How Ideas Spark, a guest post by Maddie Day/ Edith Maxwell

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Edith Maxwell, who writes as Maddie Day, is such a fixture in our community, it's hard to think of anything new to say when I have the pleasure of hosting her. Except that I know you'll all be thrilled to hear she has a new cozy mystery out - MURDER AT CAPE COSTUMERS - and that the story behind the story is very interesting indeed. (BTW, who else absolutely wants that iconic lobster costume for next Hallowe'en?!?)

How Ideas Spark

Thanks so much, Julia, for inviting me to share my new release with one of my favorite blogging communities.

 My most recent Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, Murder at Cape Costumers, is out today! It’s the seventh in the series of stories that take place in fictional Westham on upper Cape Cod. Bike shop owner Mac Almeida and her Cozy Capers book group sometimes never get to the cozy mystery of the week because they’re too busy investigating murder.

 

Here on Jungle Reds, I know you’ve had many posts among yourselves and with guests about what sparks the idea for a work of crime fiction. It’s a question authors are asked frequently.

 

A story might come to us from an experience we had, an interaction with a difficult person, learning about a great new murder weapon (poison, anyone?), the way someone saunters or quirks a single eyebrow. Or, perhaps, it might come from a short notice in the news.

 

In fact, a news tidbit is where the inciting incident (in other words, the crazy thing that kicks off the whole murder investigation) in my new book originated.

 Yes, that’s a short squib cut out and saved from a real daily newspaper I subscribe to, the Boston Globe. The notice describes a bad thing that happened in Ohio, not in Boston.

 

Clearly, real-life protagonists Karen Casbohm and Loreen Bea Feralo didn’t quite think through their greed and actions. If you can’t make out the fine print, here’s the gist of it: the two staged a dead eighty year-old man – the boyfriend of one of them - in the front passenger seat of their car, motored up to the drive-through window of his bank, and withdrew money from his account. Only THEN did they deposit (evil snicker) him at the hospital.

 

Can you even imagine doing that? Who would think they could get away with a corpse propped up in the front seat or with the financial withdrawal, followed by leaving the dude at the ER? It boggles the mind – but also tantalizes the mystery writer’s creative brain.

 

I was sucked in even further when my editor asked if I’d like to write a Halloween book. I’ve done Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter season holiday stories, plus one involving summer fireworks. I’d never written a mystery set at Halloween. Darkness and costumes and mischief? Readers, I said yes.

 

Given the timing of the publishing industry, I was still writing Murder at Cape Costumers when my editor sent along the finished cover art. I had given him my ideas for it earlier, but when the cover included a big, slightly scary lobster, you can bet that costume went straight into the story.

 

The news event in the clipping took place in beautiful downtown Ashtubula*, Ohio, not in Massachusetts. But hey, I make things up for a living. Why shouldn’t a version of the crime take place in my fictional town of Westham on Cape Cod?

 

Mind you, the IRL story didn’t involve murder. Does the one in my book? You’ll have to read the book to find out. Wait, who am I kidding? Of course it does!

 

I’ve just finished polishing book eight in the Cozy Capers series, Murder at the Toy Soldier. It’s my fortieth novel, so yay, me! And just because I love you all, here’s a first peek at the cover – isn’t it fun?

 

I have no idea what’ll happen in book nine, but I’ll figure it out. I always do.

 

*A note about Ashtabula: it’s a place name I have loved for fifty years, ever since Bob Dylan mentioned it in “You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Blood on the Tracks, 1975): “I’ll look for you in old Honolula, San Francisco, or Ashtabula….” As an impressionistic young-adult Californian, I listened to that song repeatedly in an era when my travels hadn’t yet included Ohio.

 

Readers: What’s the wildest news tidbit you have read? I’ll happily send three commenters a copy of the new book.

 

Just in time for Halloween, a new costume shop has opened on Main Street in Westham, Massachusetts. Cape Costumers is a cut above the usual seasonal pop-up stores with their flimsy mass-produced outfits and cheap plastic masks, mostly due to co-owner Shelly, a former Broadway costume designer. But when Shelly discovers her elderly boyfriend Enzo—a Broadway star who retired to Westham—dead of unnatural causes, Halloween suddenly gets a lot scarier.

 

Sleuthing, Mac has found, is a lot like riding a bicycle: once you learn how, you never forget. Far from being spooked, Mac and the members of the Cozy Capers Book Group put down their weekly book selection and put their heads together to see past a bag of tricks and find a malice-making murderer who’s hiding in plain sight . . .

 

Maddie Day writes the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, the Cece Barton Mysteries, and the historical Dot and Amelia Mysteries. As Edith Maxwell, she writes the Agatha-Award winning historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Maxwell/Day lives north of Boston with her beau and their cat Martin, where she writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at her web site and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen.

 

 

 

Stalking the Wild Muse: Where Does Inspiration Come From? by Carol Goodman

LUCY BURDETTE: Carol's wonderful book RETURN TO WYLDCLIFF HEIGHTS was on the short list for the Mary Higgins Clark award last year. When I noticed that she had a new book coming, I thought you'd love to hear about it. Welcome Carol!

CAROL GOODMAN: One of the most often asked questions any author gets at panels and book clubs and blog interviews is “Where do you get your ideas?” or, more ominously, “Do you ever worry about running out of ideas?”   It’s an age-old question.  I picture a Q&A after the first production of Oedipus Rex in 429 BCE at the Temple of Dionysus.  “Hey Sophocles!” a sandalled and bearded fan calls out.  “Are you worried about running out of ideas after such a big success?”

Sophocles might have quipped that the dysfunctional antics of the Oedipus clan would keep him busy for a while, or he could have appealed to the Muses.  The ancient Greeks regarded the inspiration of the artist as such a magical and mysterious event that it could only come from a divine source—or sources.  They needed nine to do the work of inspiring dull, lumpen-headed mortals.  But what if you don’t believe in divine inspiration?  Where do you find your ideas? 

The titular writers in my new book Writers and Liars think the answer is a retreat on a Greek island.  Is this the answer?  Do we need to travel afar or go to a writers retreat to find inspiration?  It’s certainly a tempting idea.  If only, we say to ourselves as we wrack our brains for the next book idea, I could go someplace free of the worries and interruptions of everyday life—no pinging phone, no household chores, no stacks of bills to pay or pile of papers to grade.  Shake off the coils of your everyday routine! sing the Sirens. Travel will yield inspiration and a retreat will offer the mental space to explore those ideas. 

And yet, in the end, the Muse can be a fickle travel companion.  She may join you for a bottle of Mythos at the local taverna—or she may have taken the last boat off the island and left you with a bunch of frustrated writers and a homicidal maniac.  Which, of course, is what happens in my book.  Because the other big idea the Greeks (i.e. Plato) had about inspiration was that it was a divine madness (theia mania) that possessed the artist, making a bunch of writers stranded on an island a volatile bunch.

So while inspiration may be found on the road, I have found it most often at home at my desk, on an ordinary weekday morning, after doing the Wordl and the crossword puzzle and making a second cup of coffee and indulging in just about every form of procrastination known to lumpen-headed mortals and feeling like I am scratching out my words on a stone tablet with a blunt rock … and then a word or an image—maybe a whole sentence!—will come to me that wasn’t there before.  And that feels like magic.  Picasso perhaps said it best:  Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

By all means, take the trip, go to the retreat if you can, but remember, inspiration is everywhere including (and perhaps especially) in your own backyard.  You just have to show up for it.  

So, tell me … where do you get your ideas? 

Carol Goodman is the New York Times Bestselling author of twenty-six novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages, The Seduction of Water, which won the 2003 Hammett Prize, The Widow’s House, which won the 2018 Mary Higgins Clark Award, and The Night Visitors, which won the 2020 Mary Higgins Clark Award.  For over twenty years, she has taught creative writing at The New School and SUNY New Paltz and offered private classes, book coaching, and editorial services to writers in fiction and memoir.  She lives in the Hudson Valley.

In the latest thrilling suspense novel from Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Carol Goodman, a group of mystery authors gathers on a secluded Greek island for a writers retreat, only to discover that their enigmatic host has been murdered and everyone present is a suspect.

They’ll kill for inspiration…

Fifteen years ago, Maia Gold attended a prestigious—and very exclusive—writers retreat hosted by billionaire Argos Alexander on the Greek island of Eris. It’s where she wrote her first book, the one that should have launched a brilliant career. But something dark happened on that island, a betrayal that has hung over Maia ever since.

Now, Maia finds a familiar envelope in the mail. It’s an invitation to return to Eris, and according to social media, she’s not the only one from that first retreat who’s been invited back. This could be the second chance Maia needs to jump-start her dreams. A chance for reconciliation… or revenge.

Almost all of the writers from fifteen years before have returned to Eris, bringing unresolved resentments with them. Soon, the guests learn that their illustrious host is absent, though he has left instructions for them to participate in a contest: whoever can write the most suspenseful mystery while on the island will win a fortune and literary acclaim. But this is no harmless game—when the guests gather in the morning to share their first chapters, they find Argos Alexander, dead. 

Tensions simmer as the guests try to determine who’s capable of murder, not just on the page, but in real life. On an island full of mystery writers, anyone could be the killer—and anyone could be the next victim. Trapped together until the next boat arrives from the mainland, they must sort out old grievances and figure out how to trust one another... or die one by one.

Inspiration by Barbara Ross #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: Today I'm so pleased to welcome a great friend and one of my favorite cozy mystery writers, all wrapped up in one package! I'm very lucky to have lured her into serving with me on the Friends of the Key West Library board. Mostly, I can't wait for the new book...

BARBARA ROSS: Thank you so much for having me, Lucy and the Jungle Reds!

For writers, inspiration comes from everywhere, and often seemingly out of nowhere. It may come from a snippet of overhead conversation, an image, a place, a person, or event. Inspiration can come from a combination of things, taken out of context, maybe half-remembered or not consciously remembered at all. Things the writer didn’t even know were there.

The eleventh Maine Clambake Mystery, Hidden Beneath, is about a summer enclave on an island in my fictional Busman’s Harbor. The island is ringed by a hundred summer houses that have often been passed down in families for generations. The story begins when a woman disappears and is presumed drowned.

Five years later, after the woman has been declared legally dead, my sleuth Julia Snowden and her mother arrive for her memorial service. The first floor of the woman’s home on the island is strangely empty and sterile, not at all the way Julia’s mother remembers it. But on the second floor, behind mountains of furniture and household furnishings, the dead woman has left a wealth of clues about her disappearance in the form of murals on the walls.

Unusually, I do know where the inspiration for this part of the story came from.

In October of 2021, after Tina Pesce died at the age of seventy-four, her older son, who lived on the other side of the country, had her house in Stockton Springs, Maine cleaned out in preparation for sale. On her way past, her neighbor, Noelle Merrill, noticed the work and decided to peek inside. (As one does. At least if one is a deeply curious, nay nosy person—like a mystery writer for example.)

What Noelle saw stunned her. The house was filled with murals painted on the sheetrock on the walls. Thinking it was a positive story in a fraught time, Noelle posted about the murals on Facebook. Those posts were circulated eventually picked up by the media, including this story in the Boston Globe, where I probably originally saw it. (The following photos are all credited to Noelle Merrill.)

I love this story for two reasons. The first is the surprise of it. Imagine walking in, expecting a little look into a neighborhood house, and finding those murals. I love it when people’s expectations get turned around in an instant.

The other reason is the persistence of the artist. Tina Pesce had always made art. She had a ceramics studio in Massachusetts and then a small gallery when she moved to Maine. When health and circumstances largely confined her to her home—she just kept going. Isn’t that the way human beings are? The drive to create never goes away.

Also, I love the murals. I do love primitives and representational artwork.

Of course, the murals in Hidden Beneath are completely different from the ones that inspired them. For one thing, they contain human figures that tell stories from the artist’s childhood in order to give clues to my sleuth. In my head, fully imagined, the murals also are quite different in style, although they are also primitives. I’ll be interested to hear what kind of pictures readers build in their heads from my descriptions.

An inspiration is a starting point only. The rest we build from our imaginations.

Readers: Do you ever go peeking where you maybe, sort of aren’t invited? Have you ever been surprised by what you found! (Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a copy of the new book.)

About the book

In Barbara Ross’ award-winning series featuring sleuth Julia Snowden and her family’s coastal Maine clambake business, two mysteries rock the colony of Chipmunk Island after a suspicious memorial service has Julia and her mother shifting into some family sleuthing.

Serving up mouthwatering shellfish, the Snowden Family Clambake has become a beloved institution in Busman’s Harbor, Maine. But when new clues rise to the surface five years after the disappearance of Julia Snowden’ s mother’s friend, the family business shifts to sleuthing. 

Julia and her mother, Jacqueline, have come to the exclusive summer colony of Chipmunk Island to attend a memorial service for Jacqueline’s old friend Ginny, who’s been officially declared dead half a decade after she went out for her daily swim in the harbor and was never seen again. But something seems fishy at the service—especially with the ladies of the Wednesday Club. As Julia and Jacqueline begin looking into Ginny’s cold case, a present-day murder stirs the pot, and mother and daughter must dive into the deep end to get to the bottom of both mysteries . . . 

Buy Links

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Chapters/Indigo

About Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Barbara and her husband live in Portland, Maine. Readers can visit her website at www.maineclambakemysteries.com 

I Have An Idea! by Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: As a huge fan of the Sherlock Homes Bookshop mysteries, I am just thrilled to welcome Jungle Reds friend and fellow author Vicki Delany. And today, she is letting us glimpse behind the curtain. 

Vicki Delany: “Where do you get your ideas?”

As writers we’re often asked that.  I’d love to get my ideas from the Idea Factory, or maybe Ideas-R-Us. But so far I haven’t found such a convenient place.

What is an idea anyway when it comes to a novel? What does that even mean?

The idea is the spark from which all else flows. Coming up with an idea is pretty easy.  I can give you the ‘idea’ behind one of my books in one sentence. That’s idea is the spark, the germ of the story.

The task now is to turn that one sentence, even one word, into 80,000 words. And that is not so easy.

What has me pondering the origin of an idea at the moment, is my current work-in-progress. I’m writing the fifth in the Tea by the Sea cozy mystery series.  I was in Italy in October with my good friend, the Canadian writer Barbara Fradkin. We were, as one is in Italy, overwhelmed with great art. We’d been to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and were walking through the streets heading for either more art or more food when I told Barbara I was having some trouble coming up with an idea for the next Tea by the Sea book.  One of the paintings we’d most admired at the Uffizi was Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1656).  

(Incidentally, the story behind the famous painting is a mystery writers’ idea in itself.) Barbara laughed and said, “How about a beheading? The main character finds a headless body in a bed at the B&B.”

As I write cozy novels, that wouldn’t quite suit.  Barbara thought some more and said, “a headless doll then. A gift, given anonymously at a bridal shower.”

Bingo! I had my idea. A headless doll is rather creepy, but not out and out gory or repulsive.

What the idea does, in this case the decapitated Raggedy Ann doll given as a shower gift, is provide the inciting incident. The point from which all else that happens in the novel flows.  It also sets the scene for character revelations: obviously not all is well between the bride and her friends and family.

How not well?  Someone is murdered later on. Is the shower gift pertinent to the murder? It might not be, but it sets the scene, starts the action, and gives our amateur sleuth character a reason to ask questions.

And, most importantly, it gives me, the author, a jumping off point.

In the Sherlock Holmes bookshop series, the idea is even less than a sentence. It’s a word. In the latest book, The Game is a Footnote, the word is “haunted house”. Okay two words. In next years book, as yet untiled, the word is “séance.” In last year’s novel, A Three Book Problem it’s “country house weekend.”

The idea is the germ from which all else flows.

Another thing most writers can relate to is the experience of someone offering to tell them their great idea, and then suggesting the writer use that idea and they can split the profits from the subsequent bestselling book. Uh, sorry.  If someone provides one word or one sentence, and I provide the other 79,999 words I’m not sharing anything.

Because it’s not the idea, it’s all that flows from the idea.  And that’s the hard part.  Lay down the clues, build the plot, create the characters, put them in an attractive (or otherwise) setting, have a believable sub-climax when the protagonist is threatened or all seems lost. Build it all to a climax and the grand reveal.  Then wrap it all up. 

I have over fifty published books now, and I’ll admit, an idea for something vaguely original is getting harder to come by.  One of the things I’m most struggling with is a way of having the protagonist catch or trick the killer.  You can only have your character eavesdrop on conversations so many times and leap out from behind the curtains to say, “J’Accuse” with pointed finger.  She can only wrestle so much with a deranged killer at the edge of a cliff in a storm at night.

But I’ll get it, eventually, because I started with ‘an idea’.

I’d love to know how the Reds (who have so many fabulous ideas!) generate their own ideas for such amazing and original plots. And readers, any ideas you’d like to share with us?

Gemma Doyle and Jayne Wilson are back on the case when a body is discovered in a haunted museum in bestselling author Vicki Delany's eighth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery.

Scarlet House, now a historical re-enactment museum, is the oldest building in West London, Massachusetts. When things start moving around on their own, board members suggest that Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, might be able to get to the bottom of it.  Gemma doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she agrees to ‘eliminate the impossible’. But when Gemma and Jayne stumble across a dead body on the property, they’re forced to consider an all too physical threat.  
 
Gemma and Jayne suspect foul play as they start to uncover more secrets about the museum. With the museum being a revolving door for potential killers, they have plenty of options for who might be the actual culprit.
 
Despite Gemma's determination not to get further involved, it would appear that once again, and much to the displeasure of Detective Ryan Ashburton, the game is afoot.
 
Will Gemma and Jayne be able to solve the mystery behind the haunted museum, or will they be the next to haunt it?

 

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than fifty: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy.  She is currently writing the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).

 

Vicki is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival.  Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario. 

Travel Inspired Fiction by Krista Davis

Jenn McKinlay: It is with great delight that I welcome one of my very favorite cozy mystery authors, Krista Davis. Seriously, if you haven't read her series (plural) yet, you should! 

Krista Davis: Why it is that travel so often inspires books? This time, I wasn’t even the one traveling. Two of my friends went on a fabulous tour of Spain and Portugal. They had a wonderful trip. And one of them bought special Iberian ham to bring home as gifts. On arrival at customs in New York, she declared the ham and was promptly pulled aside for inspection. 

Her heart broke as she watched her prized ham being thrown into the trash bin. She had a plane to catch and kept checking the time. She was asked to hand over her shoes for examination and watched as they rummaged through her luggage, tossing all her carefully packed items into messy heaps. The clock in her head ticked louder and louder while she watched, wondering if she would make her connecting flight. 

The customs inspectors finally moved on to the next person, but all she could think was that her ham was in the garbage and she had to catch the flight home. She had no time to carefully fold and pack her clothes. She stuffed and zipped and repeated, jamming everything in willy-nilly. With an eye on the time, she grabbed her bags and ran through JFK to her connecting flight. She made it with only minutes to spare. That was when she realized that her shoes were still in customs. She no longer remembers whether she was barefooted or wearing socks. It presents an appalling situation either way. 

And that is how the story begins in The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit. Sophie Winston picks up her best friend at the airport and the friend walks out of the terminal with bare feet. What if your best friend went on a tour and when she came back, someone who was also on the tour was murdered? And then another? Could she be next? 

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My books usually release several months apart from one another, but this spring, it’s raining books for me. Big Little Spies comes out on April 6th, the trade paperback of The Diva Spices It Up releases April 27th, and The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit will be here on May 25th. 

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What oddball things have happened to you when you were traveling? Oh, by the way, you can try that exact same cherished Iberian ham in the US. They sell it at World Market.

 

   

New York Times Bestselling author Krista Davis writes the Paws and Claws Mysteries set on fictional Wagtail Mountain, a resort where people vacation with their pets. Her 7th Paws and Claws Mystery is BIG LITTLE SPIES, which releases on April 6th. Krista also writes the Domestic Diva Mysteries and the Pen & Ink Mysteries. Look for THE DIVA SERVES FORBIDDEN FRUIT on May 25th. Like her characters, Krista has a soft spot for cats, dogs, and sweets. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with two dogs, two cats, and a stash of hidden chocolate.

www.KristaDavis.com

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