Excerpt From My Newest Murder Mystery

I never understood how I managed to get myself stuck in the middle of solving a murder but, somehow, I always did. As I stood looking at the dead body in the middle of my office floor waiting for the police to arrive, I pondered this baffling realization.

While growing up, I always wanted to be a novelist. When that dream came true, I also found myself working as an editor and an agent for my closest friend Michael. Often times, I would edit his book and get it published. Then, it was my responsibility to organize book signings, personal appearances, and other promotional functions for Michael to go to. Other times, I was too busy working on organizing those promotions to fully edit the book so I had my assistant help me as well; but those cases were few and far between. Michael preferred when I was the only one to edit his work.

Michael had come into the office with me today and stood next to me. “Why do you always find the dead bodies around here? This is what? The fourth one you found?”

“I don’t know Michael. Something like that. I just wish you didn’t have to walk in here and see that this morning.” I apologized.

“It’s okay, Anna. I’m starting to develop a new line of murder novels that I could write; starring you as main character.” Michael chuckled.

"That's not funny. Although, as long as you portray me nicely in the novel, I suppose I should be flattered."

Michael kissed my cheek. "You don't need a novel to make you feel flattered."

"This is true... You flatter me all the time."

"Ms. Taylor?" A uniformed police officer entered my office.

"Yes sir?" I turned to face him.

"I'm Lieutenant Richards. We received a call about a..." The officer spotted the body. "About a dead body... Did you leave everything as it was when you came in?"

"Yes sir. I did."

"Good. Thank you. I'm going to need a statement from both of you." Richards reached for the radio on his chest. "Dispatch, this is Richards. I need a forensics team to the Taylor-Smith Publishing Company on Fifth Avenue."

I may have forgotten to mention that I happen to own the publishing company that I work for. My partner is Joselyn Smith, a close high school friend whom, I graduated college with.

Finding Jamestown

So I had to write an essay complaining the discovery or an invention of something. As boring and bland as this was to write... Here it is:

Finding Jamestown

Dedication and hardwork can lead to many changes. Jamestown, and later Virginia, experienced a dynamic range of changes as it developed. Both of these colonies had many influences that impacted how they were formed and how they survived. It could fairly be said that these influences are what allowed Jamestown and Virginia to be the first few colonies in America. These influences included the colonist motivation for founding Jamestown, the colony’s population and economic characteristics, religion, and England’s political situation.

There would be nothing to create a colony around if there was no motivation to create the colony in the first place. The motivation for creating Jamestown was finding mineral materials such as gold and silver to send back to England and to seek religious reformation in the new world because England was to corrupt to reform. The colonists believed that they would find plenty of gold and silver in Jamestown and be able to send it back to England to gain profit. Furthermore, they believed that England was far too corrupt to reform religiously so they moved to Holland where they felt like they were losing their identity. In order to appease both their desire to reform the church and keep their English identity, the colonists moved to settle in Jamestown/Virginia colony.

After settling in Jamestown/Virginia Colony the colonists needed a way to keep bringing over settlers regardless of the harsh conditions in which they were dealing with. The Headright gave them a way to do this because it granted fifty acres to a person who paid a small annual rent. This system was a way to encourage people to come to the Jamestown/Virginia Colony and settle there. However, even though people did continue to migrate to the Jamestown/Virginia Colony, disease swept through the colony as well killing off the vast majority of the people living there. This devastated the population of the Jamestown/Virginia Colony and made labor forces for agriculture harder to come by.

At the same time the Jamestown/Virginia Colony was being built, England was having some political issues of its own. The political powers of England, the monarch and Parliament, were on the odds, out-casting the other in order to gain the power that they felt that they deserved. As each king struggled through their own battle with parliament, and even his own people at home in England, turning against him, he didn’t have much time to pay attention to the growing colonies. On top of that, England also had a civil war as the Jamestown/Virginia Colony was developed, thus leading to the King’s distraction to towards what was going on in England instead of in the colony. With the king distracted, the colonists had fewer resources and less back up from home however they had more freedom in what they did as the king was too busy to tell them what to do.

Jamestown’s and Virginia’s population and economic characteristics provided the willpower to have the discovered colony thrive. Religion, England’s political situation, and the colonist motivation lead to the successful discovering of the Jamestown/Virginia Colony. Together these influences helped form the colony. Eventually, this led to its success much farther down the proverbial road and the founding of other colonies later on.