Shaken, Not Stirred

For the speakeasy party in Columbia Ghost Story, Neal reprises a James Bond costume he wore in an Arkham Files story while Sara dresses as Emma Peel from The Avengers. Although they have a moment wishing they'd been disguised as d'Artagnan and Constance, James Bond has a much stronger connection to Caffrey Conversation.

Putting it into practice

In March I wrote a few posts about including more diversity in our stories, and specifically mentioned a goal of being able to pass the Bechdel test more often. Then I turned my focus back to my novel, where the two main characters are an eighteen-year-old boy (Zach) and his father (Mitch). With most scenes in the POV of one of those characters, or at least featuring them, it was a challenge to pass the Bechdel test even though I have a host of marvelous female characters.

Destination: Columbia Ghost Story

Columbia Ghost Story begins a few days after the conclusion of The Musicians. As Halloween approaches, the team makes plans to celebrate the successful completion of a case with a costume party. It is not intended to be a Halloween party, but Mozzie makes a discovery in the tunnels under Columbia University that may change their minds.

Celebrating Writing Accomplishments

Posting a story online is exciting and scary. There's a sense of accomplishment at having completed a story -- or even a chapter -- that's ready for the world. There's also the fear of how it will be received. Will people like it? Will they read it? What if it falls into the hands of trolls?

One of the ways Silbrith and I ease those fears is with our posting rituals.

Playing with plotter and pantser styles of writing

In my mid-teens, my mother introduced me to the power of making lists and crossing things off as done. I embraced the concept wholeheartedly, and I guess it's no surprise that when I started writing longer stories, I created outlines consisting of several pages of plot points. It was a few years later that I learned the terms "plotter" and "pantser." A plotter figures out the whole plot before writing anything. A pantser goes by the seat of their pants and doesn't plan anything. Obviously, I was a plotter.

Or was I?

Library Acquisition: Thrushfield Hall

Thrushfield Hall is the third story in Tales from the Library, a series based on The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. In the previous story, The Red Chamber, Irene and Kai had their first face-to-face encounter with Count Lecerf, a Fae who appears to have claimed the alternate world where Irene is Librarian-in-Residence as his private playground. This doesn't sit well with Lord Silver, who likes to think he is the leader of the London Fae population. Silver has been known to pass Irene an occasional nugget of useful information when it suits his self-interest.