Make Note of Korina Moss
Greetings, dear noters!
Happy Memorial Day Weekend to you all. I hope you’ve got some fun in the sun planned or maybe some fun in the shade, curled up with a good book. I love the official start to summer. Days writing outside are always the most productive for me, and I’ve got a lot of projects to sort through during the next three months. I am ramping up for the release of Too Much to Candle, Book Two in the award-winning Glenmyre Whim Mysteries. Yup, you read that right. Award-winning! You Can’t Candle the Truth was named a 2022 Best Mystery Finalist by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. How amazing is that? This is my first professional book award, which is super exciting for me. Although, boy, the pressure is on to deliver a great follow-up with Too Much to Candle. The book is off with my beta readers right now, so I’m eagerly waiting to hear if they enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s not often my own work makes me tear up, but there are several moments where Too Much to Candle really hits me where it counts. I can’t wait to share more!
My featured author this week is someone I had the pleasure of not only meeting but getting to be on a panel with at Malice Domestic in April. We also are fellow bloggers on Writers Who Kill. She’s here celebrating the release of her debut cozy mystery. Without further ado…
A Bit About the Author: KORINA MOSS is the author of Cheddar Off Dead, the first book in the Cheese Shop Mystery series set in the Sonoma Valley. She loves creating quirky characters who live in idyllic small towns. She grew up on a healthy dose of Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie novels, which developed her passion for solving mysteries and eventually writing her own. She lives in a small New England town with its own share of quirky characters.
Korina is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She blogs at Writers Who Kill. She has short stories in two anthologies, Crime Travel and Death by Cupcake. Her second book in the series, Gone For Gouda, releases in September 2022. Her books can be purchased or pre-ordered wherever books are sold. They’re available in paperback, e-reader, and audiobook.
Korina, it’s great to have you on Noteworthy today. My readers might find it funny that you and I were connected by a mutual friend, only to then find out we were joining Writers Who Kill around the same time! The mystery writing community really is a small, wonderful world. So, let’s dive in and explore your love of mysteries. What book made you first fall in love with reading?
It’s so hard to choose a “first.” Would it be the ones I fell in love with as a preschooler? (Those would be Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and Sesame Street’s The Monster at the End of This Book.) Or the ones I borrowed again and again from my elementary school library? (Those would be Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books and all the Nancy Drew books.) However, the first book that transported me wholly to another place was Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. I think I read it for the first time as a nine or ten-year-old and re-read it many times throughout my childhood. The feeling I got as soon as I opened its pages is what I remember most about that book.
Oh, Little Women. I remember the summer my childhood best friend and I both read the book. She spoiled the ending by telling me — SPOILER—that Jo and Teddy DON’T end up together, and I was absolutely furious. I thought they belonged together. I didn’t finish the book until a year later…and of course, fell in love with the ending. It’s funny how passionate books can make us, right? Your love of reading obviously contributed to your love of writing. How did you begin your writing journey?
I always peripherally wanted to be a novelist, but I held authors in such high regard that I didn’t believe real people like me could be published authors, therefore it wasn’t something I pursued. It wasn’t until my last semester of college when I took an elective fiction writing class and wrote stories for the first time in years that I was reminded how much I loved it. My professor was very encouraging to me, but as I’d paid my own way through school, I felt it was too late to change course. I was accepted into a psychology PhD program, where I met a woman in my graduate dorm who was going to grad school for writing. I was so envious that it made me realize the only reason I wasn’t pursuing writing was because I wasn’t brave enough to do it. After one semester, I dropped out of graduate school and started writing, having no idea what I was doing. This was in the early nineties, way before social media connected writers to the world of publishers or agents or tons of other writers. Except for a critique group I eventually found, I was stumbling through on my own. I continued to write and learn the craft while life took over (work, marriage, and a child). I got my first story published in Chicken Soup for the Kids’ Soul, which I was proud of because kids themselves chose the published stories from the top contenders. I also won a statewide Christmas story contest, which was read on Connecticut NPR. The following year, that story was turned into a short ballet, which was performed that holiday season by a professional dance company on stage at Hartford’s Bushnell Theater with the Nutcracker.
Um, I was a huge lover of the Chicken Soup books growing up. I need to go back and find your story in my copy of Kids’ Soul. When did you first feel like an “author?”
It wasn’t until I got my contract from Macmillan for my current Cheese Shop Mystery series that I felt like an author. Actually, it wasn’t until two years later when the book was released. It was such a dream come true that my brain couldn’t make the leap from writing the manuscript to it being a real book until I saw the book and held it in my hands. And then when readers contacted me and started telling me their favorite parts, that’s when it hit home that I was an author.
How does a typical “writing session” go for you? Do you have a process or set schedule?
It took me a while to figure out my process because writing on a deadline is very different than writing pre-agented when I would wait for my muse to strike. I don’t have that luxury anymore, but that’s a good thing—writing daily not only has gotten more words on the page, but it has also made me a much better writer. I don’t have a set schedule because I’m a single mom with a part-time (non-writing) job and a teenage son at home, so I have a lot of things pulling for my attention. There was too much pressure and guilt associated with trying to stick to a daily writing timetable. But I do set an overall schedule for myself, which varies depending on where I am in the writing process. I’ll give myself two to three weeks to come up with the plot and outline of the book. Then I’ll give myself the rest of that month and the next to finish the first draft. It’s a very quick draft without too much description, lots of dialogue, and usually only comes in at about 40,000 words. It’s just so that I can see if what I have in the sketchy outline flows from scene to scene and chapter to chapter. Most of all, I want to see if the mystery holds together. If it does, then I start revising, or what I like to call fluffing or plumping because my first draft is so scant—I’m not really revising it as much as adding to it and making it readable. I never count words. For me, it’s the scenes that matter, not the word count. The word count will automatically be right when the story is complete, so I don’t concern myself with word count. I look at how many chapters I have and divide that by the number of days I have before the manuscript goes to my beta reader. This way, I generally know how much I need to work on per day in order to get it in on time. I try to write daily (and almost always do), but there are holidays, sick days, and days that just have too much going on. But for the most part, I stick to my chapter schedule. This first fluff is when the character development that I’ve alluded to in the draft comes alive and the story goes from black and white to color through descriptive details. The story usually dictates what kind of cheese and cheesy dishes I want to include in the book. I have cheese ideas as I’m writing the first draft, but a lot of cheese research must be done before I can add those details. The second revision is to go over any scenes that stumped me and to also look at what’s lacking—is one of the side characters not involved enough? Does the progression of the relationships make sense? Pulling off a mystery is like a well-choreographed dance—I have to make sure all the clues and red herrings are exactly where they need to be. And, unfortunately, I usually change the ending. Not the culprit, just the pacing. An ending can seem great in an outline, but if the pacing or level of suspense isn’t right, it doesn’t work. Then there’s one more read-through with corrections before it goes to my beta reader. When she returns it with her comments, I revise once more with hopes that there will be enough time for it to sit before one last read-through. Then it’s off to my publishing house’s editor, who makes her suggestions and sends it back for one more revision before the copy editor gets his hands on it.
It’s always amazing how much different a first draft looks from the final manuscript. I, too, do a lot of fluffing during rewrites, and the word count continues to climb (sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes, I end up with a 95,000 cozy mystery LOL). What was the biggest challenge or struggle that you encountered while writing Cheddar Off Dead? How did you overcome it?
I would say the pressure of writing the book for a publisher was the hardest part. I got the contract to write three books based on a proposal, so I didn’t have any of the books written. That, in itself, was pressure. This major publishing house was putting its faith in me based on a five-page synopsis and three sample chapters—what if I couldn’t write a book they really liked? Also, I started Cheddar Off Dead in April of 2020. The pandemic had recently hit the US and lockdown had just begun. The uncertainty of that first pandemic year prior to vaccines becoming available, plus managing my son’s mental health while he attended school virtually from home, and managing my own mental health was a lot to handle. I’m sure everyone, writer or not, can relate. It was not easy getting into a light, humorous mood in order to write the cozy mystery I wanted to write while there was so much fear, tension, and uncertainty in the world. How did I overcome it? I don’t think I overcame it as much as I just got through it. As difficult as it was to switch into writing mode, when I did, I enjoyed being immersed in my story and getting to hang out in my idyllic (except for that inconvenient murder) fictional small town with my fun, quirky characters. I didn’t have any idea if I could finish a manuscript in the time allotted because I’d never written on a deadline before, so I didn’t have the timeline schedule that I’ve since developed. I just wrote whenever I could and had faith in myself that I could do it. I’d gotten an opportunity I was determined not to blow—it was my dream come true, after all.
Writing during the pandemic was definitely a trying experience. I used my work as a means of escape, but it was hard to keep all my fears and uncertainty about what was going to happen at bay. It made me want to create “the perfect world,” which ultimately became the town of Crucible, featured in You Can’t Candle the Truth. But there were many times when writing creatively was a struggle. How do you work through the dreaded “writer’s block?” What’s your process when a scene just won’t write itself?
I move on and come back to it during the next revision. In the moment, I’ll write some dialogue or how I want the scene to go, even if it reads like a kindergarten primer, just to remind myself of the point of the scene. Eventually, the scene flows from my fingers in one of my revisions because my subconscious has worked it out for me.
I love that - a kindergarten primer. I definitely feel like I do this, where I just try to capture what the scene is meant to accomplish before moving on and figuring it out later. It’s a great method. Now, let’s have some fun with our questions. What word(s) can you never spell correctly the first time around?
Vacuum. Recommend. Hors d’oeuvres. (I even had to look it up to answer this question!)
I would definitely Google ‘hor d’oeuvres’ and just copy/paste into my document. I have no idea how to add accents in Word. What are three things that are always on your writing desk/writing space?
My sweet, fat cat Carl would’ve been my first answer if he was still alive. He was always next to me no matter where I was writing. So now the answers aren’t nearly as endearing: A cup of Diet Coke or Coke Zero, my phone, and Vaseline lip care. I should have my notebook and a pen to keep track of questions or self-reminders that pop up while I’m writing, but I always forget. So notes end up in different places that I have to go in search of later on.
What is your favorite, can’t-live-without writing tool or aid?
The most important thing that helps me write is the space I write in. I need to write where I feel like writing at that time. Sometimes it’s in my warm and cozy third-floor loft office, sometimes it’s in my bed (although my chiropractor wishes it weren’t), or sometimes on my deck in nicer weather. Often, I feel the need to get out of the house, so it’s in my car on a cool but sunny day or at my favorite Mexican restaurant that lets me sit there for three hours and write while I eat tortilla chips and drink Diet Cokes. (I leave a hefty tip.) Sometimes I’m even compelled to book a cheap Airbnb for a couple of days because I really need a new view. If I had to be at the same desk to write every day, I’m not sure if I could do it.
I like to bounce around from writing space to writing space. Now that the weather is warmer, I try to work outside on my porch whenever the sun is out. All right, Korina, for my final question: You stumble across a dead body. What book character are you alerting first? Why?
I think I would alert my own Detective Heath because he’s thorough, caring, and hot! My protagonist Willa doesn’t always trust him to get the job done because he plays by the rules, but I’d feel safe knowing he’s got my back. And did I already mention he’s hot?
Eye candy is always a bonus! Korina, thank you so much for stopping by Noteworthy and sharing a bit about yourself with my readers. Cheddar Off Dead is available now wherever books are sold!
Cheddar Off Dead: Cheesemonger Willa Bauer is proving that sweet dreams are made of cheese. She’s opened her very own French-inspired cheese shop, Curds & Whey, in the heart of the Sonoma Valley. The small town of Yarrow Glen is Willa's fresh start, and she's determined to make it a success – starting with a visit from the local food critic. What Willa didn’t know is that this guy never gives a good review, and when he shows up nothing goes according to plan. She doesn’t think the night can get any worse... until she finds the critic’s dead body, stabbed with one of her shop’s cheese knives. Now a prime suspect, Willa has always believed life’s problems can be solved with cheese, but she’s never tried to apply it to murder…