Author Spotlight: Paula Charles

What inspired you to write your first cozy mystery?

My grandmother is the inspiration behind my first cozy, Hammers and Homicide. Not long before I really started thinking about writing a cozy, I had taken a class at our local genealogical society about writing family stories. I was still in that family story telling mode so when I was thinking about my amateur sleuth, my grandmother came to mind. She owned and operated the hardware store in the small town I grew up in and knew everybody in town. I thought she would’ve made a great sleuth, so from that my protagonist Dawna Carpenter was born.

How do you research and create the “cozy” elements in your books, like the settings and community?

With my Hometown Hardware series, I drew on what I know. I was raised in a small Northeastern Oregon town, so it became my fictional Pine Bluff. I fictionalized the town so I could have my way with it, moving things around and making the town what I needed for the stories. It’s a place I’m very familiar with.

For my Zen Goat Mysteries, the setting is rural New Hampshire. The rural part to me comes natural, since I grew up on a small farm and still have a goat in my own barnyard even now. For the New Hampshire part, I’ve visited the area twice, taken lots of pictures, smelled the air, listened to how people talk, and picked my husband’s brain, who grew up in New England.

What is one key step in your writing process that helps you transform an idea into a finished book?

I have a murder board! It hangs on the wall in my office across from my desk. I find pictures of people I think resemble my cast of characters, print them out and put them on the board. As I’m writing, I can look up and see them, study them when I need to. It really helps me to get in the right headspace to figure out the story.

What advice would you give aspiring cozy mystery authors who want to start writing their first novel?

Just sit down and do it. You can research yourself to death, and take a gazillion writing classes and webinars, (and there’s a lot of value in those!), but actually sitting down and writing is when the magic is going to happen. Continue to learn as you go, and try to ignore that voice in your head that tells you you aren’t good enough. You are.

How can readers connect with you online?

I’m active on both Facebook and Instagram as Rainy Day Mysteries, and have a website where they can learn more and sign up for my newsletter.

• Website: www.paulacharles.com

• Facebook: Rainy Day Mysteries

• Facebook Cozy Mystery Group: Murder, They Write

• Instagram: Rainy Day Mysteries