Kassandra Lamb's Blog, page 26
September 23, 2019
7 Life Lessons From My Summer Vacation
by Kassandra Lamb
Remember those essays we had to write in school…What I Did on My Summer Vacation?
Well, I went to Europe on mine.
It’s a trip that hubs and I had begun to plan multiple times (starting in 2015), and something always happened to derail the plan. So this year, we were determined.
The trip was all about seeing some sights we’d been wanting to see for years—which we did—but I also picked up a few life lessons along the way.
Lesson #1 — People can be family even if they don’t spe...
September 10, 2019
Killer Nashville
I’d been to two conferences this year and wasn’t about to attend another. Then this happened.
Since I last attended, Killer Nashville has moved from Nashville proper to a hotel in an industrial park in nearby Franklin. No pedal pubs hooting by on the street! No sneaking out to hear music! I also found this new hotel/motel disconcerting with elevators where you’re on display like a bug. No fluffing your hair or wriggling in your dress to prepare for a grand entrance.
Don’t look down!
Even thou...
September 2, 2019
6 Things I’ve Learned About Labor — An Encore
Traditionally, beaches are jammed full on the last big weekend of summer. (photo by John Murphy, CC-BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons) Another Labor Day has rolled around. For many of us this is just another three-day weekend, an excuse to have a cookout or make a trip to the department stores to grab some bargains.
Or we may look upon this holiday as the bittersweet end of summer.
But the day was originally set aside to honor people who worked for a living (which is almost all of us). Back when th...
July 29, 2019
An “Off” Week Goodie: How To Write Multiple POVs Right
(NOTE: Our blog will be on hiatus for August. Please check back on September 3rd!)
by Kassandra Lamb
A couple weeks ago, I was a guest on Jami Gold’s wonderful blog for writers. I talked about my experiences writing the Kate Huntington mysteries with multiple perspectives, and what I had learned about how to write multiple POVs correctly. For writers, or for readers who’d like a peek behind the scenes regarding how we writers do things, here’s that post.
How To Write Multiple POVs Right
Once...
July 22, 2019
Do We Really Know the People We Know? (and a New Release)
by Kassandra Lamb
While writing my July 4th novella (which is releasing today, 19 days late, but, hey, it’s still July at least), I stumbled on an interesting and disturbing question. How well do we really know the people we know?
Unless we own a lie detector (and our friends and acquaintances are willing to submit to it) how do we really know the people we know? (photo by Marcin Wichary from National Museum of Crime & Punishment, Washington, CC-BY-2.0, Wikimedia) When we meet someone new—a n...
July 15, 2019
Do You Really Know What’s On Your Plate? (And a New Release)
by Shannon Esposito
The murder victim in my new release, Pushing Up Daises (A Pet Psychic Mystery No. 5) is an infamous food critic who exposes local restaurants’ false claims—and flat out lies–about what they’re serving their customers. Unfortunately, seafood fraud is a real problem.
I always thought one of the perks of living in Florida was getting to eat fresh seafood, until I started doing research for this book and found out ninety percent of the seafood consumed in the US is imported...
July 8, 2019
Stay safe this summer: know the REAL signs of drowning!
by K.B. Owen
image via clker.com
Happy mid- summer, everyone!
With everyone hitting the pool/beach, it seemed a good time to talk about the real signs of drowning (they may not be what you think). I was really impressed by the video below that shows what it looks like. I know I learned a lot, and I hope it’s helpful to you, too.
We human beings have a number of hard-wired, uncontrollable, instinctive responses (we had even more of them as infants), designed by nature to protect us: we blink...
July 1, 2019
Overachiever Angst! (And a New Release)
by Kassandra Lamb
One of the joys of being an indie author is that you set your own deadlines; one of the pitfalls is that you set your own deadlines. Or at least, it’s a pitfall for recovering overachievers like myself, who are struggling to ward off “overachiever angst” and maintain some semblance of balance in our lives.
Meme created with imgflip.com I fell into the pit this year. In early January, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that I could finish the Kate Huntington novel I was dra...
June 24, 2019
Who Are The Guppies? (plus New Releases)
by Vinnie Hansen
If you are a long-term reader of mysteries, you’ve probably heard of Sisters In Crime, but have you ever heard of a special chapter of SinC, called The Guppies?
So who are the Guppies? …Organizations for crime writers abound. Sisters in Crime (SinC) is one of the most well-known, with chapters across the United States. I belong to the Northern California Chapter.
In spite of wide-spread chapters, writers can still face obstacles to active participation. Many chapters draw fro...
June 17, 2019
Tea and Tarot… and Murder
by Kirsten Weiss
The introduction of my new Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series led to the other authors at misterio press asking me about Tarot readings… how do they work, what do some of the cards mean?
Tarot cards, with their mysterious archetypal images, frequently turn up in books and movies. Let’s face it, with cards like Death and the Devil, throwing a Tarot card down on a table can be a great way to build suspense.
Tarot cards with the Death card (image from Pixabay) But those two cards...
