Pamela Beason's Blog, page 2

Celebrate the Holidays without Breaking the Bank

Snowshoeing in the North Cascades with Friends

I’ll just come out and say it:I’m basically anti-materialistic. So this time of year with its emphasis on consumerism makes me more than a little crazy. I’m especially sensitive to it because I know a lot of people who are still going through hard economic times and probably will be for the rest of their lives.

When those who have goodjobs and lots of savings in the bank insist on celebrating the holidays in traditional blow-out fashion, thatmakes...

Slogging Through the Muddle in the Middle of Your Manuscript

Having problems getting from Point B to Point C in your novel? You’re not alone. Why do so many plots bog down in the middle of the story? Here are a few reasons:

Problem: You’ve lost sight of your character’s goal.

Solution: Revisit your character’s goal and make sure your focus is on that and you’re still headed in the right direction.

Problem: You gave away the whole story in the first third of the book.

Solution: Break up backstory, feed it in slowly to add interest and drama.

Problem: Your st...

The Dilemma of the Unknown Author

“Hi, I’m Rae Ellen Lee, an internationally unknown author,” my friend says to the bicycle rider who has stopped to chat with us in a Utah canyon.

Rae Ellen is more forward and much funnier than I am, and I love this line. It cuts through the embarrassing back-and-forth that, for me, usually goes something like this:

I’m not lying, I actuallyam an author! This is me signing books at Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Me: “I’m an author. I write mysteries and romances.”

Polite Stranger: “That’s great!” Then,...

Back to Canyon Country

Hiking with new friends

Today I’m in Escalante, Utah, sharing good times with my intrepid author friend Rae Ellen Lee. This is the first time I’ve been back to Canyon Country since I used it as the setting for my novel Endangered, and as we explore the area, I am reminded of several things.

Slickrock is Slick

Duh! There are very few level surfaces in any canyon, and the rippling multicolored layers of sandstone have been polished to a hard smoothness by water and wind. If you don’t have gripping...

Searching for a Lost Loved One?

Fair Warning: This post discusses unidentified corpses, so if you don’t want to think about death and missing persons, click away right now.

As a private investigator, on the very first missing persons search I worked on, I found that the individual was deceased. I hated to tell my client that her long lost buddy was dead, but at least it was closure; the client knew what happened to her friend. I am haunted by another case in which I could find no clue about what happened to a missing young w...

In My Element at the Left Coast Crime Conference

Me, signing books at Seattle Mystery Bookshop. I signed at Left Coast, too, but was one of the smaller frogs in that big pond.

I just returned from four days at Left Coast Crime in beautiful Monterey, California, and I am exhausted. I can’t decide whether my fatigue is from multiple mornings when I had to arise at 3:30 a.m. to make my flight, or because I’m an introvert and crowds make me a little crazy, or simply because the conference was so interesting that my brain cannot absorb meeting on...

Using Weather in Your Writing

After a surprisingly heavy snowfall (for my coastal area), I decided to pull on my hiking boots and stroll the 1.5 miles to my favorite park while the scenery was coated in white.

The trail was only a bit slippery and the frosting of snow made thick woods and waterfalls completely enchanting. The winds were calm, and the temperature hovered around the freezing point, hardly life-threatening. I was deep into my beloved woods when I noticed that other aspects of my walk might be more than a litt...

Report from a Genre Author on the Loose at the AWP Conference

Could this be an AWP?

When I heard about the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Seattle this year, I was 1) perplexed about why I didn’t already know about it and 2) eager to go investigate. So I signed up to help out with a vendor booth–Chanticleer Book Reviews, a company that provides author services such as manuscript overviews, book reviews, and contests of all kinds. They awarded me a Grand Prize for my mystery THE ONLY WITNESS, so naturally I have a fondness...

Why I Write Mysteries Set in the Wilderness

Valleys in Mist in Olympic Natl Park

I was recently asked to do a talk about why the wilderness makes a good setting for novels, so I decided to write a post about it here.

Reason #1 – I’m passionate about wild places and want to share my love of them with an audience. I can rhapsodize about my obsession with fungi and lichen, my enthusiasm for all wild creatures, and all the endless variations of colors, shapes, and patterns of nature. I do truly believe that—like the Ken Burns PBS series titl...

Climbing Out of the Writing Doldrums

No matter how I try to avoid it, I get stalled sometime in January every year. The days are short, the holidays are over (thank God), the weather is generally miserable, and I’m stuck in the tedium of end-of-previous-year paperwork for my three businesses. It’s hard to get started again on any creative project. But here’s what I’ve learned over the years that helps.

I define achievable writing goals for the year. For me, these are finishing the YA adventure novel I have already begun, and writ...