Category Archives: Isabel Long Mystery Series

Isabel Long Mystery Series, Writing

Now in the Middle

Well, I am actually past the middle of my next mystery as I write this post. So, let me back up a bit and tell you what I actually did when I reached that point for Following the Lead is no. six in my Isabel Long Mystery Series.

As I did with the others, I aim for about 75,000 words, long enough I believe to tell a good story. So half of that is 37,500, which I reached several days ago. As I post this, I’ve reached 40,500.

I aim for 500 words a day, and except for a day here or there when I wasn’t home, I’ve maintained that pace since I began in earnest early in February when I retired from journalism. Somehow it works for me although once in a while I surprise myself and hit a thousand.

So, reaching mid-way, I decided it was time to print out what I had written thus far and get out the red marker. At this point, I am a little hard on myself. Gee, didn’t I use that phrase somewhere else? Hey, I would expand this part more. Oops, I need to go back to an earlier chapter to fix some loose threads or revisit one of the earlier books to see if a “fact” (this is fiction after all) is correct. Surely, there’s another way to write this part.

Besides finding the usual typos and missing words, it’s an opportunity to immerse myself in the book’s story and its characters, especially as Isabel Long moves forward with her most recent case. But first, I make the corrections and additions on the computer’s document.

What is this case about? This one involves a baby taken fifty years ago and never found although the man who hires Isabel is convinced he met her once by chance.

Now, like Isabel Long, I will keep going until I reach the end.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: This is the second year this amaryllis has bloomed. Its sister amaryllis is getting close to blooming — the fourth time including last summer.

LINKS TO MY BOOKS: Interested in the Isabel Long Mystery Series? I will make it easy for you to find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Joan-Livingston/e/B01E1HKIDG

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hilltowns, Isabel Long Mystery Series

Having My Way With It

Actually, that title is an abbreviation of what I will be talking about March 9 at an event sponsored by the Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club. Specifically, I will talk about how the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, where I live, have been an inspiration for my fiction.

Actually, if I were to give the whole title it would be: I Take What I Know and Have My Way With It.

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Andrew Heinrich on the bassoon at Brodksy Bookshop in Taos, NM

I will be honest in saying I love doing these events. I’ve done them at libraries, classrooms, book stores, on stage and for literary groups — in person and virtually. One memorable reading was for my novel, Peace, Love, and You Know What, at Brodsky Bookshop in Taos, NM, where my friend, Andrew Heinrich played Beatles tunes on the bassoon. It was appropriate given the book’s pitch: First a three-day bash at a college hippie pad … and then maybe adulthood. Peace, Love, and You Know What is a comedy framed by the Vietnam War and Watergate.

Now I will be talking and reading in Shelburne Falls, Mass., the village where I live. For this event, I will concentrate on my Isabel Long Mystery Series. As I’ve said before, there’s a lot of me in Isabel. Given it’s written in first-person, present tense, I can’t help it. But I have no plans to be a private investigator now that I’ve left journalism for good. I will write about one instead — plus work on my other writing projects. It’s been a month, by the way, since I left that profession.

I admit I pay homage to family members, especially my mother, in this series. But this is definitely not a memoir. The rest of the characters are made up. So are Isabel’s cases.

But I honestly believe the hilltowns are a permanent part of my DNA considering the the length of time I’ve lived in Western Mass. — 25 years the first go-round and reaching five years this one — and importantly covering it as a reporter.  It helps my books be authentic.

I’ve been to lots of readings by other authors, so I am familiar with what works and what doesn’t. For the next few days I will concentrate on what I will say and how much I will read. There will be time for questions and I will have books for sale at a discount.

If you’re in the area, here are the event’s details: Wednesday, March 9, 4 p.m. at the Shelburne Buckland Community Center at 53 Main St., on the Shelburne side of Shelburne Falls.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE:

That’s me giving a reading at SOMOS in Taos — “a place for the written and spoken word.”

HOW TO FIND MY BOOKS:

Here’s the link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Joan-Livingston/e/B01E1HKIDG

 

 

 

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Isabel Long Mystery Series, Writing

Putting My Daydreaming Skills to Good Use

I confess that I’m a daydreamer. Big time. For much of my life, I used those dreams to try fixing whatever was going on in my life and make them turn out the way I imagined. Admittedly, that typically didn’t happen. But all that changed when I got serious about my writing and put my daydreaming skills to much better use in the fiction I create.

Author Stephen King put it well when he said writing is telepathic. That came from his book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” and when I read it, I totally agreed that, at least for me, when I sit down at my computer, the words come from somewhere else. I never work by outlines. I don’t plan ahead. Frankly, I don’t even know “who dunnit” when I start one of my Isabel Long Mysteries. I’m figuring that out along Isabel.

Often times, the next chapter will pop into my head when I’m driving or doing some mindless chore. I can remember once weeding my garden when I got a revelation about the relationship between two characters that I had to leave what I was doing and run inside to write — it also changed the focus of my novel, The Sweet Spot.

Currently, I’m writing Following the Lead, number six in the Isabel Long Mystery Series. I am only 15,000 words into it so the story line and characters are still fluid. It’s too soon to give details about the book except in this one a baby was kidnapped from her front yard fifty years ago and never found. At first, the baby’s father had since died. But then a much more exciting idea popped into my head as I was taking a shower — I kid you not — that the father was indeed alive and actually one of the gossipy old men who hang out at the town’s general store. Isabel has counted on the Old Farts, as she calls them although they don’t know it, for tips and background for her cases. Naturally, she’s wary about how she will handle news that she’s pursuing this case to the group. That was a fun chapter to write.

I write because I thoroughly enjoy the experience. And it is so gratifying when I can share that enjoyment with my books’ readers.

NOTE OF THANK: I am glad so many people downloaded Chasing the Case, no. 1 in my series, during the two-day freebie promotion Feb. 27-28. Thanks to a promo with BookBub, it was no. 1 on Amazon for free Kindle books in the US, UK and Canada and in three categories. Fellow authors tell me it’s a game changer. I hope so.

ANOTHER NOTE: I originally wrote this post for Jo Fenton, a fellow darkstroke books author, in May. Here is an updated version with a new title. Here is Jo’s blog: https://jofenton137.com

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: The Deerfield River running through my Shelburne Falls Village changes with the winter. Here the river has an icy, snowy texture. That’s the well-known Bridge of Flowers.

LINK TO MY BOOKS: https://www.amazon.com/Joan-Livingston/e/B01E1HKIDG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Isabel Long Mystery Series, Working the Beat

Why I Write Mysteries

Another find while cleaning out my computer: this post I wrote last June for author Val Penny’s website. Val, who writes the Edinburgh Crime Series, is a fellow mystery writer at darkstroke books. This post has been updated since it was written while I was in the middle of writing Working the Beat, my newest book Isabel Long Mystery Series.

Hey, before I go further, just as the image above suggests, Chasing the Case, no. 1 in the series is available for free for Kindle readers on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 27-28, only.

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? I surely do, whether it’s in a book, a movie or TV show (especially from the UK), and on occasion, real life. And a few years ago, I decided I would create my own, and thus the Isabel Long Mystery Series began.

Let me back up a little. I didn’t start writing mysteries. I was drawn to what I would call literary fiction. I have completed five in that genre, two of which have been published. I have also delved into kids’ books, including one that is bilingual.

But it was after a close friend, Teresa Dovalpage, who is also an author, wrote her first mystery that I told myself to give it a try. And from reading and watching so many mysteries, I believe I figured it out from the get-go.

First, mysteries need someone who solves them. In my case, it’s Isabel Long, who uses the transferable skills of her former profession as a journalist to be a private investigator solving cold cases in the rural area where she lives. (Full disclosure, I have been a journalist for 35 years, and I long decided I could easily be a lawyer, detective, or if I were brave enough, a spy. I officially retired from that profession on Feb. 4.)

Isabel is smart, nosy, and a bit sassy, and people who know me would likely say I channel myself a bit through this character. But that’s where the similarities end. She’s a recent widow, mother of three grown kids and grandmother to a little one. Her personal life changes after she starts working as a part-time bartender at the town’s only bar and she becomes involved with its owner.

I gave Isabel an unusual sidekick, he 92-year-old mystery-loving mother who lives with her. (My real-life mother, now 97, is the inspiration.)

In the first book of this series, Isabel decides to solve a very cold case, one that happened 28 years earlier when a woman in her small town disappeared. It was also her first big story as a rooky reporter.

The setting for the series is the sticks of Western Massachusetts in the U.S., which I know well since I’ve lived there much of my life. The characters are not based on anyone real, but I feel they could easily live there. Many stay around through the series.

One important thing about watching or reading a mystery is that I want to be fooled until nearly the end. Please keep me guessing but don’t make the distractions and dead ends obvious. Give me characters who are complex and interesting. I love when all of that happens. I hope to do the same for my readers.

I will share a secret. Just like Isabel, I don’t start off knowing whodunnit. It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to her and we solve it together — an experience I find extremely satisfying.

As for writing book no. 5 in the series, Working the Beat … a few years ago, I went to a demolition derby at a local country fair. Something clicked inside me when a friend mentioned a derby might be a good place to find a body. That was all I needed to get started. The same goes for Isabel.

Working the Beat had a Jan. 27 release. I am already into the next one, tentatively called Finding the Lead. The lead or lede is a term for the opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story. If you got to the end of Working the Beat — thank you — you’ll know who hires Isabel next to solve a 50-year-old mystery.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE:

A reminder about the freebie promo. Here’s the link: Chasing the Case on Amazon

LINKS:

Here is the one for Val Penny’s website: https://www.valpenny.com

And the one for my books on Amazon: Joan Livingston Books on Amazon

 

 

 

 

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

A Letter from Jack to Isabel

First, a little business. My publisher’s treat to you: Working the Beat is free for Kindle users for two days only, Feb. 12 and 13. After that it costs $3.99, which is not a terribly lot of money, but free is free. Here’s the link: mybook.to/workingthebeat

I was cleaning out files in my computer in preparation for getting a new one, when I found this piece I haven’t published on my website. I wrote it two years ago for my editor Miriam Drori’s blog series, Letters from Elsewhere. The letter, which I’ve updated, is written by Jack, one of the characters in my Isabel Long Mystery Series. Jack is the owner of the Rooster Bar and Grille, where Isabel works part-time. The two of them have developed a loving relationship. Jack’s a country guy through and through. Isabel will always be a newcomer to that town. She uses her skills as a former longtime journalist to solve cold cases in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts as a P.I. And that worries the heck out of  Jack. Here I’ll share what he wrote her.

Dear Isabel,

I’ve never written a letter to a woman before. But I wanted to get a few things off my chest. Don’t worry, I ain’t breaking up with you, honey. I would lose the best bartender I ever hired if I did that. Yeah, I’m kidding.

The reason I’m writing is that I’m scared to death something bad is going happen to you being a private investigator. In your first case, you got knocked in the head so bad, I had to carry you out of the woods. Remember? Then you broke your collar bone when that ass drove you off the road. I do suspect something really bad almost happened when Gary Beaumont hired you. What really went on at that cliff? I’m guessing you’re holding back some, so I won’t worry about you. You’re right. I’m afraid to hear the whole story.

Then, I heard from my cousin Fred you might have been dealing with crooked cops. Isabel, what am I going to do with you?

You’re on your fifth case. I know your mother helps you out, but she can’t be with you all the time. Besides, she’s 93. What is she supposed to do to save you other than to try talking some sense into you?

Then, there are the characters you meet like that guy Victor Wilson. You and I both know what he’s up to on his property. Then there are those Beaumont brothers. How in the heck did I let you talk me into letting them drink at the Rooster. Oh, yeah, that dumb ass brother Larry saved you when that guy tried to bump you off. I won’t give either of those guys an inch.

We’ve been together since last November, well, except for a couple of months. I don’t want to get into that. I can say I’m one happy man when we’re together, and I’m not just talking about when we’re in bed. You’re different than the other women I’ve been with. Maybe I don’t tell you enough what you mean to me. I guess I’m kinda shy about that since the only other woman I told that to is dead. I don’t have to tell you who that was since she was your first case.

I understand why you are doing these investigations. You want to help people. I have no power to stop you. I just want you to be more careful although I know you’re as stubborn as hell and that what I say isn’t going to stop you from finding out what went wrong in these towns. I just don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to lose you cuz I love you.

Jack

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