Newsletter October 2025 - There and Back Again
I was the crazy first book they ignored
Happy Halloween!
We're a month into the government shutdown, so that's making work and life extra stressful. It also has me thinking. A shutdown would be an interesting setting for a novel. A challenge with a modern day thriller is all the spyware and tracking technology that makes it hard to plot a crime for a story. You either have to contrive a reason why the tech wouldn't work or set the story in a time or place where that tech isn't available. If you don't want to set your story in the past or a small town, maybe you could set it during a government shutdown? I wonder if there will be a wave of SHUTDOWN25 inspired stories the same way there were COVID19 stories?
Writing-wise, I had a pretty good month. With Under the Diamond Moon, I finally sorted out the plot gaps and inconsistencies in the middle of the book. That was a challenge that First Draft Todd left behind for me. That guy. Always leaving work for me. Now I'm ready to power through to the climax, where I'm sure he left me more problems to fix.
Remember last month how I had that big realization before my work trip that I should stay focused on Under the Diamond Moon and not query A Clockwork Murder because I want to hit more potential readers? Well, at the airport gift shop, I browsed the book section, and to my surprise, I found Voyage of the Damned by Frances White. It's a locked-room murder mystery set in a unique fantasy world, and apparently a TikTok sensation. I'm about halfway through reading it and it's square in the middle of the same zone as A Clockwork Murder.
And remember the wise lesson from Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie? If one or two people do it, it's easy to disregard.
Three leads to fifty, and then you have a movement. So really I owe it to the world to query A Clockwork Murder. I was the crazy first book they ignored, but now maybe I can be the magic third book that nucleates a movement!
With that, it's time to dive back into the editing trenches. Until next month!
Best,
Todd
