I hope everybody is enjoying the new year of 2019! For me, it’s going way too fast.
The year started out for me by publishing Uma’s Umbrage on January 21st. I’m telling you, I was sweating the outcome of that book. I kept revising the beginning and changing the sequence of plot events because I didn’t like how it was unfolding. The process was daunting.
Other authors tell me that I need to follow an outline so that I can write faster. And I do. Outline, that is. But I can’t follow it. Because how can I outline character behavior? Quirkiness? I don’t know how characters will interact … or react to situations because they don’t tell me until I get to that scene, and flowing. Too, the mystery plot in Uma’s Umbrage wasn’t how I envisioned it. The red herrings, the past and how it intertwined with the present wasn’t always clear to me. I wanted the mystery to be fresh. So I worked hard.
Revised.
Rewrote.
I hadn’t known if I’d succeeded until I read all of the wonderful reviews on Amazon. Thank you so much for the feedback. Reviews really are an author’s backbone. Or really, my walking staff. They really helped me to determine if I’d done what I’d set out to do. Thank you all for your support, which makes my long hours of beating my head against the wall worthwhile!
Too, by reading the reviews and by readers contacting me, asking if I was going to write more Uma stories and pen more about Cryptic, (more on the name of the town later), I realized I had to change my plans, put my other series on the back-burner, and write a series based on Uma’s Umbrage. I’m calling the series Cryptic Cove. When I wrote Uma’s Umbrage, I called the town by the name of Cryptic. What to name the series? I thought of Miss Uma Mystery Series. But then I thought of Cryptic and using the town name for the name of the series. Cryptic Tales? Cryptic Mysteries? Those sound good.
But does the name imply a town? No. It sounds like I’m describing the tales, and that I’m going to write a series of horror novels. I wanted readers to know the town name was Cryptic. That’s when I decided to slightly change the village name to Cryptic Cove. In book 2, which I’m titling Uma’s Undoing, I can add the explanation that many times Cryptians refer to their town as just “Cryptic” for short. Oh, and for those who haven’t read Uma’s Umbrage, the town got its name from a miner who was lost in heavy fog, with the tall Redwoods of Northern California towering above him. Then he stumbled upon the campgrounds before it became a town. (In my mind, the my fictitious hamlet is on the edge of the Redwoods, close the Pacific Ocean. It’s near the real town of Crescent City, California).
Anyway, because of the fog and the surrounding trees, which made everything look eerie, the miner claimed the whole place was cryptic, and the description stuck. Too, after writing two Cryptic Cove mysteries, I’m planning on writing two other books in Blooms of the West. A reader reminded me that I still have three brothers and four sisters who need their stories told! So I need to get on those.
Thanks for reading.