Here you’ll find progress on current books, behind-the-scenes insight and story inspiration, as well peeks at my life on rural, (usually) rainy East Hawaii Island.
The Blog Menu Dropdown highlights three categories, Hawaii Life(pretty self-explanatory), Stories I Love (also pretty self-explanatory, but includes books, movies, and TV), and Magpie Moments (bits I snatched from real life and incorporated, magpie-like, into my fiction).
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“… This is Sydney Brennan. So she says. I haven’t decided what her real name is yet.” I tried not to cringe. I changed my name legally over a decade ago, but it still felt like a deep, dark secret I could be arrested for. Oh, the irony if he managed to guess my real name. I stammered a “nice to meet you.” Back to Lazarus, Richard introducing Sydney to his secretary, Chapter 10 She may not have been born with that name, but I never thought my private investigator would be called anything other than Sydney Brennan. I’ve probably Read more…
I’m sorry, but, once again, lava flows lend themselves to hyperbolic titles. And once again, there is a bit of truth in the hyperbole. For many people living either in the path or in the areas that are likely to be cut off, there are big plans to be made with children and family and animals and property and staying or evacuating. And then you also have to pick up milk. Because no matter what, you’ll still be there long enough to drink a carton of milk, right? You’ve got to have milk for your coffee. And you should probably Read more…
One of the things that’s driven me crazy lately in Sydney#2 (the unfinished untitled novel, not the novella that’s in edits) is geography. Instead of sticking with north Florida as it actually is, I’ve kept some real places and added a bunch of my own. Sometimes I’ll have a real place in mind and change its name to protect the guilty. More often, I have created a place in my mind that is a combination of multiple real places, with some fictional flourishes. For example, my city might have the architecture of old Saint Augustine, the attitude of South Beach, Read more…
Okay, admittedly dramatic tagline, but there’s a reason. Something’s been distracting me this week, something different from my usual shiny object syndrome. I’ve hit my word count for the week, so for just this post I’m allowing myself to embrace the distraction, and share it with you, dear readers. My apologies if I ramble a bit, but distractions, like lava flows, aren’t terribly linear. There’s been some discussion of the role of the media in what happened in Ferguson. Discussion is good. (By the way, neither the American Heritage Dictionary nor the OED defines discussion as two sides yelling past Read more…
Rudy took my right hand gently in both of his and raised it to his lips. His eyes flicked to mine for my reaction. I don’t know what he saw. For him it was an effortless gesture, over before my brain could engage. My whole hand tingled, and I wasn’t sure if he’d kissed the fingers, the back of my hand, or both. I’d never had a man kiss my hand before—not seriously anyway—and I found the sensation both thrilling and repulsive. Back to Lazarus, Chapter 27 Rudy Nagroski isn’t based on any particular person, but his penchant for hand-kissing Read more…
