There’s nothing worse than killing the wrong person.

If I said that to anyone other than mystery writers, I’d get myself arrested. Honestly, I think a night or two in the lockup might have been preferable to what happened when I realized I’d made a fatal error in the first draft of The Stuff of Mayhem.

The book, second in the Old Stuff series, begins with murder and, ahem, mayhem at the Fourth of July cannon firing in the tiny town of Unity, Connecticut. Historian Christian Shaw, her rainbow of found family, and her hot new boyfriend, prosecutor Joe Poli, now have to track the killer, relying on Christian’s knowledge of old things. The businessman who gets blown up made a perfect victim: slimy, pompous, and unethical, involved in a shady development project that threatened our sweet little community.

All good.

What wasn’t so good was the second death: the suspicious end of adorable ninety-something Edit “Amy” Taylor, a World War II bride who was studying for her long-delayed bat mitzvah with the town rabbi. Her death clears the way for a land sale that drives the topline plot, which we find out as we meet her various annoying relatives, one of whom turns out to have killed her with a hatpin to the skull.

Evil and creative, for sure.

And also entirely wrong.

Any writer with a couple of working brain cells could tell you it’s a huge mistake to kill off such an appealing character. As a matter of fact, Amy was happy to tell me herself, taking up a spot in my brain and refusing to leave as I started the first read-through of the manuscript.

Normally, I don’t have a traditional first draft. I do a quick edit of the previous day’s pages at the beginning of the next morning’s work as a way to get into the story. But I wrote this draft during NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month project many writers do in November.  Under the NaNoWriMo rules, you’re supposed to write as many words as possible and edit later.

Which I did.

There was a point, as I was writing the scene of Amy’s shiva (the traditional Jewish equivalent of calling hours) when I wondered what on earth I was doing. But then, the drive to finish the day’s words took over, and I kept on going.

NaNoWriMo has become problematic in the two years since I wrote the original Mayhem, but I learned my lesson during that read-through. About two chapters in, I started to get a nagging little feeling it wasn’t working. A tiny whisper: maybe this isn’t the right plotline.
By the end of the read-through, it was a scream. A window-shattering, Munch-painting howl of absolute anguish. Followed by several days of abject despair.

What on earth do you do when you’ve committed to something entirely wrong?

Well, I tried denial.

Maybe it was really okay, and I was just borrowing trouble as my Scottish grandmother
(and Christan Shaw’s, too!) used to say. I read it again. Nope. Still a mess, and it all stemmed from Amy’s murder.

So, there was nothing for it.

At the end of the day, it’s my work, and my name’s on it. It’s got to be the best it can possibly be when I turn it in. And killing off the bat mitzvah girl is a mistake.

You probably know how this ends by now.

Yep. Somewhere around three-quarters of the book ended up in the digital dustbin. And I started writing again. Without, thank you very much, an eye to daily word count targets.

The plot still revolves around the death of that rotten businessman at the cannon firing, and a land-use issue still becomes motive for murder. But, with a little inspiration from a real-life dispute over a Revolutionary War site in New York, Christian and her friends use their expertise on possible artifacts. And Amy’s very much alive, involved in the land-use issue, and studying for her bat mitzvah.

Now, the bat mitzvah is the setting for the big denouement – and Amy, unfortunate murder victim in the original draft – has the satisfaction of unmasking a killer.  Any more is a spoiler, so let’s just say Amy is a great addition to the cast in her new lease on fictional life.

Obviously, I’ve learned the hard way to think twice about who I kill. And to listen to that little caution voice. And The Stuff of Mayhem is a much, much better book.

So mazeltov to Amy…and me!

Kathleen Marple Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels including the Old Stuff and Ella Shane series, both from Level Best Books. Her stories, under her own name, and as Nikki Knight, have been in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Mystery Magazine, and others, and short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. Active in writer’s groups, she’s served as Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and Co-VP of the New York/Tri-State Sisters in Crime Chapter. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.

​I do not know you. But if you’re attempting to write a novel in 30 days, I know a couple of things about you. One is, you’re insane. The other is you love books, writing, and words. And for this I think you’re a good person, and worth a bit of my time.

But I won’t kid you. What you’re trying to do is very difficult. Especially if you want to create something good. Perhaps these few hints of mine will help.
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• First, writing is a job, like emptying porta potties. This means you won’t like it every minute, but after it’s done, you’ll have something to show for it. Unlike the aforementioned job, this one probably won’t pay you, but will have other compensations. If it didn’t, this might as well be National Porta Potty Emptying Week.
• You probably know your daily goal – 2500 words or whatever. If you don’t have one, don’t bother reading any further, because without a daily goal you just won’t make it. You’ll start to fall behind as it gets more difficult, and you’ll end up with a chunk of a book at the end of the month. What fun is that? Chunks of books are kicking around everywhere, in drawers, attics, and on hard disks in folders marked “The Further Adventures of Moby Dick – Chapters 1-6.”
• A time to write is important. If it’s every evening from five to eight, then it’s every evening from five to eight. For this month, cancel your Zumba class and postpone your dialysis.
• You're allowed a day off, but it must be a designated day off. The porta potty guy doesn’t get to stop work when the inspiration isn’t there.
• A place to write is also a big help - one without distractions such as phones, Internet connections, humanity. Writing is not for the gregarious. Sorry, you didn’t know that? You’re probably confusing the writer who’s chatting with Stephen Colbert with the writer who’s sitting in a quiet room banging his head against his Ikea desk until those crappy screw fasteners come loose. The former is an off-duty writer. The latter is, sad to say, your role model for the month.
• Finally, write as if the earth is about to fall from its orbit and fly into the sun, where it will vaporize in an immense fireball, erasing all of human civilization and achievement, and the only thing that is keeping the planet on course is your writing routine and the promise of the words “The End” at the close of a 50,000 word novel.
• Because that is the truth.

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Sure, it’s a big responsibility. But if you’re not up to it, the porta potties are filling up fast.

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Charles Philipp Martin grew up in New York City's Greenwich Village. His father was an opera conductor and both his parents well-known opera translators and librettists who never uttered the word "parenting" but knew enough to steep their family in music and literature. After attending Columbia University and Manhattan School of Music, Martin took off for a six-year paid vacation in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

While in Hong Kong he hung up his bow and turned to writing, spending four years as a Sunday Magazine columnist for the South China Morning Post, and writing for magazines all over Southeast Asia. His weekly jazz radio show 3 O'Clock Jump was heard every Saturday on Hong Kong’s Radio 3 for some two decades.
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Neon Panic, his first novel featuring Hong Kong policeman Inspector Herman Lok, was published in 2011. The second Inspector Lok novel, Rented Grave, will be coming out from Level Best Books in the summer of 2024. Martin now lives in Seattle with his wife Catherine. 
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​Photo: Lincoln Potter