Thursday, February 24, 2022

The Perils of Pantsing, a guest blog by Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: What can I say about the Agatha-nominated, incredibly prolific Maddie Day, especially since, as Edith Maxwell, she's a long-time and well-loved member of our Jungle Red community. 

I always assumed Maddie/Edith was a disciplined outliner when it came to writing her books, since she routinely has several books out each year and her short stories are regularly featured in anthologies. Other highly productive authors I know are confirmed plotters, and to be frank, this makes me feel better, because it gives me an excuse for taking sooooo long to write my own books. Because I write by the seat of my pants.

Imagine my chagrin in discovering Maddie doesn't have a set plan when she sits down to write! Another rational gone by the wayside. Maddie, how could you do this to me?

 

 

Hi. My name is Maddie, and I’m a pantser. There, I said it.

 

But first, thank you to Julia for hosting me on the front side of the blog. It’s always an honor and a delight to flip onto the main page and be able to celebrate a new book – my twenty-seventh! – with the Reds and all my fellow regular commenters.

 

When I started writing my first book-length mystery back in 1994, I knew nothing. I’d never studied creative writing. Was clueless about point of view. Had no idea about pacing. And nobody ever told me I should plot out my book ahead of time. Anyway, the word “outline” would have conjured nightmares of high school and those nested Roman numerals and letters that were supposed to summarize an essay or article. I still shudder at the thought.

 

So I plunged in and began to write a mystery set on an organic farm, start to finish. Except I got about two-thirds through the story and realized I had no idea which of my suspects was the bad guy. I also didn’t know how to decide. I was reading exclusively mysteries at the time – by Sue Grafton, Katherine Hall Page, Sara Paretsky, Diane Mott Davidson, and others (sorry, Debs, your books weren’t on my radar until you joined this blog) – but I didn’t understand how to finish my own.

 

Life got in the way, and I didn’t return to that story until eighteen years later. I proposed the premise of the unfinished book as the first in my Local Foods Mysteries and landed a three-book contract with Kensington. A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die was my second published mystery in 2013. I guest-posted about the farming life – and writing full time – right here back in 2014.

 

Fast forward again to when I turned in No Grater Crime, the ninth Country Store Mystery, which released last summer (I was a guest here for that release, too). My editor at Kensington read the manuscript. Toward the end, police lieutenant Buck Bird casually mentions that his mother had been murdered when he was a teenager.

 

 

 

My editor said he assumed I added that bit because I would be addressing the old (and unsolved) murder in the following book.

 

“Yes, John, of course,” I wrote back. What? I hadn’t dropped that little bombshell on purpose. But this is what happens when, like me, you follow your characters around and write down what they do, say, and think.

 

And address it, I did. When your editor is the top dog at the publishing house, it’s prudent to heed his suggestion. In fact, it was a quite good one.

 

Also, I’m never going to be an outliner. Just saying.

 

Readers: What suggestion has someone given you that turned out well? Do you have advisors whom you smile at, say thank you, and disregard completely? Writers: Where do you fall on the pantser-plotter continuum?

 

I’d love to send two commenters a signed copy of Batter Off Dead, which came out two days ago.

 

In South Lick, Indiana, fine foods and classic cookware can be found at Robbie Jordan’s Pans ’N Pancakes. Unfortunately, her country store also seems to stock up on murder . . .

 

Robbie and her new husband Abe O’Neill are enjoying a summer evening in the park with fellow townsfolk excited for some Friday night fireworks. In attendance are senior residents from Jupiter Springs Assisted Living including Roy Bird, father to South Lick’s very own Police Lieutenant Buck Bird. Despite his blindness, Roy is a member of his group home’s knitting circle, spending quality time with some lovely ladies.

 

But when the lightshow ends, one of the knitters who sat with Roy is found dead, a puncture wound in her neck. The poor woman’s death echoes that of Buck’s mother and Roy’s wife—an unsolved homicide. To help find the killer, Robbie’s going to have to untangle the knotty relationships deep in the victim’s past . . .

 

Maddie Day pens the Country Store Mysteries and Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. As Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell, she writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and short crime fiction. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media:

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

85 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your newest book, Maddie . . . it sounds as if Robbie is going to have her hands full solving this one . . .

    I always listen to the advice-givers; they don’t show up often and I’ve learned that, when they do, they are usually right . . . .

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    1. Thank you, Joan. Robbie does have her hands full - and a restaurant to run, too!

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  2. EDITH: I am so glad you went back and figured out how to finish that manuscript 18 years later! A Tine To Live, A Tine to Die was the first book of yours that I read. I got that book from you during the Kensington giveaway at the (infamous) 2013 Albany Bouchercon.

    During my Environment Canada research career, I received both good and bad advice.
    LESSON LEARNED: Follow your gut (and passion), and don't give up on a pet project idea!

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    1. Great lesson, Grace. And thank you for being a faithful fan for all these years.

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    2. EDITH: Thank you for giving me lots of fun books to read! I am almost caught up, reading 26 (out of 27) of your books. BATTER UP DEAD is on my TBR pile this month.

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  3. Congratulations on your new release.

    There's a few people who will give me advice and sometimes I take it, sometimes I don't.

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    1. Thanks, Dru, and indeed - we don't always have to heed the advice.

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  4. For anyone who hasn't read BATTER OFF DEAD yet, it is fantastic! Robbie Jordan just keeps getting more and more awesome!


    While I generally plot and plan, hope and scheme when it comes to getting through life, I'm not sure which way I would fall when (or if) I ever write my mythical crime novel.

    Probably the best suggestion I've gotten "recently" is when the Atria Books PR guy David Brown suggested I send a review of Thomas Mullen's Darktown to Mystery Scene magazine. I hemmed and hawed a bit but sent it off. The magazine got back to me, saying they had a review of the book already but they liked what I wrote and offered me a tryout with another book they would send me. If they printed that review I'd become part of their "review crew".

    And the rest is history.

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    1. JAY: It takes just one step. I'm also glad you sent in that review. I enjoyed reading Mystery Scene magazine, and your reviews.

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    2. The highest validation of all, Jay, when you get asked to write, as opposed to asking.

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    3. Edith, thank you! The reviews (and my shameless promotion of them) have enabled me to meet authors and bands so I'm glad to have this new life as the replacement for when my coaching days ended. And I wouldn't trade this for anything.

      Lucy, well I get to keep sending in reviews and see them printed in the magazine, plus they send me a check so I get to say, totally tongue-in-cheek, that I'm a paid professional writer. That's definitely a measure of success for me.

      Grace, yes it does take just one step but when the only writing you've done is online based (before that gained any measure of respect at all), I found myself wondering if anything I wrote would be good enough for professional publication. I will say that having a true editor (the awesome Teri Duerr) helps shape my mostly okay writing into a much better finished product. And I still write plenty of online stuff for a couple of music websites which I love doing just as much. Oh and thanks for reading Mystery Scene and my reviews!

      Karen, it is a momentary head rush to be asked to write something for someone else in whatever capacity. But only momentary because I try to hold myself to a strict belief that no one is really interested in what I have to say about anything. Keeps any remaining ego in check that way.

      I've mentioned the stories I would write for my niece when she was little. They'd go along with whatever gift I was sending her. I'd make them interconnected as well. A friend of the family loved the stories so much that one year she asked me to write one for her young nephew for Christmas. So that was nice as well. And the story was well-received so double bonus.

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  5. Sometimes I'm pretty high strung, so probably a wise piece of advice I've received is To Relax and Slow Down. Now, am I good at following that advice? Not so much, lol! Congratulations on your new book, looking forward to reading it!

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    1. Thanks, Kathy. I'm not good at relaxing and slowing down - especially when instructed to!

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  6. Edith/Maddie, that's a great back story on your writing career. Congratulations on your latest book. I am determined to catch up on all your books this year! I love this series and am delighted with your characters. Robbie and Abe are such a good match!!

    I take advice all the time, especially about books and authors. Other stuff...maybe;-)

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  7. Maddie, I love your story about tossing in the murder of Buck Bird's mother and then being strong-armed into writing a book about it. Because that's just the kind of thing that could happen to me. No, I'm not a 100% pantser, but I never expected to be a pantser at all. In high school, college and graduate school, I was a fanatic outliner and organizer, and it worked for me--I'd never have gotten a coherent dissertation written without those Roman numerals and capital letters, not to mention stacks of little white index cards. Same with freelance articles I've written. But when I sat down to write a mystery and tried to outline it, I didn't get far at all. At first I was horrified. But eventually I realized that I couldn't figure out what my characters were going to do without first writing them into their story. This must be the way it is for all writers. I bet even dedicated outliners can't anticipate what strange things their creations will be getting up to by page 257.

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    1. Great story, Kim. Yeah. I don't WANT to know what my characters are going to do until they do it.

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  8. Edith: Congratulations on your latest release. I loved learning the back story to your success.

    Advice is always welcome, though not always taken. I'm a nimble planner -- able to change on the fly when the plan needs changing.

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    1. Thanks, Amanda. Being a nimble planner is fabulous.

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  9. Congratulations, Edith! You are both an inspiration and a force of nature. Twenty-seven books! I need more coffee just thinking about it.

    I began my writing life as a dedicated pantser, then six rewrites later, I finally discovered who dun it and was able to bring the book to a close. At about that time, I realized I needed a bit more structure so - now I have a bullet list of what happens, what needs to happen, and who does what and why. From that list I write my resolution chapter. Then I return to chapter 1 and I create bullet points for each chapter. At writing time, I connect the dots, fill out the story, and sometimes my characters let me follow the plan!

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    1. Thanks, Kait! You have found what works for you, and that's all that matters.

      By the way, gang, Kait interviewed me yesterday on Writers Who Kill with some great (and hard) questions. https://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2022/02/an-interview-with-edith-maxwell-by-kait.html

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    2. Thanks, Edith! It was a fun interview.

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  10. Edith/Maddie, congratulations! I've become more of a pantser over time, though when I get stuck, I *wish* I was an outliner. I often find that someone's advice about a book might not be on target, but it almost always points out a problem that I have to figure out my own way.

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    1. Thanks, Roberta. Yes, especially when more than one person points out an issue in a story, it's worth listening.

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  11. Julia, just want to say, I'm sorry for bursting your bubble on how I work!

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  12. Congratulations on the latest, Edith. Twenty-seven books. Wow.

    As discussed during our launch (which I still continue to get compliments on), I'm what Annette Dashofy called a "flashlighter." I outline a few scenes, write them, then a few more, rinse, repeat, until the book is finished.

    And I rarely know who the killer is when I start.

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  13. Congratulations Edith on Batter Off Dead ! I love that series and I’m glad you answered positively to your editor.
    I’ll listen to suggestions but, having my own mind, I’ll only heed it if It matches my idea.

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    1. You know your own mind, Danielle-Momo. I'm delighted you love my stories.

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  14. Maddie/Edith, it will be such fun to see Robbie and Abe as a married couple. Your impressive body of published work is a towering monument to the idea of the longest journey beginning with that all-important single step. Brava!

    Unsolicited advice, as you know, is too irritating to pay much attention to, especially these days. Everybody, it seems, thinks they are experts at every possible subject. It's too hard to separate true expertise from utter nonsense, and I no longer have the patience for it. So there. Get off my lawn. LOL

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    1. Thank you, dear Karen.

      Yes, I no longer post ailments on my Facebook page. WAY too much unsolicited advice, even when I specifically ask there be none.

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    2. Karen, I developed the "philosophy" of not pretending to care about something unless I actually do care about it. I have a Facebook musician friend who spends what seems every waking moment being mad about something. I find that exhausting to even think about. So I rarely post about real world topics and when I do, I usually delete the post after a week if not before. Because I feel it necessary to comment but I'm not particularly interested in hearing from others about it. And I don't want my life to become about being pissed off all the time.

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    3. Oh, unless it's about bacon cheeseburgers I don't pretend to be an expert on much of anything. Especially since I'm not.

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    4. Jay, you have way more self control than I do! Good on ya.

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  15. I alternately pants and plot but in my opinion, ANYTHING that gets words on the page is the doorway to editing and shaping and making it work. In my experience there are as many folks who think they have a bestselling book for someone ELSE to write as there are writers terrified that if they share their ideas for what they're writing, some other writer will steal them. Both of which seem unlikely. I love the philosophy behind SinC Guppies, that sharing and listening to reader reaction is the way to make it better.

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    1. Hallie, psssst, I have a great idea for a mystery: newly single young woman goes home to the country from the big city to quirky family and finds new BFF, frenemy, and love interest, plus a murder! It would take an entire blog post just to list all of the current series that follow this idea--but look how different each writer has made their work. Stealing an idea, pffft!

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    2. Yes, this. Brainstorming with and inviting critique from knowledgeable peers are both brave and smart.

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    3. Also, completely agree that any way to get words on the page works. I would never presume to tell another writer how to do that, other than to DO it, by whatever method suits them.

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  16. Edith, I think you should get an award for this cover--so enticing, I just want to walk right into it! Congratulations on your success and your persistence! I tend to roughly outline my ideas and then fill in the details as I go. This works for both fiction and nonfiction--always be prepared for detours and surprises as you go, that's my writing philosophy.

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    1. I Love the detours and surprises. I've already been surprised in my WIP this morning!

      The covers Kensington produces for my books are fabulous. Totally agree. I have no part except some vague suggestions way early on (often before I've finished writing the book). Plus a specific mention of the season. Made that mistake early on. A book set at the end of November in Indiana had green grass and green leaves on the trees outside the window. By the time I saw the cover, it was too late to change! (That was Grilled for Murder.)

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  17. CONGRATULATIONS sister pantser! You are the fastest writer on the planet, and whatever you are doing, there's no question it works! I do think that although we are "writing without an outline"-- that's not exactly true--because we know how stories work. Once upon a time...we know that structure. The rest of it, though, takes a LOT of flashlights.
    (I've been a little MIA for the past dew days because two days before deadline, I had an IDEA. Boom, the book had to change. But that's okay and even fabulous.)
    The life of a pantser--right, Edith? Or when you get to the end, is the story pretty much set?

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    1. Wow - go for it, Hank! I've never had that kind of IDEA so close to deadline - but certainly earlier in the process - including today. I love feeling the story develop.

      Also - Jenn has to surpass me on the "fastest writer" medal podium - and that's fine with me!

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    2. It's worth it to your readers. Brava! <3

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  18. I have a friend who loves to give unsolicited advice, though it's usually in everyone's best interest to ignore it. Other than that not many advice givers.

    I love your covers. They're so inviting!

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    1. Glad you are wise enough to ignore it!

      All cover credit goes duly to the Kensington cover artist. i love them, too.

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  19. Congratulations, Edith/Maddie! I look forward to reading your new book, although I probably should catch up on some of the earlier ones first. I was shocked when you said that Robbie and Abe were married. Oops! I guess I missed a lot.

    Sometimes I take advice and sometimes I don't. Unhappy in my new townhouse my then daughter-in-law said that what I needed was a little house in the woods. Yes, exactly! So I bought the land on the side of a hill. My son was doing the foundation and working with the builder. Together, he and I figured where to put the house. He suggested that with all this land I didn't need to have the house right down by the road. Okay, so up the hill is where it would be. Don't you know it took years for me to figure out that a long driveway meant a bigger payday to him. He not only did the foundation, but he did the driveway as well. I guess I didn't realize that driveways don't just happen. But I'm happy up here and when the leaves are on the trees, I have total privacy. I needed a better car to get up the drivway in the winter but that was easily solved.

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    1. Have fun catching up, Judi!

      A little house on top of a hill in the woods sounds idyllic - unless you live where ice and snow happen. Glad you got a better car.

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    2. Oh yes, ice and snow happen here a lot! Big one coming tomorrow, but I don't have to get out and go anywhere so all is good!

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    3. We're getting big snow tomorrow, too! Am about to go out and knock over - I mean, shop at - a liquor store so I'll be supplied. Then I don't have to go out, either.

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    4. Don't know if it's the same snowstorm, but we're going to get another dumping of snow tomorrow in Ottawa. This snowshoer is HAPPY since I prefer snow to ice and I don't have to shovel it!

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    5. I think it is the same storm. I'm here in about the middle or maybe east of the middle of NYS. My grandson will be thrilled because it means he can go snowmobiling!

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  20. Well, Edith, this comes as quite a shock. I have always been impressed at your productivity and it never crossed my mind that you don't do it by outlining. I am a complete pantser myself, though I'd rather not be.(Required outlines in college were written after the paper was done. How could i know what i would say until I said it?) But sometimes - too often - I have no idea what happens next and writing time is - to say the last - not productive. How do you avoid that? If it's not a trade secret? Congrats on the new book...and all the others. Hope to see you soon

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    1. So I just NOW - having started at seven this morning - finished my self-required 1500 words for the day. That's, shall we say, less than an efficient use of my time. I'll blame it on needing to reply to comments here! But part of it was figuring out what Tim was making for dinner (in the book), and what Sandy's past was, and things like that. So, yeah, it takes a while. No trade secret - I just keep plowing through.

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  21. Congrats on the new book. How funny that the premise came from a random comment that popped up in the last book with no intentions of it going anywhere.

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  22. Edith congratulations on Batter Off Dead. I think you have this pantser thing down cold! I too am a pantser but wish I could be an outliner.

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  23. Looks wonderful! I'm excited to read it.

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  24. Edith/Maddie, congratulations on Batter Off Dead! But I also want to say (I probably said it before!) how much I love the cover of No Grater Crime.

    I was gobsmacked to learn that you're not an outliner, as fast as you write. But I'm a huge believer in "whatever works" as far as writing goes. Liz's method sounds a lot like mine. I do start out with a general idea of where I want the book to go and what the main storylines are. Then I do a scene-by-scene outline of a few chapters at a time, "flashlighting" my way through the book.

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    1. Thanks, Debs! (The cover Julia posted is the No Grate Crime audiobook, and the paper cover is just a good, but different.)

      What ever works, indeed. Plus flashlights!

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  25. My goodness you are prolific, Edith! I really enjoyed your first series, Local Foods Mysteries. It convinced me I was not cut out to be an organic farmer! Whether I heed advice or not depends on who is offering it. Happy book birthday!

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  26. It's a challenge to decide what suggestions to pay attention to and which to politely ignore.
    I love the idea of a "pantser". It evokes giggles. Do you pants get shiny from use?

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    1. Ha, Libby! I actually stand to write, so if anything gets shiny, it's the soles of my slippers.

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  27. Ooh, it sounds wonderful! Yes, please. I can’t imagine not outlining, but I’ve only ever tried, unsuccessfully to write a short story. In college, I used 3x5 notecards to organize information for papers. There were stacks of them everywhere! Ha! That was long ago, before the idea of a personal computer was far off.

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    1. I have author friends who still plot with notecards or with sticky notes, Rick!

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  28. Congratulations, Maddie/Edith!!! I'm a plotter -- only now I use a big white board. Makes me feel like a crime scene detective although sometimes my books feel like crime scenes - LOL!

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  29. Thank that editor for his splendid suggestion . . . and thanks to you (and Buck) for knitting it into a captivating book with ample surprises. ;-)
    I'm shuddering with you, thinking of those I II III IV outlines. My mind doesn't think in Roman numerals. Perhaps they work for someone, but I used to write my papers early in order to use the finished paper as the basis of the "preliminary" outline. I did learn to like webbing and the Cornell method for note-taking in college classes, but post-its were the most helpful for my own writing.

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  30. Edith, congrats! You are such a prolific writer! I've been following your career zoom into orbit for years, and so enjoy your writing. I call myself a pantster-with-notes. I recall discussing the Local Food series with you somewhere on a blog or FB, since we also used to be organic farmers back in our younger years. It was indeed a lot of work! Looking forward to catching up with Robbie & Abe and the gang. Thanks for all the years of entertainment!

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    1. Thank you so much, Lynn! And you are welcome. It's my greatest pleasure to provide readers with stories they love to read.

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  31. I really enjoy all your books...can't wait to read this latest one...

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  32. The easiest-to-ignore advice I ever received was when we had a boss who thought everyone in the three departments he oversaw should immediately implement his idea of the perfect desk system: an absolutely empty desk: nothing on it, nothing to distract, no notes, no reminders, no "clutter". Well, that's what his squirrel-mind needed, but I hated it. I already hated being in an actual office, and he was not going to take away all of the humanity, let alone my prompts and scribbles. And so I simply did not. My messy desk confronted, assaulted, and (I am certain) offended him every day. But I was excellent at my job. And his short attention span just jumped to something else before he did anything about it. His opinion was pointless so I ignored it, as one should, if one can. Why even argue?

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    1. Glad you stuck up for yourself, Beth. Because exceling at your job should be all that counts!

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    2. Looking back now, I wonder how much it mattered that he was the sole man in charge of three departments comprised entirely of women. He expected we would bow to his whims, he would walk through the offices, glancing at cubicles and desks and expect to see complete conformity to his mandate. It makes me angrier now than it did then!

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  33. I am a plotter who always has to think outside the lines at certain points. I just read your story, "Bye-Bye, Jojo", in EQMM this month. Wonderful! I try to write with neighbors that sometimes don't realize they are standing right next to my window. Needless to say, I loved the story, especially the ending.

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  34. I’m a pantzer too, Maddie, and couldn’t outline if I tried! Love your post and writing.

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