↓
 

Carolyn Mulford

Carolyn Mulford

  • Home
  • About
  • Show Me Mysteries
    • Series Overview
    • Show Me The Murder
      • Show Me the Murder Chapter One
      • Discussion Topics for Show Me The Murder
      • Ordering Information
      • Excerpts from Reviews
    • Show Me the Deadly Deer
      • Show Me the Deadly Deer: Chapter One
      • Discussion Topics for Show Me The Deadly Deer
      • Ordering Information
      • Excerpts from Reviews
    • Show Me the Gold
      • Show Me the Gold Chapter One
      • Show Me the Gold Discussion Questions
      • Ordering Information
      • Reviews
    • Show Me the Ashes
      • Show Me the Ashes: Chapter One
      • Show Me the Ashes: Discussion Topics
      • Show Me the Ashes: Ordering Information
    • Show Me the Sinister Snowman
      • Show Me the Sinister Snowman – Chapter One
      • Show Me the Sinister Snowman: Discussion Questions
      • Show Me the Sinister Snowman: Order Information
    • Talks and Workshops
    • Blog: Writing Mysteries
    • Writing Tips & Resources
  • The Feedsack Dress
    • The Feedsack Dress
    • Ordering Information
    • Historical Background
    • Chapter 1: The Feedsack Dress
    • Discussion Topics for Students
    • Discussion Topics for Book Groups
    • The Feedsack Dress Blog
  • Thunder Beneath My Feet
    • Thunder Beneath My Feet
    • Ordering Information
    • Historical Background
    • Chapter One: Thunder Beneath My Feet
    • Suggestions for Students
    • Discussion Topics for Book Groups
    • Blog: Historicals
  • Other Writings
    • Short Stories
      • “An Aura of Death”
      • “Crossing the Bridge”
      • “Leftovers”
    • Works in Progress
  • News
    • Latest Postings
    • Events
    • Reviews of Carolyn’s Books
    • Media Materials – Images
    • Media Materials – News releases
  • Contact

Monthly Archives: May 2015

Another Five-Book Day

Carolyn Mulford Posted on May 28, 2015 by CarolynMay 28, 2015

The most common questions readers (and many writers) ask me are:

When and where do you write?

How many words do you write a day?

How long does it take you to finish a book?

Those simple questions have complicated answers, and today is a good example of why.

As usual, my writing day began in early morning. I’m finishing the first draft of Show Me the Door, and I wake up thinking about what’s going to happen.

My priority for the day, however, was writing a disguised bibliography for Thunder Beneath My Feet. I need to deliver it, a bio, and a couple other little things to the publisher by Friday. I started on the bibliography about 8 a.m., sorting my long-neglected files in the living room so I wouldn’t have to spread them out in my office.

Nuggets I’d saved came to light, giving me a possible start on planning a sequel and ideas on promotion. The research done and content choices made, I spent most of the morning in writing the two-page piece.

After a lunch/news break, I edited that and the three other shorts and emailed them to my critiquers for comment.

Around 2:30 I made a quick trip to the pharmacy to renew a prescription. With the traffic light, I thought about when to write and post a blog about the June release of the paperback edition of Show Me the Murder. My copies arrived yesterday.

Back at home, I relaxed in my recliner with pad and pencil to make notes for a crucial interrogation in Chapter 26 of Show Me the Door.

 Back to the office to read comments on my Thunder notes, followed by a supper/news break in front of the TV, an errand, and back to the office to read critiquers’ comments and revise the bibliography.

About 9:30 p.m. I did a quick email check. The prize: the Five Star designer’s image of the cover of Show Me the Ashes. Huge relief. I like it. I really like it. I sent the editor an email saying so.

By golly, I thought. That makes five books I’ve worked on today, each one at a different stage in the writing-publishing-marketing continuum. I should blog about that.

I don’t know how many words I wrote or how many total hours I spent or what percentage of my work time I spent in bed, in the living room, in the office, or moving around. I do know I had a productive day.

It’s 10:30 p.m., and I’m tired.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, News, Writing

11th Book Contract Marks 50 Years of Writing

Carolyn Mulford Posted on May 14, 2015 by CarolynMay 14, 2015

Fifty years ago this week I began my writing career as an editorial assistant for the NEA Journal, then one of the country’s best education magazines. I just signed a contract for my eleventh book, Thunder Beneath My Feet, a middle grade/young adult novel set during the powerful New Madrid earthquakes in late 1811 and early 1812.

Those eleven books represent a relatively small part of my output. For twenty years I worked mostly on magazines, including as the editor of Industrial Research & Development News. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Vienna, Austria, published this international technical quarterly.

I didn’t enjoy editing technical articles from experts who spoke English as their second (or third or fourth) language and left in fear the bureaucratic writing style would damage my writing. On the plus side, I formed close friendships with wonderful people from different cultures, and the interactions of colleagues from some fifty countries fascinated me.

My Favorite Job

The job I held the longest (almost five years) and liked the most was as editor of Synergist, a magazine published by the National Center for Service-Learning, iWashington, D.C., for leaders of secondary and postsecondary student volunteer programs. Over those years, service-learning blossomed and moved into the elementary schools.

Much of my time went to locating model programs and soliciting (and editing heavily) articles from the outstanding educators who ran them. I also traveled around the country to write and photograph inspiring programs. I resigned to become a freelancer when I thought I had taken the publication as far as it could go under the politicians who then determined what we could publish.

Computers began to replace electric typewriters while I edited Synergist, and editors and designers struggled to stay close to the “bleeding edge” as publications moved into desktop publishing. Such programs as PageMaker enabled quick, relatively inexpensive turnaround and prompted the golden age of the newsletter.

Freelancing

Over the next twenty-plus years, writing and editing monthly newsletters paid my mortgage and covered most of my basic expenses. Relying on my journalistic skills, I took on many topics, including career tips for dental hygienists, innovative programs for chambers of commerce, and issues affecting sales of oil production equipment.

My major steady client over those years was Communications Concepts, a small company that produced a series of monthly subscription how-to newsletters for corporate communicators. I did most of the planning and wrote most of the articles. For each issue, I interviewed four to six people from around the United States and Canada, reviewed a book or two, and edited a contributor’s article.

The publisher gave me considerable autonomy, and the articles kept me up to date on the field. The newsletters also gave me credibility with other clients and led me to a sideline of teaching graduate-level continuing ed writing and editing courses and giving workshops for writers’ groups.

Other freelance assignments included subbing for an ailing magazine editor, writing a calendar for the National Portrait Gallery, writing the proceedings for a Library of Congress conference, writing and editing textbook material, and covering an International Red Cross meeting in Geneva. For several years I financed much of my travel in the United States and abroad by writing and photographing travel articles.

Most of the magazines and newsletters, and several of the newspapers, that I wrote for died years ago.

The Nonfiction Books

I wrote my nonfiction books between 1984 and 1994. My first two (and most profitable), Guide to Student Fundraising and Financial Fitness for Teens, were works for hire. I had a lot of fun but earned few dollars writing (with Betty C. Ford) Adventure Vacations in Five Mid-Atlantic States. Living in the D.C. area, I earned more respect than income from writing a young adult political biography, Elizabeth Dole, Public Servant.

My hair grayed at the same time the opportunities for lucrative, interesting assignments diminished. Both employees and freelancers felt the effects of the changes technology brought to communications programs and of employers’ increased tendency to equate the ability to type and use a spell-checker with the ability to write and edit.

The Transition to Fiction

Now what? I decided to go back to my original goal of writing novels. I hadn’t been a mystery fan until such excellent writers as Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Margaret Maron showed women could carry a mystery as the main character rather than sidle on the page as a male protagonist’s damsel in distress or lust interest. I enrolled in a class for beginning mystery writers taught by author Noreen Wald and began a long transition from nonfiction to fiction.

One of the great things that came from that class was a critique group of novice mystery writers, all of them now published. We met weekly, with two or three always presenting chapters for review. My first draft took a long time, and so did sales for most of us.

Finally a Novelist 

At one low point, I debated whether to continue trying to sell a mystery. I pulled out the manuscript of a children’s book I had written years before and asked the group to critique it as I revised. In 2007, that manuscript, The Feedsack Dress, became my first published novel.

At another low point, I again questioned whether to give up on writing mysteries. While mulling that over, I greatly enjoyed researching the devastating but little remembered New Madrid earthquakes featured in Thunder Beneath My Feet. My initial marketing experience was frustrating, so I put that manuscript aside when I sold my first mystery, Show Me the Murder, in 2011 (published February 2013).

Midway through writing the fifth of the award-winning Show Me series, I returned to Thunder, doing a light revision and then searching for a publisher. I found one on my fiftieth anniversary as a professional writer.

Now I have to finish book five and decide what to write next.

To learn more about the earthquakes and read an excerpt from Thunder Beneath My Feet, go to the navigation bar and click on Other Writings/Works in Progress/Thunder Beneath My Feet.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, News releases, Uncategorized, Works in Progress

Latest Postings


I Am a River

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 19, 2025 by CarolynApril 19, 2025

Each week I lunch with a group of friends and discuss a topic. Last time the coordinator posed this question: What is the shape of your life? The answers included a rectangle, a vase, a cloud, and an octagon. Usually I wing it, but this time I wrote my response. The Shape of My Life I am a river, Birthed in a puddle, Nourished by rain, Pushed to overflow And grow broader And deeper.   Springs and creeks fed my flow. Widening waters gathered force, Thrusting me against unyielding barriers And cascading me over rocky falls.   Other streams joined … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Where to Find My Books

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 1, 2025 by CarolynApril 1, 2025

While only one of my books, Show Me the Sinister Snowman, continues to be published in print and electronic editions, several of my novels are available from online sellers. Most of the copies are used, but columbiabooksonline.com, my supportive local bookstore, has a small stock of new Show Me hardbacks and paperbacks. I also have a few copies of all my novels except The Feedsack Dress, my historical children’s book, and Show Me the Murder, the first in my mystery series featuring a former spy returning   home and solving crimes with old friends. Fortunately e-editions still exist. Barnes and Noble … Continue reading →

Posted in Mysteries, The Feedsack Dress, Uncategorized

Looking Forward 60 Years Ago

Carolyn Mulford Posted on February 28, 2025 by CarolynFebruary 28, 2025

Reminders of my attempts to start my writing career arrived last Christmas. A friend, Joyce Campbell, sent me letters I had written to her while we were serving as Peace Corps Volunteers (teaching English) in Ethiopia from September 1962 to July 1964 and in the months after we returned home (Chattanooga, Tennessee, for her and Kirksville, Missouri, for me) after traveling through Europe. On December 21, 1964, I wrote, “Has anything turned up for you yet? People don’t seem terribly impressed with Peace Corps experience for job qualifications it seems to me. I’m going down to the University Placement Bureau … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing

Mid-Continent Earthquakes, Past and Future

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 16, 2024 by CarolynDecember 16, 2024

About 2:30 a.m. December 16, 1811, an earthquake threw people in New Madrid, Missouri Territory, out of bed and crumbled brick houses and cabin chimneys, forced the Mississippi River to run backward and change course, disturbed sleep along most of the East Coast, and toppled dishes from shelves in the White House. That marked the beginning of some of the most powerful, prolonged quakes the United States has experienced. These weren’t the first in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which is centered near where Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky come together. Geologists and other scientists have found indications that powerful … Continue reading →

Posted in Historicals, News, Thunder Beneath My Feet

The Turkey That Bullied Me

Carolyn Mulford Posted on November 26, 2024 by CarolynNovember 26, 2024

I grew up with animals as friends, the first being our dog Roamer. He and I wandered around the yard, the barnyard, and the garden. Roamer barked at squirrels and chased rabbits from our vegetables. He made me ponder one of life’s great puzzles: Is it okay to sympathize with Peter Rabbit in the story but condemn him when your own carrots are at risk? Roamer knew not to chase our chickens or cows or pigs, and he joined me in playing with an orphaned lamb and the kittens whose parents kept the barn free of mice. What he didn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Follow Me

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on GoodreadsFollow Us on RSS

Archives

  • April 2025
  • February 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • July 2022
  • January 2022
  • March 2021
  • December 2020
  • July 2019
  • April 2019
  • October 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • February 2012
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
©2025 - Carolyn Mulford

Site design by Karen McCullough
Contact Webmaster

Site Admin
↑