News from the hobbit hole

 Thank you.

 

I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll just keep saying it.

 

Your response to “How to Live with a Ghost” has been beyond my wildest dreams. Thanks for taking the time to leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Thanks for posting “Ghost” on your social media and telling friends “You have to read this book!” Thank you for sending copies to unsuspecting friends from coast to coast. Thank you for sending me messages saying how much you enjoyed it. 

 

I especially love everyone who has said, “I was so sad when it was over.” Yay! Well, I’m not happy that you were sad, but I’m delighted you enjoyed being part of Jess McCallister and Dan Sinclair’s world so much you miss them now that you aren’t there. I spent so much time with them over the last few years, I miss them, too.

 

 

I also love that so many of your messages ended with “When is your next book coming out?” Okay, that makes me twitch a little (the final weeks of pre-publication on “Ghost” were not a kind and gentle experience), but I’m ready to do it again. Older, wiser and all that. 

 

An author friend warned me the ink would barely dry on the first book before dear readers started asking about the next one. I can think of worse problems to have.

 

But . . .

 

Publishing a book is the literary equivalent of hosting Thanksgiving dinner. You spend ages cleaning the house, planning the meal and shopping for groceries at four different stores. You get a flat tire in the process and have to call AAA, then you realize the spare is UNDER the dog crates and the only way to get it out is to take the crates out first. (I’ve done it. Zero stars. Do not recommend.)

 

Tire crisis solved, you manage to defrost the turkey without the cats gnawing on it (not my experience but a childhood memory I’ll never forget), and make accommodations for great-aunt Ethel’s gluten intolerance and nephew Johnny’s strawberry allergy. You nearly break your neck dusting the ceiling fan, then scrub the dog snot off all the windows, only to discover now they let in so much light you have to go back and deep clean everything over again. 

 

Then you roast, bake, boil, blend, peel, knead, beat, frost, baste and wash dishes for what feels like a lifetime and set the most beautiful table ever, complete with starched linens and sparkling stemware. You get up at zero-dark-thirty to put the bird in the oven and let the wine breathe. There’s a military grade spreadsheet on the refrigerator detailing oven temps, bake times and ins and outs in order to have everything come together at the appropriate time.

 

Then it takes your guests about twenty minutes to eat the meal.

 

All analogies between writing and food gluttony aside, I can tell you a few things with certainty.

 

There WILL be a next book.

 

It WON’T be a Fox Hollow mystery. (I’ll address that in a sec.)

 

It WILL be a cozy mystery involving a murder at a dog obedience trial—new setting, new characters, total immersion in the crazy that is the sub-culture of competition obedience trainers. There are no ghosts but there is a dead body in the Utility ring, and no one can figure out whodunnit. The trial chair stumbles onto the reason why the victim was killed, and although she doesn’t know whodunnit either, there’s a good chance she’s next on the killer’s list. On top of everything, a friend is pushing her to adopt a wild young Malinois from a local rescue, and she’s mentoring a Beginner Novice exhibitor who traded rodeos for dog shows but won’t give up his cowboy boots. While I can’t say with any certainty when it will be released, my goal is early autumn. 

 

 (Takes deep breath.) I’m excited to say I DO have a plot idea for a sequel to “Ghost.” However . . . I want to actually outline the thing this time before tackling the writing. Having said THAT, I am under no illusion I will actually follow said outline, but I wrote “Ghost” by the seat of my pants and it was a pretty reckless experience I’d prefer not to repeat. That blatant disregard to anything resembling good sense made things super awkward when it came to character and story development, which in turn was one of the reasons it needed about a dozen rewrites. I would like to avoid that again. Like, really, really like to avoid that again.

 

Oooh, is this a mysterious clue to what's next for the Fox Hollow crew?

 

So that’s a lot of grand plans for 2026. Plus the usual dog induced mayhem.

 

Infant canine mayhem. It's bigger now.
And so is the accompanying mayhem.

 I’ll spend the next couple of months complaining bitterly about winter here in the Midwest, but secretly loving the excuse to hide in my little hobbit hole, maintaining all my relationships with fictional characters.

 

As always, I invite you to follow me at my author’s page at https://www.facebook.com/melinda.wichmann.author for updates from my very small corner of the literary world.