Puzzling
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 moreInterview: Proud of My Husband in Uniform
I had the privilege of working for a sergeant who is a strong Christian during the beginning of my career and then again as my career came to an end. Mike Tilson was one of the sergeants during my academy experience and then years later when I went to the academy to write training and policy, he was the administrative sergeant and my boss. I caught up with his wife, Bev, and asked her what it was like being the civilian married to the officer. Here’s the interview. Question: As I recall, Mike wasn’t an officer when you got married,...
read moreWriting Character and Personality
How do you write your characters? Does the story write the character or is it the reverse? When I read, the books that stay with me are the books with characters that walk off the page. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley and Tess Gerritsen’s Jane Rizzoli. I can see these people in my mind’s eye working the crime scene studying the evidence, interviewing the suspects. Yes, the story is important, but more intriguing to me is watching these people work. The authors have brought me to a point where I can...
read moreImage or Identity?
Today I’m excited to have a guest blogger, my friend Sheri Snyder who works as a para-chaplain for Pacific Youth Correctional Ministry. Sheri goes into juvenile detention in order to share the word of God with incarcerated youth. A great ministry and very tough mission field. What images come to mind when I mention drug addicts, gang bangers, prostitutes, thieves, liars, and felons? And yet these are real people; children, in fact, serving time “behind-the-walls” of youth detention facilities across America. Consider your life...
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Romcom
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