Debi Graham-Leard

I’ve been wrestling with the return of a character as a ghost for some months now. It finally dawned on me that I no longer enjoyed sitting at my keyboard to work on the story, because I had no idea what to write. Bringing back Parker’s ghost seemed like a good idea at first, and I thought I was adding a twist that would make my story more interesting than your normal cozy mystery, but Parker made everything way too complicated. And so I have simplified my life, and relegated him to his burial place near the big rock…RIP. He now lives only in Gwen’s heart.

Perhaps I’ll write a ghost story next time.

What a weight has been lifted from my shoulders! I can now get on with the telling of the mystery that began this whole process, and it feels good! The most important task right now is to get this story finished so I can participate in the agent pitch at CrimeBake in November!

To do that, I need to step up the review process.  The novel has shrunken to just under 300 pages. So I’ve canvassed my readers asking if they’d be willing to read a few more chapters at a time. Luckily, they said YES!