Blog

Enough

I mentioned in the last post, Introductions, that I’m working through the voice exercises in Hallie Ephron’s Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel. One of the takeaways for me is that every hero needs a flaw, a chink in the armor, a button to push. Something to overcome. This was hard for me. I normally write…… Continue reading Enough

Introductions

Number five on the Dalai Lama’s rules for living is “Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.” Since this is my first foray into mystery, and mystery is one of those genres with lots of rules, I needed help learning them so I can be on my merry with breaking them…… Continue reading Introductions

Grout

Walking videos have been a great thing during the lockdown. Basically, a walking video is a person that walks around whatever city with a camera and films as he goes. Some are thirty minutes, and some are hours long. It’s great white noise for writing, and when you look up, there’s pretty scenery on the…… Continue reading Grout

Mosaics

Lantern Bridge Mosaic Thinking organically when creating art is hard for me. I’m an analyst. I take my hammer (or my head), smash it into a problem to bash it down to its tiniest parts and then fit the pieces together in dozens of different ways until I solve it. Hard to smash a piece…… Continue reading Mosaics

Postcards

AKA “How I started my latest writing art project: Postcards from Port Liberty.” Welcome to Port Liberty! I love getting real mail. Not email. Not all the ads or bills. REAL mail. Growing up without social media and email was AWESOME. It meant that every once in a while, when you least expected it, you’d…… Continue reading Postcards

Logos

Several people have asked how my logo came to be, so I thought I’d share what it means to me and how the elements came about. First a little word-geekery, What the heck is a logo? According to the internet (which means it must be true), logo (the word), showed up in 1937, probably as…… Continue reading Logos

Just is Beautiful

I’ve noticed in the bookstore that themes are much more aggressive than they used to be: “Behold my cardboard characters showing you the light! You must believe as I do! If you do not, you are not worthy!” But to me, message in the absence of story is like a PBJ with okra instead of…… Continue reading Just is Beautiful

Immersion Project

It’s been a while. 2020 broke my COVID calendar. To stay out of the funk, I’ve played with a number of things: cleaning out the garage (whew! that was a three month task – hadn’t gone through some of that stuff since we moved in fifteen years ago), rearranging furniture, sorting through the junk drawer…… Continue reading Immersion Project

Haiku Hedgehogs

Yes. Hedgehogs do exist on every page of my multiverse. What can I say…I’ve loved them since I saw my first Steiff mini in a Wiesbaden toy store too long ago to admit. Speedwheels was born a day later while sitting under a willow tree in Nerotal park, and he’s been my favorite doodle ever…… Continue reading Haiku Hedgehogs