Life often intervenes and breaks up one's routine. In January, I needed to get back to something I enjoyed doing. I started a writing group in my neighborhood (no commuting). As I helped two new writers get started and shape their ideas, I started listening to what I was saying. I took my own advice, and started plotting a book. The result, six months later, is 'Blood Garnets and Murder.'
Plotting a mystery is hard work, and writing it is a challenge. Critiqued by my group and one other, I also received considered help from a retired police officer. I soon discovered there's a great deal of difference in east and west coast policing, in terms, names and phrases.
I learned a lot in this process. Challenging my mind/brain to plot and write again and remembering what I'd written was a great brain exercise for me. I started feeling more energized, waking up earlier, looking forward to get to my writing.
My advice to all those seniors out there...do something that you enjoy and that challenges you.
Here's the result of all that hard work, thanks to my group and my publisher Jude Pittman at Books We Love Publishing.
An excerpt:
'Maya’s holistic center, 'Nithya Shanti', in Southern California, offers alternative medical treatments plus an opportunity to align mind, body and soul. The name means 'Daily Peace', but that carefully created environment of massages, meditation and mindful living is going to be tested every which way there is. Her blood garnet earrings are a reminder that the stones offer protection. From whom? Or from what?
Apple isn’t taken in by holistic mumbo jumbo. What is this place anyway? An internal lube joint? A con center? Well no one’s fooling her. She’s keeping notes, and reporting this place’s attempt to separate gullible seniors and their money to the CIA, FBI or Homeland Security. While she gathers evidence, her personal mantra is ‘So Help Me’.
When murder takes center stage at Nithya Shanti, finding the killer and saving an innocent person takes top priority. Maya and Apple find sleuthing makes life very interesting. The two seniors unite to prove that they may be old, but they are not extinct.'
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Available on Amazon.com/Kindle, Smashwords.com and Barnes and Noble.
