BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR BARBARA GRAHAM

Barbara Graham returns to Book Club Friday for another visit today. Barbara is a mystery writer and quilter who writes a "Quilted Mystery" series featuring Sheriff Tony Abernathy and his wife Theo, also a quilter. Read more about Barbara and her books at her website. 

Barbara is offering a copy of Murder By Vegetable to one of our readers who posts a comment. As always, please be sure to include your email address or check back on Sunday to see if you’ve won. Too many books are going unclaimed because we have no way of getting in touch with the winners. -- AP

Magpie Brain

I have “Magpie Brain”, which strictly speaking, makes me a birdbrain. I’ll admit to making up the designation, it’s not in medical textbooks but it describes how my mind works. Whether I’m designing a quilt, cooking dinner or working on a new mystery, I am distracted by the “shiny thing in the grass”. When I try to control it, stick to an outline or a recipe or a pattern, it doesn’t seem to work as well. I don’t know why. I know many creative people who are not birdbrains, writers whose characters follow the script and they get more written, faster than I do.

I still manage to kill a lot of imaginary people. All my research on the situation assures me it is not illegal (or immoral) to kill someone who doesn’t exist, never did, and never will.

I wrote at least seven books before I sold “Murder by Serpents” to a publisher. The not quite magnificent seven acquired an impressive number of rejections from publishers and agents. To be truthful, they weren’t very good—they were practice pieces. While “Serpents” was traveling in and out of offices and meeting my editor, I worked on a totally different book. Again.

During this period, I took a trip back to Tennessee where “Serpents” is set. I visited the wonderful Museum of Appalachia near Norris and just by chance spied a fabulous murder weapon. A flax hackle, a device vaguely resembling a scrub brush but with rows of closely set metal spikes. “Ooh, I should kill someone with that!” I exclaimed to myself. I must have spoken out loud because a man standing near me jumped away, a fearful expression on his face. I did use it, on paper, and the series officially began. While working on that book, I had an idea that didn’t fit in, so I moved it down the line, and so on.

I love writing, I love my imaginary friends. I spend hours with them and if they annoy me, I can dispose of them. Legally. However, the work part is less fun. Each book must stand alone, but there are things a new reader must know, and bringing them up to speed without annoying the readers who already know the situation is a tightrope walk. Remember to watch out for alligators!

My personal biggest problem is keeping track of these people. One might have shown up in Book One and not again until Book Three. What have they been doing in the meantime? Good works? Crimes? Marriage? How much does it matter?

I like to think I’d be more organized if I had planned all along to write a series, but who can say for sure. I know writers who have notebooks, yes, more than one, detailing everything about each character. Height, weight, scars, grade school teachers, relationships and family history are charted out with accompanying pictures and color swatches. These people (A) always intended to write a series and/or (B) have the gift of organization. How I envy their skills. Seriously. My editor once sent a message asking me if I had a new character halfway through one of the later books—or—had I changed the character’s name? Argh, name change. Fix it. Please, fix it.

The downside to a series is if you kill someone in Book One—they had better not be seen drinking in the bar in Book Two, unless you are moving into paranormal writings. Ooh, now there’s an idea. I could add a ghost to the next book, and try killing him again.

Murder By Vegetable
The fourth in the "Quilted Mystery" series featuring Tennessee Sheriff Tony Abernathy and his wife Theo, a dedicated quilter.

Springtime in the the Smoky Mountains is being celebrated by a festival in honor of ramps, a pungent member of the onion/garlic family. The festivities are disrupted when a potato launched by a cannon strikes, and apparently kills, unpopular game warden, Harrison Ragsdale.

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