How I Turned My Retired Life Into Two (And Counting) Semi-Autobiographical Murder Mysteries
I retired from teaching Band in 2014. I had had an idea about a murder mystery and a band director sleuth, but never the drive to put it to paper. I had two colleagues, two fellow 6th grade band directors encourage me to do so. But I was all about the retirement life and for 8 months I didn’t get off my ever increasing behind except to see what was in the refrigerator. I spent the next several years doing retail jobs (teacher retirement doesn’t pay all that well and I had medical bills as well as a cruising addiction to feed) and formulating a loose outline for my story.
The pandemic hit and I was still working. Apparently my music store job was considered essential as we were still working with school districts. That changed in March 2020. We went on Spring Break and didn’t come back.
My husband made it very clear that I NEEDED to be doing something. HE needed me to be doing something constructive. I didn’t do well sitting at home in my room, reading and watching TV with no end in sight. My health almost always suffered in some fashion. I had had two knee surgeries, a should surgery, two plantar fasciitis releases in my feet, all after my retirement. Oops! I had also fractured my L5 vertebrae in my back and had to wear a moulded plastic corset for 12 weeks in the heat of summer. I was turning out to be a cliché; “she just couldn’t handle retirement. Her health went downhill immediately and she never recovered. It was the teaching that kept her young.” Whatever.
My husband had always been a big supporter of my book and writing. We had met on a very popular online dating site (no, not those; get your mind out of the gutter) and had struck up a month long correspondence before we ever agreed to even talk on the phone. I think we fell in love over each other’s writing. He was an attorney and I was a band director with an obsession for correct grammar.
He brought up my novel and asked, “What else do you have to do?” So I got to work. I worked upstairs in my office/adult stepson’s bedroom when he visited, and home to our Christmas tree. Yes, I couldn’t be bothered to remove the Christmas tree. It stayed there year round in its red and gold finery out of the way of our pets and out of mind of most of the family. It sure did save time decorating when it was Christmas!
I had an outline in about three days and a list of characters, their names, and backstories. I wanted my characters to be based on real people and I wanted their conversations to be real conversations. For example, after sex especially with a married couple it’s not usually poetic or dramatic words. It’s, “Hey, did you remember to let the dog back in before we started or do I need to throw on some clothes and go let him in?” “Ouch! You’re on my hair!” It’s practical and it’s REAL LIFE.
I had to walk a fine line between caricatures and plausible real people. I must have succeeded; I still have one person who’s, “so vain, they probably think this song is about them.”
One thing that’s different is I interjected some paranormal, supernatural elements into an otherwise normal murder mystery. I tried to make my vampires different from other paranormal mysteries or romances. My vampires weren’t devastatingly good-looking; they just reverted back to the age and condition they were in when they were first bitten. That’s why my middle-aged heroine was so stoked at hearing the news she had been bitten in college. To go from a size 16 to a 6 instantly? Yes, please.
I worked every day on Murder, Mayhem, and Marching Band. Once my outline was done, the words just seemed to fly out of me. Our “two weeks to flatten the curve” stretched out into a month and I was still working away. I went back to work after a month but I wanted to be at my computer.
A university friend and band sorority sister of mine contacted me and asked if she could edit my book. She had been an editor at one of the big publishing firms so naturally I was thrilled. It was really nice to have another pair of eyes. There was just one thing…
I didn’t have a reason for Point A getting to Point B. I knew how I wanted it to end, but I was “stuck” in getting to Point B. What I did was go back and write a couple of chapters that not only got me to Point B, but opened up the possibility of Point C in the next book. Yeah. I liked the idea of every word pointing towards the end and also setting up an additional book. As they say in the Marvel universe, “It’s all connected.”
Several months later it’s now ready to publish. I wish I could say that it was easy peasy, but it was not. I tried doing it the traditional way. I sent off to dozens of literary agents. Some were polite and sent me nice rejection letters, others were horribly quiet. I had vanity presses hitting on me and they kept on hitting on me. The thing is with vanity pressed, they make you put up your own money for no guarantee. So I decided to self publish.
I wish I could say that was easy too, but it wasn’t. Getting everything formatted JUST SO was a huge pain in the butt. I wanted a particular idea for my book cover but those are prohibitively expensive for a custom cover. I was not about to wind up in someone’s Choosing Beggar post on Reddit.
I got it done and started my own publishing company called Shako Publishing. A shako is a type of marching band hat. I wanted something that tied into the Band field and yet didn’t scream, “I’m such a total Band nerd!”
So we went live on Amazon and the results have been underwhelming. I have gotten more interest through Facebook ads. I HAVE gotten excellent reviews which make me think that I’m onto something; I just need to be persistent.
2021 rolls around and I’ve got another idea for a book. This one is Murder at the Music Convention and I go all over Texas for research. From Ellington field to San Antonio’s Convention Center-I am snapping pictures and taking notes. I wanted people reading this to know that I was an insider, that I knew what I was talking about.
This book had a very rough outline, yet I think it is the better of my two books. It seemed to write itself and I was just as floored to find out what happened. I actually wrote most of it on my iPad at work during our down time. (School had opened for the school year, but Band programs had taken huge hits to their numbers and the traffic through the store reflected it.) I discovered the perfect murder weapon at the store and the story coalesced.
Editing took longer as my editor was still in full lockdown in Canada. My husband and I sold our house and moved, ironically near the fictional town of Old Dominion where my books are set. When we got settled I didn’t bother with the literary agents, but went right ahead with KDP. (Kindle Direct Publishing) I had been going around to independent book stores trying to get my books on their shelves, joining book groups, and in general using Facebook and Amazon ads. I came across what I considered the most ingenious advertising plan yet.
Rubber ducks on a cruise.
It’s a real thing. You buy these little ducks, you attach information about yourself, you hide them all over the ship, and when someone finds them they have the choice to keep or hide them again.
I attached an advertisement about my books to my ducks and hid them all aaround the Carnival Dream. I even brought a copy of each book and put them in the ship’s library. They were both snapped up the first day. I don’t know if they were kept or if they were returned at the end of the cruise to the library, but I know my Facebook site got a jump in views and my monthly KDP royalties was higher than usual. I think I need to buy more ducks and go on more cruises.
My next book is stewing so to speak. My heroine who is a younger, cooler version of me (I wish!) will be taking a group of college band students to Europe for a Musical Mystery Tour. That is the working title of the book and the book involves vampires and revenants. What do vampires and revenants have to do with Band? Find out! I will be using experiences I had in Europe as well as other Band kids’ experiences.
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