Guest Post, Darlene Dziomba: New Career in My Fifties

Darlene Dziomba, author of the Lily Dreyfus Mystery series, enriches the workdays of coworkers at the University of Pennsylvania by finding humor in every situation. She is a dedicated volunteer at the Animal Welfare Association, walking dogs and cleaning kennels, and lives in New Jersey.

Learn more about her at https://readdarlene.com/

Set in a small town in New Jersey, Clues from the Canines combines witty dialogue with tension and intrigue. Lily, the Adoption Coordinator at the Forever Friends Animal Shelter, is stunned by the news that her physically fit, former Marine boyfriend is dead. When the police rule the death a homicide, Lily, spurred on by grief, resolves to sniff out the killer. She gathers her pack, both human and canine, to point police to the perpetrator. The canine pack competes for the alpha position, their owner’s attention, and extra treats, while the human pack doggedly seeks out justice.

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I have attended the mystery fan conference Bouchercon eleven times. The tenth one, held in Toronto, inspired me to write a mystery of my own. I listened to a panel of writers who each had a protagonist in a dog-related profession: dog groomer, dog walker, pet sitter. It occurred to me that I had never read a mystery where the protagonist worked in an animal shelter. I was volunteering at the Animal Welfare Association, walking dogs and cleaning. I wondered if I could write a book with a protagonist who works in an animal shelter. My journey to published author began. The expression, “You are never too old to learn,” has propelled me through my journey. I was fifty-one when I conceived the idea, and I will be fifty-five when I publish the book.

My career is in a field where no one logically expects a published author to emerge. I’ve spent thirty-two years working in various fiscal operations and financial planning positions at the University of Pennsylvania. I reached a point in this career where I had become stagnant. The work was not changing, and I was competing for new jobs with younger, vibrant, lower-paid individuals. Finance had passed on me, and I was ecstatic to have an idea to pursue.

I drew on my ability to analyze data and logically draw conclusions in developing my book. Writers fall into two categories: plotters or pantsers. I am a plotter. My initial mechanism was paper. I started simply with: What is the basic plot? Who is my protagonist? Who is my villain? My simple plotting burgeoned until the wall in my guest room was a wallpaper of loose-leaf sheets. I had a column for each day in the story. I connected theories with arrows. I noted things I needed to add on Post-its. This was not sustainable.

I took a course called “Plot Thickeners” with Simon Wood. This brilliant man plots his books in, drum roll please, spreadsheets. I don’t want to brag, but I was the star pupil. For me, a spreadsheet was about numbers, formulas, and macros. In my financial job, it is. In my writing, spreadsheets serve an entirely different purpose. There are formulas. For example, the percentage of scenes of each subplot to the main plot and the percentage of scenes in which the protagonist appears. The bulk of the matter, though, is verbal content. It is organized in neatly constructed blocks that can be edited and sized depending on the content. Now, I rely on my spreadsheets in writing as much as I depend on them for financial planning.

Writing a book was challenging. It took four years. I accepted a lot of criticism and did numerous revisions and rewrites, but I’ve done it. I have a complete book that I will self-publish on Amazon’s KDP platform in April 2022.