Thoughts on Aging (And a Little Venting)
One day while I was working in a black and white police car on patrol, a dispatcher sent me a message over the car computer asking me if I could help someone with a non-police problem. A very old, and very confused, woman had called 911 because she couldn’t turn the hot water off in her tub and her son was an hour away. It was a quiet afternoon, so I said sure. I went to the apartment where the distraught woman met me at the door. “I’ve tried and tried,” she said, holding up a hammer, “and I can’t turn it off.” She showed me to...
read moreWhat Comes Around Goes Around and Around And Around on The Web
I read an article in the paper today about a family that won a settlement after suing the California Highway patrol. These types of suits always catch my eye so I was surprised that I had missed the precipitating event. Five years ago after an argument with her father, an 18 year old took her father’s Porsche and sped off. She got on the freeway, crashed at a high rate of speed and was almost decapitated. If that’s not bad enough, pictures of the crash and the body made it onto the Internet. The suit charged the CHP with being negligent...
read moreBorn To Trouble
I was at a writer’s conference once where a speaker described how to make a story suspenseful. Metaphorically speaking he said something like, “you get your main character in so much trouble he climbs up a tree to get out of it. Once he’s up the tree you throw rocks at him.” Throwing metaphorical rocks at a fictional character can make for a good novel. Fictional trials and tribulations can be worked out and solved in three hundred pages. I wish it were that easy with real life trials. Job 5:7 says “Yet man is born to trouble, As the...
read morePuzzling
I love jigsaw puzzles. I always have one out on the table to work on. 1000 piece puzzles are my favorite. And I like peaceful scenes, villages, animals, and sometime cartoon characters. I work on puzzles to take a break and I always build the outside first, finding all the flat edges, and then working in to the middle. It occurred to me as I finished one puzzle and started the next, about the same time I started sketching out my next novel, that I probably plot out a book like I build a puzzle. The idea, or the frame comes first, the crime,...
read moreA New Year, New Hope
The last year ended a little chaotically for me. It’s only now, five days after the first as I write this, that I feel things have kind of calmed down. My dad’s back home after a week in the hospital, my mom has recovered from cataract surgery and I finished book three in my Pacific Coast Justice series. Now is the time to look ahead to the new year.I don’t make resolutions, it seems like people who set resolutions lose steam for them as the year goes on. (The gym is always more crowded the first two weeks of January) Because...
read moreRandom Thoughts on Christmas (A Very Merry Christmas to All)
I love this time of year. I love Christmas and I love winter. This year has been especially great because it’s been cool. Nothing kills the holiday spirit like 80 degree weather. So, I’ve been listening to a satellite radio station that is playing traditional Christmas music. It’s great, all the corny old Christmas songs from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Songs like “Would you like to Have Christmas on Christmas Island?,” “Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother’s House”,” and who could forget the classic,...
read moreTim Tebow, Writing, and Me
I’m not a huge football fan but I like to watch some bowl games and of course, the Super bowl. In the gym on Monday mornings the TV is on ESPN and I usually see the weekend game recaps. I have noticed over the past few weeks that when Tim Tebow comes up it’s just about unanimous, commentators hate him. Maybe they don’t hate him personally, but they seem offended that he’s playing football in the NFL. I’ve heard comments like this, “he’s not learning to read plays,” “he won’t last with all that scrambling he does,” and the...
read moreEditor Appreciation Month
November is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve used that excuse in the past to shut myself in, sit down, and write, write, write. Fifty five thousand words later I had a good start on a novel and I love the idea that novel writing has it’s own special month. As I was thinking about that this morning, and all the other special months on the calendar, Black History Month, American Heart Month, Celebration of Life Month, etc., I came to the conclusion that there should be an Editor Appreciation Month. As a writer, I believe a good editor...
read moreHappy Endings
When writing a novel or a story, I struggle with endings. I have ideas that start well and build to solid middles, but deciding how to end a novel is always the most difficult part of the process for me. Currently, the struggle is with my work in progress. It’s not that I don’t know how I want the story to end, it’s just putting one word after another down on the page to get there in the right way to evoke the right response. Usually when I struggle like this, it helps to pick up a writing book and review the basics. To that end, I...
read moreA Successful Law Enforcement Marriage
My new book Accused, is the first in the Pacific Coast Justice Series. The fictional main character is Carly Edwards and as the book opens she is still reeling from a divorce. Nick Anderson, her ex, is also a police officer. When I worked as a police officer, I saw a lot of marriages crumble and that was part of the reason I wanted to start the story at this point. The job seemed to take a toll on relationships whether the partners were both cops or one was a cop and the other wasn’t. And with fiction, I can take Carly and Nick’s...
read moreConnect with Janice
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