Speaking about the theme of friendships in middle grade novels with good friends Karen Krossing and Richard Scrimger, corralled by moderator John Corr, what came to my mind was the communities of writers these events foster and promote. How we’ve missed these over COVID and even post pandemic. Rarely is travel funded anymore, when we can Zoom and FaceTime, or Team. But here we were on a Saturday in Oakville together, talking about writing process and inner monsters and allergies, our stories, thanks to Appleby College’s parent association.Thank you Kathy Vucic in particular.
It was wonderful to out in the public eye again. Â Afterall if a book reaches a shelf and no one knows about it, is it ever read?
After reading 70 mystery books in three months in order to judge them for the Arthur Ellis (novel) Crime Writing, I felt inspired to write one. Just one. Endlessly I walk my dog in Brant Hills so I instantly found a natural setting. An inciting moment was when I took a bag of dog poop from a tree (who puts them there, honestly?) and deposited in in the new blue domed recycling box. OMG! Once you put something in you can’t reach back in to get it out. The irredeemable, Â Mistake one.
How awful it feels to realize you’ve made an error you can’t correct. I thought about how anxious kids seem to be these days and thought of structuring stories around mistakes; celebrating the errors that help us observe something more clearly or make us more understanding of others’ errors. Mistakes that cause us to change and grow.
Remember no story happens unless something goes wrong.
The Best Mistake grew into a series of four book: The Best Mistake Mystery, The Artsy Mistake Mystery, The Snake Mistake Mystery and The Diamond Mistake Mystery.
Mysteries can require tight plotting; for me I certainly approach with an ending in mind. But my characters take over and I seem to chase after this quirky bunch as I write my stories.
Check the video out to see what I mean and to enjoy a giggle.
Because dogs and dog walking feature so prominently in the entire Great Mistake Mystery Series and because recently everyone in my family adopted dogs, we decided the canines needed to earn their kibble.
We joined paws with epilogueproductions.com to get Rosie, the Bernadoodle, Mortie (who is really Ping in the series) Worf,( who is the model for Pong as well as Brownie, the dog in a new title What the Dog Knows)
and Piper,( the ultra cute Scottie terrier mix) to tell us what they think of The Diamond Mistake Mystery. This cost us a lot of liver bites so we hope you enjoy and share.
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