New Kelly Adventure

Monday evening I was chatting with one of my editors, who is busy working on finishing several drafts of projects she has started before she delivers her third child in August, and she was nudging, okay more like nagging me, to write.  I tried the nudging part with her before to get her inspired to complete some projects but she tended to shut down and disappear for a while and not write much.  I guess I'm kind of the same way.  I went to the store Wednesday evening because I had the munchies and ran into a lady whom I met at the laundromat a few months ago and had given her daughter, age 10, a copy of Finally Home and we got to talking and I was told that her daughter really enjoyed it and kept telling her mom that she couldn't put it down until she had finished reading it.  So, that inspired me some and got me thinking more on the new story since I had a base for it from chatting with Lana.

So, since the state books are on hold for now and I tried putting the karma out to the kids for new stories for Kelly and Emma and that didn't work too well, I know I need to write something else, either a short story or another Kelly story.  I was looking over some story lines from previous winners of kids stories (the kids actually wrote the stories) on Mysterynet.com and some other information about writing mysteries that I had printed off. 

One of the pages I had printed off was a "Mystery Story Starter Ideas: DIY Guide for Children and Adults" by Marilisa Sachteleben.  One of the prompts is titled "The Book Seller's Enigma" and the prompt reads as:  "I hadn't remembered seeing the musty old book shop on that street before, but the old peddler bechoned me.  When I returned the next day with my brother, shop and shopkeeper had gone.  We asked an old-timer passing by.  "That shop?" he declared, "why it ain't been around for 50 years."  (Doesn't that just beckon you to write a story about the store, the shopkeeper or the something else mysterious about the contents of the bookstore?)

When I shared that prompt with Lana, before I actually could get the whole prompt typed into the chat window, she said I could write about a mysterious book from the bookstore.  I mulled it over a day or so, and have now come up with a second adventure for Kelly.  I don't know what I will call it yet, but I've written 2 pages so far and I feel I need to write a couple of pages before I even get to Kelly and Emma's conversation about the bookstore.  I feel I almost have to have an istant message between Kelly and Judy, Kelly's long-time, bestest friend who is blind and from whom Kelly had to move when they moved to the small town where she found the house that actually belonged to her father.  I will play around with it a bit and see what is working and hopefully I will have a new story soon.  When I get a bit further in to the story, I may start sharing some excerpts from the story and may even run a contest for the title of the story.  I will keep you all posted as I progress.  See you all in the postings - E :)

AFGHAN DRAWING:  Don't forget to leave a comment with a valid email to be contacted so that you can be entered in the drawing for the red, white and blue afghan drawing, which will be held around December 1 or so.