The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Or, in the case of writing a new book, with the first page. And that\u2019s where I am today\u2014at the beginning of a new year and a new book. The book doesn\u2019t have a name at this point. Titles come later\u2014usually much later.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019m starting. It\u2019s a Joanna Brady book. That news is going to cause howls of outrage from fans who are Beaumont-centric. Please remember, I have four sets of characters, and the three with HarperCollins\u2014Joanna, Beaumont, and the Walkers\u2014have to take turns. In other words, 2016 belongs to Joanna. I can\u2019t write any faster than I can write, and maintaining any kind of quality in the writing means it takes time.<\/p>\n
People who have heard me speak know that I am a non-outliner. My aversion to outlining started in Mrs. Watkins\u2019s sixth grade geography class, and it\u2019s something from which I have never recovered. I don\u2019t know the ending of a book when I start writing it, but this time I do know who the killer is. And I know who\u2019s dead\u2014or who\u2019s going to be dead. But how I go from the deed to catching the killer? Well, that\u2019s the whole point of writing mysteries, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
Last night I heard from a man who told me that all my characters seem like people to him, and he\u2019s always wondering what\u2019s happening to them between books. That\u2019s something I wonder about myself, because I\u2019ve discovered over time that my characters can be busy little bees when my back is turned. Remember when Eleanor Lathrop eloped with George Winfield behind Joanna\u2019s back and behind mine, too? That was a surprise.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s how I\u2019ll be starting 2016\u2014by writing a book\u2014while Bill is busy taking down and packing away the Christmas decorations. We\u2019ll be heading to Arizona for a few weeks. This will be Jojo\u2019s first trip to Tucson, and it will be interesting to see how she deals with the lizards who have gotten used to having our yard all to themselves. Lizards are quick, and with the golden retrievers, the lizards thought they were home free. Bella nailed one of them the first night she was there\u2014and brought the still bloody corpse into the bedroom where she proudly dropped it on my pillow. I\u2019m sure she thought she was bringing me a real treasure. The thing is, Jojo is quicker than Bella. The lizards are probably doomed\u2014and so is my pillow.<\/p>\n
So what am I looking forward to this year? There\u2019s the Clawback tour, coming in March. It\u2019s not finalized yet, but it will be soon. We\u2019ve booked a Silverseas Cruise for late May and early June. The cruise was our 30th Wedding Anniversary gift to each other. Later in June, we\u2019ll be celebrating the wedding of our eldest granddaughter in Moses Lake. And in the fall there will be another tour for another book\u2014the one with no name.<\/p>\n
Eight months from beginning the walking experience, Bill and I are both still walking and it\u2019s still working. I am down sixty pounds from where I started and so is Bill.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s going to be a busy year, and to my way of thinking, busy is better than not.<\/p>\n
So Happy New Year, folks.<\/p>\n
My best wishes to all of you, and for those of you who are walking, keep walking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Or, in the case of writing a new book, with the first page. And that\u2019s where I am today\u2014at the beginning of a new year and a new book. The book doesn\u2019t have a name at this point. Titles come later\u2014usually much later. So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[147,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-joanna-brady","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-hJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1104,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/1104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}