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2 * 0 * 4 Lifestyle Planner

~ for those of us who want to celebrate our achievements

Feasting and fasting, musing and and moving, building relationships, and avoiding stagnation.

Picking a Cover's the Difficulty:

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Gift from the Sea

Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea was formative for me.  It's a book that I've long promoted to friends and students, whenever they asked for recommendations.

You can find it here, in the 50th anniversary edition.

The main Facebook page for Writers' Ink, my publisher, is celebrating encounters with AML's book all through August and September on Snippet Saturday:  You may be able to find the first AML post here.

Whenever I'm beachy keen--and that's not for crowded beaches in the heat of summer, but afterwards, when it's me and the sand and the waves and the sun casting south--that's the time that I reach for Gift from the Sea.

Old Geeky Greeks: Write Stories with Ancient Techniques

Blood tragedies.  Atonement.  Harry Potter.

I, Robot.  Ironman.  Hubris.

The 13^th Warrior.  The scariest woman in all literature.  The Hobbit.

Dudley Dooright.  5 Stages of the Hero . . . and the Monster.  Jurassic Park, in all its iterations.

What does this oddly-matched list have in common?

All have origins with the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The first writers developed techniques to influence their audiences.  Through an early look at what worked and what didn’t, they laid the foundation for writers today.  Many techniques of these old geeky Greeks are still in use, re-packaged as glittery infographics and Wham-Pow webinars, three-point seminars and exclusive insights to Buy Now!

Old Geeky Greeks: Write Stories with Ancient Techniques presents techniques such as the Blood Tragedy and dulce et utile in a clear, organized method for writers who want to write rather than invest hours getting three snippets of information.

Chapters in OGG cover understanding characters to the five stages that established the modern protagonist from the ancient hero.

Aristotle’s requirements for plot precede a survey of the oldest plot formula, the Blood (or Revenge) Tragedy.

Concepts such as in medias res and dulce et utile can help writers solve sticky problems and develop new ideas.

Old Geeky Greeks (and Romans) tried to understand the writing sense that emerged from the chaos.  They looked at successful plays and other story-telling methods to determine what influenced the audience.

Which characters were still talked about weeks and months after a performance?  Which play structures failed—and which were consistently winners?  Which ideas helped writers develop their celebrated writings?

Writers today are still searching for the answers to these questions.

The bright minds of Classical Antiquity first explored these questions, and their answers are applicable in the age of the internet, open-source software, special effects, and infographics.

Aristotle, Seneca, Plato, Horace, and many other ancient geeks have their ideas matched to Harry Potter, Avatar, Last of the Mohicans, and Shakespeare.

Whether we’re writing novels or plays, blogs or non-fiction, poems and songs, Old Geeky Greeks is a seminar in 28,000 words.

Available here

Christmas with Death, mystery with Isabella and Madoc

Christmas is for miracles, merriment, and murder.

An English country Christmas in 1919 should be a joyful celebration.  Isabella Newcombe, however, discovers only petty sniping and bitterness when she and her friends (Cecilia Arkwright and the brothers Madoc and Gawen Tarrant) are invited to Emberley.

Sir Reginald and the Malvaise family filled the grand house with friends, acquaintances, and business

associates.  With money tight, Isabella and her friends enjoy the rich meals, hot fires, and comfortable rooms.

Yet rumors of affaires and drug addiction as well as accusations of blackmail sour the holiday atmosphere.  And the invitation to the four friends was driven by an avid relish to hear about Cecilia’s upcoming divorce from her gaoled husband and the two deaths at Gawen Tarrant’s archaeological dig in October.

They plan to leave before New Year’s Eve, then Isabella and her fiancé Madoc discover the body of a fellow visitor, shot dead and left lying in an ice-skimmed pond.

With multiple motives and suspects, will Scotland Yard solve the crime before Isabella is the murderer’s next target?  Will an imperfect murder be impossible to solve?

A cozy mystery of 53,000 words, Christmas with Death is the second novel in the Into Death series.  

While it follows Digging into Death, it is not a sequel.  Each novel of the Into Death series is complete and not a cliff-hanger.  Readers, however, will have a richer experience should they read the first two novels in the series, as the primary characters repeat.

Available here

Digging into Death ~ a mystery set in 1919, on the isle of Crete

Damsel in Distress?

Stranded on Crete, Isabella Newcombe finesses a refuge with English archaeologists resuming their dig after WWI.

Her sketches fortuitously land her a job illustrating the dig for Prof. Gawen Tarrant.  His magnetic brother Madoc charms her with his interest.

The dig seethes with undercurrents, revealed when a worker is murdered.  The archaeologists dismiss his death as a village vendetta.

Then the dig sites are vandalized.  Artifacts go missing.  And Isabella’s former employer may be involved in buying stolen artifacts.

With evidence amassing, they must admit the worker was killed when he spied something incriminating—but what?  And who murdered him?

Suspicions escalate.  All three professors have motives beyond simple profit.  Are the Tarrant brothers stealing to fund more digs?  Is Nigel Arkwright undermining the dig as revenge for Gawen’s flirtation with Nigel’s wife?  Is Monty Standings damaging Gawen’s reputation?  Even the archaeological students could be involved, for their own profit or to assist a professor.

Falling in love with Madoc, Isabella doesn’t know who to trust.  Then one of the students is murdered while his photographic archive is destroyed.

With her illustrations as the only record of the artifacts, Isabella belatedly recognizes the dangers of Digging into Death.

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The Key to Secrets

Debutantes should snare fiancés, not murder them.

.......................................................................................................

The Detective

When Constable Hector Evans returns to Chalmsley Court, he doesn’t expect the violent crime to be the murder of one of Lord Chalmsley’s guests.  His lordship wants a quick resolution, before gossip about the crime’s salacious nature and trap-like killing becomes widespread.

With no murder weapon, no identifiable clues, and no eyewitnesses, Hector has little to build a case.  He has plenty of suspects, even when he realizes the murderer must be a woman.

Even though other guests could have killed the man, Hector finds himself focusing on the Chalmsley family.

Was it compulsive Cordelia?  Obsessive Portia?  Mad Aunt Beth, who gives him riddling clues as snippets of ballads.  Hector would blame George, who grew up tormenting his sisters and torturing small animals, but George left two years ago for a rest-cure in Vienna.  He can’t have returned, can he?

The Girl who Broke his Heart

Bee Seddars is a distraction he doesn’t need, especially as she and her cousins are among those celebrating recent engagements.

Bee is as lovely as he once thought her and seemingly the most rational member of the Chalmsley family, but he wonders if a few brief months so many summers ago could possibly give him an understanding of who she is.  Hector can’t get her to open up about the Chalmsley family secrets.  Unlocking those, he believes, is key to solving the murder.  Yet Bee seems to mistrust him—while he thought she was the one who broke the trust between them, since she refused to write him after he was sent away to join the Bow Street Runners.

In his first twelve hours on the case, the murder scene is torched and the victim’s journal is burned.  

In his second twelve hours, a second fiancé is murdered with the missing weapon.  And Hector’s suspect lists remains an ell long and a grief wide.

With madness looking like the strongest motive and only circumstantial evidence to build his case, will Hector find the murderess before she strikes again?  Or will he discover his lost love is causing bloody death?

He needs The Key to Secrets at Chalmsley Court.

The Guys of 2018

A cozy mystery of 66,000 words, The Key to Secrets is the seventh entry in the Hearts to Hazard series of Regency mysteries.  Each book is a standalone novel, complete unto itself, with loose interconnections of characters.

Constable Hector Evans was first introduced in The Danger to Hearts, the sixth Hearts in Hazards.

Available here

The Key for Spies

Coming soon!