Writing a Mystery?

My muse to me...Let's write a murder mystery.

Me to my muse...I write romance.

My muse to me...Let's give it a shot, pun intended.

Me...three hours later with a full plot outline.

Me to my muse...Okay!

Last week, I thought of a murder mystery storyline. Pieces of a plot came out of nowhere, and over the next few days, a complete story was mapped out in my head. 

And this story doesn't have a romance! I'm a romance writer, so how can it not be a romance or even have a little romance? The plot drives the story and doesn't require the lead to have a love interest. She's too busy trying to solve a murder.

I've written cozy mysteries into my romance books, but this is a new genre for me to mainly focus on solving the crime. 

I'm working on my character list this week and will start typing next week or sooner if my muse has anything to do with it, lol.

After receiving the rights back to my library of books, I've been designing new covers and editing them for republishing, but I'm looking forward to dipping into the waters of a new genre, and I think writing a brand new story is the kick-in-the-butt my writing muse needs right now.

New Profile Picture

This past weekend was the start of a yard reno project, but I also found time to design a new profile picture to add to my 'ABOUT' page on my blog and website. 

I found the background photo on Pixabay from IzabelleArt, but I added a lot of my own touches. I removed some of the window background to add a lake. I made adjustments to the wall and desk. I also added a chair, a tablet, my two dogs, a few books, a cup of hot chocolate, as well as two of my book covers as photographs on the wall. Oh, and that's me in the chair!

This picture is my ideal office space with a view of the lake. I'm hoping someday to make this vision a reality.

My Family

Today, I'm celebrating my 32nd wedding anniversary and thought I'd post an art piece of my family that I designed on the weekend. That's me in the middle, my husband on the right, and my daughter on the left. Beside my husband, is our ten-month old Corso-Dane (Rambler), and beside my daughter, is our six-year old Yellow Lab (Keefer). Behind my daughter, are her two Abyssinian guinea pigs (Ace and Phineas) which are darker than this design but when I tried to make them darker, the color smudged.

While my wedding feels like such a long time ago (and it was, lol), I still remember that special day. We're a lot older and a lot greyer! Time has flown by, but we're still going strong and hopefully have many more years together.

   

Red Panda Sticker

This week I took a few days off from writing and research to cleanse my mind, and the best way for me to do this is to channel my artistic creativity.

Since Mother's Day is this weekend, I made this cute Red Panda sticker with a mom reading to her two babies. I had a lot of fun designing this and will be creating a lot more stickers.

I also designed a new book cover for Hershey's Choice, but I have a few touch-ups to do before sharing it.

I hope all the mothers out there have a wonderful Mother's Day! 

My daughter is taking me out for dinner tomorrow. We go the day before Mother's Day as Sunday is too busy. Then I hope to relax on Sunday and design another sticker or two!

Thursday Thoughts #1

How many times have you come across a quote and thought 'that really speaks to me'? Well, this one did just that for me. 

While I may not wake up and think about doing something creative with me life, before falling asleep at night, I do think about what I'd like to accomplish the next day. Many of those thoughts are about writing, things I have to get done around the house, dog stuff (because most of my day is somehow dog related - lol), and thoughts about my next creative project - be it a piece of art or even starting a Thursday Thoughts theme on my blog.

This particular quote was on the back of one of the pages of my Snoopy calendar. I really like the idea of starting each morning with a creative objective in life. However, for me, that will depend on how early the dogs wake me up, lol!