In the Book...a Peek at Planning #character #writing

The first thing I do when I start writing a new story is make a CHARACTER SKETCH for everyone who will appear in the book. I often don't know everything about a character in the beginning. I'll have the name, age, where they're born, and where they fit in the story.

Once I get the gist of the story in my head and begin to write, the characters reveal more about themselves as the story progresses. So for instance, I didn't know the character Wil was married to Jillian for several chapters. Jillian's role is small so she didn't have much time to clue me in.

I'm sharing the sketch for Magpie today. She's the main female in my current WIP (working title: Magpie Mackenzie, a Joshua, Arizona Novel). Beware, it's highly possible not all of this will show up in the finished book. Knowing details helps to write the book, but could bore the reader.

Character Name: Magpie Muse MacKenzie    Nickname: Mags to Phaedra and Maggypie to her dad

Birth Date and Place: February 1975 Joshua, AZ

Character Role: Heroine

Physical Descriptions:

                Age: 43 

                Race: Caucasian

                Eye Color: Caramel with yellow specks or burnt sugar at other times

                Hair Color and Style: Light brown with strands of gold, just past shoulders and curly to the point of uncontrolled (Zack sees it as caramel like her eyes)

                Height/Weight/Build: 5’7”, 130, medium

                Skin Tone: very fair

                Style of Dress: very casual skirts or jeans or leggings, strappy sandals or boots, no underwear, tops vary

                Distinguishing physical traits or mannerisms: her eyes and hair, her favorite swear word is Sacrebleu.

She twists hair around her finger by her face when she’s thinking.

Personality Traits: curious, independent, logical but unorthodox in her thinking. Not afraid to try new things. She likes unusual and intellectual. Critical of herself.

Background: Born and raised in Joshua. Got a business degree from NAU. Married a fellow student after college and talked him into moving to Joshua. He worked in Copperdale in IT. Never really liked Joshua. They had twins, one boy and one girl. He finally left her for another woman he met through work when he was down in the city (Phoenix). He didn’t like the lifestyle of Joshua which he didn’t realize she was so much a part of because she was a business major. He’s now in Phoenix

GOAL: She’s determined to find out what really happened to Mark, her teen love who disappeared 28 years ago.

MOTIVATION: The remains of a murdered person are found. She’s attracted to Zack who looks like him. Her father is a suspect.

Internal Conflicts: Zack is younger, and she thinks of Mark when she sees him. She suspects her father murdered his girlfriend and her teen boyfriend 28 years ago.

External Conflicts: Her father is the cop’s number one suspect. Zack’s obsession with solving the mystery.

Occupation/Education: Is the owner of Magpie’s Mercantile. Went to college for 4 years. On Friday nights and sometimes Sat she sings at the Apparition Room.

Miscellaneous Notes: She was born a month early so her parents didn’t have a name decided on. They called her Baby until she was five. She announced she was too old to be called Baby. Her father came up with Magpie because she flitted around town and dragged home castoff treasures of others. (magpies are known for thievery but they are really just overly curious)

She likes to sing and has a lovely voice as well as being able to grind out rock songs. She loves to cook and loves making unusual lattes. She drives a four-year-old Suzuki SX4 (all wheel drive) maroon in color with a few dents. Her aura is yellow: The Yellow Aura individual tends to put their head above their heart when faced with difficult choices and decision making. They are unorthodox and unconventional thinkers and not afraid to experiment with different ideas and original concepts. To some the Yellow Aura seems a little eccentric with unusual interests and hobbies. They are attracted to anything which is considered avant-garde, intellectual or unusual. The main fault of a person who has a predominant Yellow Aura is that they can be overly critical of themselves and others.

Scent: herbal/earthy

If you'd like to meet characters from other books I've already published, click on over to Meet the Characters on my web page.

WIP Update #RomanticSuspense #series #writing

To refresh your memory, the setting for this new WIP (work in process) is based on a real-life mining town turned ghost town turned tourist town. I fell in love with Jerome, Arizona years ago. In order to have more flexibility with the lay of the land and the history, I've renamed it Joshua. All the people in Joshua are purely from my imagination. This Romantic Suspense Series should keep

Hanging on the side of Spirit Mt.

you turning the pages long into the night. An unsolved murder from 1990 has a bearing on today…especially now that a body, reduced to bones, has been found in the hippie section of town called The Ravine.

Chapter Eight is in the hands of my critique partners. I hope to finish Chapter Nine today. FDW and I took a drive to Jerome, which is where the setting for my Joshua, Arizona Series is modeled after. Now that I’m this far into the book, I found myself seeing the town as if it really was Joshua. The street names were no longer what the street sign designated them. At one point, I told

FDW I needed a shot of the Ghostly Goulash restaurant. He had no idea what I meant.

A section of town call The Ravine plays a big part in my book. As

Looking down into The Ravine.

in real life (the Gulch), the inhabitants of that area do not welcome visitors. This section was where the first hippies mainly settled in the 60s and many of them still live there. We drove a few yards into the area so I could snap some photos. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good feel for it. My fictionalized edition is much more vivid to me.

Next month, I’ll share more photos. Now, I’ve got to get deep into my writing cave.

Stairs take you up or down to the next street.

Time to get this story out of my head and onto the page.

WIP Update #RomanticSuspense #series #writing

The view from the Ghostly Goulash

To refresh your memory, the setting for this new WIP (work in process) is based on a real-life mining town turned ghost town turned tourist town. I fell in love with Jerome, Arizona years ago. In order to have more flexibility with the lay of the land and the history, I've renamed it Joshua. All the people in Joshua are purely from my imagination. This Romantic Suspense Series should keep you turning the pages long into the night. An unsolved murder from 1990 has a bearing on today…especially now that bones have been found in the Hippie section of town called The Ravine.

Last month, I offered up the first page of the first book. So, where am I with the first book in the series today? Not as far along as I’d hoped. I have finished two more chapters, made a chart of characters that are involved in the plot with their ages in 1969, 1990, and 2019. There are twenty-five of them so I definitely needed a chart. The book is set in 2019, involves a murder in 1990, and is interwoven with what happened in 1969.

I found I had to rename quite a few characters. This idea started as a three-book series set in

1930s "house of pleasure"

1969/1970 and three books set in present day. But I decided to write a book within a book. Too many characters from the two time periods had similar names. That done, I continued writing. I’m handling 1969 through a series of flashbacks.

I’ll share one of those flashbacks with you today. Every flashback will be seen from the POV (point of view) of Frank Harlan MacKenzie, who came to Joshua in 1969, met Susie Muse and had three children, Magpie, Harlan, and Elidor. Frank and Susie were some of the first of the so-called Hippies that settled in Joshua. I can’t share the whole flashback because it’s too long, so here’s the latter part. He’s just dropped off his friend, Snuff, at the clinic. This is when Frank meets Susie…1969.

Frank closed the clinic door behind him and strolled through the archway that led to another part of the building. A sign intricately painted with scrolls and flowers read Knit Two Wear. The arrow pointed straight ahead. In the middle of the shop, Lolly—the Lolly—arranged some sort of knitted clothing on a rack. Even without seeing her face, she was hard to mistake for anyone else. He was just under six feet, and the woman stood nearly as tall as him. She had to weigh three hundred pounds.

She glanced up. “Good morning. Anything I can help you with?” She dressed the same as the first time he’d met her: full, floor length skirt, sandals, and a cotton blouse with a plunging neckline that left little to the imagination about an abundance of breasts. A leather strap held straight blonde hair at the back of her neck.

“I’m just looking around.”

“Please do.” Thick brows drew together. “We’ve met.”

“Yeah, first night I was in town. At your house.”

“That’s right. You live with Doug and Maureen.” She floated toward him, all fullness of skirt flouncing, breasts bobbing and threatening to break free of what little material covered them.

Her arms spread wide, and he suddenly dissolved into warm flesh. He could’ve laid his head on her shoulder and taken a nap. The scent of patchouli lulled him.

She stood back then, still clasping his shoulders. “My, you are a strong young man.” Her hands slipped to his biceps. “Mm—mm.” She winked. “Why haven’t you been back to my house?”

Her welcome hug could’ve turned into a whole lot more. She was really beautiful, but the beauty came as a result of the openness and warmth that radiated from inside her. Lolly held nothing back of herself. How he knew all of this with one hug and a wink, he didn’t know, but thoroughly believed.

“I’ve been busy getting settled and working on my sculptures.”

“Ohhh, you’re a sculptor.” Her fingers massaged his biceps. “I should’ve guessed.” Another wink, and she released him. “Well, you know where I am. You come around any time you want. My home is open most every night to all of our friends.”

Two women entered the shop from the street door. With a smile, she left him to greet her customers.

Having been officially welcomed to Joshua, he left through the street entrance and stepped into the almost noonday sunshine. This is home. He smiled.

The heat of eighty-degree weather penetrated his cotton shirt, and he rolled the sleeves above his elbows as he walked. Turning onto Cutway Street, aptly named as the road jutted upward at an angle to connect to Main Street above, his leg muscles felt the pull with the climb. He didn’t mind. Cutway Street dumped onto Main and into the heart of downtown Joshua. He took a deep breath as he paused at the top. He hadn’t quite acclimated to the elevation yet.

His stomach growled. He’d had only coffee for breakfast. The shop directly in front of him looked promising for food when he spied two wrought iron tables on the sidewalk in front. The sign above the door said “Susie’s” and was flanked by a window on each side. Over one window, “Wake Up Susie” was painted in purple and over the other window in bright taxi-cab yellow was “The Muse.”

He stepped through the open doorway, greeted by a delicious spicy aroma, as well as a nicely rounded bottom covered in worn jeans frayed on the leg edges and missing a pocket.

The petite woman belonging to the butt, bent from the waist downward, peeked around her legs. Black hair, so curly it hung in corkscrews, dusted the floor. “Hi!” She straightened from the shelf of books she was arranging and laughed. The sound was a melody. The face a work of art. Her eyes were the color of gold nuggets rimmed in the color of dark fertile soil. How appropriate for an old mining town. She smoothed her waist-length hair down without much success. Her ripe peach lips were moving, and Frank started with the realization she was speaking.

I’ve been floundering on what to call this new series. Not wanting to wait for some inspiration to hit

Hanging on the side of a mountain

me, I’m going with these working titles. First off, the series will be called Joshua, Arizona. And I’ll name the books for the main character. Book one will be “Magpie, a Joshua, Arizona Novel.” Book two will be “Harlan MacKenzie, a Joshua, Arizona Novel.” And book three, “Elidor, (maybe Elidor Muse), a Joshua, Arizona Novel.” If I find these are too boring, I just might offer a contest to readers to help me choose new titles. More on that in the months ahead.

Now to get back to writing. I’ll give you an update next month.

Start a New Book #romanticsuspense #series #writing

I've started writing a new romantic suspense, a new series. I've decided to post weekly updates on the status of my WIP (Work In Progress). Feedback and questions are welcomed.

The setting for this series is based on a real life mining town turned ghost town turned tourist town. I fell in love with Jerome, Arizona years ago. In order to have more flexibility with the lay of the land and the history, I've renamed it Joshua. All the people in Joshua are purely from my imagination.

Joshua hangs on the side of Nefertiti Hill. Between the late 1800s and the early 1940s, Joshua was a booming, wild and woolly, western mining town. But when the ore and gold ran out, the town fell on hard times. By 1950 there were less than 100 people. In 1964, hippies descended on the town squatting in abandoned homes and buildings. In this group of hippies, is the beginning of the family I will tell the stories of in my series.

Not all of the original citizens were happy about the new arrivals. Some of those hippies took up permanent residence, ended up on the town council, and helped turn Joshua into the art and tourist center it is today. It is still just a square mile, hanging on the side of Nefertiti Hill and there are rumors of ghosts. There are still some of the original hippies and artists. And there are plenty of romantic suspenseful stories to tell about
Joshua and its inhabitants.

So, where am I with the first book in the series? I've sent off the first 67 pages of book one to my CPs (critique partners) for their feedback. I have all of my characters outlined and dying to walk through my pages. There's an old murder unsolved, there's a subplot that dates back to 1969, and human bones have been uncovered but not identified.

Magpie Mackenzie, of Magpie's Mercantile, has met Zack Peartree who reminds her of someone who disappeared twenty-eight years ago. Zack feels a strong pull to Magpie. I shouldn't do this, since it could very well change before the book is published, but what the heck. Here's my opening few paragraphs, for now anyway:

Laughter mingled with the jangle of the bell above the door. Magpie MacKenzie glanced over her shoulder from atop the stepping stool where she arranged music boxes on the top shelf of a four-tiered display.

Three women and two men tumbled into the shop, apparently anxious to leave the cold outside. The late afternoon sun now blazed through the front windows of Magpie’s Mercantile, but she guessed the warmth was severely neutralized outside by the chilly wind snaking through the mountains. What happened to the chance of snow? “Good afternoon.”

Magpie descended the stool, holding her long skirt up a bit so that her boots wouldn’t catch the hem as comments sprinkled the air.

“Hi.”

“Oh, it’s warm in here.”

“What a great store!”

The sweet sense of pride that enveloped her whenever someone appreciated her shop never grew old. Although the entry into the mercantile was narrow, the space beyond was four times as deep as it was wide. As soon as the door closed behind patrons, they were immersed in textile creations on the left; music boxes, some small wooden instruments, and pottery displayed on the right. The counter nestled next to the music boxes and down the narrow aisle, deeper into the shop, customers found carvings, sculptures, and paintings.

Turning, ready to welcome her customers, she caught the gaze of a man at the rear of the group.

She froze.

Something about the way he angled his head to the left…the same habit Mark had had when he found something she said amusing. Longish black hair waved around his ears. His deep green eyes beneath thick, arched brows gazed into hers, and he smiled.

Her heart rose to the hollow spot in her throat.

It can’t be Mark. This man is much too young. Mark would be forty-five by now, two years older than me.

I'll check in next month and update my progress. I'll be working on dropping in some back story in the form of flashbacks. There's a story within the story in my mind. Wish me luck!