DO I WRITE ABOUT YOU? (yes I do)

Many authors are asked where they get their inspiration from and if they include real people in their fiction. For me, the short answer is yes —sort of.

Since everything I make up in my fiction is a result of my life experience, whether from observation or study, it all becomes fodder for my writing. Whether I’m riding the bus, or sitting at a coffeeshop, or helping people at the bookshop, I’m always storing information from my interactions.

Think of the mind like a filing cabinet. Each experience is a different catalog card, filled out and filed away for later use. We writers sometimes supplement this mental filing cabinet with actual physical notecards and notebooks since the synapses of our brain are unreliable in the best of circumstances.

For example, the private detective in my novel, Fix Larson, is a mixture of personalities and physicalities. He has my own smart-ass sense of humor. However, since my personality is greatly influenced by my step-father, Fix Larson is also influenced by him. Physically, since he has achondroplasia dwarfism, I had the vision of Tyrion as played by Peter Dinklage. I wanted him to have the limitations of the condition. However, I wanted to show how he used his disability to his advantage and also adapted the world around him.

Even my minor characters are drawn from real life. During Covid, I wrote a short story called, The Bus Ride, that ended up in the anthology, The San Diego Decameron Project. Towards the end of the story, a young autistic man boards the bus and his observation of how Covid was changing the way people interacted, brings a poignant conclusion to the story that changes the bus driver’s day.

So yes, real people end up in my stories. Sometimes it’s something minor. Other times, it might influence a whole charter arc. Oh, and sometimes awful things happen to characters that are loosely based on folks that are not nice in real life.

So, as I always advise, be kind out there. Everyone is dealing with their own challenges. And you don’t want to be the inspiration of a villain’s awful demise.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any questions about writing.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE PI

Although I’d much rather be sipping an ice-cold Negroni on the aft deck of my converted tugboat, the boss (I refuse to call him a creator) says I have to spill my story so you readers will want to buy books and stories about my eventful life. I’m used to racking up info about other folks. However, offering up my own details doesn’t come easy.

Anyway, here we go.

I entered this world 44-years-ago, born to a beautiful woman named, Elizabeth Rooney. Now, those of you with an eye for details already notice the different last name. For two years, I was a Rooney as well. We were the typical American family, except that none of us were above 4’6”. Like my boss already noted, I’ve got achondroplasia dwarfism. I got a full genetic dose from both parents.

After two years of tumultuous bliss, my actor birth father got a gig out in Hollywood and never came back. Being a single young mother is hard enough. Add to it, having to raise a child with special needs while you, yourself, are challenged by a world made for taller folks, and my mother should have been awarded sainthood. However, she did it for three more years.

By the time I blew out five candles on my birthday cake, our lives took a turn for the better. My mother was working on her first novel and tending bar at a local Irish Pub in Pensacola, Florida called, McGuire’s. She met a dashing young Navy pilot named, Benjamin Larson. The six-foot pilot and four-foot little beauty turned quite a few heads. However, any snigger of laughter died a quick death when Ben stared down the offender and offered to go outside. One year later, a had a new step-father and my mom a new house with an office for her writing.

The next several years were a dream. Ben moved from flying to Naval Intelligence, while my mom’s first three cozy mystery novels garnered her respectable spots on the New York Times Bestseller list, and an Edgar Award for best debut novel.

Meanwhile, inheriting my mom’s love of learning, I excelled at school, especially in English and Debate. I guess that I inherited my birth father’s knack for theatrics, since I had a talent for making friends with ease. My dwarfism was rarely an issue. When it was, Ben taught me to master control of my emotions through meditation and martial arts. The later skill also helped deal with the few bullies that quickly learned the lesson that size doesn’t matter.

My perfect world came to a crushing halt during my senior year in high school. While on vacation in Majorca, Spain, my mother and Ben died when their car was blind-sided by a large truck, loaded with almonds. Their car tumbled down a cliff and into the Mediterranean below. It took several hours for divers to reach the wreckage. No bodies were ever recovered.

Alright, that’s it for now. I’m doing this as a favor and it’s bumming me out. Maybe I’ll continue later and tell you all how I came to be a private investigator. Then again, maybe I’ll tell the boss to go to hell.

Later.

Genx Trauma

There’s a reason that I write good detective and horror fiction.

IT’S MY BABY

My children are there for a reason.

WRITERS MUST BE READERS

Study your craft.

A WRITER NEVER GIVES UP

Got a rejection? Tighten it up and send it out again.

THE 5 AM CLUB

Proud member.

A NEW YEAR OF POSSIBILITIES

Like most people, I had New Year’s Resolutions. As for my writing, my goal was to work on my writing every day. That included getting up at 4:50 AM each weekday morning to write before getting ready for work. The month is coming to a close and I’ve kept my resolution.

The image above is all a white board of the current projects that I have out on submission. I used to only submit one project and wait for an answer. That’s a terrible way to get published. So, I worked and reworked several short stories and started sending them out. If one got rejected, I polished it up and sent it out again.

My private detective novel has been on submission by my agent since October. Any writer who has submitted a novel knows that it’s a long process of endless waiting. My agent sent my manuscript to a few markets and gave them gentle nags until Thanksgiving, when most publishers close down their acquisitions until after the first year. Two weeks into the new year, my agent started the process back up.

So, I’m staying a busy writer. I’m working on a short story for a charity anthology that will benefit the LA Fire victims. I’ve also got a short story that I’m working on that’s a retelling of Poe’s, Murders in the Rue Morgue.

One day, I hope to make these posts into a newsletter. Until then, only I and a few lost internet viewers will read it. If that’s you, thanks.

NO NANOWRIMO FOR ME

First, let me start by stating that I’ve got nothing against NaNoWriMo. A few years ago, I participated as well. So, I wish all that participate the best of writing wishes.

Now that’s out of the way, let me tell you why I won’t be participating in NaNoWriMo.

Writing is a craft, a skill, an art. As with any work of art, one needs the correct tools to assist in completing the piece. With painting, an artist may use a myriad of tools to get paint to canvas. Brushes, knives, sponges, and even fingers are used to create the visual image.

The tools of a writer are limitless. First and foremost is our imagination. We create whole worlds out the firing of synapsis in our brain. From there we use the tools of media to bring the images to the visual. Whether it’s pencils, pens, computers, or wooden blocks of type, we use the tools that work best for us.

NaNoWriMo is just another tool for a writer’s art box. For many, this tool allows them to focus intense energy into getting 50k words committed to a project. By providing the structure of daily word counts and fellowship with other writers, many people have achieved their goal of finally writing the book that they’ve only talked about for so long.

For me, it’s a tool that works against my goals. I’m currently 65k into a detective thriller and things are going great. My biggest fault as a writer is wanting to get to the end. I begin a novel knowing where I want it to end. As I move along, I get so excited and caught up in the story, that I tend to rush things. I want to get it all out of me in one big rush and point at it and say, “Look! There it is!”.

However, that’s not a good template for writing detective thrillers.

I need to slow down and take time to build all of the layers. My time as a reporter taught me how to cut out the fat of the story. But, as with cooking, when it comes to writing a good novel, fat is where the flavor is at. True, you can add too much. Still, it’s got to be in there to provide the richness.

So, NaNoWriMo is not the right tool for my style of writing. If it is for you, great. Use the tools that work. Either way, I hope that November is a productive writing month for everyone.

A FLY ON THE WALL

THE ALGONQUIN ROUND TABLE

From a writer’s perspective, let me talk to you about feeling like an outsider.

Last Saturday, I attended the San Diego Writer’s Festival. Although there were several talks and booths to explore, I only attended three panels. Two of them were about mystery writing and one about historical fiction. Since I write both, they were the only subjects that interested me.

The second mystery panel was moderated by a thriller author, Matt Coyle. I met Matt several years ago when he came into the bookstore where I worked and handed me his debut novel and asked me to try it out. Since then, I went on to introduce him at a few of his signings and we always go out of our way to greet each other when we meet.

Because of my bookselling job, I’ve met many well known authors and have grown to know some of them on a first name basis. Luis Alberto Urrea is one of the sweetest guys that I’ve ever met and I love everything he puts his pen to. Jonathan Maberry is the kind of writer who believes in paying it forward and he’s a mentor and cheerleader to so many of us struggling beginners. Both, and Matt included, have always treated me like a member of the writing tribe. Whenever I speak to one of them, they go out of their way to ask about my writing as well.

And yet, I still feel like an outsider.

Maybe it’s because I came to the professional writing gig late in life. Or, maybe it’s because, all though I’ve written three novels and have an agent with a prestigious literary agency, I’ve only sold short stories to a few anthologies and won a couple of writing contests. Whatever the reason, when I’m around these wonderfully accepting people, I still feel like I’m an outsider.

It’s getting better though.

Over the past 12 years, my writing skills have developed to the point where I’m pretty proud of the stuff I put down on the page. And, I’ve read all of the stories about other authors that toiled for just as long or more before they had their first book sale. There are no overnight sensations. So, I’m gaining confidence. I push myself to talk to other writers at gatherings. I try not to be a fly on the wall, watching but not participating. And, if you’re like me, I encourage you to do the same. Because, I’ll tell you the secret that I learned by being around all of those great authors- they have the same doubts as we do.

Oh, and the photo above, that’s the Algonquin Round Table. It was a salon of writers, critics and actors that included such personalities as Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harold Ross, Robert Sherwood, Noel Coward, Harpo Marx, Tallulah Bankhead, and many more. 12 Years ago, I could never envision sitting at a table with them. Now, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Of course, they’re all dead. So, that’s easy to state. Anyway, you get the point.

Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment below. A writer likes to know that his words are at least hitting one pair of eyes.