Blog Hop Part 2: The same but different

... Continuing from yesterday, the blog hop question for today is:

How does my writing/work differ from others in its genre?
Well, in its bits and pieces, it's more "like" some others in the mystery genre than not.

• I write about a location I love and a time I am curious about.
• I take characteristics from people around me, from my past, from things I read, add a dollop of imagination and create my characters from that.
• Plots and plot twists, I pick up here and there.

I'm willing to bet many other writers come to their work along the same well-beaten paths. In my case, what makes it all different, are the combination of details: -- I write about 1880s Colorado. My protagonist, Inez Stannert, comes by her name thanks to my paternal grandmother (the real Inez Stannert), and her physical characteristics--tall, dark hair, hazel eyes, olive-toned skin--from my maternal grandmother (Elsie Richards). She gets the "steel in her spine" from all  the strong-minded women I've known throughout my life. Plots and plot twists: while others peruse today's morning papers, I check out the 1880s copies thanks to venues like the online Historical Colorado Newspapers.

And even when other writers and I share the same "neighborhoods" -- Michelle Black, with her wonderful mystery set in 1880 Leadville, The Second Glass of Absinthe, Sandra Dallas and her many historical novels set in Colorado, Vicki Delany and her Klondike mystery series, and many more -- all of us write with different voices and see the world we have created with different eyes.

My Grandmother Elsie at 18