GETTING OVER WRITER'S BLOCK
I finally got over my writer's block concerning Annette
Vetter #4. Recently, a fan wrote to me, asking when I'd have
the next book out... that was enough of a push to get me going.
And it's amazing how the story has suddenly gushed forth. I was
stuck at a point where I just could not figure out what was going
to happen next.
The solution to my problem was to back up and go in a different
direction. It worked.
And I had to keep going because I kept putting my characters into
crisis situations that
they needed to get out of. Now I am down to the last two chapters
of the book and... as
in most of my works... the story is writing itself. I never really
know what the final
outcome is going to be, and in this case whether the "bad guys"
are that bad. Hmmm.
Working on this teen novel has reminded me how fortunate we are in
this decade to have
the technology they did not have in the Sixties. Annette and Tim
might not have suffered
from hypothermia had they been equipped with cell phones in 1968.
On the other hand,
it's refreshing to step back into that "era" and relive a time in
which life was at a
little slower pace.
"The Legend of the Lantern" takes place during Thanksgiving
weekend. Annette is enjoying
her turkey dinner over at the Duncans' farm when the call comes
from her boyfriend,
Pete, telling her his mom just left for the hospital to have her
ninth child. Annette
and Penny had offered to babysit the Randt children, so Tim drives
them over to Gaston
Road, where they put dinner on the table for the eight Randt
children and the hired
hand, Reid Anderson, who has caught Penny's eye.
What is supposed to be a few hours of babysitting turns into a
four-night babysitting
adventure for Annette and Penny. Mrs. Randt has complications from
the birth and needs
surgery. Mr. Randt stays with her at the hospital the first night.
And to complicate
things further, a huge snowstorm blankets the area. Grandma
Dawson, who is supposed to
come and stay with the kids, is snowbound.
Reid, the hired hand, entertains the kids with his guitar and his
ghost story about "The
Man with the Lantern." Then Annette and Penny learn that the attic
guest bedroom, where
they are going to sleep, is haunted! And then Annette sees a
spooky figure out the
window, walking with a lantern through the woods.
Hunting season has just begun in west-central Wisconsin, and
poachers have strung up a
doe on the Randts' property, which Annette and a couple of the
Randt children discover
the next day on a snow walk through the woods. But that is only
the beginning. The
mystery continues at home when Annette discovers her mother has a
secret admirer as
evidenced by a dozen red roses on the dining room table and a card
from "E."
Time travel with me back to the Sixties in the Annette Vetter
adventure series.
"The Mystery at Hickory Hill" is the first teen novel, set
in western Colorado during a
trip to the Mitchell ranch in the Cochetopa Hills. "The Secret
of the Green Paint" takes
place in early September as Annette and Penny begin their
sophomore year at Ravensville
High School in Jackson County, Wisconsin. In "The Pouting
Pumpkin Mystery" it is
Homecoming season and Pete Randt's cousin Luke is visiting and
intrigues the girls with
his ham radio hobby. Every novel involves a mystery to be solved
by these two farm
girls.
"The Legend of the Lantern" will be out sometime before
Summer 2011.
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Ann Ulrich Miller
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