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As anyone who knows me will attest, I can blog on just about any topic. Just give me a chance, and I’ll chat ….

Today I’ll chat about writing and where I find the characters and plots I have in my books. I write murder mysteries and my heroes and heroines are all Baby Boomers who really aren’t looking for love in their lives. The love and the murder sort of drops in on them unannounced. I got started writing these kinds of books because I didn’t really relate to a lot of heroines in romance novels. So many I read seemed to deal with 30-something career women or other, younger women who want home-family-baby.

That was never in my game plan. So for fun I started writing about slightly overweight, divorced (or widowed), independent women who have gotten where they are without a lot of help from anyone. They’ve got a great circle of friends and a pretty darn good life. Then — BAM — they get dropped into a murder investigation and find love they didn’t expect.

While I have a great imagination, I also base most of my books on something that happened to me. I did witness a brutal beating (as in “Your Saving Grace”, my first book). I was once stalked (as in “Nowhere to Run”, releasing in April). I work in the software industry (as in “Brownies, Bodies & Breaking the Code”) and lived in a small town very like the one in “Brilliant Disguise.” My latest series of books are set at writers’ conferences. “Autographs, Abductions & A-List Authors” takes place at a conference somewhat like RWA National, “Sun, Surf & Sandy Strangulation” at one like RT, and the final book in the series (releasing in June) takes place at a fictional conference based on several small, local conferences I’ve attended.

For me, the hard part isn’t the plots or the characters. It’s whittling out time to write in my day. I work full-time as a technical writer, so that means I’m out of the house for 40-50 hours a week. I get home & cope with my ‘chores’ (feed the animals, check the outdoor critters, feed the spouse, pay the bills) then I get to sit down and write. Because my time is limited, I’m very efficient with it. I usually do one draft of a book, let it sit, then revisit it and tweak it. Then it’s off to my beta reader then off to my editor. The whole process takes maybe 5 months or so. And I work on multiple books at one time.

Sound exhausting? Sometimes it is. But it’s what I enjoy doing, and slowly but surely I’m building up a nice little ‘side’ career. I love my day job and won’t give it up any time soon but I also love my ‘night’ job. I’ll be writing those mysteries and finding good spots to murder folks for many months to come. So don’t be surprised if you see me taking notes at a conference or on a trip …. there might be a good book there to be had from my experience!

J L Wilson
jayellwilson.com

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