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We are making the pieces fit in book 5. At this point we are not convinced we have left enough clues for our readers. Some adjustments are needed before we begin the next rewrite. That rewrite begins by the end of the week and should go faster than the last one.
There is a famous mansion in Duluth called Glensheen which was the scene of a gruesome murder in 1977. A number of readers have asked if Lakesong is really Glensheen. The answer is no. Although both mansions follow the Jacobean style, Lakesong is much more open and airy. You can only visit Lakesong in our books, it doesn’t really exist, but if you visit Duluth, Glensheen is worth the price of the tour.
Several readers have asked if Lakesong is haunted. Agnes says the house shows her its secrets, and Darian feels the house is happy. Thus far, Milo hasn’t seen any ghosts, but Jet the Cat has suddenly acquired the ability to walk through walls. It’s a small mystery that taxes Milo’s brain in book five.
What happens when we really don’t know our murderer? Well, after several glasses of wine and numerous discussions, we now have unmasked her or him. We like to think we can take our characters to lunch and have a great time…even with Milo ordering at the Chinese Dragon. We can now take our murderer to lunch, but I don’t think we want to.
We have finished with the first draft of our fifth book. It contains murder, mayhem, and a number of mistakes. Now we begin the rewrites.
The detectives among you will notice that two of the chapters have been printed on yellow paper. There is no reason for this other than we found two reams of different colored paper and decided to use it.
Each time we get to this place, we think we did a great job and the rewrites will not take much time. We are always wrong.
Jet looks over one of the final chapters. He is very particular as to how he is portrayed…keeping up his image and all that. We will be finishing the first write through of book five on Monday. We still haven’t gotten completely into the head of the murderer yet. That will come in the next rewrite which we call rewrite two even though it’s technically rewrite one.
Jet does not respect the writing process. He doesn’t see it as contributing to his well-being, and cats are all about their well-being. I am writing the pivotal scene in book five. Alyce is editing as I write. Jet thinks as long as we are not doing anything worth while, this would be a good time to catch a quick scritch under the chin.
People always ask us how we write. I guess a husband and wife writing combo is somewhat rare. It’s a collaborative process. I write, Alyce changes what I write with cute little phrases such as, “Are you crazy? No woman would ever say that!” or “Let’s say this, it makes sense.” (The unwritten part of that is I didn’t make sense.) or “How old is Gramm, one hundred and ninety? You make him sound like a doddering fool.” I counter with my “on a roll” sign that indicates I cannot be interrupted. However, Alyce does not respect the “on the roll” sign. If I wrote a book by myself it would be only ten pages, so basically I write the outline and Alyce fills it all in.
Welcome to our blog page. We published book four, Murder Again! Happy New Year! on January 6, 2021. Six days later we got our first, “when is the next book coming out?” question. We are writing the fifth book (no title yet) and are almost finished with the first write through. That is the hardest and most time consuming because it requires a lot of going back and rereading, where we discover one character has two different names, we talked about giving the murderer a limp but never wrote it in, and a character cannot go to lunch in Chapter Six because he or she died in Chapter four.
Once we finish with the first write through, the rewrites will move faster.
We hope all of our readers are having a good summer. Don’t eat too many Milo lumberjack breakfasts.
Alyce and Harvey