How My World Shapes My Writing by Paty Jager

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT is our Theme this month in honor of our Eleventh Blog-o-versary! I found some very special posts from past years to repost in case you missed them the first time around.

In " How my world shapes my writing ", first published July 4th, 2011, Western Romance and Murder Mystery Author Paty Jager tells us how her personal experiences led her to the genre’s she writes. (File this one under "Writer's Life")

I’ve dabbled in different venues of writing over the course of my lifetime. First as a child writing plays for stuffed animals, then at thirteen writing stories of love and lust that my friends and I passed back and forth adding scenes, to witnessing what words can do when an English teacher read one of my assigned fiction projects to the class and all the way through writing children’s stories for my kids, writing murder mysteries when I wanted to kill someone (killed that person off in two manuscripts), writing for the local paper when it fit my lifestyle, and finally settling into western romance.

Each stage of my writing had to do with what was going on in and around me at the time so it only makes sense that I find myself writing about the west. Where I live and the American history I love. Specifically the 1800’s has always been my favorite subject. I love museums, historical sites, and finding bits of history that were so integral to life when this country was spreading and growing.

I think having grown up in a semi–isolated part of the state that was slow to get technology it brought out the pioneer spirit in me. Until I was twelve, my paternal grandparents lived with us. There were seven people in a three bedroom, one bath farmhouse. We had a woodshed where we chopped kindling and stored the wood for the cookstove. When we did get an electric range we still had a wood heating stove and used the wood cookstove when the power went out which was fairly often. The power went out often so we used kerosene and oil lamps, the outhouse, and hauled buckets of water to the house from the ditch. Looking back, it was usually in the winter that the power went out. And on many occasions the pipes from the well to the house froze, and we had to haul water to the house.

My family had a small herd of dairy cows and used an old hand crank separator to separate the milk from the cream. We used the milk for ourselves and the hogs we raised. We made our own butter from the cream and sold the rest to the creamery. We raised 100 chickens every year, butchering all but thirty, which were laying hens. I hated the smell of the wet feathers after you dunked them in the boiling water to loosen the feathers. And disemboweling them and cutting them up-I’d always offer to fold clothes, clean the bathroom, or whatever other chore I could think of than spend hours smelling the feathers and butchered chickens. My grandmother sold extra eggs to neighbors and the local grocery store.

These are all events in my life that easily happened in the era that I write about. I can feel the heat of the woodstove, hear the clank of the metal plates as grandma put more kindling in the fire. Smell the acrid smoke that slipped through the chimney standing in the middle of my bedroom. I'd stand as close to it as I could on cold winter mornings as I dressed. Growing up, I lived the life I write about in my historical westerns.

And now, ranching with my husband, I've encountered many of the obstacles that I write about in my contemporary westerns.

And I grew up in the land of Chief Joseph's Nez Perce and have always had a fascination for them and believe I saw an apparition of a Nez Perce warrior one summer day while riding my horse in the mountains. That moment has stuck with me, and I believe the catalyst that pushed me to write the Spirit Trilogy.

If you are a writer, what shaped the genre you write? If you are a reader, what is your favorite genre to read and why? 
Paty

www.patyjager.net
www.patyjager.blogspot.com

Graphic by: http://www.holidaygraphics.com
Photos: Paty Jager

Tropical Plotting is Fun by Paty Jager

I'm getting ready to head to Hawaii again. This time with a daughter and her family. She called and asked me if I'd like to go to Maui and help wrangle kids. I mean, who would pass that up! So I'm headed to a different island.

I enjoyed my trip to Kauai this past October with my husband, but I think going with 6 grandkids it will be a bit more exciting. LOL They want to hike and swim. Hubby only wanted to hike and stay away from people. And he's the extrovert in the family.

With the book I set in Kauai releasing the end of March, it will be fun to see how the two islands differ. I had fun looking into the art community in Kauai so I could find a reason to have my character, a Native American potter, go to the island. I discovered an art show that is held every year in October. It worked perfectly to have my character be asked to juror the show.

I visited with an artist who was manning the gallery during the show and learned the process and what days my character would need to be at the event and participate. Then, of course, the friend who invited her to juror ends up a suspect when one of the artists is found dead.

Figuring out who to murder and how it was done is one of my favorite parts about writing murder mystery. But it's the interwoven lives that are used as red herrings that make the story more convoluted and harder for the reader to pick who is the killer. That is also extremely fun! LOL

All the time I'm messing with my character's lives and revealing bits and pieces that either make them sympathetic or unappealing, I'm also using my main characters' thoughts and opinions of sway the reader.

If only life was so easy to manipulate. ;)

Here is the blurb, cover, and pre-order link for Abstract Casualty.

Hawaiian adventure, Deceit, Murder

Shandra Higheagle is asked to juror an art exhibition on the island of Kauai, Hawaii.

After an altercation at the exhibition, the chairwoman of the event, Shandra’s friend, arrives home with torn clothes, scratches, and stating she tried to save an angry artist who fell over a cliff. Shandra and Ryan begin piecing together information to figure out if the friend did try to save the artist or helped him over the edge.

During the investigation, Shandra comes across a person who reminds her of an unhealthy time in her past. Knowing this man and the one from her past, she is determined to find his connection to the dead artist. When her grandmother doesn’t come to her in dreams, Shandra wonders if her past is blinding her from the truth.

https://books2read.com/u/4XXLke

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 43 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

blog / website / Facebook / Paty's Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest / Bookbub

I Never Do Things Easy by Paty Jager

This month at RTG the theme is “Marching to a Different Drummer.” I can tell you about that!

I’ve always been an independent spirit. My mom said when I was a baby, I didn’t like to be held. I’ve always been happy to hang out by myself, which was good considering I had two brothers. One is 18 months older and the other 4 years younger. I spent most of my time either reading, listening to music, painting or working on a craft project, or riding my horse when I wasn’t doing my chores. My younger brother and I did play together and ride horses together when he was older.

I also loved to sit among the ferns under the trees between the river and the ditch not far from the house. Here I would draw in a sketch book or write stories. It was my hiding place of sorts. It’s where I dreamed up all kinds of wonderful scenarios of how my life would be.

I’m sure you’ve seen the ads where you can send in a drawing and they evaluate it? I did that. And they sent me a letter saying how they could see me as an artist or graphic designer and they could help me attain that goal with their curriculum. Mom indulged me and let me purchase the first kit. But when I wanted to go on to college for art, my dad squashed that idea out. He told me I would be going into the medical profession. That was where I’d make money.

He was adamant. I refused to be a nurse and found out it only took two years to be an x-ray technician. Needless to say, I didn’t finish. I didn’t want to be in the medical field but I didn’t know what I wanted at that point. Though my college English professor encouraged my writing.

A couple years were spent at different jobs, trying to find the one that fit. I married, started having kids, and when the two oldest started school and hubby was willing to take #3 with him trucking, I started taking college writing and art classes. The art dropped to the wayside but I was inspired by writing.

I started writing for the local newspapers, while also working on the first great American novel. 😉 Which was really a murder mystery with an amateur detective. By this time, I had read nearly every mystery book our local library had and knew this was what I wanted to write. After a bad experience with an agent, and not able to find a way to learn more about mystery writing, I turned to Romance Writers of America and started writing historical western romance.

History was one of my favorite subjects in school. Especially American history. It made sense that I’d write that when I had a bounty of workshops, conferences and people who were willing to help me learn the craft and the business of writing. My first book was published in 2006 by a small press. That book began the eventual 8 books in the Halsey Brothers Series.

But I still felt I hadn’t achieved what I wanted. When agents at a conference said they wanted historical paranormal, I came up with the Spirit Trilogy. Books historically accurate with Native American spirits. An agent loved the books but couldn’t figure out how to pitch them to the people who had asked for historical paranormal. Luckily, an editor, with the small press that published my westerns, loved the books, and they were published. Now, I not only had historical western romance but I'd added Native American romance.

Still not happy, I wrote a contemporary western romance and then another. I’d just added another genre to my list.

Then I decided to write a series with a female MacGyver/Indiana Jones character. I loved writing Isabella and Tino’s adventures. I called it Action Adventure but the books could also be classified as Romantic Suspense, with the same two main characters. I LOVED writing the Isabella Mumphrey Adventures. The first book in the series won an award and reviews were good. But they weren’t selling.

I went back to historical western romance. But the idea of finally writing a mystery series kept banging at my brain. And I finally came up with a character, where she lived, a paranormal element, and I started writing the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series. I LOVE writing this series and characters. My readers love this series. The sales are doing well.

With all the great things happening with the mystery series, I decided to write another one. This one has a male protagonist, who is also Native American. Which is now becoming a worry. I have a person who connects me with the reservation and people my Shandra character is related to, but I need to make a connection with someone from the reservation where Gabriel Hawke hails from. I made a small connection last spring and plan to make it much stronger this spring.

But like I said in the beginning, I never do anything the easy way! It’s been a long trip, but I am finally in my happy place with what I am doing.

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 43 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

blog / website /  Facebook / Paty's Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest   / Bookbub

photo source: DepositPhotos

Crime of Passion by Paty Jager

How many times do you hear that on a mystery show? It was a crime of passion. There are statistics that show most murders are crimes of passion. Lovers kill lovers, husbands kill wives, mothers kill children, fathers kill families. It's not something we want to think about or write about- but it is the world a mystery writer has to think about.

Passion- it can get out of control and cause the loss of life or it can be used to keep readers wanting to know what happens next with your protagonist.

What the statistics do tell us, is no matter what happens in a person's life- romance or lack of romance- plays a part in how that person acts and reacts to others. 

That is why I enjoy reading mystery books that have an element of romance going on either between the main protagonists or the secondary characters. It's that little bit of human interaction that makes me root for them, remember them, and think of them as real people.

Not too long ago at a book signing, I'd just set everything up and five women marched up to my table

and one declared, "Why are you being so mean to Ryan?"  They all agreed and went on to quiz me about when I was going to have Shandra (main protagonist in my Shandra Higheagle mysteries) give in and agree to marry Ryan. The women said they loved the mysteries but wanted to know when I was going to get Ryan and Shandra together. 

I gave them a vague answer, knowing full well which book I planned to give Ryan and Shandra a happy-ever-after. Drawing out their attraction and waiting for the right moment had worked. It kept readers purchasing the books. While my reviews remark about the mysteries, the Native American elements, and the twists, they usually also comment on the romance element too. 

One of my critique partners who writes romance kept telling me to add more romance into the story, but I knew staunch mystery readers wouldn't like that. I tried to keep the romance as much a mystery as the murder they were trying to solve. It was the best way to keep the ones who like romance in the books to keep reading and to appease the ones who don't care for romance in their mysteries. 

If you look back to Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence mysteries there was a romantic/married

couple who solved mysteries. Dame Christie's books also showed a wonderful array of local people who might or might not be involved in a bit of hanky-panky. 

I believe to make a realistic setting for a mystery you have to include romance in either your main characters, secondary characters, or both.  My latest murder mystery series, Gabriel Hawke, I have a man in his 50's who lost his wife the first five years into his career because of his career and has believed he doesn't need another woman in his life. Unfortunately for him, his best friend, other than the couple who are his landlords, is a woman and he's having strong feelings towards another woman. While there isn't a romance, yet. There is ample opportunity for one to happen and for the readers (who have already been telling me who he should go for) to made a wager if he'll crumple and if so with which woman. 

I'm betting that having this will he or won't he fall in love element of romance fluttering on the fringes of the murder mysteries he solves is one of the things along with the cast of characters and the settings and twists that keep the readers coming back for more.  

How about you? Do you like romance with your mysteries or do you want just the facts ma'am and work at solving the mystery on your own? 

Paty Jager is the award-winning author of the Shandra Higheagle and Gabriel Hawke Mystery series. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

This is what Mysteries Etc has to say about her Shandra Higheagle mystery series: “Mystery, romance, small town, and Native American heritage combine to make a compelling read.” And Books A Plenty Book Reviews says this about the Gabriel Hawke Series:"The blend of nature tracking, clues, and the animals makes for a fascinating mystery that is hard to put down." 

blog / website /  Facebook / Paty's Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest   / Bookbub

Tracking in 2018 by Paty Jager

The favorite book I read in 2018 is Tom Brown, Jr's The Science and Art of Tracking. It entertained me even when I wasn't reading it! 

I purchased the book to help me understanding tracking because the main character in my new mystery series is a Master Tracker. I enjoyed reading about how the author of the book was fascinated by tracking as a child and was lucky enough to grow up next to a boy whose grandfather was an Apache elder. He augmented the author's knowledge in the forest. 

The book tells how as a small child he was interested in the marks made by animals, and continued to learn with books borrowed from the library until he met "Grandfather". The author and his friend spent hours in the forest with Grandfather learning what to look for and what wasn't there that told you how to find a trail. 

The lessons he learned from Grandfather and his own one track focus gave me insight into how a person needed to be tuned into their surroundings more than the average person. This helped me conjure up my character Gabriel Hawke, a Nez Perce/ Cayuse descendant whose grandfather taught him tracking. 

The book explains how to tell if an animal or person is looking one way or the other just by their tracks. Living in a rural area, my walks started taking longer as I tried my hand at tracking. One thing I learned, while I had good intentions, I don't have the attention to detail that a good tracker needs. 

There is a section in the book that shows how to read tracks by using sand. Well, I just so happened to have

making footprints

been to the beach on a retreat right after reading the book. I would stand and look one way and then the other and study the imprints. And I could see there was a difference in depth and marks. I also walked in circles, noting the change or shift of weight that deepened the tracks in different places. 

I didn't however get down on my hands and knees to figure out which direction an ant went. It was a lesson Grandfather taught the author. He finally figured it out by the small particles of sand on a rock. Whew! That is an eye for detail!

Reading this book and experiencing my own little efforts of tracking helped me to develop Gabriel Hawke, a Fish and Wildlife State Trooper. 

His first book is on pre-order and releasing Jan. 20th. 

MURDER OF RAVENS

Book 1

The ancient Indian art of tracking is his greatest strength...

And also his biggest weakness. 

Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Gabriel Hawke believes he’s chasing poachers.

However, he comes upon a wildlife biologist standing over a body that is wearing a wolf tracking collar.

He uses master tracker skills taught to him by his Nez Perce grandfather to follow clues on the mountain. Paper trails and the whisper of rumors in the rural community where he works, draws Hawke to a conclusion that he finds bitter.

Arresting his brother-in-law ended his marriage, could solving this murder ruin a friendship? 

Universal Buy Link: https://www.books2read.com/u/bxZwMP

  

Tracking, School Dynamics, Dyslexia by Paty Jager

I wish I could give you names of authors of fiction that I've read lately who took me away from my world and gave me respite from the daily grind.

But alas, the books I find myself reading the most lately are nonfiction. Though I have been reading Craig Lesley's books to discover how a Native American contemporary male thinks. I tend to read more non-fiction than fiction as I work to write books in three different genres and keep the stories sounding plausible.

My current get lost in a book is The Science and Art of Tracking by Tom Brown, Jr. It is fascinating reading how trackers don't just look at tracks but the atmosphere around them to find the trails of who or what they are tracking. And why am I reading books on tracking? Because the main character of my second mystery series is a Fish and Wildlife Officer who is proficient in tracking.

Before that I pulled up articles and high school websites reading about how they run, their teachers, activities, and school boards. This was to wrap up my newest release, Artful Murder.

Book ten in the Shandra Higheagle Mystery Series

Secrets… Scandal… Murder…

An autistic boy and his brother need potter Shandra Higheagle’s help when a teacher’s body is found after a confrontation with the older brother. Shandra knows the boy is innocent. Digging into the teacher’s life, she and Ryan turn up scandal.

Detective Ryan Greer has believed in Shandra’s dreams in the past, but she can’t always be right. When his investigation uncovers a principal on the take, females being harassed, and parents kept in the dark, he discovers more suspects than the brothers. Shandra’s time at the school is coming to an end, and the killer has struck again.

Universal buy link: https://www.books2read.com/u/bapvjq

And before that I read books, talked to my daughter, and read online articles on dyslexia. I never realized there were so many different types until our granddaughter was diagnosed with the disorder. I created a character with dyslexia and a hard life, and made her the heroine in my latest novella release, Catch the Rain.   

Running from her past, Kitty Baxter catches a glimpse of her future—if she’s brave enough to believe in herself and the kind-hearted stranger who claims she deserves love. 

Focused on setting up his new veterinarian practice, Zach MacDonald becomes sidetracked by a karaoke singing beauty with a secret. He sees what others do not and becomes determined to make Kitty see that anyone can learn to catch the rain.

Universal buy link:  https://www.books2read.com/u/4NROdN

 I'm hoping to get the chance to read more books for pleasure. I'm behind on several series I like and I have some friends coming out with new books. 

What are some of your favorite books and why? 

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 32 novels, 6 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. This is what Mysteries Etc says about her Shandra Higheagle mystery series: “Mystery, romance, small town, and Native American heritage combine to make a compelling read.”
 

blog / website /  Facebook / Paty's Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest   / Bookbub