What's Up Next

We’re working on the cover for KNOT ON YOUR LIFE now. It is always fun to see what Dar comes up with. I’d made some suggestions and got to see her interpretation of my ideas. When we get it finalized, I’ll make it public.

And now I’m back to working on MURDER INK. It has a different locale - Chicago, and a different tone. Veronica Blackstone is a writer for hire and much as she doesn’t mean to, she gets involved in the lives of the people who hire her. She writes all kinds of things– from love letters to heart wrenching bios for pets up for adoption. Her own writing career is stalled at the moment. After hitting success with a first book, she froze up when it came to writing another. A stack of chapters are sitting on a shelf waiting for her to come back to them.

But while she is stuck herself, she is good at helping others and has a writer’s group that meets with her on a regular basis. Of course, they are some fun characters.

Locations are important to me. And its important to have first hand knowledge of them. I remember reading a romance that was supposed to take place in Chicago and while the author named actual places, it felt like she didn’t really know them.

Like I’m always fascinated by how different Lake Michigan can look. There are times when it looks swollen with the water a grayish green. There’s a feeling of unrest about it. A few weeks ago as I looked out on the lake on my way to the airport, it was a deep blue and seemed calm, though there are always ruffles along the surface. I noticed a few sailboats in the distance. The weather was already turning and it was probably one of the last times the boats would go out before they got dry docked for the winter.

The view along the Outer Drive has been changing. It used to be all lawns and trees, but sections have been gradually allowed to go back to the prairie they once were. The view of the downtown skyline is amazing. Somehow it always makes me think of Oz. It’s funny but a lot of things make me think of OZ – the movie. The winding entrance to the parking lot on what used to be called the Hancock building and here in Southern California, the freeway that runs along the mountains on the way to Pasadena both make me think of the fictional place.