Pen Dames: October 2023

Introducing Guest Author: Mary Lu Scholl

Happy October to all our Pen Dames readers! We hope you are enjoying cooler weather as autumn approaches.

We are eager to introduce you to our next guest author, Mary Lu Scholl, a fun-loving, creative writer of Cozy Mysteries, who writes wherever she happens to land.

Here is the Book Blurb for Fatal Philandering:

Patty Decker is just trying to get along in her new-ish life in a 55+ mobile home and RV Park (well, kind of trying.) She can't help it if she's Johnny-on -the-spot when there's an unexplained death! Of course, they didn't HAVE unexplained deaths until she moved there...

She's a crotchety old woman who is just a little socially awkward (all right, a lot socially awkward) who struggles with tact, diplomacy, you know, empathy.

In Fatal Philandering (book 9 of Trailer Park Trevails), a couple of actors show up to get a brief respite from the star-struck life they normally lead; just a little health break. Whoops.

She didn't do it, but she's in the thick of it again...

A fun interview with Mary Lu:

1. What can you tell us about YOU that will allow us to get to know you better - where you live, your background, jobs, interests, etc.?

I'm a retired Postal Manager, but have done dozens of other jobs to keep body and soul together when young, and because I could, after retiring. I've been everything from a waitress to a landscape worker, picked tomatoes and cared for Developmentally Disabled Adults.

2. What books were your favorites as a child?

Mmmmmm . . . I read a lot of science fiction, and most of the classics in elementary and middle school - The Dune Trilogy, anything by Heinlein or Clarke. Then there was Stephen King. All the mysteries, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew. Others included Jane Eyre, Forever Amber, The Master of the Game by Sydney Sheldon, and Tolkein. Johanna Lindsay wrote remarkable characters.

3. How and when did your writing journey begin?

As a young adult, I wrote a couple of novels and had an agent for a while, but couldn't seem to break through. After I retired, I wrote another novel, set in western Colorado. Then I moved here and was, coincidentally, living in a mobile home and RV park for a while . . . That was in 2018. I have written twelve novels since then.

4. What genre is your book? What do you like about writing in that genre?

I write cozy mysteries. I do like it. Blood, guts, gore and sex are 'off screen' implied. There is no - or very little mild profanity depending upon your perspective. My parents told me that profanity was the mark of a lazy vocabulary and I could make my point much more succinctly using real words.

5. What inspires you to write?

I like to make people laugh. I enjoy exploring the foibles of human nature. I've had a very varied life with a lot of experiences. Using them in the narratives of my books lets other people experience them. I have learned so much from books. I need to perpetuate the gift.

6. What is the setting of your book? Please describe it.

Citrus County, in Lecanto, mostly. In nine of the books, Patty Decker lives in a fictional trailer park on Gulf-to -Lake Hwy. (A 55+ community with two main roads and amenities like a pool, horseshoe pits, shuffleboard, a laundry and shower house, plus a clubhouse for community events.) The other three existing books are dovetailed to this series, but have a male protagonist living nearby the park. Bernie Murphy lives in a Sears House with a very big barn. He's a handsome Irishman returning to his roots. He finds his Irish mythology came with him, or was it already here?

7. Why did you choose this setting? Is it a real place or did you create it for the story?

It's fictional, but nearly all the situations, most of the conversations, and many of the details are straight out of my life.

8. Is your book part of a series or a standalone? If it is a part of a series, describe the series.

There are two series - In Trailer Park Trevails. Patty Decker has moved to Lecanto (aka Paradise in West Central Florida) to soak up sun and write novels in a twenty-five foot camper. What WAS she thinking? Camper Catastrophe sets the scene . . . The second one is Bernie Murphy in Nature Coast Calamities. He has returned to Citrus County and finds that the Irish mythology of his childhood might be real. (The Lecanto Leprechaun, Big Foot and the Bentley, and InverNessie.)

9. Describe your main character- life, personality, motivation- whatever you think will make us want to know this person.

If you want to get to know Patty, it's mostly to convince yourself that YOU are not like her. You have tact.

10. If you could spend an afternoon with any of your secondary characters, who would it be and why?

Patty's best friend is Dr. Catherine. She's very smart.

11. What writing projects do you have on the horizon?

Since I just released a Patty book, I'm writing my next Bernie book now. My last Bernie book, Pooka and the Pirates just received a 5 star review.

12. What is your best advice for aspiring writers?

Don't lose heart. Keep writing for yourself even if you never share.

13. Which authors/books are on your keeper shelves?

Too many to name. I keep authors I know - have met one way or another. I keep the classics, plus Kay Hooper and Jules Verne.

14. If you could meet any author, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Frank Herbert - because WOW. Or, Tolkein!

15. What is your favorite book marketing tip?

Elevator speeches - 90 second clips to capture your audience.

16. What do you like to do when not writing?

I garden and do needlework.

Excerpt from Fatal Philandering:

Chapter Five- Later Thursday - Patty

People were watering things they'd never watered before, just so they could be outside whrn the actor came. I was front and center, behind a shrub.

A car came. It was predictably, a convertible. Didn't they all drive convertibles?

At least until the squirrels ate the canvas.

JJ had a gold Sebring convertible. He had learned the hard way to protect the top from the adorable rodents with poison and Irish Spring soap.

Two men got out. Two? One was tall, had salt and pepper hair and a full beard, trimmed neatly and just long enough not to be confused with that nasty scruff the younger generation cultivates. He was neatly dressed, and stood with his hands in his pockets while waiting for the other man to join him. The second man was short and kind of soft looking. He had an amazing nose. He did have nice hair, even if the improbable cut (a mushroom shape?) was an improbable shade of strawberry-blonde for a man who had to be in his 50s. He carried a laptop case and wore those fancy big sneakers that make your feet look like aircraft carriers.

"Did Desiree say two of them were moving in?" I asked Doris.

I happened to be standing next to her, while she was carefully pruning a plant that had never been pruned before and would probably die from her enthusiastic ministrations.

"Give me those." I took her clippers away from her. "Text Pete."

Before she could do more than pick up her phone, she had an incoming text from Pete. Desiree says there are two of them moving in.

I read unashamedly over her shoulder. "How does he do that?" He seemed to always know when Doris wanted him and what she needed.

Doris just smiled. She was a newlywed and still under the impression that Pete was patient, perspicacious, and alliteratively perfect in every way.