What We're Writing: Lucy's at the Beginning

 LUCY BURDETTE: Happy New Year and welcome to all Jungle Red Readers, both old and new! I’m at the beginning again, this time of book 15 in the Key West food critic mystery series, tentatively titled LAST MANGO IN PARADISE. That means I’m starting to tackle the questions of how to get both food critic Hayley Snow and her detective husband involved in a mystery, which other beloved characters must be included, and how to find something new and fresh about the setting of Key West to satisfy long-time readers and tempt new ones. 

I realized this isn’t the first time I’ve written about beginnings. Here’s what I said back in 2016 about my writing process: I try to think about the questions a therapist would ask a new patient: Why is this person here now? What drives her and feeds her passions? For an amateur sleuth, why is she getting involved? Usually this ends up having to do with good-hearted Hayley worried about a friend or relative who's landed in big trouble.

In some ways, this is the most amazing phase of writing a book. Anything is possible! Nothing is horrible because it isn't written yet! If I’ve come up with a grand idea, I haven’t had enough time or enough words to realize the many ways it just won’t work. This time around, an idea came from an op-ed in the Keys Weekly by Robert A. Jensen, who’s written a book called Personal Effects, about his life’s work as owner of the world’s largest disaster management company. His opinion piece called for the Key West authorities to prepare better for a possible ship-borne emergency in our port.

Hmmm. That’s exactly the kind of headline that jiggles my writer’s mind into fifth gear. So now I know the book will open at one of Key West’s best-known ports, Mallory Square. There will be many visitors and performers and possible witnesses—though I imagine that most of them have cocktails in hand as they enjoy the chaos, so no one is really watching…For sure, Lorenzo will be there...

Here are the first paragraphs (maybe!) from the new book...

Chapter One

 

Key West’s Sunset Celebration on Mallory Square has been a magnet for visitors to our island since the 1960s. An hour or two before sunset, the square on the waterfront begins to bustle with food and drink carts, performers and buskers of many kinds, a sprinkling of homeless folks, and purveyors of Key West-themed trinkets and tchotchkes. Everyone loves it—except the police tasked with keeping people safe, including my hubby, Nathan Bransford. I tease him that from a police officer’s perspective, it’s all about what could go wrong.

As the sun drops closer to its nighttime resting place in the Gulf of Mexico, the square grows more crowded with chattering tourists, the air ringing with performers call to action (donations to the artists!) and scented with buttered popcorn and sweet mojitos. The water off the square hums with happy revelers on sunset cruises.

I’d visited the scene hundreds of times since I moved to the southernmost point in the Florida Keys, sometimes with out-of-town guests, sometimes to check in with my dear friend and tarot card reader Lorenzo, and sometimes on my way to dinner at a nearby restaurant or a musical or dramatic performance. Tonight was the first time I would be experiencing it from the water, sailing on a cocktail cruise sponsored by my employer, Key Zest—the ezine that aspired to be the go-to source of information on all things Key West for tourists and locals alike. (Everyone knew this truth—if you wanted the real dirt on our island, you went to the locals’ Facebook group.)

Lucy again: Who knows if any of that will still be there when I write The End. But for now, how important are the first few pages of a new book? Do you give a book and its writer time to unspool, or are you impatient to be drawn in? 

PS I’ve just turned in the copyedits for book 14, A POISONOUS PALATE, and you can pre-order that here.

PPS If you didn't catch the promo video I made for this post, here's another version of it, with blooper included!

PPPS: If you haven't yet joined the Jungle Reds new private Facebook group called Reds and Readers—launched January 1st—there will be live chats, giveaways, and so much more! Join now so you don’t miss out! Leave a comment over at Reds and Readers to be entered in the drawing for A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS.