MAKE MINE MYSTERY: L'Envoi

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: L'Envoi: by Janis Patterson I wish I could play the violin - I’d play something slow and sad and which plucks the heartstrings. Saying good-bye is al...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Most Frightening Thing in the World and How to Conquer It

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Most Frightening Thing in the World and How to...: by Janis Patterson Everyone is afraid of something. Some people are terrified of everything, some just a few, but there is something - whate...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Time, Fate and Choices

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Time, Fate and Choices: by Janis Patterson How did it get to be the end of February already? 2024 is almost 1/6th over, and I haven’t even started some of the thing...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Back to the Grindstone

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Back to the Grindstone: by Janis Patterson  For those of you who don’t know, my mammoth 22 novel republishing blitz ended on October 25. Thank Goodness! Re-releasin...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The End Is Nigh

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The End Is Nigh: by Janis Patterson For every beginning there is an ending... and conversely, for every ending there is a beginning... and sometimes it’s har...

Make Mine Mystery: It's All In Your Point Of View by Janis Patterson

 Make Mine Mystery: It's All In Your Point Of View by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Dead Zone

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Dead Zone: by Janis Patterson We’ve all been there. We’re writing along happily on a book when suddenly - ZAP! - everything stops. It doesn’t matter if...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Joys of Talking Writer to Writer

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Joys of Talking Writer to Writer: by Janis Patterson Last week I got a kind of vacation - The Husband and I drove up to a secluded Arkansas hideaway where we had been invited...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Happy Place by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Happy Place: by Janis Patterson Every writer should have a happy place... not that it has to be a distinct physical location, just a place where your min...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: How To Drive Yourself Absolutely Mad by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: How To Drive Yourself Absolutely Mad: by Janis Patterson Okay, the title of this is a little misleading... if you’re a writer you’re already at least partially mad. Even though w...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Horrors of Homophonic Mayhem by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Horrors of Homophonic Mayhem: by Janis Patterson Their going to brooch the door, and it will phase them awl if they find the diamond pen. Nonsense, right? Definitely, tho...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Terror of the Blank Page by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Terror of the Blank Page: by Janis Patterson If there is anything that delineates the professional writer from the hobbyist scribbler, it is the respect of a deadline...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Poor Abused Apostrophe and the Confusion It Causes by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Poor Abused Apostrophe and the Confusion It Ca...: by Janis Patterson I will admit it, I am a stickler for the correct usage of the English language, which means that these days my grammatica...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Christmas, Greenhouses and Life

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Christmas, Greenhouses and Life: by Janis Patterson Am I the only one losing it this Christmas? We’re doing less, but everything takes more time - and a lot more money. Of c...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: A Post About Censorship by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: A Post About Censorship: by Janis Patterson I know this is not a political forum, so I’m not going to be political... just bear with me. I’m not much on social media...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Weather As Character by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Weather As Character: by Janis Patterson As you probably know, I'm out of the country now, enjoying my Very Big Trip, so I'm reprinting one of my more pop...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Inviolate Writing Schedules and Other Fictions

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: Inviolate Writing Schedules and Other Fictions: by Janis Patterson There are those who say that the success to writing lies only in following a strict schedule. So many words per day, ever...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Deus Ex Machina Temptation by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Deus Ex Machina Temptation: by Janis Patterson Writers have been lazy for a long time, even back to the earliest days of literature and drama, like the Ancient Greeks. ...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Reader-Writer Contract by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Reader-Writer Contract: by Janis Patterson I hate being treated like a convenience. While there are wonderful readers and I have many wonderful fans, there are thos...

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: A Peroration on the Stylization of - - Oooh! Shiny! by Janis Patterson

MAKE MINE MYSTERY: A Peroration on the Stylization of - - Oooh! Shiny!: by Janis Patterson Pundits say that in this modern world of soundbites our attention spans are getting shorter. That’s not a new thing. Some...