When writers get stuck what do they do?

Every writer gets stuck 

Recently I was working on the ending for the second book in my Detective in a Coma series, Cannibal City. In the book, a killer is on the loose. He's kidnapping men, force-feeding them, then killing them and eating their livers.

It was all going well, then I got stuck, I mean really stuck. 

I needed there to be something that would lead my detectives to finding out something about the person they were chasing and it couldn't be something obvious. Nor could it be a lead that landed on their laps. One of the characters had to have I  for this lead. 

There's nothing I hate more than crime thrillers or mystery novels where the crime's solved by the detectives getting lucky. 

I tried everything I could to solve my problem. I took time away from the novel and wrote something else. I did other non-writing activities - household chores that I should have done a long time ago, I played baseball with my rescue dog Benjy and I played a crime game on my Nintendo DS (it was called Awake - you should check it out). 

When the link I needed came it was out of the blue. A coiled snake bracelet of the kind Cleopatra might have worn. 

I wracked my brains trying to figure out this where this bracelet idea came from. Had I seen it on a TV show or in a movie? Read about it in a book? Seen it in a painting? 

It came to me so fully formed it had to have come from somewhere. 

It wasn't until days later that I found it in one of my storage boxes. Here's the picture below as proof - 

Footnote - Vile City, the first book in the series featuring Inspector Duncan Waddell will be published by Caffeine Nights in 2017 under my full name Jennifer Lee Thomson. 

I'm working on the third book in the series, Vigilante City.

Vile City - Detective in a Coma Book 1 is on the way

I was delighted to be featured in the latest Writing Magazine where I spoke about the origins of Vile City and in particular Stevie Campbell, the character who just wouldn't stop talking to me.

If you're a writer I would recommend that you subscribe to this great magazine so you can hear about markets and opportunities.

Vile City will be published in 2017 and will appear under my full name Jennifer Lee Thomson.

Before my dad passed away after a long and courageous battle with cancer, he expressed some regret that I’d never used my middle name Lee in my writing as I’m named after his great-grandmother.

Here's the blurb -

DI Duncan Waddell has big problems. He’s borderline diabetic. The paperwork is piling up faster than the underwear at a porn shoot.

Now his best pal DC Stevie Campbell, who’s in a coma after being attacked by a suspect, has started to talk to him. Trouble is, only Waddell can hear him.

The last thing he needs is the country’s biggest case to land on his lap.

Three women have gone missing in the city he’s fast coming to despise, victims of the GLASGOW GRABBER, as their assailant has been dubbed by local hack and all round thorn in Waddell’s backside, Catriona Hastie.

Shelley Craig is his latest victim, snatched as she and her boyfriend took a shortcut through Glasgow city centre.

And she’ll do anything to make it home. 

Who kidnapped Shelley Craig? 

Vile City is also the story of Shelley Craig
and her battle to make it home after she's kidnapped.