My Writing Group - Guest Post!
- J.H. Jones
- Sep 18
- 4 min read
What a thrill to host Glenda Carroll's guest post! Glenda is the author of A Trisha Carson Mystery series, We connected through Sisters in Crime and a shared belief in the positive power of writing groups. As I came to know a little of Glenda's work--she writes a lot about sailing, surfing and swimming in her terrific books--I thought she practically walked on writing water! But in her post, Glenda describes a personal writing challenge she faced and how her group helped her. It's an inspiring story, and you'll get lots more inspiration from Glenda by following her author page on Facebook or her FB page that's just for fun. Or check her out on Bluesky, Goodreads, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
By the time I was working on the first, second third, fourth (you get the picture) draft of my most recent Trisha Carson mystery, Better Off Dead, I felt like I was sinking in quicksand. The pipeline to ideas shut down. Words dribbled out at a glacial speed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move forward. What did I do about it? I whined, almost every day, to my myself but especially to my writing group. I’m the current president of Northern California Sisters in Crime and most days at 1pm, you can find me Zoomed in to this supportive collection of mystery writers. They’d listen, laugh, encourage me and virtually held my hand. It made a huge difference.
I’m not sure when the switch flipped, but one day it did and the words turned into paragraphs, then chapters and finally the draft was ready for the editors. I would have finished eventually, but because of my 1pm Writers Group I’m sure I reached my goal much sooner. And who was there to celebrate with me at this milestone and when the book came out … my writing group.
Better Off Dead, (BOD) book four in the series, was published in March 2025, by Indies United Publishing. It’s available in paperback, ebook and audiobook. Our girl Trisha Carson is an amateur sleuth without any frills or ruffles; someone who screws up, loves her family and has a fierce sense of determination. She’s in her late 40’s, overweight when the series begins, about as athletic as a wet sponge, no fashion sense, no college diploma, and dealing with the effects of a husband who walked out the door and never returned. Readers have called her noisy, perceptive, brave, and pushy. She is, and she’s also vulnerable. The series is set in the beautiful San Francisco Bay area and has an undercurrent of open water swimming in each of the books.
By the time book four rolled around, Trisha mellowed and earned a reputation of solving crimes in the open water swimming community. In BOD, the son of a successful financier contacts her to find out what happened to his father, Andy Barlow. He had been training for a competitive open water swim in the cold San Francisco Bay. Unexpectedly, his support boat ran him over mid stroke, killing the swimmer instantaneously. Although the local sheriff’s office and the Coast Guard have closed the case, Harrison, Andy’s college-age son, refuses to believe their findings.
Trisha digs into the man’s history and finds fractured relationships in his family, his business and his marriage. There’s clearly more than one person who had reason to seek a deadly revenge, but would they go as far as murder?
Although authors in my writing group pen every kind of thriller imaginable (I’m the only one that focuses on swimming), we always start off each meeting with our writing news – good or bad. I’ve learned that this is the place to whine, celebrate and get the often-needed push to keep going. The group has supported me through the last two books and now they get to encourage me as I start Trisha Carson’s next adventure in book five.
If you want to find Glenda, she’ll be in, on, or under water—and writing about it.
She understands water sports on a very personal level since she swims, surfs and sails.
Glenda wrote a weekly sailing column for the Marin Independent Journal for 19 years. She also wrote for local, national and international sailing publications. She branched into travel writing and her features have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Travel & Leisure, Ford Times, Chevron USA, Defenders of Wildlife, and Bay & Delta Yachtsman.
The Trisha Carson series is set in the beautiful San Francisco Bay area. Her books have a swimming undercurrent, based on her own experience in open water swimming. She has raced in more than 150 open water events in Northern California, as well as Hawaii and Perth, Australia. She is listed in Openwaterpedia.com
Glenda has tutored first-generation high school and college students in English and History for more than seven years for Canal Alliance. She has an M.A. from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and a B.A. from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. She is the president of the Northern California Chapter of Sisters in Crime and is a member of Mystery Writers of America.
She lives in San Rafael, Ca with her dog McCovey.
Click on the image for her latest mystery, Better Off Dead:
What a nice tribute to our 1 p.m. group! Your post is a good reminder that we have the term "writer's block" for a reason, and fortunately, it usually passes.