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.

DREAD COAST: SOCAL HORROR TALES

Pre-orders for the ebook edition of hottest horror anthology coming out this summer are now open. Among these terrifying tales of SOCAL is my short story, Checked Out, where a haunted bookmobile means overdue books have deadly consequences.

Stay tuned for links to the paperback edition which will be available to order from your favorite Indie Bookstore.

https://www.amazon.com/Dread-Coast-Horror-Charity-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0F6K9LB7C/

NOT YOUR AVERAGE PI PART 3

Ok, let’s wrap this up. The boss needs to get back to work, documenting my other cases.

So, after my trip to the ER, I knew my heart wasn’t into being an attorney. Insert drum rimshot here. Seriously though, I got tired of being a part of a justice system that too many times rewarded outcomes to the person with the biggest bankroll. Even when the good guy won, there were so many appeals and litigation that the victims often never got the justice or compensation they really deserved.

Thanks to my early investments, I had the financial means to seek out justice in my own way. Moving back to Florida, I set up a private investigation service in my old stomping grounds of Milton, Florida. It’s bull crap that you can’t go home again. Just don’t expect it to be the same.

Setting up an office was the first thing on my list. Never one for the conventional, I passed on the idea of setting up shop in some strip mall or repurposed small house. Instead, I answered an online ad and bought a refurbished tugboat out of New Orleans, and parked it on the Blackwater River. I’d fallen in love with the idea of living on a boat ever since watching Miami Vice as a teen.

For the most part, I sought out cases where people were fighting a losing battle against injustice. The system is rigged to favor those with money. Since I had a lot of money, I could help those who didn’t. Also, thanks to a stepfather in the intelligence world, I learned the tools of surveillance and research. Additionally, even after he and my mother died, I still maintained contact with his sources in the community. Their “off-the-books” help is invaluable.

A PI needs to have a working relationship with local law enforcement. Again, luck was on my side. My best friend from high school, Dennis Butte, is a deputy with the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s office. Both willingly and reluctantly, he’s been a major help in many of my cases, as well as an invaluable friend.

And then there’s Lisa. Yes, she was still living in town. After I split, she also went off to college. Only, her education was cut short by a date rape by a senator’s son. The well-connected family offered her a quick medical solution in Atlanta, as well as a hefty check. She declined both. Nine months later, Camille was born. At first, times were tight. However, Lisa’s a wiz at figures and quickly went from doing folk’s taxes and bookkeeping to opening her own one-woman consulting. firm.

We crossed paths one Sunday afternoon at a mall bookstore. I was looking for the latest Clancy or Grisham novel, while she was trying to hide the Anne Rice erotica she’d been perusing. We started dating, and we were married a year later. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. I had a lot of growing up to do and a massive anger issue problem. She had unresolved trauma and trust issues due to her abusive past. However, we worked hard on making things work. She and Camille saved me.

Ok, now we’re up to speed. I’m not going to tell you about my cases. You’ll have to read about them in the boss’s books. There are some crazy adventures as well as a wacky cast of characters. After all, this is Florida. And you know many great stories begin with, “A man in Florida…”.

The world is too much with us

A Fly’s World

A housefly drifted into the bus this morning as the door emptied another passenger. As I watched it circle, I imagined his whole worldview was about to change. Was his other fly friends and family going to buzz, “whatever happened to Fred?”

DON'T EVER GIVE UP

NOT YOUR AVERAGE PI PART 2 (an author let's his main character speak for himself)

Ok, the boss says he needs me to “man up” so he can get you readers interested in this book that he’s trying to push. Easy for him to say. He’s had a pretty normal life. Mine has been about as far from normal as you can get. Although, now that I think of it, I guess that’s what will make a good book.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah. I was depressed as hell, telling you about my parents dying during my senior year of high school. As I said, up until that point, my life was going pretty damn well. My grades were great and I had a beautiful girlfriend named, Lisa. Life was perfect, until it wasn’t.

My parent’s death hit me hard. Yeah, I know that would hit any kid hard. However, it sent me into a spiral into darkness that almost consumed me. I stopped going to classes, stopped hanging out with anyone. Fortunately, it was the end of the year, and the only thing left for me to do was take the finals. Being a sudden orphan caused the school administration to cut me a lot of slack, and I was allowed to just take the tests and not have to walk for the graduation ceremony.

And, I broke up with Lisa.

Actually, it was worse than that. I just left. When drowning in grief, you make stupid decisions. My most stupid decision was shutting everyone left out of my life. In my muddled brain, I thought she would be much better off with a normal life. Besides, I reasoned, I was off to Yale and she was going to Florida State. Long distance relationships are dicey in the best of circumstances. Throw in a severely depressed orphan with dwarfism, and you have a recipe for a crappy life ahead.

That bone-headed decision would have tragic consequences for both of us. More on that later.

My time at Yale is a blur. I channeled my depression into getting lost in my studies. I had no personal life. If I wasn’t in class, I was at the Law library. My meals were at a local Irish pub where I would take up a booth in the back, surrounded by my law books and greasy plates of boxtys and foam-lined empty pint glasses of Guinness.

I didn’t form any real friendships at Yale. My dark moods, atrocious eating habits, and strange appearance, earned me the nickname of, Gimli. You know, the dwarf from The Lord of the Rings.

I take that back. I did make one minor friend. There was a guy in my dorm that was a computer whiz. My PC was crap, and I lost an important term paper. He not only recovered the file, he super-charged my computer, and hacked me into all sorts of databases that made my studies much easier, as well as get me some cool free video games. However, the best thing he did for me was clue me into the ground floor of several startups that would eventually lead to the Dot-Com boom. My parent’s inheritance allowed me to get heavily invested, and paved the way for many things to come. Yeah, I eventually cashed out before the bust. I have a gift for seeing when the feces is about to hit the fan.

Graduating from Yale Law School two years early, I was recruited, sight unseen, by a high-end Atlanta law firm. When they saw the package they had hired, they had the legal prudence to not make my dwarfism an issue. In time, they came to value how my strolling into a courtroom immediately took the opposing counsel of guard, and allowed me to tear their case apart while they tried to recover from the shock.

Life was good, at least financially. My personal life was nonexistent. My dark moods and long office hours led to relationships that rarely lasted longer than three dates. Drinking was beginning to become an issue. Hell, it had been an issue for a few years. However, it began to affect my health and my work. After ending up in the ER with a heart arrhythmia that took me off an important case, the senior partner at the firm benched me, and told me to take a month off and get myself straight.

It was a turning point in my life.

I’ll tell you about it next time.

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.

MEET BUTCH "FIX" LARSON

A few years back, I was brainstorming ideas for a private detective story. I wanted him to be different than the stereotypical PI. Having been born in Northwest Florida, I decided to place my detective in an area I was intimately familiar with and not generally well known to the readership of detective novels. I chose the rural community of Santa Rosa County, a county just east of the city of Pensacola. The county runs from the sugar white sands of the Gulf of Mexico to the pine covered border with Alabama.

As for the cast of characters, I’ve been a fan of the quirky and sometimes outrageous inhabitants of the works of Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, and Elmore Leonard. I wanted my stories to tackle serious topics while maintaining an atmosphere where some crazy stuff could happen at any moment. I also believe there needs to be a little humor to temper the edge of serious crimes. I knew all sorts of real whacky people in Northwest Florida. Hell, how many news stories have you seen that start with the tag line, “A man in Florida…”?

When it came to my detective, he had to be unique. I wanted readers to see him, and like his adversaries, underestimate him by his appearance. Having read Game of Thrones and saw the TV series, I knew the character of Tyrion, played wonderfully by Peter Dinklage, was my model. So, he’s 4’4” and has achondroplasia dwarfism.

My initial step was to research the condition of achondroplasia and how a person with the condition would adapt the world around them to suit their needs. My first outreach was to the former President of the Little Persons of New Zealand, Angela Muir Van Etten. Her books were invaluable in learning about the lives of people with dwarfism. Additionally, she put me in touch with members of the LP community who became my beta and sensitivity readers. I started following blogs, podcasts, and social media accounts of people with dwarfism. Their words and experience opened my world to this wonderful community. I was determined to make my detective someone they could be proud of and a positive representation.

Armed with loads of research, I was ready to bring Fix Larson alive. In my next post, I’ll introduce you to Fix as well as his family and the cast of characters that inhabit his world.

$ A WRITER'S LIFE IS EXPENSIVE $

I SMELL SMOKE