Lately, when I’m about to start a new project, I begin by creating a board on Pinterest and gathering images that I hope will inspire and guide me. Committing to a new story is serious business. Months of precious time, spanning several years, will be required for the project, so I want to make sure I’m choosing a story that will worth this big investment. Right now I’m working on a Pinterest board called Twisted Cedars. A few months ago I released the first of several mysteries I hope to write set in this fictional, coastal town in Oregon.

A lot happens in A Buried Tale, and while my readers discover the “whodunit” at the end of the story, there are also a lot of loose threads. Because murder is a messy business. And it leaves damage and mayhem in its wake.

Damage and mayhem that I will need to deal with in this new book, while, at the same time, introducing a new mystery.

So, as I mull over ideas for the next Twisted Cedars story, I find myself thinking about my characters and how they’ve been coping in the months since I wrote about them last. I feel myself about to sink back into the vortex of their world. But, as if afraid of the commitment, I hesitate. And pin another image to my Pinterest Board…