Authors Electric

  Me with Toto in Boston, c. 1941    The PC system crash that I had been pretending not to expect happened in stages and became undeniable by my 87th birthday in mid-May. Somehow it felt catastrophic. I'm a creature of habit. I rely on routines to balance me over the voids of writer's block and dark neuroses. Expected or not, the crash disrupted various works in progress, including my Authors Electric post for June, which I missed. That's my excuse, anyway. Suddenly I needed to replace the familiar, multipurpose, desktop box with which I had been pounding out books, stories, secrets, images, videos, notes, missives, social media screeds and things personal for a dozen years. I knew its open-source Linux Ubuntu OS interface like the back of my hand - its folders and sub-folders, much like my cluttered desk and maybe my life - a friendly mess  whose pathways and objects I could navigate while sleepwalking. Tablets, laptops and smartphones just won't do for this clunky-...

  Metropolis' Maria Futura comes to life, 1927 ... was the word. As I posted earlier, I'm amidst a third rewrite of my latest Frank Ritz noir Hollywood murder mystery. I had run into a wall about halfway through the novel, that draft the product of numerous revisions itself.  No matter. It dawned on me that my roadblock didn't originate ahead of me but back at the beginning of the process. I had gone with the big idea - the case of a famous, missing Hollywood prop that had led to murder - but had neglected Frank Ritz and his complicated personal life. I had made the assumption that readers knew him as well as did I. In the process, I neglected what is turning out to be the novel's most compelling stuff - not the case, nor a high-profile murder, nor the movie-biz clients, but a crisis in Frank's personal life involving his daughter Annie and his on-off lover and dogged reporter, Phyllis. So here goes. I offer this sample for your consideration:  -------------------...

Phyllis Page hero, writer Nellie Bly, 1888 Frank saw her as a pest at first. They met about halfway into Oddly Dead , my second Phantom Eye mystery novel. One-eyed PI Frank Ritz was questioning the caretakers of a hideaway aerie tucked into a chaparral-covered canyon high above Beverly Hills searching for its missing owner, 1960s all-American screen sweetheart Sally Pope. Someone else had the same idea.  “This is Phyllis Page. She’s from the L.A. Times ... ,” said one of the caretakers.  “Sorry for barging in. Your front door was open.” The young woman excused herself too shyly for a reporter. She was round-faced, with short-cropped, auburn bangs and freckles, wearing blue-jeans and a white shirt with a yellow kerchief, high-top tennis shoes, and carried a note pad under one arm –  too collegiate for the City Room, I thought – a regular Nancy Drew who would turn glamorous when she took off her steel-rimmed glasses.  I'm terrible at planning, organizing and outlinin...