Have you gotten excited about the Brozy Mystery books and their authors? Well, here is another author who has taken the time away from writing to answer my questions and let us in on what goes on behind the pages. Enjoy!

Donna writes in several genre (police procedural, traditional cozy and whodunits) but says she’s found her comfort spot with Brozy Mysteries. You can find all of Donna’s links and social media here: https://campsite.bio/dbmcnicol
Donna has all her books on Amazon and most are in the Kindle Unlimited Program.

How do you develop your plot and characters?
I normally start with a location, a few characters, and a dead body or crime. I don’t do a lot of outlining, preferring to let the story grow as I write. Sometimes I don’t even know who the killer is until they reveal themselves to me.
As a detailed, analytical type, I always thought I’d be a heavy outliner. Now it turns out I love writing from the seat of my pants, letting the ideas flow and grow as I type. I also work on scenes when driving or riding my motorcycle.

What time of the day do you usually write?
The best time for me to write is between ten in the morning and four in the afternoon. I find I write best outside the home where there are too many distractions. I wrote the majority of my first two novels sitting in a local McDonalds. This was easy when we were full-time Rvers. Now that we live in a rural area, the closest McDs or coffee spot is thirty minutes away. So I struggle to keep my writing level up while at home.

How many plot ideas are just waiting to be written? Can you tell us about one?
I have half a dozen series in the planning stage. Some have been around for a while, some have come as a result of newly purchased pre-made cover sets. The most recent, and next to be written, is the Red Line Coffee Mystery series. I hope to have the first one out by January 2021. As a side note, my husband is retired from a thirty-one year career as a firefighter/paramedic/chief.
Red Line Coffee Shop is run by three firefighters and the logo I designed was inspired by the “thin red line” images in use today. The Thin Red Line of courage is a symbol used by fire departments to show respect for firefighters injured and killed in the line of duty. As a firefighters are periled, they place their lives second to those they protect. They are forced to face their own fears and grasp for every ounce of courage to perform the necessary task.
Garrett, aka Flipper, is the oldest owner of the shop. He’s in his mid 40s, divorced and loves scuba diving. He’s been with the department for twenty-five years, starting as a volunteer while still in high school. He is currently a driver engineer for the department.
Brett, aka Smokey, is the next oldest. He’s in his late 30s, never been married (and never plans to be), and spends his spare time racing cars. After spending four years in college and getting a liberal arts degree, he backpacked around Europe and South America for another four years before joining the fire department where he’s stayed for twelve years. Thanks to education and hard work, he’s moved through the ranks to the level of lieutenant.
The youngest is Stephanie, aka Stevie, aka Grizz. She’s in her mid 30s and is divorced from a local police officer. She’s been with the department for eight years after getting an associate degree at a small community college in her home town. After a couple of years of waitressing to survive, she moved in hopes of getting a better job. She met her husband and through his friends, tried out for the fire department. She is a firefighter/paramedic.
All three currently work at the same station and are good friends. They do have a little help in the shop from Joni, aka Gabby, who is a single, part-time college student. Oh, and the names written on the cups are the “victims” in each of the books. Weezy is a retired fire inspector who worked on arson cases with both Garrett and Brett in the past. Newsie is the local newspaper owner/editor who never pulls any punches, always telling it as it is (or as he perceives it to be). Leathers is a sometimes homeless regular to the shop. He has an interesting past and was befriended by the group.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was real young, I thought I’d be a nurse like my mother. By my teenage years, I wanted to be an actress or dancer. No money for college, I initially considered going into the Army and even took the assessment tests. But life intervenes and I ended up married with children and working a variety of minimum wage jobs before stumbling into an office position that started my eventual career. The bookkeeper took me under his wing after discovering my aptitude for accounting. A few years later, I was introduced to programming computers (not the PCs around today, but the mainframes that fill rooms). My career in IT was born and I rose from a data entry operator to VP of Client Services.
My fiction writing didn’t start until much later in life, after spending several years writing articles for various publications and online websites.

Tea or coffee
Oh, definitely coffee! Mostly dark roasts served black. From time to time I do add cream and sugar and I use them both in my iced coffee. But I’m not a foo-foo coffee drinker, well, except for my love of a good iced cappuccino!

Morning person or Night owl
Most of my life was spent with very little sleep. A morning shower was the only thing that woke me out of my stupor. Now that I’m retired, I’m loving the night owl life. I could easily stay up till the wee hours of the morning, then sleeping till noon. But I compromise and try to turn out the light between midnight and one, getting up by nine-ish.

Do you base your characters on real people?
“All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”
Um, yup. That’s right. Okay. You see… [pause] I admit to using people I know as the base for some characters. The good thing is they know it and like it. It turns out I’m a visual person and I need photos of my characters (and locations) to help me write.

I hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit about Donna; I did!

I am working on a few things for Halloween and Christmas, and there are a lot of writers out there that write their cozy mysteries with holiday themes. We will meet some of them and seeing what their new holiday books are. Can you believe I talking about the holidays?!?

Until next time, pick up a Brozy and see what it’s all about. And don’t forget you can buy my books directly and save! Sign up for my newsletter for more featured books and find out what’s going on in my writing life.

Victoria LK Williams