Mindy Carlson’s Debut Novel HER DYING DAY is out now!
1. How did you come up with the idea for HER DYING DAY?
Several years ago, I read an article about Agatha Christie’s disappearance from her home in Sunningdale in December 1926. Sunningdale is very close to London and when she was found ten days later, it was at the Hydro Spa in Harrogate which is over 230 miles away. She claimed to be suffering from amnesia, but she was unharmed and returned home.
The whole situation was fantastical. Mystery author missing! Scenarios started playing through my mind. What if she hadn’t been found? What if she’d been murdered? What if this had happened today? How would her fans have reacted? I reasoned there would be websites, conspiracy theories, and—and this is where my story comes in—a documentary about what happened.
2. One of the aspects of writing so many writers struggle with is time. I know you have two boys. How did you manage to find the time to write a book with kids at home?
I started my writing career as a positive parenting advice author when my boys were 9- and 5-years-old. My articles focused on helping kids develop grit, independence, and communication skills. Because I believe in practicing what I’m preaching, I’ve done a lot of work to ensure my kids can solve their problems independently. Now at ages 16 and 13, they do their own laundry, they can cook simple meals, and they have daily chores they are responsible for. Along with all the support my husband gives me, this helps immensely.
But I also have a very structured and busy day. I do yoga after the kids leave for school. I am the Administrative Head of School at a Montessori pre-school. I do my work there in the mornings and I start my writing work at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I have a weekly meeting with my writing coach, Dawn Ius, which helps to keep me accountable for reaching my micro-goals when it comes to editing and hitting my daily word counts when I’m editing. I try to stick to a schedule, but even if I strive to hit my daily goals, even if it means staying up late or getting up early the next day.
HER DYING DAY
Aspiring filmmaker June Masterson has high hopes for her first documentary, the true story of the disappearance of famed mystery author Greer Larkin. June learned about the vanishing at age fourteen, locked down on her family’s isolated commune. Now, the deeper she digs into the project, the darker the story gets.
Everyone has a theory. Greer’s mother, Blanche, and her best friend, Rachel, believe that Greer’s fiancée, Jonathan, is the culprit. Greer’s agent is convinced that Greer committed suicide after a debilitating bout of writer’s block. And Jonathan claims it was either Greer’s controlling mother or Rachel, whose attachment to Greer went way beyond friendship.
In desperation, Rachel gives June a suitcase full of Greer’s most personal writings in hopes of finding proof against Jonathan. Then Rachel turns up dead. As June pores over Greer’s writings, she makes a devastating discovery that could finally reveal the truth about the author’s fate. But now, June finds herself in the sights of a killer who’ll stop at nothing to keep their darkest secret.
-Image and Description from Bookshop.org
3. Did you have a specific writing routine/process for HER DYING DAY? Did you plot much or are you more of a pantser?
I am an avowed plotter. I use an emotional outline, which is something I modified from the Author Accelerator outlining process. I have what happens in the scene and then my main characters’ emotional reaction, which leads me into the next scene. For example: Scene 1: Ex-boyfriend brings new girlfriend by my hero’s work to rub her face in it. Hero tends to overreact and is furious. Scene 2: Hero blows up ex-boyfriends mailbox. Hero feels satisfied and righteous. Ex is furious. Scene 3: Ex comes to threaten Hero and they have a huge fight. Hero says things that she regrets and decides to apologize before things get out of hand. Scene 4: Hero goes to apologize and finds Ex dead.
I spent two or three weeks working on the outline and ended up with a ten- or fifteen-page outline for HER DYING DAY. Now, that isn’t to say that I stuck to the outline with religious fervor. I had other, better ideas pop up and I modified my outline along the way, so the outline was a living, breathing entity that helped to keep the trajectory of the story. It meant I was able to pound out the first draft incredibly quickly. I had a first draft in six weeks and then took about six months to edit it before I started querying for agents.
4. Why did you want to write in the mystery genre?
I wanted to write mysteries and thrillers because I love puzzles and psychology. Why do people act the way they do? Why do people do horrible things? I love to follow the clues toward an answer. And with mystery and suspense novels there are hits of adrenaline that go along with solving the puzzles. There are high stakes and thrills the reader can participate in vicariously. Some readers can use thrillers to process their own traumas and practice emotional coping strategies with a layer of safety between them and the full force of the emotions. And in my novels there’s also a layer of humor and comedy.
5. When did you start writing? Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
I didn’t always want to be a writer, or at least I thought so. I was a reader. Sure, I liked writing, but it was a way of processing my own thoughts and feelings. I would read anything and everything. I’d finished almost every book in my small school library by the time I went to middle school.
I read Janet Evonovich’s Stephanie Plum series in college and fell in love. I devoured those books and started looking for more mystery/thriller novels with strong women protagonists and sarcastic, snappy dialogue. But I couldn’t find any. Then I saw an interview with Toni Morrison who said something like, “there were stories I wanted to read, but I couldn’t find, so I decided to write them myself.” So, I decided to write my own comedic mystery.
There aren’t very many comedic mysteries writers out there. Elle Cosimano, author of the Findlay Donovan series, and I were talking at Thrillerfest this year about how this subgenre of mysteries and thrillers is small, but growing. Humor is a tried-and-true coping mechanism for trauma and people want to watch characters deal with dark situations with sass and humor.
Author Bio: Mindy Carlson
Mindy Carlson, M.S.O.D., grew up as an animal- and mystery-loving girl in Iowa before heading to California to see what she could make of her life. Now she lives in Maryland and is a successful parenting author, with pieces appearing in The Washington Post, Big Life Journal, and AFineParent.com. Her Dying Day is her debut novel. She blogs about parenting, cooking, and travel as the Swiss Family Carlson at http://www.MindyCarlson.com.
6. You have an interesting background! What, if anything, did your childhood growing up on a farm in Iowa and/or your background as an educator teach you about writing or having a writing career?
I loved my childhood on a farm, running wild in Iowa. You have a lot of freedom as a kid, but you also learn what hard work truly is. You work long hours, and you work until the job is done. And after that you launch yourself into a creek or go riding across the pastures with your ATV. You’re also working with family. There’s nothing like working closely with family to teach you about complicated family dynamics, which is at the heart of a good mystery.
I also love working in education. The kids are hilarious and help to keep my brain open to other views of the world. They come with few preconceptions and their interpretations of language constantly remind me how choosing the right word can make all the difference in painting a scene. Word choices are so important for humor and laying down clues.
7. You’re represented by Abby Saul at The Lark Group. What was your query process like? What was it about Abby that made you want to work with her? Do you have any advice on what writers should look for in an agent?
My query process was pretty typical, with one exception, which I’ll get to below. Crafting your query letter is such an agonizing ordeal. Talk about the importance of word choices. You’re trying to give the agent insight into your personality, show off your writing style, introduce your book, and prove you have a clue about where your book fits in the industry. So much pressure!
I got a bunch of full requests, and a few partial requests, and then I got a rewrite and resubmit (R&R in the biz) from Abby Saul and one other agent. Abby had been on my “dream agent” list and I was sweating I wanted her to sign me so badly. I whipped through the R&R and sent it in only to hear that it wasn’t exactly what she wanted. Abby gave me new notes and invited me to submit again. I slowed down my process and was more thoughtful in my edits and she loved what I had done.
I wanted to work with Abby because she is very editorial. She’s very specific in her critiques of my work and, even though she hadn’t signed me yet, she was willing to talk me through any questions I had. She is amazing. She’s responsive, believes in my work, knows the industry, and pushes me to be present my best work to my publisher.
As hard as it is, my advice is to take your time. I was impatient to start querying and waiting is a form of torture, so I get it that you want to send your letter out to a hundred agents right now. But take a breath. Take longer than you need. Write your query letter, sit on it for at least two weeks, and then look at it again. Then sit on it for another two weeks and look at it again before you send it. In the meantime, try and find out as much information on your dream agents as you can. Visit their websites. Look at their Twitter and Instagram. Read the books of the people they represent. This will help you not only craft your letter, it will help you to find out if they really are your dream agents.
Looking for ways to build tension and suspense into your novel?
8. As a debut author, what advice or suggestions do you have for aspiring authors? Anything in particular you can share that worked for you?
Get the words on the page. Really, just throw those words onto the page. Get it out of you and into that computer. It doesn’t have to make sense. The first draft should be a mess. Every novel out there goes through countless revisions and they’re all awful at the beginning.
If you can’t find your way through the jungle of your first draft find a book coach. If you can’t afford a book coach, find a writing group. Both will help you to find the perspective you need to hone your story. They will also help support you emotionally as you query, and querying and releasing your first novel can be such a fraught process with a roller coaster factory full of highs and lows.
Get people around you who can support you emotionally. That might be your partner, a best friend, a writing group, or a book coach. My husband and my book coach are a huge supports for me. I won’t let my husband read my work until it’s published, but he and I have a date night almost every Saturday night where we talk through our weeks and have some great laughs watching Taskmaster. My coach is my main cheerleader when it comes to navigating the ins and outs of writing and editing. She’s amazing.
9. What book(s) are you reading at the moment?
Lord, so many. My Summer Darlings by May Cobb, Blood Will Tell, by Heather Chavez, The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson, The Guncle by Steven Rowley, The Replacement Wife by Darby Kane, and One of Those Faces by Elle Grawl.
10. What book(s) most inspired you to write?
For sure Janet Evanovich, but also Agatha Christie, all the Nancy Drew books, Jenny Lawson who is known as The Bloggess and is beautifully transparent about how hard life is, handles trauma and difficulties with humor, and she also opens my mind to looking at how ridiculous the world truly is.
11. So now that HER DYING DAY is out, what are you working on?
I have about three different projects going on right now because I can’t stop myself, but I’m one of them I’m really close to finishing is a humorous mystery that combines the television show Friends with Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
12. What do you hope people take away from reading your books?
I hope they have a great time reading them. I hope they can forget their own troubles for a while and be delightfully entertained by all the ridiculous situations I force my characters to go through.
