A writer for all seasons - Liz Milliron

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Today we are happy to welcome back Liz Milliron, here to celebrate the launch of her new Laurel Highlands mystery, HARM NOT THE EARTH.

Like me, Liz spent years working in high tech churning out user manuals before she unleashed her imagination and turned to crime fiction. It's been a journey and, looking back, she sees a pattern.

LIZ MILLIRON: Thanks Reds for having me back. I check in here every weekday, but there’s something extra special about getting a chance to come to “the front of the class” for the day.

Earlier this year, I read a blog on the Wickeds (another great blog readers should check out if they haven’t) about seasonal changes and whether the authors’ writing moved in seasons. I think it might have been around the time of the summer equinox.

Anyway, at around the same time, publicist Dana Kaye asked about “seasons” in writing.

At first, I wasn’t sure my work went that way. I write two books a year and most of the time I’m focused on my daily word count and monthly goals. I don’t notice seasons. But when I looked more carefully, I could see patterns.

First, there’s a “big” season. I start a new book right around each equinox (January and July, close to each solstice). There seems something almost cosmic that I start a new writing venture as the earth is beginning its journey to points of the longest and shortest days of the year. (I almost said furthest and nearest points to the sun, but then the whole hemisphere thing tripped me up.)

But it breaks into smaller parts. I write at a clip of approximately 50 pages per month. Each finished novel is approximately 300 pages long. That means three months after I start, somewhere around the time of the spring and autumn equinoxes, I’m more or less half done with a book.

(There’s something cosmic about that that kind of gives me the shivers.)

If I want to extend this seasonal analogy so more, the process of writing a book is a series of mini-seasons. Spring would be the beginning, when everything is fresh and new, and I’m full of excitement for where the story might go.

Summer is the second act: hot, steamy, muggy. Even if I have rough daily outlines, I feel weighed down by the humidity, stuck in the “soggy middle,” and unsure if I can survive another day. All I really want to do is escape and take a nap. The third act is autumn: the ending bursts forth in a riot of color. I’m re-energized by the cooler temperatures and excited to see the variety of orange, red, and gold as the story reaches conclusion.

Where’s winter you say? Revision is winter. It’s colder, more clinical. But there’s a beauty there, too, as the story becomes what it’s supposed to be, all the rough edges are polished off, and the rough draft turns into a “real book.” Plus when it’s done, I get to sit in front of a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate and savor what I’ve accomplished.

After laying it all out, I guess my writing is more seasonal than I thought. So the next time someone asks if I have seasons in my writing life, I can say, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do.”

Readers, what in your life follows the patterns of the seasons?

LIZ MILLIRON is the author of The Laurel Highlands Mysteries series, set in the scenic Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and The Home Front Mysteries, set in Buffalo, NY during the early years of World War II. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Pennwriters, and International Thriller Writers. Now an empty-nester, Liz lives outside Pittsburgh with her husband and a retired-racer greyhound.

HARM NOT THE EARTH: When Southwest Pennsylvania’s summer rains flood the Casselman River, State Police Trooper Jim Duncan finds a John Doe body in what is initially believed to be a tragic accident. But when a second victim, John Doe’s partner in an environmental group at odds with a nearby quarry operation, is rescued, all thoughts of accidental drowning are abandoned. After Jim is invited to join the official investigation, he begins to think a career shift might be in his future.

Meanwhile, Assistant Public Defender Sally Castle is approached by an abused woman who is accused of murdering her abuser. Although the rules prevent Sally from taking the case, she steps outside her office to help the woman and discover the truth.

As their separate cases become intertwined, Jim and Sally struggle to determine if their new paths can be traveled together or if they will divide their newly repaired relationship. And equally important, will they be able to bring a killer to justice before another innocent life is lost?