Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Kit Karson: The words that I was saying to myself, whenever I doubted, I would say, “Why not me?” You go into these stores and you see all these New York Times bestsellers and you think, “Oh,” you know, “I can never do that.” And then I started saying, “Why not me?” Why not me? They all started somewhere. They all started with their first idea, first chapter, their first editor. They did it. I can too. 

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

Here now is your host, Steve Cuden. 

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Kit Carson, is the author of a series of books, the Anderson Chronicles, a Sheriff Elliot Mystery, which currently comprises five novels including Land Grab, Innocence Slain, Justice Rendered, Nefarious Intent and Savage Malice – all five take place in a small Montana town. Interestingly, as prolific as Kit is as an author, writing is not her principle occupation. Born and raised in the mountains of Western Montana, Kit spent her childhood traipsing around forests, streams, and meadows, either on foot or horseback, exploring, fishing and shooting.

After earning an undergraduate degree in medical technology and professional biology, she ultimately earned a Masters of Science from the University of North Dakota. Subsequently, Kit spent more than three decades under a microscope as a medical technologist and lab manager for various medical hospital and healthcare facilities.

She’s currently a laboratory director at Granite County Medical Center. I’ve read Nefarious Intent, the fourth book in the Anderson Chronicles mystery series, and can tell you it’s an engrossing page turning thriller that kept me wanting to know how the intricate puzzle would unravel. If you like mysteries set outside of urban landscapes, I highly recommend Kit’s books to you.

So for all those reasons and many more, it’s a truly great honor for me to welcome the outstanding mystery novelist Kit Carson to StoryBeat today. Kit, thanks so much for joining me. 

Kit Karson: Well, thanks for having me. 

Steve Cuden: It’s a great pleasure to have you. So let’s go back in time a little bit. At what age did you first start to recognize words and writing and books and that sort of thing?

How old were you? 

Kit Karson: I, you know, I can’t remember that far back. I, I’ve been an avid reader my entire life, so probably since I learned how to read. 

Steve Cuden: All the way back to the very beginning of time in your life. So, so, and then at what age did you start to write? 

Kit Karson: Well, you know, I, I wrote, I’m sure all through school and looking back, I remember people asking me to write things for them, but it didn’t dawn on me that someday I would be a writer or that was a thing for me.

Steve Cuden: So you weren’t thinking about writing as a kid? No, not at all. Except in, I assume school reports and that sort of thing. Right. But you weren’t, you weren’t concentrating on that as something you would be able to do with your life. And so what then influenced you ultimately to start writing and to write books, not something else, not poetry or screenplays or whatever.

Why books? 

Kit Karson: Well, I, I had this. Want I wanted to write. And, uh, actually a couple decades ago I started to write a psychological thriller, but it wasn’t, it just wasn’t a good time in my life. You know, I had a full-time job and three young children and, you know, not a lot of support. So I put that away. And then when I went to get my master’s degree, I had to write a lot of scientific papers, and I did really well on them.

And I love doing it. I love the research and the writing and the putting the words together, and I thought, I, I really love to write. 

Steve Cuden: Hmm. So at that point, and you were well into your, uh, working life at that point? 

Kit Karson: Oh, yes. Yes. You 

Steve Cuden: weren’t in school and you, you didn’t go to school to get training as a writer, did you?

Kit Karson: No. No. 

Steve Cuden: You’re self-taught? 

Kit Karson: I, well, yeah. I took one class, like. Writing 1 0 1 in college because you had to and I did really well in it. You know, got got an A plus. So 

Steve Cuden: And so that was at least enough of a trigger for you to say to yourself, it’s something I can do. 

Kit Karson: Oh, yes. Yes. 

Steve Cuden: Got it. So after all these years as a medical technologist, what led you to start writing mysteries in particular?

Kit Karson: Because I think because I am a. That’s my favorite genre. That’s what I read all the time, are mysteries. Mm-hmm. And so I, at first I thought I was going to read a cozy mystery. Because I’d been reading some series that, you know, you, you fall in love with these characters and, and I thought, this is what I wanna do.

I wanna write a series with these characters that people, after they read a book, they can’t wait for the next one to come out. 

Steve Cuden: A few weeks ago, uh, people will have heard, uh, uh, episode on this show in which we have a cozy mystery. Uh, that we talk about with two authors, Wanda Bruer and Martha Bolton. I don’t know if you’re familiar with their work.

Kit Karson: I’m not. No. But they 

Steve Cuden: write, they write Amish mysteries. 

Kit Karson: Oh, okay. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: So, and it’s, they’re called Cozy Amish Mysteries. Mm-hmm. So I find that interesting that you also are interested in cozy mysteries, or that’s something that. That comes to you? 

Kit Karson: Well, that, that’s what I thought I was going to write because my books are very, very clean.

You know, there’s not cussing or that obligatory sex scenes or anything like that. They’re very clean. So after I wrote the first one, I was struggling to figure out where to put it in. It didn’t fit as a cozy 

Steve Cuden: because it’s a little, a little bit harder edged. 

Kit Karson: It’s, yeah, it’s not a cozy, 

Steve Cuden: no. 

Kit Karson: So finally the um, woman who does my designing and formatting and everything, she told me that, she said, it’s not a cozy, it doesn’t fit there.

So, you know, I’m finding my way. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s, I think all of us in the arts are finding our way in some fashion. Um, do you think of yourself now after doing this for a while, how many years have you been writing books at this point? Two. Two, you’ve written five books in two years? Five, 

Kit Karson: yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. Wow, that’s impressive.

Actually, the 

Kit Karson: fifth one was, um, went into pre-release on the same day that the first one was published, so. Oh, 

Steve Cuden: that’s really impressive. That’s, and, and you’re still working full-time as a medical technologist, right? I am. Mm-hmm. That’s, uh, you must not get much sleep. 

Kit Karson: Uh, I get really frustrated now that I have to do all this.

Marketing and promoting and everything. It’s really hard to get the writing done, 

Steve Cuden: so, so if the listeners should understand what’s going on here, um, kit publishes your own books. You’re self published, correct? Correct. 

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: And so you do a lot of the legwork by yourself. You don’t have anyone really helping you, I assume you have an editor.

Yes. Mm-hmm. 

Kit Karson: Yes, correct. Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: And, and do you have someone helping you design the covers? 

Kit Karson: Um, yeah. She also designs the inside. She does all the formatting for me and she uploads it onto the sites for me, so. 

Steve Cuden: Got 

Kit Karson: it. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: That’s one big burden off your shoulder. Oh, 

Kit Karson: huge, huge burden. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah, yeah, yeah, indeed.

But here’s the trick. Even if you were publishing through a major publisher 

Kit Karson: mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: You’d still be promoting yourself. 

Kit Karson: That’s what I hear. So this way I do it myself and they don’t get a cut. 

Steve Cuden: That’s correct. They don’t get a cut. Mm-hmm. Which I think is a, is an excellent way to go. And by the way, your covers look fantastic.

You know, when you look, look at ’em on Amazon or wherever they’re available, they look terrific. They look like, you know, it’s a big publishing house is doing it. 

Kit Karson: Oh, thank you. Well done on that. I, I’ll pass that on. 

Steve Cuden: Indeed. So what did you do to learn to write books then, if you are untrained and you, did you read books on how to write books or did Uh, 

Kit Karson: no.

Um, I, you know, I have written a few like newspaper articles and, and like I said before, writing the scientific. Papers just you learn to organize your thoughts. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. I would think you’d be really good at organizing your thoughts. You’d have to be. 

Kit Karson: I am. Yeah. So I think that helped a lot. And I, yeah, just little things like that.

My. I would write short stories. 

Steve Cuden: Do you think being a medical technologist then has been a major influence on the way that you create the books? 

Kit Karson: I think being organized and, and being able to multitask. And I’ve always worked in small rural labs where I was there by myself doing everything. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Do you think of yourself now you’ve been doing it for two years, which is, I’m, I’m surprised it’s that fast. That’s really impressive. Um, do you think of yourself now? As more of a writer, or do you still think of yourself primarily as a medical technologist? 

Kit Karson: Uh, uh, both because I, I have a job where I work week on, week off.

In fact, I just got home this morning from my, I call it my job that pays the bills. And then, so my week off is not really a week off. It’s where I, I deal with writing and marketing and 

Steve Cuden: Welcome to the arts. 

Kit Karson: Exactly. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Do you, do you enjoy the writing more than the lab work, or do you enjoy the lab work more than the writing?

Kit Karson: You know, I, I like them both. I think after all these decades of doing the lab work, if I could just write, I would. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. You 

Kit Karson: know, if I could leave that job. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to figure out how to sell enough books that it becomes your full-time occupation. 

Kit Karson: Yeah, that would be great.

But I know many writers have a, have a job that pays the. So 

Steve Cuden: that is correct. Many writers, uh, especially of books, uh, can’t pay their bills off the books. It’s, in fact the majority. It’s that way. It’s a shame, but that’s sort of the way the business is set up. Mm-hmm. I am curious, in the lab reports that you filed, do you ever think of yourself as a storyteller in the lab?

No. 

Kit Karson: No. So the lab things have to be exact. You know, we, we don’t make stuff up, so, so, no, it’s, it’s a completely different thing, you know? Mm-hmm. It’s very scientific. 

Steve Cuden: Would you say that you’re, throughout your life, you’ve been a people watcher? Uh, 

Kit Karson: you know, I’m not so much a people watcher as a people analyzer.

Steve Cuden: Ooh, how does that work? 

Kit Karson: I overanalyze everything, so yes, every little thing, like say people that I work with or friends or go to church with, or just people that I come in contact with my life and things that they do, the way they react to things. I analyze like what made them, what made them act like that?

Mm-hmm. You know what, what made them say something like that or do something like that. And so I think that really helps my writing because all of my characters, I take each character separately and I analyze who they are. Why they do things, what, how they would act in any situation. 

Steve Cuden: Do, do you, do you call it character studies when you’re doing that?

What do you call it? 

Kit Karson: Well, I never have. I just call it, you know. Overanalyzing people. 

Steve Cuden: Overanalyzing people. Yeah. And so you’re, you’re basing, I’m gonna guess most of your characters on people you’ve met or a combination of people you’ve met. Is, is that accurate? 

Kit Karson: Um, not, not purposely always, but yeah, I sometimes, if I’m having trouble getting someone in my head, I try to think.

Who do I know who’s somewhat like that character or who I want that character to be? Mm-hmm. And then that, that helps me in the writing. It’s like, oh, okay, that’s who that is. 

Steve Cuden: And do you think of your characters in three dimensions? Yes, I do. Yeah. And, and that’s why they come off so wonderfully. Not they don’t, they’re not cardboard or stiff.

They’re like real people. 

Kit Karson: No. And when I’m writing a character, I am, I am in that character. 

Steve Cuden: You actually project yourself into that character. 

Kit Karson: Correct? Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Are you seeing scenes unfold in your head as you’re writing? 

Kit Karson: Oh, all the time. Uh, actually one of my, I, I write a lot in my head. Mm-hmm. And sometimes I’m, I’m reading through stuff that I’ve written and realize, oh wait a minute.

I didn’t write that scene down in my head. I wrote it, but I forgot to write it on paper. Wow. So that does happen. 

Steve Cuden: So you’ve used your imagination and everything has played out for you, but you’ve yet to do the. Go through the act of putting it on paper, 

Kit Karson: correct? Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Or, or on a screen. Are you writing on a screen or are you writing longhand?

Kit Karson: Um, I write on a screen. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah, on a screen. Mm-hmm. So, so that’s the always what they call the tyranny of the page, or the tyranny of the screen, whatever you wanna call it, that you have this blank thing that you have to fill in. Mm-hmm. But it sounds to me like once you have your imagination going, it’s really a matter of reporting from your head onto the, onto the screen.

Kit Karson: Correct? Yeah. And then it’s like. Yeah, I, I imagined that and then got distracted. Maybe had to go to work for a week, forgot to write it down. 

Steve Cuden: Do, is your memory good enough that you can recall them, or, or do you forget things? 

Kit Karson: Um, yeah, I usually can remember the basics. Sometimes if it’s, uh, sometimes I write them down on my, my notebook so I don’t forget, you know, things that I think, oh, I’ll never forget that, that little detail.

’cause it’s kind of complex. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: I’m always curious when authors, um, record things for memory. You use a notebook, not a, you don’t use your cell phone. You don’t use a recorder. It’s on paper. 

Kit Karson: It’s on paper. 

Steve Cuden: It’s on paper. 

Kit Karson: I have a little, a little notebook for each book. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Got it. Well hang on to those because they may be become extremely valuable someday.

You never know. Oops. So let’s talk about nefarious intent, which is the only one of the five that I’ve read. Mm-hmm. Um, and I was delighted to read it. So tell us a little bit more about the Anderson Chronicle series in general. Take us through, you know, brief overview of the five books and how did your first one, like how did that come about?

Land grab? 

Kit Karson: Well, they’re all based in, um, small town Western Montana. And it’s actually based on a real town. I call it something different. But it’s based on a real, an old mining town that that is now, as I described in the book, it’s more of a tourist town and that’s how they save the town is becoming a tourist town.

So anyway, it’s just all these, the sheriff, the sheriff and his deputies. And the, all the quirky townspeople and a murder happens, and they have to figure out what happened. And lots of times the townspeople are involved in the, the solving of the murder. So that’s kind of cool, I think. 

Steve Cuden: And all of your books are, are involving some kind of a murder, 

Kit Karson: correct?

Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Are you thinking about doing things other than murders like, uh, extortion or fraud or something like that? 

Kit Karson: Well, I think those things will come into it, but usually a murder happens, so I, I try to mix things up. Mix up. Mm-hmm. The who’s murdered, you know, male, female, good guy, bad guy. The reasons I’ll go like the seven deadly sins.

And I’ll think, okay, I haven’t done that one yet. How about envy? You know, how about greed? How about lust or, uh, uh, gluttony or, yeah, so, so I really try to mix it up. So every book is different. And I also try to pick things that are important to, to, like ranchers and people in these small towns. Mm-hmm.

Like book five, Savage Malice is about cattle mutilation. 

Steve Cuden: Mm. Wow. 

Kit Karson: Which is a, yeah, a big deal actually. 

Steve Cuden: I imagine. It’s a huge deal. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. Um, cows are expensive, so every cattle that is mutilated, especially if the bull, that’s a huge monetary loss. 

Steve Cuden: So forgive my, my city dwellers mentality. When I hear cattle mutilation, my brain immediately goes to UFOs.

Mm-hmm. Which is how people think of, at least in the city, they think of cattle mutilation as UFOs. Mm-hmm. But there’s a lot of actual people. Mutilating cattle aren’t there. 

Kit Karson: There’s five different reasons that theories about these cows that have been mutilated and supposedly it’s never been solved. Um, one is UFOs, one is like satanic cults, they think they’re drinking the blood.

Um, one is people doing it like other ranchers, neighbors who are competitors predators, like say wolves, coyotes. What is the fifth one? I can’t remember at the moment. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that, that’s four more than I knew. So 

Kit Karson: government, um, conspiracies, like the government’s coming in and killing the cows to suck the blood or something, you know.

Wow, 

Steve Cuden: okay. More conspiracies than we can handle, that’s for sure. 

Kit Karson: And I covered all of ’em in that book. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, you did? 

Kit Karson: I did. Yeah. In, 

Steve Cuden: in Land Grab? 

Kit Karson: No, actually in Savage Malice. The, 

Steve Cuden: oh, in Savage Malice. Got it. Yeah. In your fifth, in your fifth book. Okay. So what then inspires you to go to a specific story? What, what are you looking for when you’re trying to dream up a new story?

To tell? 

Kit Karson: Uh, well, people give me ideas, you know, or, or I’ll, they’ll be talking about a certain thing. And so Land Grab was about these Russian Mafia, and I’ve had a few people say, oh, that’s not. That’s not realistic. It is. There are Russian mafia people around here. 

Steve Cuden: In In Montana? 

Kit Karson: In Montana, yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Wow, okay.

Kit Karson: Yeah, and they are trying to, and so someone I know told was telling me about this, so I thought, oh, good story. Anyway, they’re trying to get ahold of this land that they want to develop into a, a. High-end resort and the land is not available. It’s locked up in a family trust, and so they think they can bully and murder people into getting that land.

And, you know, you’ll have to read it to find out what happens. 

Steve Cuden: A, a good tease. I like that a lot. Mm-hmm. Um, so your, your stories have been referred to as mountain mysteries. Which is accurate, I believe. Mm-hmm. And everything takes place in this small town in western Montana. Um, and you’ve been a Montanan, your family’s been there for a long time, I assume.

Kit Karson: Yeah. Five generations. 

Steve Cuden: Five. Is that all five generations? 

Kit Karson: Yeah, I’m number five. So there’s, you know, six and seven out there too. 

Steve Cuden: So what is it about the state of Montana that makes it so compelling for you to tell stories about? 

Kit Karson: Well, I think Montana has an aura of, of mystery. Intrigue and it’s a beautiful, beautiful area on top of that, 

Steve Cuden: that’s for sure.

Kit Karson: Yeah. And it, it’s covered with gollies and old Mineshafts. There’s a lot of places to hide a body in Montana. Yeah. Not that I’ve ever done that. 

Steve Cuden: No, I hope you haven’t, but, but that’s very, it’s very con convenient for a, a mystery writer who writes about murders. 

Kit Karson: Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. Book two Innocence Lane.

Kind of dwells on that. I, I probably shouldn’t say any more than that, but about places to hide bodies, 

Steve Cuden: places to hide bodies. 

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: That, that pulls you right in. You’ve gotta know where the bodies are gonna be buried. Uh, and mm-hmm. And so you obviously live in that part of the world. So this is, I do familiar territory with you.

You still, I assume, have to do research for your books, but probably less of it than if you didn’t live there. 

Kit Karson: You know, I, I don’t have to do so much research on the, the area, but I do a lot of research on, um, the subject like justice rendered was, there was a lot of antiques and stuff. I knew nothing about antiques.

Mm-hmm. So I had, I had to know what I was talking about when I, you know. Discussing the antiques. Um, probably savage malice, the one about cattle mutilation. I had to do a ton of research on that, all the different theories. And actually, um, some rancher families in this area found out that I was writing about that subject.

And one morning they called me up and said, Hey, we had three last night. Do you wanna see ’em? Oh, wow. And so I met them at their. Their pasture and I saw three middle related cows in, in person 

Steve Cuden: and unsolved. Nobody knows how or why unsolved. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. They had no idea who did it. 

Steve Cuden: How often does this happen? 

Kit Karson: You know, as in my research, it was really heavy in like the eight, late sixties.

A lot of it was going on. I don’t think it happens as often now. So those ranchers, they said they’d had 18 in. Like 10 years. Yeah. And then, um, my, the family ranch, my original family ranch is still run by my cousins and they had one this last spring and the cow was already gone, but they took me down and showed me where it happened.

So I used that site, uh, when I’m describing the area where it happened. In that book. 

Steve Cuden: All right. So clearly your stories, as I said in the, in the opening, your stories take place, not in an urban setting. Oh, they’re, they’re out in the, the exterior, in the wide open plains and in the mountains. Mm-hmm. And so those are obvious differences.

What do you think the big differences are other than that, in the way that you tell stories in a small town versus a lot of the classic mysteries that take place in, you know, concrete jungles? 

Kit Karson: Well, I think, and, and I’m getting this from law enforcement too, like the local sheriffs and uh, I, I did discuss it with a, a guy who is retired now and lives in this area, but he was a, um, like a police chief in somewhere around Denver, I think it was.

And, and he said, you know, the way we solve crimes and things is completely different than in small towns. How so? Well, like one story, and I got this straight from the sheriff in the little town where my books take place, a cell phone was stolen from the local bar, and you, there’s like, you know, a thousand people in this whole town area.

You know, it’s, it’s very small. So a cell phone was stolen. The sheriff pinged the phone and they knew exactly where it was. They knew the person who had stolen it, you know, he was on their radar. So they go to his house and say, Hey, we know you stole this phone. Give it back. No questions asked. And so, of course, the guy initially, oh no, I didn’t.

I didn’t. And the sheriff said, no, we pinged it to your house. We knew, we know you did it. And so eventually he gave the phone back, no questions asked. No charges. So I, I don’t think things like that would happen in a big city. 

Steve Cuden: I, I agree. I don’t think they would happen in a big city way. You know, it’s, it’s like, you know, 

Kit Karson: they know the perps and they know the, the victims 

Steve Cuden: and it’s, it’s impossible to hide in a small town, isn’t it?

Kit Karson: Oh, it’s, um, so we think we know everything about everybody else. You know, you just, you can’t go to the grocery store without people knowing that you went to the grocery store. Mm-hmm. But there, everybody has secrets. That maybe you don’t know about. Like I knew this woman once who was an alcoholic, but nobody knew, even her best friends, and she used to go down in her basement to drink until one time she went down there and I can’t remember, she started a fire or something and they got her out.

But that it’s like everybody found out that she had been going down to her basement to drink. That she was an alcoholic. So people do have secrets, even though you think you know everything about everybody. There, there are secrets. There’s um, like say the pillar of the community who goes home every night and beats up his wife, you know, maybe nobody knows that.

Steve Cuden: I think that there’s something to be said in any book script, whatever, in relationships. Even people that are intimate with one another, they’re married, they’ve been living together for years. Even they have secrets from one another. 

Kit Karson: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: So it’s impossible to get inside of someone’s brain, at least at this point in our lives.

Uh, there may come a day when, uh, technology steps up and is able to go right inside your head and get into your thoughts, but that’s not there so far. I hope not too. But it’s kind of scary ’cause you’re starting to see some of people mm-hmm. Some of that happening in, in the world of technology where they’re trying to, um, invade our thoughts, uh, which I think is not a good thing.

But in a small town, there’s more intensity toward knowing what others do. I would assume there’s also more interest in what your neighbors are doing than Oh, yeah. In a, a larger city. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. Who needs to watch soap operas? You know, when you, uh, live in a small town, you’re, you’re surrounded by it. 

Steve Cuden: How many are in the town you live in?

Is it a thousand or is it more 

Kit Karson: Oh, the town. I, I don’t, I don’t live where I work. Actually. The town I live in is less than 300. 

Steve Cuden: Less than 300. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: You really know each other’s business then, don’t you? 

Kit Karson: Oh, yeah. Yep. And I don’t even live in town. I live up on the mountain. So, but 

Steve Cuden: they all know where you live and they all know they do.

Mm-hmm. What, what you do when you come into town, where you go and all those things. 

Kit Karson: Right? Uh oh yeah. Definitely. You know, the post office is, is like, uh, the community meeting place. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. So, alright. Describe for us, describe what the challenges are for you to come up with a story and a plot. What, what are those challenges for you?

Like. 

Kit Karson: You know, I, I haven’t so far had a lot of trouble with that. 

Steve Cuden: You’re lucky. 

Kit Karson: Usually, I, I, before I even finish one book, I already know what I’m gonna write the next book about. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. 

Kit Karson: And so then it’s like, oh, I just, I wanna get done with this book so I can get started on the next one. 

Steve Cuden: That, that’s exciting.

Kit Karson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: So you don’t have any kind of, uh, writer’s block ever. You just keep plowing ahead. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. I, I think the main, uh, maybe writer’s block I have is sometimes once in a while I have a character that I, you know, gosh, what are they gonna look like, you know? Um, the hardest character I did was Sheriff Elliot, the main character.

Steve Cuden: Well, tell us about him. What, why was that the most challenging for you, and what did you do to come up with him? 

Kit Karson: Well, I, you know, maybe it was because he was the main character and I wanted to get him, right? Mm-hmm. And so I just, I went through a gamut of, first he was blonde and then he was dark head, and yeah, I finally, it finally just fell together, and it wasn’t really even his personality.

I, that’s what gets me is trying to, what do people look like? Not always, you know, most of them just fall into place, but once in a while. 

Steve Cuden: Is he clearly in your head at this point? Do you know exactly what he looks like? 

Kit Karson: Oh yeah. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: You at this point, you know him as well as probably, you know, yourself, where you can just, he, you know what he’s gonna do when he gets out bed in the morning, you know, what he’s gonna do when he gets in his car, et cetera, et cetera.

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. And, you know, it’s a lot of fun when I read comments and reviews from readers and how they see the characters 

Steve Cuden: because it’s totally different than the way you do. 

Kit Karson: Um, not, not really, but once in a while they see even more than I would expected them to see. You know what I mean? Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: This is, I do know what you mean.

This is one of the fascinating things about being a writer and then having readers. Mm-hmm. And that is that you have it in your head how a story unfolds, how the characters look and act. Mm-hmm. And how things smell and sound and so on. Mm-hmm. And you write that down to the best of your ability, and then someone else reads it and they have to interpret it through their head and it can come out quite different.

Kit Karson: Uh, e Exactly. And so sometimes they might. Make a comment about how they see this character and they might not have it exactly how I see it, but you know, that’s, no, that’s okay. 

Steve Cuden: Well, as they say, the greatest time machine that’s ever been invented is a book because someone can write a book 3000 years ago and we can read it today and know what this person was thinking.

Kit Karson: Or think we do? 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. Well, well, exactly. We think we do, but we’re at least getting some sense of what they were thinking. Mm-hmm. We’re getting words of some kind, um, assuming they’re not translated poorly or something like that. Um, so what kind of a crime solver is he? How does he do his job? 

Kit Karson: You know, he’s bright, but he.

It. It starts out the series. It’s a small town and he doesn’t have a lot of experience in solving murder. So there’s a lot of self-doubt questioning, gosh, can I really do this? And they always do. But throughout the books, he has such wonderful deputies and the downs people. He’s, he’s really good with people.

He’s kind, insightful, so he’s the kind of sheriff that shows up at your house and you invite him in for a cup of tea and a cinnamon roll because he makes people feel comfortable. Even if they are guilty, he, he, 

Steve Cuden: he’s the law, but he’s not, um, a mean-spirited law. No, no, no. 

Kit Karson: Very kind spirit. Very gentle. He’s the kind that lets someone off sometimes, you know?

Mm-hmm. Oh, it’s like, gee, do I really need to take this person in? Like, like that story I told you about this cell phone. They, they should have, I guess in, in law enforcement world, should have taken that guy in and charged him. But the sheriff said, no, just, just give it back. 

Steve Cuden: So they’re making a judgment based on, I guess the, the crime itself and how.

How bad it is. Mm-hmm. I think if this person had committed a murder, the, they would bring him in, but this theft of a, of a cell phone, it’s like, okay, no harm, no foul, except you’ve done something wrong. Yeah. 

Kit Karson: He’s kind of a near to, well that was always in minor trouble for something and yeah, he was probably down in the bar and saw this phone sitting on the counter or the bar and didn’t know whose it was.

Who knows? Who knows? I don’t know, but. He just opportunity, you know, crime of opportunity and they were willing to look the other way. And maybe that’s easier for them. They don’t have to do the paperwork, 

Steve Cuden: like, sure. Exactly. So yeah, I, I find it kind of interesting that you chose to write about a sheriff and not a medical technologist who solves crimes.

Kit Karson: Well, I just. I thought, gosh, do I have enough there to be interesting to people? And people have told me, oh yeah, there is. I have coworkers that say, oh, the next book you need to write it in the, in the hospital. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I, I’m gonna assume you’ve come across in your career some pretty strange things that you had to figure out.

Kit Karson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: And there’s your story. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. Lab techs are kind of the, um, nobody knows really what we do. Um, we’re kind of the un we’re the unappreciated in, in the back room kind of people. But, but we do, we solve the mysteries. 

Steve Cuden: Indeed. And you know, you, you’ve already said that you write repeatedly about one murder after another.

Mm-hmm. And that, that’s a sort of a running theme in the books themselves, but you also have the theme, I think, of abuse in your books. Yeah. Where did that come from? Why did you set on that? 

Kit Karson: You know, I think it just comes naturally because as human beings, we, we are so, we treat each other so badly.

There’s so much abuse in the world. And, you know, I guess it just, it just breaks my heart when I see it. I see a lot of it in the hospital, uh, the way people treat each other, husbands and wives and children to their parents and parents, children, grandparents. I mean, it’s just, there’s so much abuse in the world.

So I, I think that’s it. I’ve seen a lot of it. 

Steve Cuden: Alright, so now you have now written five books. Are you, you have more planned, I assume. 

Kit Karson: I started book six. 

Steve Cuden: You started book six? 

Kit Karson: Yeah. And 

Steve Cuden: when you wrote Land Grab, did you know it was gonna be a series at that point? 

Kit Karson: Yes, that was my plan. Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: That was the plan was to write multiple stories with these characters and 

Kit Karson: I’ll just keep writing till I run out of ideas.

Or maybe, I think people are bored of the characters or something. 

Steve Cuden: I think if you just keep doing the way, the way you’re doing it, I don’t think you’re gonna run out of any of it. So, uh, good on you. Um, I Do you think that your work as a microbiologist and a and a medical technologist leaks into the actual storytelling in some way?

Not just the research, not the meticulous that we talked about, but into the storytelling itself? 

Kit Karson: Gosh, I, um. I don’t know that it does. Uh, my husband’s a provider at the hospital and so all the medical stuff, I get straight from him, so I know it’s legit. Um, so between the two of us, we know so much about pathology, so there you go.

I, I know all the, the pathology stuff. Mm-hmm. That, yeah, that does come in. 

Steve Cuden: That’s what I was thinking because you’re solving crimes that require some kind of, I don’t know, some kind of detail in terms of the medical stuff. 

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. And 

Steve Cuden: you would know that quite well. 

Kit Karson: Yes. Uhhuh. Well, 

Steve Cuden: I think that’s very helpful.

Alright, so let’s start. Let’s talk about your actual process. Where do you begin most books with plot or character? 

Kit Karson: I am a, A Pants. I do not plot anything out. I just make it up as I go. 

Steve Cuden: That’s, that’s wild. You don’t outline. 

Kit Karson: Nope. Not at all. Wow. To me, someone says outline and I’m just like, oh, please just shoot me.

I don’t wanna do that. 

Steve Cuden: I, I think many writers think, please just shoot me, but they feel like they have to go through it. I’m, as a writer myself, I have to have an outline. I can’t do it without it. I can’t do what you’re talking about doing. Which I, I find fascinating. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. I just get the general idea of what the theme is gonna be about, and then I.

I start writing 

Steve Cuden: and you don’t even know what the characters are gonna be or where the, where it’s going at all. 

Kit Karson: No, of course I know the, um, the main characters now really well. But no, I just make the characters up as I go along. And, and you don’t know how it’s gonna end? No. Um, you know, I made the mistake.

I, it was in book three Justice rendered. I had decided in my mind who the murderer was gonna be towards the beginning, you know, and so I wrote the book, but the problem was since I knew who the murderer was gonna be. I gave it away. So I, I had to rearrange, you know, the chapters and stuff that, so my readers couldn’t guess it.

And after that I thought, you know what? I can’t know who the murderer is gonna be, or I’ll give it away. 

Steve Cuden: That’s fascinating. Yeah. Well, you know, there’s, there’s one extremely famous television series called Colombo, in which the audience knows at the beginning who the murderer is or the, or the bad guy.

Yeah. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. To me that’s kind of boring. It’s like, you know, who did it? Where’s the puzzle? 

Steve Cuden: Well, well, the, it isn’t so much a puzzle as the, the joy of watching someone like a Peter Falk as Colombo. Figure out how this came together. 

Kit Karson: Yeah, 

Steve Cuden: yeah. It’s unusual. That’s not the normal way we do it. The way you do it is more typical in sense of we don’t know who the murderer is.

Kit Karson: Yeah. Well, it people like to put together the clues and, you know, 

Steve Cuden: and so as you’re going, you’re, you’re discovering characters just literally as you’re writing. 

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and I’ll lay out several different possibilities. I’ll have several in my head, but I don’t decide till the end who actually did it and, and how they did it.

Steve Cuden: All right, so you’ve written five books in two years, or, or more, I guess, or something like that, right? Yeah. Uh, how fast is it? Are you working? How long does it take you to finish a book? 

Kit Karson: Well, the first four were really fast. They, I did those in a year. The la, the last book, um, it took me a full year from when I published number four to get that one published.

And I think it was just because, well, there was so much research with that one. With the cattle mutilations and I wanted to get it right, but also now I’m so deep into marketing and well work’s kind of been kicking my butt too. We’ve been really busy, so that one took a whole year. I, I really don’t want book six to take a full year.

I’d like to get it out, you know, like early spring or. By Christmas time, 

Steve Cuden: I don’t know anyone that has a better excuse than you. I mean, my goodness, it’s you’re working full-time to do jobs. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: That’s crazy. How, how, uh, much rewriting do you do? 

Kit Karson: Not a ton. I’m, I’m kind of a perfectionist, so I. I, I fix it as I go, really?

And yeah, so, so when I write, it’s probably for some people, maybe the third round, you know, it, I, I try to get it right as I go, and so I do have to go back in. 

Steve Cuden: So, so how does it work then? Do you write, how many pages a day do you write when you’re writing? 

Kit Karson: Um, a good day is about. You know, 1500 words when I actually 1500 words get sat down and, and have a good interrupted day of writing.

Steve Cuden: That’s probably six to eight pages. Something like that. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. I don’t know how many pages or words or, or you know, 1500 words. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Got it. So when you have finished those 1500 words. Yeah. Do you go back and look at them again the, the next day, or are they so meticulously written as you’ve written them?

You don’t even look back? 

Kit Karson: No, I, um, I read them out loud to my husband and so that’s how we find a lot of mistakes. 

Steve Cuden: So that’s, is he your, he’s your main beta tester then? 

Kit Karson: He is. Yeah, he is. And then when the book’s all done, we’ll read the whole thing. We just sit down like one day and read the whole thing and that’s where we pick up like timing issues or you know, things like, oh, that, that doesn’t quite work.

Steve Cuden: So you can’t 100% tell as you’re writing that it all works. You need to go back and at least go through it once at the end of the day. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. Yeah. I read as I go along and you know, then I’ll read. Sometimes I, you know, if he’s not around, I. I might read him a couple chapters at a time, but mm-hmm. Yeah. And then of course when I send it to my editor, she’ll come back with things, you know, like, uh, gosh, lots of times she’ll say, oh, you know, I’d really like to see another scene with this person in there.

And so I’ll, I’ll write another. Another scene, another chapter, or being away from it. She picks up things that we don’t, you know, we’re a little too close to it sometimes. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s the old you’re, you’re too close to the forest for the trees, right? Yeah. 

Kit Karson: Yep. And she lives in a city, a big city. She’s a city girl.

So she, to me, sees another perspective that we don’t. I, I just think that makes it a better book. Having her edited with her city personality and perception. 

Steve Cuden: And, and how frequently does she point stuff out that you just didn’t even consider at all? You just didn’t, it went right by you. 

Kit Karson: Um. Usually every book there’s things, yeah.

You know, once in a while, like she’s the one that pointed out in book number three that she said, oh, I knew who did it right away. We’ve gotta fix this. And so it wasn’t so much rewriting the whole story, but rearranging chapters. I, I knew instinctively that the timing was off, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

And she did. She said, this is what you need to do. 

Steve Cuden: And ha have you ever gotten notes from her or anyone else that threw you for a loop? 

Kit Karson: Hmm. 

Steve Cuden: Or did you always know how to solve it? 

Kit Karson: I, no, I, yeah, that was, that was the only one that, like I said, I kind of knew the timing was off, but I didn’t know what to do.

And, you know, she’s the expert. She, she told me what to do and I redid it and sent it back to her. So, um, every once in a while she’ll say, oh, you know what? That comment or that. How that character behaved or acted, doesn’t go with their personality. 

Steve Cuden: That’s interesting. So they’re picking up on something that you’ve written that just didn’t fit what their perception of what you wrote is.

Kit Karson: Yeah. She’ll say, oh, that’s, that’s not the way. Um, that character would say something and I go back and it’s like, you know, you’re right. That was a little harsh. 

Steve Cuden: So I, I, I’m fascinated by the fact that you don’t know where you’re going as you’re going in a mystery novel of all kinds of things, because usually a mystery novel, you’ve gotta kind of know where you’re going to, but you don’t do it that way, which I think is fantastic and very interesting.

I, I’m gonna ask you a question that I ask lots of artists, not just writers. Mm-hmm. And I’m always interested in the answer. What, for you then, as you’re conceiving these books, what for you makes a good story? Good. 

Kit Karson: Well in the mystery stories, number one is you can’t give away the ending. The ending has to be a surprise, and if, if the ending is given away, then I’ve blown it.

That’s, that’s number one right there. 

Steve Cuden: I think that’s true. You will have blown it if you’ve given it away. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: There’s nothing worse than as an audience member to know who did it. 

Kit Karson: Oh, it’s boring. I, I’ve read books like that that I just stop reading. It’s like I might go to the very end and read and, you know, like, oh, okay.

Yep. That’s how it ended. I don’t finish the book. 

Steve Cuden: I have to imagine you don’t feel a lot of pressure, or maybe you do. Do you feel pressure as you’re writing? Like you’ve, you’ve gotta finish by a certain time. 

Kit Karson: Um, yeah, I kind of do. I, I put a lot of that pressure on myself though, because, because I don’t work for a company, I, I work for me.

Mm-hmm. Um, but I, I feel like, oh, I wanted to do two books a year. So this last book took me a full year, so I felt a lot of pressure. Um, now I’m feeling pressure. I’ve really gotta get going with book six. I, you know, I, I’ve started it, but, 

Steve Cuden: and you already have started it so you somewhat know where you’re headed, but you don’t know where you’re headed on this one either?

Kit Karson: Uh, no. I, yeah, I, I know who, who’s gonna die, but I don’t know who’s gonna kill ’em or why, or. 

Steve Cuden: Has, have any other writers reached out to you or have you reached out to other writers to get advice for anything? 

Kit Karson: Um, not, not really, no. 

Steve Cuden: That’s remarkable. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: That you’re, you’re sort of in your own little, um, universe, which is amazing.

Do you think there are things that novelists should do in general to make stories work? 

Kit Karson: Um, you know, I guess it depends on what you’re writing. Um, like I have a friend who, her career has been writing for Harle Quinn romances, and I’ve heard straight from her that there’s an outline that you follow and you don’t diverge from that.

She actually, she’ll bid on outlines. The company will send her that outline already written out. And then she just fills in the, well, who writes the outlines? I the company? I don’t know. I guess it’s like a, A formula, you know? And they come up with the basic, this is what’s gonna happen in this book. And then she just fills it in and gets paid a certain amount for filling in the.

The book. 

Steve Cuden: I have to guess that’s something that wouldn’t interest you at at all? 

Kit Karson: I, no, I don’t. I don’t read romance books. 

Steve Cuden: No. I’m talking about the formula part of it. If somebody gave you the formula to your Sheriff Elliot’s stories, you would say no. You’re gonna go as you go. 

Kit Karson: Exactly. That’s, I think that makes it more interesting, you know, is when people say, oh, I, I just would never guess that, or that’s, that’s what I like to hear.

Steve Cuden: Alright. So you are a self-published author. We’ve already talked about that. Mm-hmm. How much of your time do you wind up spending in that effort? Now we know somebody else is actually putting the book through the meat grinder of mm-hmm. The publishing part of it for you. But then once you have your book, like you’re sitting here talking to me, we’re talking about your book.

Mm-hmm. How much time and energy do you then need to spend to promote yourself? 

Kit Karson: Oh, way too much. Um, so I’m not, I’m not very good at social media. Mm-hmm. Um, but I, I also have a promoter person who’s trying to help me get better at. So lately I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to, I know you’re supposed to post more than twice a year.

Um, so I’ve been trying, 

Steve Cuden: yes, more than twice a year is probably recommended. 

Kit Karson: One of the biggest problems with that is I have been banned from Facebook for life, 

Steve Cuden: what I know. 

Kit Karson: No, I didn’t do anything. They will not let me on. Why? I have tried. They say I am not a real person. What? I know, it’s bizarre. I have sent in my driver’s license, they will not let me on.

And so what? 

Steve Cuden: I know it’s weird. And so they’ve banned you for life. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. They said, don’t even try, we won’t let you on. I have no idea. Not a clue. 

Steve Cuden: That’s that’s not cool. 

Kit Karson: I know. So one of my characters in the book, if you remember, Nancy May. She is a real person and just as goofy as I write her, one of my very best friends.

So she is, she is gonna be 80 this year. Wow. So, yeah, she’s just a kook. So she had a Facebook that she didn’t even remember having. Like at one point someone might have opened it for, you know, started it for her. So I have taken control of her Facebook. I have a page, a Kit Carson page on her Facebook so I can, I’ve started to build it up.

The bad thing is, is that I can’t get friends myself. I have to get friends for her first, and so when I try to. Do friends. Nobody knows who she is. So, um, but I’m working on it. 

Steve Cuden: So a suggestion would be is that you need to go out and start friending a lot of people. 

Kit Karson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And 

Steve Cuden: that way they, they go, who are you?

And then maybe they’ll friend you back. Yeah. 

Kit Karson: Yeah. That, that’s kind of what I’ve been doing. So I used to live in the town where she lives now, and so a lot of those people know me. And I started with them that, that people I grew up with, they have no idea who she is. So I, I’m getting there. I have a couple people who now know, so.

Steve Cuden: So is there anything that you did in the first book that now you know not to do anymore? 

Kit Karson: I think, I think the disconnect a little bit is that. Like I said, I started out thinking I was writing a cozy mystery, and so I probably held back. I mean, there is one kind of gory scene in the first book, but then I realize now that I’m just not a cozy mystery writer.

Mm-hmm. I, you know, I, I’m not a, what would you call it? A, a. I don’t know worse than that, but, uh, uh, hard boiled, I guess they call it. But you, 

Steve Cuden: you are far closer to hard boiled than you are to Cozy 

Kit Karson: Ex. Exactly. And so I probably held back on the, especially the first one, thinking I was writing a cozy. And so now I think someone might pick that up and say, oh, this is a little too cozy for me, and not read the rest of them.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. Are you familiar with the A MC series called Dark Winds? No, I think you’d enjoy it. It’s a little different than what you do. It takes place in the Navajo Nation. 

Kit Karson: Okay. And 

Steve Cuden: the, the cops are, are are Native American cops. 

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. And 

Steve Cuden: it’s very well done and a lot of fun to watch. And there’s a certain amount of.

You know, a cult-like stuff that that goes on in it, but it’s that it’s, it’s on the reservation. Mm-hmm. So it’s out in the wilderness a little bit. Yeah. Out in the wild. And so I think you would relate to it. It’s totally different than your books, but I think you’d relate to it. I think you’d enjoy it.

Kit Karson: I’ll look it up. 

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. 

Kit Karson: I read all the Tony Hillerman ones. Of course they’re not, well, it’s a Tony Hiller. 

Steve Cuden: It’s based on Tony Hillerman. 

Kit Karson: Oh, it is? Yeah. Oh, okay. 

Steve Cuden: And it’s produced by Robert Redford and George RR Martin. Okay, 

Kit Karson: cool. 

Steve Cuden: Of Game of Thrones fame. Um, so do you have a daily regimen when you write?

Kit Karson: Well, I like to get writing at by noon. That’s my cup by noon. So I get up and I’m a morning person, so that’s when I’m full energy. So I get up and do all my chores and run around and get that outta my system. And then my deadlines say, okay, at noon I need to sit down and write. Then I don’t feel, I’m not thinking of all the things I need to do.

Steve Cuden: You write until you’ve gotten to those 1500 words or is there a time limit? 

Kit Karson: Um, you know, just at least till like five or six o’clock whenever I’m tired, you know, and sometimes I do and I’ve got something in my mind. I might get up and, you know, vacuum or something, just while I’m thinking things out, but yeah.

Yep. So I go from noon to five or six or whatever, and sometimes if I’m not tired. And I’ve taken too many breaks and I’ll go to later till 

Steve Cuden: well, well, allegedly, uh, Agatha Christie got all of her great ideas while washing dishes. 

Kit Karson: I can, I can see that sometimes just, you know, folding the laundry and I’m thinking something through.

Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I’ve been having just a fascinating, fun conversation with Kit Carson of the, uh, Anderson Chronicles books, and we’re gonna wind the show down just a little bit. Uh, at this moment. And just wondering, in all of your experiences at this point, having written five books in a couple of years mm-hmm.

Can you share with us a story that you’ve gone through that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny? 

Kit Karson: Actually, I have, and I think this is what triggered me to start writing the mysteries. So a, a couple years before I started writing a cousin of mine. Wanted me to trace the family tree on in.

So my maiden name is Anderson. You know, the, the Anderson Chronicles. A little shout out to the family. Got it. She wanted me to, to trace that lineage because we really knew nothing beyond when they came over on the boat from Sweden. And so I, I started doing that for, I got on ancestry.com and all that, and I kept telling people.

The most risque thing I’m going to find that anyone in our family ever did was take two pieces of pie at the church social. So I was on this newspaper.com looking through newspaper articles in the ’cause. We’re from this area. I found this one, um, Theresa Franz, who is my great, great grandmama and her two sons were arrested for murder.

Steve Cuden: Oh wow. 

Kit Karson: So they actually did murder someone more than one person. And so we went to the courthouse, got all the legal papers and everything that had to do with that. And I was going to write that book. I still am. I keep thinking someday I’m gonna write, write that out. ’cause it’s fascinating. But they got away with it.

Steve Cuden: That’s very interesting. Yeah. Is it, would you write it as a nonfiction? 

Kit Karson: Yeah. Yep. We, you know, because I have all the court papers, I have pictures of these people. Um, yeah, I have the whole story, and they also got away with murder and at least one other person that we know of. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. And, and so that’s what dragged you into the notion of writing mysteries?

Kit Karson: I, I think so. You know, I didn’t think about it before till I was trying to think of a story to tell you, and I went, oh, you know what? That’s when I started. Um, at that point I was traveling around to different hospitals and it was just too hard to bring all these books and research along with me. And I thought, you know what?

I need something that I can just do in my head, you know? So that’s why I decided I’ll write Cozy Mysteries. 

Steve Cuden: But they’re not cozy mysteries. They’re not, 

Kit Karson: but they’re not, 

Steve Cuden: it’s not cozy mysteries. Alright, so, so I, I think that’s a really interesting story that you, you have familial relations that are, um, criminals.

Kit Karson: Yes. And they, they went to their grave with everyone knowing they were murderers, but they got away with it. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. Okay. Alright, so last question for you today, Kit. Um, you’ve shared with us a very significant amount of advice along the way in this show, but I’m wondering if you have a single solid piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to anyone who says to you, what do I do? How do I start?

Kit Karson: you know, I think it’s less about the actual writing and more about the attitude and believing in yourself. So the the words that I was saying to myself whenever I doubted, I would say, why not me? You know, you, you go into these stores and you see all these New York Times bestsellers and you think, oh, I, you know, I can never do that.

I could. And then I started saying, why not me? Why not me? They all started somewhere. They all started with their first idea, their first book, um, their first chapter, their first editor, and finally getting something published. So just tell yourself why not me? They did it. I can too. 

Steve Cuden: I think that’s phenomenal advice because there’s so much truth to it.

Uh, if you walk into any major bookstore, and I’m talking about a bricks and mortar bookstore, you just look around at all the authors that are, that are in there that you’ve never heard of, let alone read. 

Kit Karson: Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: And they all got published somehow, and they have people that buy their books and read them.

So I think that that’s a very wise piece of advice. Why not? Why not me is correct. Yeah. Uh, Kit Carson, this has been a lot of fun for me to chat with, uh, the, uh, the author of mysteries that you churn out without even knowing where you’re going. I think that’s tremendous. Uh, and I thank you for your time, your energy and your wisdom today.

Kit Karson: Thank you. It’s been so much fun. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others.

Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.