Tuesday Chatter-Rambling about Writing

Here it is November and NaNoWriMo again. I wrote the column below after just two or three NaNoWriMos. This will be my sixth or seventh, need to count again. I thought I'd have trouble getting into it this year as I'd be away from home the first weekend. But I'd made some notes, and had some idea about the story I wanted to write. And to my surprise I've written the words I needed to stay on track to finish-so far. It's still several weeks until the end of the month. But I'll give it the ol' college try again. And, hopefully, will finish my 50000 words or more by then. This month of writing often gives me the kickstart to get immersed in writing when I've been procrastinating. Have to see if it lasts. Hope so, I really want to finish this story.

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     November seems to be a month that I get focused on writing. The impetus, I expect, is it being National Novel Writing Month, a number of opportunities for selling books as well as regular meetings of my two writing groups.
     I write in several genres, mystery being my favorite. But my first venture in getting my writing into book form was Eight Miles of Muddy Road, a memoir of growing up as a sharecropper's daughter in (very) rural central Georgia. Available on Amazon, in print and ebook format. Or from me.
     Prior to that first venture into print, I'd had a couple of mystery/crime stories published in small circulation print magazines, several published online and more since. I've also had stories published in print anthologies and an ebook anthology by a traditional publisher. That publishing contract for a novel length mystery still eludes me. But we persevere.
     A couple of years ago I gathered several of my mystery short stories and self-pubbed a book, Best Served Cold, Revenge a la Carte. Also available from me, the author, and Amazon.
     Two of my mystery main characters star in their own series. Well, the first book of their series anyway. And one is under consideration by a publisher. Their second outings are Works in Progress. Both characters are female, one is an amateur trying to solve a crime to clear her stepson and the other is a professional private investigator, a former battered wife.
     In a recent conversation with other writers about series characters, I realized one probable reason that we like to write series. Our characters become so real to us that we want to keep them around.
     I decided I needed a blog to showcase my writing, and finally settled on a name. Mystery Lane Rambler. My main writing website is ramblinscribe.com. So I decided to stay with the 'ramblin' theme. Along with 'rambling' about my writing, I post bits of writing advice and titles of writing books that have helped me through the years.
 

Friday Rambles-Writers, Actors and TV

Television is still as popular as when I wrote the column below, about six years ago. I really can't say that the quality has improved, personally it seems the opposite is true. Be that as it may, my viewing habits are still about the same, though what I watch is received via air channels, not cable or satellite. I do miss the music channels, but the two or three I listened to are not worth the annual small fortune I'd have to pay to receive them. Mostly I watch old television series hits during the still less than twenty hours a week I turn on the set. Only on Wednesdays do I indulge in a current craze-binge watching. I loved JAG when it was a prime time series for several years and still do. So I have enjoyed JAG reruns on MeTV's 'The Dayshift' this summer. Sigh. The network will probably end the series before I'm ready to let them go again.
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 I seem to write about television regularly for one who, on average, watches it probably twenty hours a week, compared to the thirty-five to forty national average. Fifteen to twenty minutes of my daily tv fare is watching local news and weather. I almost always switch it off or to a music channel rather than watch the sports reports. My household was chosen recently to keep a Nielsen journal for a week. It would probably be a safe bet to say we were one of the far outliers toward the zero end of television watching.
    I attempt to keep in mind when and on which channels my favorite shows are scheduled and turn the set on at those times. I seem to have lost track of the summer replacement Rookie Blue. I watched the first couple of episodes but don't remember what day. If any reader watches it, please let me know.
    I'm also pretty set in my ways about the authors I read. One of those favorites is David Baldacci, who just happens to be a Virginian who hails from Charlottesville, I believe. Several of his books formed a series with ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, who both resigned when the persons they were assigned to protect were killed. After five books I could find no more and wondered if Baldacci was finished with the pair.
    Then I saw a commercial during my limited hours of television. King and Maxwell were coming to the home screen in a new series called King and Maxwell. I caught the first episode, almost by accident. I was and am delighted, if I can only remember when the show comes on! Part of my delight is because of the actor cast as Sean King. I've been a fan of Jon Tenney since he was Kyra Sedgwick's FBI boyfriend and later her husband on the long-running The Closer series. When Sedgwick left, by choice or not I don't know, that show morphed into one called Major Crimes. I do not watch it even though many of the same characters did stay. To me, Sedgwick was the show. Maybe because I've lived in Alabama and her character moved to California from Alabama.