Maine Crime Writers

FLORENCE ANYONE?

Posted on March 6, 2026 by jselbo

Jule Selbo

This is a short post, I am out shoveling the highway. Community service in lieu of jail time.

Seriously, more snow?

I want to share a great connection for anyone intending to spend time in FLORENCE ITALY. (I recommend it.)

Backstory: Moons ago, I spent 4 years (one full semester a year, so let’s say almost 5 months a year for 4 years (or was it 5 years?) as a professor in Florence, teaching screenwriting and film history for my California University in its Study Abroad Program.

While there, I met a group of ex-pat writers (mostly Brits, Aussies, and Americans, there were 8 or 10 of us) and we would meet (as writer groups do) to discuss and/or read what we were working on. Not a bad thing to do in Florence, especially when a glass of Prosecco or Chianti and a plate of pasta were also part of the night. The group is still going and has grown to become a mainstay in the literary “firmament” of the city.

The Florence Literary Society. They meet at the British Embassy (Consulate), a historic (well everything is in Florence is) building that is situated on the Arno River, not far from the Ponte Vecchio and the Duomo (the pictures above, they are central to the historic part of Florence.

There is a solid number of writers who have made Florence their home and love to share work, talk about the craft, meet other writers (from anywhere) and bring in speakers etc etc. Add to that the near-constant change of participants as writers (travelers) come and go and it’s an exciting way to spend an evening or workshop afternoon.

Lori Hetherington — one of the founding members of our group way back when – is now president of Florence Literary Society. She’s an enthusiastic bringer-together of writers. And she wants to open the group’s doors to our band of merry writers – the Maine Crime Writers.

Florence Literary Society

If you open the link, Lori is the third from the left, the blond with the “I make things happen” smile on her face. Some of the others pictured I have spent workshop/writing group time with –

I was in Florence last month (instead of the 5 months a year, I try to do a bit more than a month every year, renting the same small apartment up the narrow stairs that the University used to rent for me, right in the heart of Florence and just keep my writing routine in place (lots of coffee shops to work at in Florence (ha!) and I never want to leave. Lori and another of the writers, Deirdre Pirro, and I got together. Lori (American ex-pat from Ohio) writes fiction and historical fiction (check her out on Amazon), but her “day job” is as a translator of books (Italian to English). Deirdre (Australian, went on a cruise when she was 22, the cruise ship’s Italian captain fell in love with her and chased her around the decks and they married and Florence became her home forty years ago) writes essays and short stories (mostly historical, check her out on Amazon) and has a wicked sense of humor. They are so much fun to talk writing with and are at the heart of the Florence Literary Society.

The number of events (which includes speakers, readings and workshops) are extensive and Lori is opening the door to all of us to take advantage of them when anyone is there! There are mystery writers in the group, basically any genre is welcome.

So if you or any writer you know are heading that way – get in touch with me and I will get you in touch! (Or you can email Lori through the Literary Society website.)

And Lori wants to know what WE are up to here too, she wants to share workshop ideas (very interested in Crime Wave set up) and more. So we have a FLORENCE CONNECTION now!

Maybe we should do a Mystery Writers Conference in Florence????!!

PS: This is the book I wrote in Florence, back in 2018, my first novel. It’s a romance/mystery/historical fiction about a young woman (Lynn). Her mother has recently died, and on her deathbed, asked Lynn to “Find Me in Florence.” Lynn had always felt her mom has something in her past that had been kept secret. The mom had been a Mud Angel in 1966 during the great flood – the waters of the Arno River nearly took over the city (including museums, libraries etc etc) and people came from all over the world to help, they were given knee-high rubber boots and were tasked to dig into the mud and muck and save Botticellis, Michelangelos, Cellini’s and more paintings, sculptures…) anyway, something happened to Lynn’s mom during that experience and Lynn goes to Florence to search for the truth….

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Dreaming A Story Into Being

Posted on March 5, 2026 by Brenda Buchanan

I’ve been heart deep in a writing project of late, a great relief this blasted icy winter when staying positive has been a monumental challenge.

On my drive home from work I often silence the car radio, not to avoid the news, but because my brain is busy thinking about WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN when I get to my desk.

After shedding my work clothes for cozy home clothes and having a quick dinner, I sit down with my impatient imaginary friends and listen while they tell me WHAT’S HAPPENING in our story.

I write until it’s time to sleep, when my characters hop into bed with me and insinuate themselves into my dreams, whispering though the night about WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN NEXT.

Lately, my characters’ voices have been insistent enough to wake me in the middle of the night.

IF THIS HAPPENS, it’ll amp up the suspense.

IF THAT HAPPENS, you’ll open the door for new suspects.

I’m not one of those people who keeps a notepad on my bedside table for jotting down my middle-of-the-night inspirations. That feels premeditated (and my handwriting is bad enough when I’m wide awake). Having ridden this particular creative roller coaster before, I’ve learned to trust that the important stuff will still be there in the morning.

HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN?

In the shower, I pan the night’s dreams for gold, sometimes feeling as though I spent the night watching a film starring people sort of like my characters who get involved in terrifying/improbable/hilarious plots that don’t seem to have anything to do with my current project.

But dreams are, of course, not literal. Decoding them forces me to dig beneath the surface and excavate the story I’m really trying to tell.

Blogmates and other writers/creatives who read MCW, does this happen to you?

Brenda Buchanan sets her novels and short stories in Maine. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology BLOODROOT: BEST NEW ENGLAND CRIME STORIES 2021 and received an honorable mention in BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE 2022. Her story “Assumptions Can Get You Killed” appeared in WOLFSBANE: BEST NEW ENGLAND CRIME STORIES 2023 and “Cape Jewell,” was published in the 2025 edition of the same anthology, SNAKEBERRY.

This spring, Brenda’s short story “Crime of Devotion” will appear in MYSTERY MOST SENIOR, an anthology published in connection with the 2026 Malice Domestic conference.

Posted in Brenda's Posts, Uncategorized | Tagged creativity, dreams | 18 Comments

WRITING TIP WEDNESDAY

Posted on March 4, 2026 by jselbo

Best writing tip I have ever gotten?

Jule Selbo

Her words still haunt me – and I use them almost every writing day.

Where did the best writing tip I have ever gotten come from?

Back up twenty or so years. When I was working in Los Angeles as a screenwriter. I had a great friend in my book club. I admired her because she seemed to read three books a week, see every studio and independent movie that came out, raise her daughters to have a passion for art and literature, she was tall and blond and had married a short, funny guy – and she loved writing. I admired her because I found her to be warm, smart and a no-bull-shitter.

And she gave me this advice and although she’s moved to Australia and we don’t even correspond anymore – I’ll never forget her.

I was working for the networks and studios as a screenwriter and had been doing projects on assignment (meaning I had a lot of executives with their fingers in the idea/execution of the script I was getting paid to write and I, by contract, had to seriously consider their notes and thus I often felt I was writing to make someone else happy) and I was desperate to find out what was in my head. I wanted to write a story that belonged to me – with “no interference”.

So I gave myself a few months “off” to do that. Basically to write what is called a “spec” screenplay. One that you are not getting paid to write and that, after its completion, you hope to take into the market as an example of “your own voice”.

Not to say that the screenwriting assignment jobs weren’t fun (for the most part I had a blast) and I was very happy to have them – (pay the mortgage, send the kid to school, put gas in the car and all that) but we writers – the reasons we put pen to paper or fingertips to our computer keys are often deeper than ‘it’s a job’.

Joan Didion if often quoted as saying: “I write to find out what I am thinking.” I looked up her quote and the Huffington Post actually noted that she went on a bit longer: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I want, what I fear, what I see and what it means to me.”

So I set out to do that. I wrote the spec screenplay (it was a Western that explored personal justice and dreams of early settlers). I had a great time, creating characters with ideas and actions, conflicts and dreams and struggles to find their place in a new America.

After I completed a pretty good first draft (100 pages, screenplay format), I asked my tall, blond, no-bull-shitter friend to read it. Overall, her response to the script was positive and she had a lot of thumbs-up on the pages. But there were two pivotal scenes that she circled in red pen and wrote in the margins:

“YOU CAN DO BETTER HERE.”

Her note threw me for a loop at first. I stared at the screenplay pages and remembered how hard I worked to find the right words and actions to make the scenes come to life. And if she thought something needed changing, couldn’t she be more specific? What exactly did she think needed changing? Plot? Character? Action? This comment was way too general!

After I settled down from the irritation, I looked more closely at the scenes.

Hmmm.

And I realized what my friend had given to me was really amazing advice. Because she was telling me that she had confidence in me and that I should have confidence in myself that I could make these two pivotal scenes “better”. That I had the capability, the skills, the determination and discipline to do BETTER.

The first word started to get to me: You. Not “it”.

And “better” in my own way. Think about it, it’s your story. Your characters. Your themes.

I’ll never forget those words she wrote in thick red felt pen. So simple. But her confidence fed my confidence and it worked for me. When I hit a bump and I’m searching for the right word or sentence or plot point and come up with one that is almost okay, I circle it and write next to it in large letters:

Jule – you can do better.

Sometimes it reads: Hey dingbat, you can do better.

Or: YCDB

Or: Fix later – ‘cause you can do better.

Or: You lazy sack of doubt, just remember, you can do better.

Maybe not in that exact moment at the computer, maybe not a hour later when frustration or exhaustion or hunger or laziness or aggravation at the world is sitting on my shoulder. But LATER, when I am in a space to be nicer to myself and ENJOY digging deeper into that plot point or sentence or paragraph or idea…

You can do it.

I have the confidence that I can do it.

And when I do go back and work it again, it usually—at least in my opinion—it does get better.

**Joan Didion: Year of Magical Thinking, Play it As It Lays, Notes to John and more: novelist and journalist.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

How I Learned to Stop Pantsing and Get Words on the Page

Posted on March 3, 2026 by kaitcarson

You could say I’ve been at this game a long time. My first publication credits were in teen magazines in the late 1960s. My first traditionally published book was released in 2014. Since that time, I’ve published two additional books. One traditionally, one independently. Can you understand why, when I sit down to write, my brain screams AMATEUR.

The lack of production isn’t due to a lack of ideas. I have those in abundance. Nor is it because of a lack of skill, or so I’ve been told. That’s a judgment I hesitate to make on my behalf. And there have been lots of short stories, essays, and non-fiction articles over the years. So, you might wonder, what’s the problem? Time was part of it. Until 2020, I held a full-time job that often required twelve-hour days, seven days a week. But hey, this is 2026, and I’ve only published one book in all that time. Ah, therein lies the rub.

In a ‘just the facts, Ma’am’ synopsis, here’s the deal. I’m a SLOOOOOOW writer. Except I’m not. That full-time job I mentioned above was in the legal biz. Part of my role entailed writing pleadings, deeply researched documents intended to persuade a judge or mediator to see things from our client’s point of view, often written on a twenty-four-hour deadline. It was intense, and it had to be fast, detailed, and defensible. Twenty-page documents flowed effortlessly from my fingers in the space of four hours. If my attorney was driving, I often had the outline banged out before we returned from court.

Did you hear that loud screeching sound? In my creative writing life, I’m what’s known as a pantser or discovery writer. In my legal life, I was an outliner, and it made an enormous difference. Given the nature of the work, my outlines were bullet-point highlights, not a hard and fast roadmap. They told the story of what, not the how of achieving our client’s desired result. The how came in the drafting based on documents, case law, and statutes. Dry stuff? No. There’s still a lot of creativity involved. Facts are facts, but the role of the pleading is to make them compelling enough that the conclusion is inevitable. Honestly, it was a lot of fun, but it wasn’t the same as writing a novel.

My idea of writing a novel comprised of throwing my ideas into the air and watching where they landed. Then I’d write from one to the other until the story emerged. That’s a lot of work when you’re writing crime fiction. It’s like managing the reins for a ten-horse team. The writer needs to be in control, but flexible enough to avoid a crash and still arrive at the destination. Then comes the editing. A necessary step in every novel, but an essential one for a discovery writer to move from the first to the second draft.

In the back of my mind, I understood that outlining made my writing life easier. I took several classes about moving from pantser to plotter and read numerous books, too. I learned something from every one of them, but not enough to convert me to the cause. One of my writer friends writes multiple books a year. She credits her outlines for making it possible. Her forty to fifty-page outlines. I tried to emulate her. After all, she had a proven system. The outlining went swimmingly, but the writing, not so much. The story bored me by chapter two. I felt like one of those monkeys writing Shakespeare. I knew too much. Instead of taking the scenic route, I was on the interstate, and nothing much tweaked my interest.

The last book I wrote took two years to write and is currently undergoing edits at the request of a potential publisher. That’s a long time. While the book was on submission, characters from an existing series clamored for new words of their own. Another idea, another plot, another three years. Scary thought. Then my husband bought me a book by K. Stanley and L. Cooke titled Secrets to Outlining a Novel. In his defense, he was tired of hearing me complain. The book reinforced my work-life experience. Outlining matters, but it’s not about the minutiae at this stage. It’s about the main events. The what, not the how. The how comes in the creative process.

I’m still deep in the editing process of one book, but I’m taking baby steps in outlining a new book. So far, it’s going well. If my calculations are correct, I should have the book written and ready for editing by August. Still not fast, but not three years either. I’ll report back.

Posted in Kait's posts | Tagged Outlining, pantsing, plotting, writing life | 8 Comments

Never Finished

Posted on March 2, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

the novel I’m currently completely rewriting

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Fellow writers—does it ever seem to you as if a writing project is never truly finished? If you have a contract and a deadline, there is a point where you have to say “Enough!” and let the manuscript go. But if you’ve ventured into the Indie field, or have rights back on a previously published book you’ve decided to revise and reissue, getting to that point is a whole lot harder. I’ll probably talk more about fiction at a later date, since revising and reissuing has been my “thing” since I (Hah!) retired a few years back. But today I want to focus on nonfiction, particularly history and biography, where there really is no point where everything is just right and will never need to be updated.

My A Who’s Who of Tudor Women is a perfect example. Boy is it ever! For years I simply posted these mini-biographies at my website and didn’t even attempt a book version. That way I could easily make additions and corrections.

If you’re thinking “It’s history. Facts don’t change.” Think again. New research is being done all the time. Back when I started this project, the concept of Women’s Studies was brand new. Before that all the emphasis in historical research had been on what men contributed. Women barely got a mention and when they did, male scholars often neglected to mention their given names. They were simply the wives or daughters of the important historical figures.

Anyway, things have changed. Digitizing source material made it easier to access. More people, men as well as women, took an interest in the distaff side of history. There was no way I could keep up with every new tidbit of information about the women who had entries in my Who’s Who.

Then came Covid and my realization that I might not be able to keep the webpages going forever. I took the 2300+ entries I had at that point and finally produced an ebook edition. Well, I thought, I can still make changes easily. And I can put up an “additions and corrections” page at the website. Soon, however, there were requests for a print edition. You know this part of the story already. It came out in three huge volumes at the end of last year. But guess what—other writers are still writing new books about the Tudor period and penning biographies of those women whose lives provide enough material for a full-length study. And in every one of those new books, at least one new detail emerges about one of my 2300+ women. Sometimes it just adds information. Sometimes it contradicts what I thought, based on older research, was accurate.

A case in point is a new biography of Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VIII. I had read only a short way into Accounting for Anne by historian James Taffe, in which he uses Anne’s account books to study her life, when I hit a name, Dorothy Fitzherbert, that sounded familiar. The story of how she had to go to court to enforce her marriage contract with John Wingfield, however, was new to me. Fascinating stuff, but the point is that it’s new information even though it has been around, waiting to be noticed, since the 1540s. I also saw that (oops!) I had assigned John the wrong parentage. Someone else, a reputable scholar, did that first, but still, what’s in my mini-biography of Dorothy is wrong.

There was other “new” stuff in Accounting for Anne too, and I’m talking about just the first third of the book here. I had never seen a list naming the gentlewomen she brought with her from Cleves before. Or how much her English “Mother of Maids” was paid per quarter (£5).

I’ve also recently read a convincing argument for the parentage of one of my favorite Elizabethan figures, Elizabeth’s governess, Katherine Champernowne Astley, written by novelist, Rosemary Griggs, who is working on a biography of Kat Astley. I’d have loved to include her reasoning in Kat’s entry, even though there is no absolute proof it is correct.

The upshot of all this is that the current version of the Who’s Who will have to be the final one . . . but I’ll probably be penciling notes in the margins of my copy till I drop.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

AND DON’T FORGET! One lucky Maine Crime Writers reader who leaves a comment on the blog this month will win a bundle of books!

Posted in Kaitlyn's Posts | Tagged A Who's Who of Tudor Women, final drafts, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Kathy Lynn Emerson, research, revising | 2 Comments

Weekend Update: February 28-March 1, 2026

Posted on February 28, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kait Carson (Tuesday), Brenda Buchanan (Thursday) and Jule Selbo (Friday), with a writing tip from Jule Selbo on Wednesday.

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

From Kathy Lynn Emerson: All my ebooks will be on sale at 25% off at Smashwords during the first week in March.

Also, this is a link (gifted, I hope) to an article in the New York Times on the subject I wrote about in my last post: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/books/review/publishing-scams.html?unlocked_article_code=1.O1A.1NNu._9rJccgB90Q9&smid=url-share

Kate Flora: A bit behind, I know, but our bundle of books winner for January is Janet Anderson-Murch. Janet, please send your snail mail address to me at writingaboutcrime@gmail.com and tell me what type of mystery you prefer.

Matt Cost was excited to submit his final draft of a new series to be published in October of this year by Level Best Books. 1955; A Jazz Jones and January Queen Mystery, takes place in that year in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the tentative back cover copy.

“Welcome to Antebellum,” the ghoul said. “You are the guest of honor.” Things are not right in 1955, Raleigh, North Carolina, and it will be up to Jazz Jones to get to the bottom of the murk and clear things up.

“You heard about the dead boy?” She had said that her name was January Queen and that she was with the NAACP. Her eyes were a pair of sins, or maybe they just mirrored my own.

“Maybe we came to you,” she said, “because not only are you fair, but you have a firm grasp on what the word justice really means.”

And there it was, I thought. I was being asked to bring the killers to justice and expose the underbelly of seething hatred in my city, even if it meant offending my neighbors and inflaming the ire of otherwise good white folks who just didn’t know any better. And, possibly, break the law along the way. Whatever it took. Even if I had to dig some six-foot-deep holes along the way.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

AND DON’T FORGET! One lucky Maine Crime Writers reader who leaves a comment on the blog this month will win a bundle of books!

Posted in Sunday Updates | Tagged Brenda Buchanan, Jule Selbo, Kait Carson, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Katny Lynn Emerson, Maine Crime Writers news, writing tip | Leave a comment

Melding the Real Now and Fiction by Matt Cost

Posted on February 27, 2026 by matthewcost

Writing is often a chance to escape. But, if writing contemporary mysteries and thrillers, wouldn’t it be a crime to erase the world in which the characters are interacting?

I do not get up on a soapbox and preach politics, religion, or social issues. But they do exist. If my goal is to bring the people of the pages to life, well then, these people must have beliefs and opinions. They do not live in a vacuum. The characters need to have passion, to love, to hate, and most of all, to live.

My writing often reflects the issues of the Long Past or the Real Now. In Love in a Time of Hate, I take the reader back to Reconstruction New Orleans. Reconstruction always sounded like too humdrum of a title for an era that was defining, tumultuous, brutal, and chaotic. My novel focuses on the fight for social and economic equality that took place at that time and that place. The book is raw, brutal, and pulls no punches. It was a tough time, and my protagonist, Emmett Collins, is fighting for something worthwhile against forces of hatred and oppression.

My contemporary novels, those in the Real Now, take on many social issues. Just a few so far are the impact of Big Pharma, cults, genome editing, Covid, private interest groups, and the separate laws and rules for the ultra-wealthy.

The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed has Max and the band taking on a morally corrupt billionaire with aspirations to the presidency with swirling foreign complications. The sequel, EveryThing vs Max Creed, out in May, finds the enemy to be a social media mogul looking to combine his information gathering sites into world domination. Impossible to believe? I think not.

I believe that the popular opinion is that writers, much like a Thanksgiving dinner gathering, should avoid pitfalls of social issues, politics, and religion. The opinion of your protagonist promises to alienate half the readers, well, maybe I offend half the people, but I doubt it is half the readers. Still, it is stepping onto a precipice to take a stance with the opinions and values of my protagonist. But how can they be real people of the pages if they don’t have opinions and values?

My current work in progress is tentatively titled Mainely ICEd. You get the gist.

What say you, readers and writers? Would you rather shy away from the Real Now? Or do you feel that the people of the pages resound stronger and with greater impact for having opinions and values?

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Screenshot

Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published six books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. There are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed began a new series this past April. Glow Trap is his eighteenth published book.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. Cost now spends his days at the computer, writing.

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Cabin Fever or What’s Running Through My Head

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn C. Hardacker

Winters up here in The County are long. Here we are near the end of our forth month, with two and a half left to go (I don’t care what some groundhog in Pennsylvania says, his six-week forecast is closer to ten here). Since October, the only time I spend outside is when I use my snowblower to clear the drive and the front walk.

So, you may ask, “How is it that you spend your time?” I read a lot of books (I am nearing the end of book 9 in a 10-book series about the effects of 10 Civil War battles on a Virginia family). I watch sports (I don’t have much interest in television programs, especially series. I don’t want to spend eight weeks watching episodes only to discover I’m on season 1!) If I want that, I’ll start watching the soaps. Tell me a story and finish it!

Unfortunately, my favorite pastime is diving into my head. I contemplate all the crazy shit that bounces off my skull. In a few months, I will complete my seventy-eighth trip around the sun and embark on my seventy-ninth. Even I’m amazed at some of the stuff in my head.

For example, there’s death. Many people my age feel they are at their last rodeo (This winter alone, I’ve lost close to ten family members and friends). I’ve come to the conclusion that death can’t be all that bad. I’ve known a bunch of people who’ve died, and none came back. Not a single one was the type who would stay someplace if they weren’t having a good time. I’ve done some research on people who have gone on and miraculously returned. Most, if not all, of them passed over again. Now, would you go back to someplace where you didn’t have a good time?

Then there’s the other question. When I get to the gate, will they let me in? I believe I can’t lose. If I am allowed in, I’ll have all the dogs I’ve ever known waiting. I’m not so sure about some of the people I’ve known. On the other hand, if I’m cast down to the other place, I won’t be bored–I’ll be too busy shaking hands and hugging people that I hung out with.

I’ve already mentioned blowing snow. Has anyone out there who uses one of these cursed machines noticed that no matter what, the wind always blows at you? Every time I do the drive I understand where the inspiration for Frosty, The Snowman came from.

On a more serious note. You may notice that I did not say writing. Last month, the publisher of my last two books returned the rights to them to me. Since then, I submitted the third novel in my Houston & Bouchard series to my other publisher. The publisher of them has, by contract, the right of first refusal for sixty days. I sent the manuscript to them and waited. No reply, either way. After 60 days, I sent an email telling them that I assumed there was no interest and that I would be submitting elsewhere. No reply. The other publisher (who returned the rights) informed me that he was changing to a hybrid publishing model. I was unfamiliar with what that was, and he explained. “It’s where the author shares the expense of publication. For instance, I would need you to pay $4,000 for me to publish your book,” I replied, “I haven’t made that much money on the total royalties of both.” So, now I have to find another publisher or self-publish. I am not looking forward to the whole agent/publisher thing. What I know about self-publishing you could shove up an ant’s hind end, and it would rattle like an iron ball in an empty boxcar.

So, what was that section about? Inside my head, I’m asking: “Why bother?” I worked in hi-tech for over forty years, and those companies had no retirement plan. They had stock options, and we were all going to retire with millions of dollars. Then all of them went out of business or were bought out by a company that would not honor the options. If it were not for social security and a VA pension (I am rated 80% for type 2 diabetes–thank you, Agent Orange–and PTSD–all of you who thought I was a bit mentally imbalanced were right). I’d be pushing a stolen grocery cart and living under an overpass (located much further south than here). Thus far in my not-so-illustrious writing career, I’ve spent more than I’ve ever earned. Every day is an internal struggle. Do I continue on or just say F— it and move on? Kaitlyn’s post a bout phishing emails, AI-generated, was terrific. Just this morning I received four. All were deleted. One, however, was different. It supposedly came from a published author, which she was. We corresponded for a couple of days, then I got the sales pitch (carefully hidden to look like she was offering help). She has a friend who does PR and promotion. Did I want her put me in touch with her? I responded: “It will do no good. I am not in a financial position to take on anything more.” I’ve not heard from her since.

In closing, what I really wanted to write about was the last item. I am considering throwing in the towel. Memberships to writing organizations, running back and forth across the state, buying copies of my books to sell (I am my own best customer) has me seriously thinking about giving it up.

See you next month?

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Writing Tip Wednesday – How to Write a Fight Scene

Posted on February 25, 2026 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora (from a panel I did at a conference a few years ago)

So You Want to Write a Fight Scene?

Some things to consider when you embark on this task:

What role does the fight play in your book? Not just in the particular scene, but in the overall book?

–how it is used to develop your plot?

–what does it do to enhance or complicate your characters?

Visualize the scene before you write it.

–what does the setting look like and how will the setting and items located in it enhance the scene you’re writing?

–where will your characters stand, how will they move, how will you make it vivid in your reader’s mind?

–Is your choreography logical?

3) Consider how you will use your words to enhance the scene.

–use verbs which will reflect the tension and violence of the scene

–make your sentences fragmented and choppy.

–connect the emotions of your reader to the emotions in the scene. Use that inner narrative to convey fear, anger, pain, strategizing, the consequences of failure, etc. Make the scene stand for more than simply what is happening in the moment.

4) What if you’ve never been in a fight?

–Read (do we really need to tell you this?) and choose scenes you think are particularly effective. Then write them out by hand in your special notebook. Seriously—writing things, rather than copying or typing, helps to embed the structure of the words, the rhythm and pacing of the scene, in a way that nothing else does.

–watch movies with good fight scenes, with pauses and repeats, to see what actually happens.

–be obnoxious with your family and friends and ask them if they’ve ever been in a fight. Then make them tell you about it. Here’s what you’ll probably discover: that often, in the moment, things happen so fast people rarely know what is happening to them. Reflection is after the fact. So you will remember this if you scene is sudden and explosive—think tunnel vision. It will be different if this is a longer scene where your character is fighting for his or her life.

And remember: Someone who posts a comment on one of our blogs this month will win a bundle of books.

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Never Forget that This is Supposed to be FUN

Posted on February 24, 2026 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: Sometimes, this writer gets sick of staring at the screen, writing words, erasing them, doing global search and replace to be sure the character’s names are spelled consistently, and searching for those words I leave out and don’t see. Sometimes then I sneak a chocolate from the hidden box of Valentine chocolates I bought on sale. And when I’m sick of eating chocolate and it is not yet late enough in the day for a proper daughter of New England to give herself over to drink, I do the indoor, writerly equivalent of going out to play.

I close the WIP, pull up my friend Gracie, and let her go have an adventure. Grace Christian is a somewhat wayward US Marshal who first appeared several years ago in a story published by Level Best Books called “Gracie Walks the Plank.”Gracie has voice and Gracie has attitude. She’s a true badass and it’s fun to see what she’ll think and say. After “Gracie Walks the Plank,” I wrote a second Gracie story about a battered wife and jewel heist called “All that Glitters.” Then, just for fun, because she’s a vacation from my other characters, I wrote “A Hole Near Her Heart,” and then Entitlements.” In a recent bout of playing hooky from quotas, I wrote “Black Widower.” I am gradually turning all the stories, plus more, into an entire Gracie novel.

Here’s Gracie:

Gracie Walks the Plank

The sound of a car door slamming brought Grace to the window. The car that had crunched up her gravel drive and now sat in a cloud of settling golden dust was new. Clean and dark and, until the dust finished coating it, shiny. It fit in this neighborhood of rust-blossomed double-wides like feathers on a turtle. The man who got out didn’t fit either. He was as clean and dark and shiny as the car. Wearing a suit, for sh#t’s sake, on a 95 degree day.

She stubbed out her breakfast cigarette in the butt-choked ashtray and checked to see if she was fit for company. Exiled to this crap job, she paid little attention to her appearance. The ratty housecoat was held together with a rusting safety pin, its once tropical colors as faded as her childhood dreams. Bare toes on the grubby brown carpet still wore traces of girlish pink polish, a color the little Vietnamese girl at the salon had called Blushing Dawn. Her unbrushed mahogany hair was wrapped with the twist tie from a bread bag. She hadn’t yet put on a bra and her breasts bobbled gently under the thin cotton. The only touch of elegance was a diamond necklace, grand enough for a queen, heavy on her throat as the hand of God.

As the Suit’s demanding fist rose and fell against the tin can’s flimsy door, Grace wrapped a colorful Indian scarf—dots, not feathers—around her neck and padded across the room.

“Who’s there and what do you want?” Her voice, unused yet today, poured like honey over gravel. Billy used to say she had a big voice for such a small woman. Big enough to fill clubs, that much she knew. Big enough to make complete strangers cry. She wouldn’t mind making this man cry.

All That Glitters

Sometimes she just had to get out of the office. That’s just how it was. Ex-military and six years with the Marshal’s Service, Gracie was trained to conform. She could walk the walk and talk the talk, knot her tie and shine her shoes with the best of them. She knew shit from Shinola and she could pick the bad guy out of a crowd like nobody’s business. But once in a while, the urge to misbehave overtook her. Little stuff, like wanting to slam a jelly donut up against a wall full of wanted posters or put a fart cushion on some uptight asshole’s chair. Draw her gun at an inappropriate time and caress the barrel like it was someone’s precious dick. Stuff that could escalate if she didn’t tamp it down.

When it got so bad that she was, like the guy in the Elvis song, ‘itching like a man on a fuzzy tree,’ she’d leave the office, come out here to the park, and sit on a bench. Brick wall behind her to cover her back. And the whole roiling mass of humanity before her, doing its awkward human things. Spring drew people to the park like a picnic drew ants. Drew them in exuberant hordes, people who’d peeled down and were displaying swaths of bare skin to the sun’s warmth.

So here’s a question for other writers: Do you ever escape from your works in progress and just go write playful stories? Dark stories? Poetry? Essays?