Welcome to BEYOND THE SHELF on
SHANNON MUIR’S THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!
BEYOND THE SHELF is general commentary about the blog or the mystery and crime writing business by author and site administrator Shannon Muir that doesn’t fall in the scope of a regular column. This week’s topic is looking back as we approach six months of 2019 and see where the blog has gone since the start of the year. At the end of 2018, I made a couple of promises about where SHANNON MUIR’S THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF would head for the next year. As we are coming up on the half year mark, I felt a “health check” to be appropriate on those plus a couple other topics.
ITEM #1: MYSTERY LEADS MONDAYS
Here is what I said at the end of 2018.
“Next year, there will be a few changes. MYSTERY LEADS moves to Mondays beginning in mid-March of 2019, becoming MYSTERY LEADS MONDAYS. The first week of the month will still cover the reading topic of the month, while other weeks will either be my own reflections on reading mystery and crime fiction (but not book reviews, the site is still not open to these, my commentary will more likely draw on classic mysteries) or guest authors discussing what books in the genre they read inspired them to get into the field and why.”
This feature sort of materialized, but it proved challenging to find guest authors to sign on to comment. The feature has become MYSTERY LEADS MID-MONTH MONDAYS, and is solely my own commentary on some inspiration taken from recently read classic detective fiction or related commentary. Once a month feels like a good pace for this feature.
ITEM #2: SHORTS FROM THE SHELF
The end of 2018 also brought this promise:
“Saturdays will now become SHORTS FROM THE SHELF days, with new serialized short fiction by site administrator Shannon Muir. Occasionally, there will be specials, such as the one starting tomorrow and going the next 15 days. It’s called “Beyond the Shining Stars,” and completes a short story begun years ago on Tumblr and promised a conclusion that never found the time to happen back then.”
As it is well known, I have struggled doing serial fiction on blogs for several years. I felt confident I’d find my rhythm this time, and for a while I did. Don’t rule out this feature returning, but it may be intermittent with this column BEYOND THE SHELF filling the spaces between.
An example is that I plan to have a “short-short” fill the next two weeks – June 1st and 8th, 2019 – and then then BEYOND THE SHELF will return to Saturdays until I am ready to release something else.
So… thanks for bearing with me as I find my stride.
ITEM #3: SHANNON MUIR’S MYSTERY OF CHARACTER ENDING FOR NOW…
While not expressly mentioned at the start of 2018, SHANNON MUIR’S MYSTERY OF CHARACTER has now run about eight months. This column will conclude tomorrow, May 26th, 2019, but may return in the future…
ITEM #4: … AND SHANNON MUIR’S PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF PRESENTS GET A MYSTERYCLUE DEBUTS JUNE 1, 2019!
Set up partially as a challenge to myself to learn more about mysteries, every Sunday I’ll set up a question I want to answer and then see what I can go find out about it. Odds are I’ll use classical mysteries as my springboard, but who knows where my adventures may take me!
Shannon
