Beyond the Mystery: Secret Stories--the Truth Behind the Fiction

Bouchercon is THE conference for mystery readers, writers, editors, publishers, fans, and creative writing instructors. This year, I'm going to my first Bouchercon, and it's in the beautiful city of Madison, home of progressives, the farmers market to beat all farmers markets, and a great bookstore.

That's the good news. The more good news is that I will also be presenting, along with Gail Lukaskic, Julie Hyzy, Gammy Singer, and Susan Slater. The five of us were given the panel heading of "Beyond the Mystery," and told to narrow it down. We came up with "Beyond the Mystery: Secret Stories--the Truth Behind the Fiction." Here's the description:

"Five diverse authors tell all—sharing true stories that brought their scenes to life. Covering everything from social issues to recent events—whether to use a novel as a soapbox—and revelations of embarrassing moments, this will be a fast, funny and insightful discussion of what lies Beyond the Mystery."

All good, except our panel time. We are scheduled for 10:30 on Sunday, the very last day of the conference, when most people are on their way home. It's okay. We're paying our dues, and presenting on a Sunday means I won't miss any of the other great presentations on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing.

What's that? You want to know what I did yesterday? I canned like a beaver (??) with my mom and aunt. I left with exactly 50 jars--horseradish dill pickles, regular dill pickles, whole tomatoes, crabapple jelly (and two accidental crabapple syrups), salsa, pickled peppers (I accidentally first typed "pickled peckers," as in shorthand for "a peck of pickled peppers"), and jalabeanos. Yum!

I start back at work full-time Monday, and my fall semester goal is to write seven pages a day, five days a week. If I can stick to that, August Moon, the fourth novel in the Murder by Month series, will be in hand by December. My fortune cookie today (I don't have daily ones; I happened to have Vietnamese for lunch) said, "The dream that keeps returning is your Destiny." Ah. I'm grabbin' it.