Putting Puzzles Together VS Writing a Mystery Novel

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Killer-Match-Joan-Donaldson-Yarmey/dp/1990086241

https://www.rcn.media/product-page/secrets-of-a-town-s-cursed

https://www.rcn.media/product-page/Banished-To-The-Fifth-Planet

https://bookswelove.net/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

My daughter and son-in-law gave me a one-thousand piece puzzle. It has been years since I’ve put a puzzle together and I thought it would be fun. However, as soon as I dumped out the pieces on the table I realized that putting the puzzle together would be much like me writing a mystery novel.

     First, the big pile of pieces is like the big mishmash of ideas, clues, scenes, characters, and settings that make up the notes I have for my mystery. Before I can start the puzzle I have to turn all the pieces upright so I can see their colour, just as I have to sort through my notes when I start my novel. I have to decide where in the story my book begins much like I have to decide how to start my puzzle. I can outline my novel as some writers do or I can jump in and start writing. With the puzzle, I can find all the outer edge pieces and put them together or pick scenes of the picture and find the colours to match.

     I decide to start with outer edge and I sift through the pile to find them. I return the rest to the box. As I work on the edge I have to go back through the box to find edge pieces I missed, just like I have to go through my manuscript and find where I have missed adding some important information or missed putting in a misdirection.

     Because of the way they are cut, it is hard to decide if a piece is part of the outside edge or if it is a regular piece. Just like writing, is that a clue or a red herring?

     With the puzzle I know at the beginning what the end result will be because of the picture on the box. Sometimes when I start my mystery, I know the ending, however sometimes the characters say or do something that I hadn’t planned on and I am left trying to figure out how to get them out of a situation or how to diffuse something they have said.

     I learned that there are various names for the parts of a puzzle piece: loops and sockets; knobs and holes; tabs and slots; keys and locks; even outies or innies. Sometimes it is frustrating to try and get knobs to fit into the holes. The colour looks the same only the tab doesn’t fit correctly into the slot. Or the pieces lock perfectly but there is a slight difference in colour. If one doesn’t seem to fit in a spot, I have to match it somewhere else. That is the same with my writing. Sometimes I come up with a good line or a scene only to find that it doesn’t suit where I want it and I have to find a better match somewhere else.

     When I get stuck with trying to figure out where my story goes next, I can work on a different section in my novel. In the puzzle if I can’t seem to make a scene come together I can go to a different part and work there. Every puzzle piece is tailored to go with the rest to make the picture just like every clue, every scene, every red herring has to fit into the story properly.

     What is frustrating to a puzzle solver is finding that one or two pieces are missing at the end. This is true for the reader of a mystery. All the clues have to be pulled together, the red herrings explained, the mystery solved, and the murderer caught. I can’t leave any pieces out.

     And the last thing I realized about how putting puzzles together and writing mysteries are similar is that both of them are an excruciatingly slow process for me.

How I Became a Published Author

 

 

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https://www.rcn.media/product-page/secrets-of-a-town-s-cursed

 

https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

I took a few writing courses and began my published, writing career (as opposed to my unpublished writing career) with a short story titled  A Hawk's Reluctant Flight, in a small magazine called Western People. With that on my short resume, I had travel and historical articles accepted by other magazines, one of which didn't pay anything to the author. Then I took another writing course and one of the speakers was Grant Kennedy owner of Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton, Alberta.

       At the time Alberta was divided into tourist zones and I had been thinking about doing a book on what there was to see and do in each zone. I sent a query letter to Lone Pine Publishing and the senior editor responded with a phone call. We set up a time for me to go to the city and meet with her and Grant Kennedy.      

      I outlined my idea and Grant said yes it was a good one but he thought that the books should be more on the people and culture of each zone. He liked his idea and I liked mine so we decided we couldn't work together. As I stood to leave I said. "Well, at least as I research the zones I will see all the backroads of Alberta." He replied. "I've always want to do a book on the backroads of Alberta." I sat back down and that was how I began my backroads series. Over the next ten years I travelled through and wrote two books on Alberta, four books on British Columbia and one on the Yukon and Alaska.
       My favourite books to read have always been mystery novels and after much thought I decided to write one. Since one of the mantras of writing is to write what you know I made my main character a travel writer. She was headed to southern Alberta to do research for a magazine and was drawn into the mystery of a skeleton found in a septic tank. When I was finished I sent it out to a few publishers. One wrote back that they liked it but my travel background was coming out and I had too much travel information in it. I was asked to remove some. So I did and resent my manuscript. Again, I was asked to cut back on the travel info. Again I did. The third time I was told that this was a mystery and I should stick with the mystery and leave out the travel stuff. I wrote back and said that the main character is a travel writer and is working on an article. She is not going to drop that and concentrate on the mystery. So needless to say we parted ways.
      I sent out the manuscript again and another publisher said they were interested in publishing it. They had one stipulation and that was that I should add in more travel information.
      I sent the second novel of what I was calling my Travelling Detective Series to the same publisher. After about a five month wait I received a letter that told me the publishing house had been bought out by another one and that my manuscript and all my information had been sent to them. I waited a few months the emailed the new publisher to find out what was happening. A couple of days later I received an email stating that they had no record of my manuscript. My heart sunk. But a few days after that I received an email from another editor at the publishing house that they had found my manuscript and they wanted to publish it.
       However, in the time between that email and the publishing date for my novel, the publishing house was sold again. The new owner was going to honour my contracts, but in the future wasn't going to publish mysteries. I knew there was no use sending my third manuscript to that publisher and after checking around I sent it to Books We Love. They immediately accepted it and e-published it. After two years of talking with my former publisher I was able to get the rights to my first two novels of the series and now all three are published with Books We Love Ltd. as a boxed set.

     Since then I have published one more mystery novel, two young adult historical, and one adult historical romance, Romancing the Klondike through Books We Love. The sequel to that historical romance, Rushing the Klondike, will be out in September 2022.

 

New Years Resolutions and Writing

 

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 https://www.rcn.media/product-page/secrets-of-a-town-s-cursed

 

 

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

Almost everyone makes New Year’s Resolutions and we writers are no different. Resolutions could be described as promise made by a person to change themselves or something in their lives for the better. It could be volunteering at a charity, spending more time in nature, or cutting down on stress. This change begins on New Year’s Day and is supposed to last for the year.

While making a New Year's Pledge is a custom observed mainly in the Western Hemisphere, it is becoming more popular in the Eastern Hemisphere.

The top ten resolutions are said to be: spend more time with loved ones; get in shape through exercise; lose weight; travel more; quit smoking; stop drinking; enjoy life more; read more; pay off bills; learn something new.

I don't smoke and seldom drink, so I can take those off my list but this is how the rest of those resolutions relate to my writing.

      Spending more time with loved ones:

Writing is a solitary undertaking. I sit in a room alone with my computer (some writers use pen and paper.) I don’t like to be disturbed because that disturbance usually comes when I am right in the middle of a scene and I want to get it all down the way I am visualizing it. In order to spend more time with loved ones, I have tried to set up a schedule of writing in the morning and having the afternoon and evening free. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. If my writing is going slow then it may encroach into the afternoon in order to get my time in. But when there are family events, my writing takes a back burner. Memories of spending time with kids, grandkids and now great-grandkids are so much better then memories of staring at a computer. I read an article about one best-selling writer. Her son asked her if she would go to his baseball game. She said she couldn’t because she had to work on her next great book. I understand a deadline but I thought that was a lost opportunity on her part.

        Getting in shape through exercise.

I spend my writing time sitting in a chair. If the story line is going well, I want to keep at it to the detriment of other activities, so I schedule my exercising as soon as I get up in the morning. I am able to do that because I have a set of weights at home that I use so I don't have to go to a gym and I walk in the afternoons and evenings.

        Losing weight.

Hunger distracts me when I am writing. I find that I write better if I have a full stomach, usually full of chocolates, but anything works. To offset that I try to stop eating after 6pm and go for a walk after supper.

       Enjoy life more and travel more.

For me, these two go hand in hand. I love travelling whether its by motorhome, flying, bus tour, or ship all of which I have done. Its great to see new places and learn the history and customs of different countries. Also, sometimes I've managed to do some writing while on holidays (mainly in motorhome) so its a win/win situation for me. But since I enjoy writing my books and planning more stories, I guess I am enjoying life even when I am sitting alone in my office.

       Pay off bills.

A small percentage of writers actually have best-sellers and make lots of money. Most are happy to have a small income to help pay off their bills because they write because they love to write. That's me. I have an idea and want to write the story around it and I'm lucky that I have a publisher for my novels.

Learning something new.

Most beginner writers take writing courses to learn their craft. For others writing comes naturally. Many writers take a course in something they are writing about so the reader feels that the writer knows what they are putting in their books. When I write my historical novels I do a lot of research—reading books, visiting the places I am including in the book, and checking sites on the Internet. I have learned so much about Canadian history that I didn’t know before. I like to live by the saying: keep learning because it doesn’t cost anything to store the information.

So how do my New Year’s pledge(s) relate to those resolutions? I am going to continue doing my exercises in the morning before I begin writing so that I stay in shape. In spite of liking to write with a full stomach I work at maintaining my normal weight and will make sure that I continue to do so. Luckily at this time in my life, I don’t have any large debts and can write because I love to. I am not going to take up smoking nor will I drink more. But I think the most important one is I am going to continue enjoying life by doing more travelling and by writing more but also by spending more time with family and friends.