How a Rainy Night Cured my Writer's Block

I was smack dab in the middle of the first draft of my first full-length cozy mystery when I fell into a rut. This wasn't an "I'll be over here playing Candy Crush for a few days" kind of rut. This was an "I've fallen and I can't get up and I'll be over here until someone comes along with a crowbar to wedge me from this space" kind of rut.

Everywhere I looked, there were problems. The writing seemed stilted. The characters felt flat. And the plot? Boring with a capital "B". Every time I opened the file, I groaned and closed it again. I went on like this for a couple of weeks.

Then I was driving home from my shift at our community center's local volunteer-run library. It was pouring down rain and my oldest son, who is 18 and also a member of my writing group, was with me. As it usually does, our conversation turned to writing and our current projects.

I rounded a corner and the headlights of my truck swept over a cluster of rocky brush at the edge of the woods bordering the road. For a split second, it looked like a body lying there in the rain. Suddenly, I had an idea. And this idea led to so many other ideas.

• What if it was raining during the opening scene of my book?
• What if it rained that entire weekend?
• What if the body was found in the rain?
• What if the rain washed away some of the evidence?
• What if...?

The ideas rained down until they formed a stream of thought that spilled into the rut and, as a result, ejected me right out of it. I got home and started writing up a storm, making small tweaks that added up to big changes.

Now my characters have a reason to be excited. The story directs the plot. And I can't wait to find out who killed off old...well, you'll have to read it to find out!

What do you do when writer's block hits? Are you likely to sit and wallow in it? Do you have any tried and true tips to share? Let's discuss them in the comments section!

How a Runaway Gourd Vine Led to a Cozy Mystery

Where do you get the ideas for your books?

It's something people ask writers all the time. The answers, in its most simplest form, is anywhere and everywhere. Most of the time ideas happen when we are not even looking for them.

From Mystery Lights to Short Story Collection

For example, on an early fall morning in 2013, I scrolled through my emails while waiting for my husband. He was undergoing physical therapy for a shoulder injury that ultimately ended his firefighter career.

One of those emails was a newsletter from The Moonlit Road, a website that tells "ghost stories, folktales, myths and legends from the dark backroads of the American South." This particular newsletter featured a story about the Brown Mountain Lights which led to this train of thought:

• My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Brown.
• Those Browns hailed from North Carolina.
• What if this mountain was named for someone in that family?
• What if the lights are ghost-related?
• What if I wrote about it?
• What if I wrote a story for each state in the Appalachians?
• What if I made them all about women?

With National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) just over a month away, I took the chance to sign up. Two years and over 100,000 words later, I have a collection of 13 short stories in my collection, titled HAUNTED WOMEN OF THE APPALACHIANS.

How a Runaway Gourd Vine Led to a Cozy Mystery

Sometimes the inspiration is much more literal, which is what happened to me just a couple of months ago. I was in Baltimore, Maryland to adopt a rescued gecko when I pulled over at a fast food restaurant to double check my GPS.

I noticed a zucchini vine trailing out from beneath the fence separating the parking lot from the residents next door. This sent the author neurons in my brain into overdrive. I wondered:

• Who owns the zucchini who grow on the opposite side of the fence?
• Is it the fast food company, because the gourds are on their property?
• Is it the private residence, since the vine originated on their property?
• What if someone entered a wayward zucchini in a contest and won?
• What if the property owner lost the same contest because of it?
• What if the deviant entrant wound up murdered as a result?

The next thing I knew, I was plotting out my next book: ONE SQUASHED VICTORY. It's my 2015 NaNoWriMo attempt. Follow Becky Muth Author Page on Facebook so you can keep keep up with my progress during the entire month of November.

If you're a reader, then I'm happy to answer your questions. And if you're a writer, then I'd love to hear where you find inspiration.

In the meantime check out this video about the Brown Mountain lights during a National Geographic shoot. Creepy isn't it?