Anna Belle

I lived on a small farm at the edge of a town of 500 inhabitants. We raised hogs and chickens and had a one-acre vegetable garden. You become a people watcher in a small town, as everyone knows what the other is doing. You knew all of the people at church and what their pet's names were. I try to incorporate so many of those human qualities that I observed into my characters. I did incorporate a cow stampede into The Revenge Kill List as a way to escape a bad situation.

I really gained a lot of friends and experiences in college and took a lot of classes around Facilities, which helped direct my career as a Facilities Manager. I met and interacted with a lot of people from different backgrounds and countries. It was the first time I had ever met anyone from a different country. I was fascinated by their stories, and I got to meet so many different nationalities in my line of work. I also dealt with real life emergencies and incident command structure, which I use routinely, as police, fire and ambulance also have a similar structure.

I wanted to be a writer and had tried to start writing a book about five years before I retired. I could not find the time and the energy with such a demanding career, raising children and taking care of grandchildren. Retiring early seemed like the right decision for me. I could concentrate on writing the three books I published in the first year.

I love John Sanford mysteries. He writes about Minnesota, which I like to do also. And he involves several agencies to solve each murder. I also really appreciate Lisa Gardner mysteries, which follow one detective to solve some intricate crimes. I grew up reading Nora Roberts writing as JD Robb. I love her futuristic cop series. I am hoping to expand the genres that I write about to something more than mysteries, although there will likely always be an element of murder in my stories.

I want to think up unusual ways to kill someone or cause them to be killed. I want to explore the human side of all of the characters, giving them all a flaw and problem or two that they are trying to resolve. The psychology of the killer is always hard for me. I do not believe that I have interacted with a killer, at least not that I am aware of. I usually start with a broad concept-maybe some story I heard in the news will spark my interest. I usually don't know how the story will end when I start it and the story can take me in directions that I never planned. Sometimes, even the killer is not who I thought it would be in the beginning of the concept.

In my third book, I incorporated my favorite camping and kayaking location into the story. One of my characters moved there and settled on my favorite lake chain. The killer moves from city to lake country, being bent on his vengeance for wrongs committed to one of his family members. I like to incorporate my favorite activities into the character's favorite activities. Write about what you know and love.

In the book I am currently writing, I am using my experiences of visiting New York a month before the 9-11 incident. I was at the top of the World Trade Tower and I visited there ten years later. I spend some time contrasting the experience pre and post terrorism event. It had a huge impact on my family seeing what happened so soon after we had visited. I want to use my experiences traveling and other life happenings I have experienced to influence my characters. I want to expand outside of Minnesota, which I am doing in New York.

My characters will never be based off of any actual person. I will incorporate traits or habits that I observe in people that I do not know. I can make up a whole life story about a complete stranger without any qualms. Using an actual person I know in a story is a recipe for not having any friends and family left that would still speak to me. Naming characters is hard. I use a last name generator to come up with different names than the small amount I am used to. I sometimes have to explore the origins of the last name and incorporate the history and culture of the name into the story.

I try to write about 4 hours a day on the days that I devote to writing. I have relaxed my schedule to account for specific days that I spend with family. I never want to let the writing be the reason I don't spend time with loved ones. I try to write about 1500 words a day on days I am writing. I always reread the chapter I just wrote and make changes before going on to another chapter-it is my own form of self-editing. I also have to refer back to previous chapters written to verify some characteristic that I had given to a specific character. I will often find that I need to adjust what I wrote based on that review.

My family was really excited and supportive of my first book. As I write more books, I am always in competition with their favorite authors and other books they want to read with limited timeframes. If we were waiting for our families to be the ones to support our habit, we would not get very far. I look to social media to get the broader audience. Some of my beta readers are family members.

I thought the writing was going to be the hardest part. I find that trying to self-publish and get the books in the format that is suitable for Amazon, Draft2Digital and Ingram Sparks has been a steep learning curve for me. I overcame that lack of knowledge by joining several author groups and watching videos on each step of the process. I query a lot of authors about their processes and choose a process that might work for me. It continues to be a challenge, as there are so many of us struggling with the same issues. Hearing from others has been the most helpful.

Because it takes several months to get a book to the point that you are ready to choose a cover, relearning the process with each book has been a challenge. I really did not understand the commitment I would be making to marketing and publishing. And I had to learn how to market on social media sites. I had no idea that there were so many scammers out there trying to take your money and your ideas. You have to learn that you need to spend time on your social media sites and grow interest in your body of work. It takes time and effort to make it grow.

There is always a reason for why people behave the way they do. I explore the actions, thought processes and interactions of all my characters. I want the reader to understand the characters in the book, feel sympathy, anger, and excitement about what is happening to the characters. And hopefully, if I do it well, there will be an element of surprise to the plot. I love it when someone says that they didn't see it coming at the end of the book. I always love it when I am surprised by a story from my favorite author. I hope to someday be a favorite author.

I am currently writing "Murder by Cyber Crime". The main character of Merric McKisson was a child in "Murder by Kari, Murder by Ken". Now he is a grownup whose business is being threatened by cyber-crime and murder.

Unedited Excerpt from Murder by Cyber Crime:
The FBI Special Agents stared down at the body at their feet. Melanie Jimson had once had a goal to work her way through college and become a doctor. Her current occupation was working in an upscale New York bistro. She attended her required classes part-time at the university. With her limited funds, it would have taken her years to meet her goal of being a physician. Those years had been brutally stripped from her.
Ms. Jimson was the third victim the FBI agents had now identified in their assigned case. Victim one was JJ (John Junior) Codey, living at home with his parents at 18 years old. He had just graduated from high school and was going to attend university in the fall. His parents described JJ to the NYPD as a loner who spent most of his free time playing video games online. He occasionally had two friends over to compete with him when they were all entered into video tournaments. There were no suspects identified by the Bronx police during their investigation and the investigation was ongoing.
Victim two, Julio Gerena, was twenty-six and working as an assistant to the envoy for the Italian embassy. His parents were diplomats from Italy and he lived with them in Embassy housing. The Gerena family were extremely wealthy, with their own coat of arms and a Spanish castle or two in their list of ancestral homes.
All three victims had been gunned down in the street or at their residence in New York. The method of kill was the same each time - a single shot through the heart. Each murder occurred between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. NYPD would have handled the murders and the FBI would not have been notified of the murders. The homicide of a diplomatic family member in New York automatically triggered their involvement.
The Gerera family exerted a great deal of pressure on the FBI to solve the case immediately. The Gerera’s grief and anger over the death of their beloved only son was expressed to the President. The international incident of a diplomat being killed on US soil created a threat assessment of known terrorists and enemies of Italy and the US.
FBI Special Agents Gabino and Szary worked closely with the FBI legal attaché in Italy’s American Embassy in Rome. That person coordinated efforts with the Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna (AISE), Italy’s foreign intelligence and security agency. After a short but extensive search, no terrorist groups claimed responsibility for the murder and the investigation did not lead them toward an international diplomatic crisis.
Special agents Gabino and Szary also turned their attention to the NYPD reports of Julio Gerena’s activities and finances for the weeks prior and on the day he was killed. Gabino noted that Julio seemed to like to visit the clubs in the evening. There was one particular type of club that he frequented repeatedly.
Rico Gabino exclaimed, “Bieta, our boy Julio likes to enter video game tournaments at this club called The Video Game Lounge. He entered several evening tournaments in the last three weeks. It seems to be all he was doing with his free time. NYPD investigated it briefly and it was not considered to be relevant to the homicide investigation. I think we should do a more thorough investigation to see if he was murdered by someone because of the tournament he played in.”
Bieta Szary had been taking a look at Julio’s computer and financial records. “Rico, Julio’s computer was the victim of a cyber-attack via the dark web. It looks like his personal information was stolen and sold to multiple users. Even though he is dead, he has apparently gotten multiple credit cards. He has sent out several fake PayPal imposter scam emails, and netted a huge amount of money, which seems to be funneled through multiple channels in a shell transfer system going to someplace I have been unable to track.”
Rico said, “Do you think his murderer is part of the emerging trend that our Technology Fraud Task Force monitors for the various scams found using AI technology? It sounds like the murderer is using similar technologies to those we have been tracking. Is Gerena the only person targeted that frequents The Video Game Lounge?”
Beata immediately initiated a search. “We have multiple players in the video game tournament who have apparently been targeted by the phishing scheme. Several of them appear to have their data compromised. The compromised players appear on our database for the investigation into the AI generated scams.”
Beata looked thoughtfully at the screen. She typed in a second query. “I wonder if any other players in recent tournaments were murdered. I have a search going.”

I have really appreciated being part of All Authors. I signed up for the Pro membership, use the magic tool often, create banners and book arrangements using your tools. I place them out on my social media sites. I also follow and interact with other authors on the site. I would recommend All Authors to anyone. I have found it to be so useful and love that it will post to Twitter automatically.