anchorage, Alaska when we were first married. He was a civilian engineer assigned to help the Air Force keep their missiles operating. For me, a native Californian who had rarely seen snow much less lived in a snowy climate, it was all quite exciting. And truly beautiful.

I was pregnant as our second Christmas approached. (Which, by the way, gave me an excuse not to tramp through the woods in a foot of snow to cut down our own tree and freeze my feet in the process as I had the previous Christmas.)

As I walked through town doing my Christmas shopping, I admired the decorations draped from lamp poles and the store windows painted with holiday themes. Like most first-time moms-to-be, I wanted to shout to everyone that I would soon have a baby! And thank them for decorating the whole town in honor of her upcoming arrival.

On the evening of December 23^rd, my water broke. Off to the hospital we go, which was no easy trick. We’d had a Chinook, a warm spell that melted the snow during the day and turned it to ice at night.

Newly-built Providence hospital was at the end of a long, dirt road, not uncommon in Anchorage at the time, and was crowned over with ice. Driving no more than 5-miles an hour, my husband managed to keep us on the road instead of in the ditch. I was so grateful we, and the baby, were in no hurry.

Baby Carolyn definitely wasn’t in a hurry. She didn’t make her grand entrance until the afternoon of December 24^th. It is not possible to describe the surge of love I felt the moment I saw her. Wow! I was a mother. A scary and wonderful feeling.

And the best Christmas present ever! What was your favorite Christmas present?

Wishing you a lovely Christmas and holiday season.

Books that leave you smiling
by Charlotte Carter

Big Sky Family, Love Inspired, available now.
Montana Love Letter, Love Inspired, 10/2012
Secrets of Mary’s Bookshop, Guideposts Books, 2012
www.CharlotteCarter.com