Frank McHugh 1932

 

How I Write a book - and, other tales that you thought you wouldn't find of interest. 

As my Daddy used to sing - "Hello Old Paint, It's great to see ya."

I'm not sure where that comes from. Maybe one of those songs he sang with his fellow platoon troops during WW2.  Dunno - it just makes me smile.

I am writing this blog as if it were a private journal since I haven't much to write about.  

I started a new book while waiting on a contract for book one of the Athens, Ga Mystery series. Book two (Murder is a Drag) has been put on hold. I didn't feel the need to keep writing it since it is attached to a series still in limbo. That book needs a lot of research as I know nuthin' bout transgenders and drag queens - yes, you heard me. 

But that's ok. Lots of stories in this head.

My new book will be a YA Paranormal Mystery. Nancy Drew meets Scooby Do, sort of - maybe. I have zeroed in on the 70s as the timestamp. While I haven't settled on an actual title as yet, the wip title will be "My Dad's a Ghost".

I write working off a blurb, then a slapdash synopsis. I wish I could write like Mary Daheim or Carolyn Todd of the Charles Todd team who both are pantsers. No, I have to plot it out. I take my time with every character, give them bios, and even attach a picture so I can describe them better to my readers. 

My next step is to write out the crime. In my first book of the Athens, Ga Mysteries, the crime was a murder. So I wrote out the whole murder from the POV of the murderer. This gives me the trail I need for the murderer to follow as he/she skips through the story.

Then I write out a timeline for each character from the time the murder took place to when the body was found. Sheesh - the time I take to break this all down, well, I could have written the whole book by then. But I love twists and turns. I love red herrings and I love to keep the reader guessing. If I can't take them down to two possible suspects by the end of the book, then I've missed my mark.

To make sure I stay on track, I involve - sometimes willing, sometimes not so much, fellow writers & readers of mysteries, sometimes my family. Who knew writers could run so fast?

Ha ha - as two of my old time favorite actors Ginger Rogers and Frank McHugh used to say in their old films.

So - a month or two in on the preparation for the book comes the research. Now that I have an outline/timeline/synopsis, I make a list of things I absolutely know nothing about. I know, 'they' say write what you know. I say, "what fun is that?" 

In book one, I didn't know anything about rare plants, or music venues in Athens, Ga, or frogs & snakes, and a whole bunch of other things that pop up in that book. I mean, I had to look up the parts of the ear just for one small piece of the story. Do you know what a pinna is? I didn't. 

But I check and double check everything mentioned from locks, to floor plans - are you asleep yet? I mean, if just one reader says - "no, that's not right", then I feel I've let them down.

Research comes naturally to me. As a former tech writer, research was 50% of the job. In those days I had to deal with customers, customer support reps, and computer software writers. It was my job to take the computer language from the comp geeks, turn it into a user language, then run it through the mill to make sure that I made sense. Sorry - zzZZzz.

Now, if I can breach that gap between two groups who have no idea what each are saying, I think I can find out what plant would be a good one to fill the bill for my story. Well, to tell the truth, I am a second guesser so I will run my research down by talking with a few experts to verify my claims.

Back to Gracie Allen. Gracie is the 14 yr old girl in 'My Dad's a Ghost'. When her family moved into a new house in the late sixties a ghost appeared to her and her parents. He didn't do anything but stand in the shadows and look on. No one was afraid of him. Her mom thought it was her guardian angel. Her dad thought he might be the guy in the painting over the sofa. The ghost did show up after Dad brought it home from an estate sale. Gracie wasn't so sure. Then just before Thanksgiving 1970, a friend of her mother's came to dinner. It turns out that this man, called Richard for now, has a sense for spirits. No, he doesn't see the ghost Gracie calls Whatna', Scottish for What Name. But he does offer a reason why the ghost just hangs around. You see Richard believes that this ghost might be an angel sent to escort one of the Allens to heaven. Well this scares Gracie. Just the thought of losing one of her parents, especially her dad upsets her so much that her father asks Richard to leave. You see, Gracie and her father have a very special relationship. 

They love the same music. Which is odd at this time when the generation gap was in full bloom. They also love to read mysteries together while they race to see who can solve the crime first. Another love is old movies, especially those with a mystery flare like The Thin Man and Maltese Falcon. 

Christmas Day, Gracie's father gives her a reel to reel recorder and a Connie Francis record. While playing songs "I Will Wait for You" and "Never on Sunday", they decide to sing along while recording they voices. Gracie doesn't know this at this time, but this will be the last time she and her dad get a chance to sing a duet together.

That evening as things wind down, Gracie and her father decide to watch a old movie together - still working on that one, but having fun researching it.  Where's Mom in all this? Well Mom is not as huggy -lovey dovey as Gracie's Dad, so she prefers to keep house, cook, and bake - I hope to add some of my mother's special cookie recipes in this book. 

During the movie, Gracie's father dies. Gracie is so hurt by his loss that she won't listen to their songs anymore, read any of their books, or watch old movies. She also notices that Whatna is gone. Richard must have been right after all.

Then at the funeral, Gracie hears one of their songs (to be determined) and follows the music outside the church. There she meets a boy her age, Wesley, playing the guitar. Instead of sadness, she feels a sense of love as if her dad was there, too. She and Wesley form a friendship.

Blah blah blah for a few more chapters. Ok - I'll spill - Gracie, her next door neighbor and best friend, Sabrina, and Wesley get involved with a ring that goes missing from Sabrina's mother's jewelry box.

Where's Dad? Hang on - he's coming. One day, Gracie realizes that strange songs keep playing over the radio. She oftens listens to rock stations because she doesn't want to hear the 50s pop music she and her dad liked. But while she is playing with her cat (yes, it's a cozy so a pet must be a part of the story), Connie Francis' song, "I Will Wait for You" comes on with a dedication to Daddy's baby girl. Her dad called her that. What the heck? Well Gracie breaks down and finally cries for the first time since her dad died. While she is crying, she feels a warm arm hold her as if comforting her. She jumps up, the cat saunters (yep, nothing scares this bad boy) away, and Gracie realizes that she can see her father. 

Unlike Whatna (who also has a story to tell in this series), Dad can talk. But he can't stay for long. So he promises her that he will send her messages through music.  As a lover of music, researching this part for the book will be extra fun. I plan to enlist some musicians and fellow 50's pop fans to help me with this selection. 

On and on the story goes with Gracie's Dad helping her and her friends (no, they can't see him) solve the mystery of the missing ring.

Problems with this plot: well, I invoke some messages related to God and Heaven. I know that this may be unwelcomed to some, but I tried to work around it. Death, to me, leads to Heaven (one hopes). Although I wouldn't categorize it as a Christian related theme, it does have over tones. Guess I will need a good agent or editor to help me through that. 

The point of the story is to give a fun mystery to teenaged girls, to offer hope to grieving teens of lost parents, and to add a spice of the variety of music from the 50s through the 70s.

If you've read my post about my own relationship with my father and losing him at a young age, then you will see the comparison's, No, sadly, my dad never materialized as a ghost to guide me through life, but it did plant the seed in my head of a what if. How about Whatna? Oh, here's a fun tale - when my sister were teens we liked to pretend that a ghost did hang out at our house. Whatna was the name I gave him from a favorite Robert Burns poem.

I know you can't respond to this yet, but I would be interested in knowing your thoughts about this story. If and when I get a book published, I plan to open the venue up to promote it and, yes, allow comments. 

Yours in writing land,

Patti