Authors Electric

Three great passions conjoined this month in an odd and unexpected way. Who could have guessed that swimming lessons late in life could splash over into my study of Latin and the writing mojo beached for months after surgery and rehab?  To begin at the end, or what seemed like The End, Five months of PT after my June TKR seemed to have reached an impasse. My knee flexion was shy of what we'd hoped. Though I was getting around reasonably well, odds were I'd never run again or even ride a bike. I felt I'd failed not just my knee but my sense of myself as a a warrior. And with that dual loss I'd begun to question the point--or possibility--of getting back to the WIP that I hadn't touched in months. Enough of all that. though. It's time to get wet. My surgeon had suggested that I try working out in a pool. Water relaxed the muscles, he said, and countered gravity, which might increase my range of movement. Why not, I thought, with no burning flame of either hope of ...

Now, here's a trick photo for you, a trompe l'oeil to rival the best. Have a look.   Look once and you'll see--no, not a crone who transforms to a girl when you blink--no, you'll see something more surprising:  two stackable steps six inches high a handicapped writer fights daily to climb so he can climb higher to seven. Why seven? Because that, to my changed way of thinking, is now the key to the kingdom. At year's end I'll move from my small ground-floor studio into a spacious one-bedroom apartment--with an office and  I'll be on the second floor, though, with a fifteen-step stairway whose risers measure seven inches. That's a cake walk to most of you; but I'm still recovering from my June total knee replacement and my knee flexion is still less than it should be: 110-120 degrees. At 105-108 degrees flexion, I can climb comfortably up and down the four-inch red base. But the sound effects began when I added a black two-inch second step. My mule-stu...

You'd think that after writing novels since 1986 a writer would know how to start a new book. And I was confident I did after taking a a sabbatical to work on some Latin translations.  I planned to spend the fall doing what I always do before I start a new novel: taking notes for several months before I started writing. But it felt different this time since I wanted to start a new series with a different cast. But my fears began to grow. Had I learned enough in all those years to take my work to higher ground? Was I too old? Did I lack the right commercial genes? When  I'd filled two Moleskine-style- notebooks with questions and notes toward an outline, though I'd planned to start writing after New Year's, the first week in December my pencil started bucking like a stallion at the gate. And then-- I froze. The Muse said 'Bye!' And for the life of me I couldn't think how to start the book. I knew the importance of the first five pages..then 10, 25, and 50. Bu...

Something remarkable happened on June 30, 2023. A first review came in for a novel I'd launched on Kindle a year before--then orphaned: no ads and no online hustling. I'd moved from Seattle to Tucson, you see, and found myself under siege on all fronts: seeking work, settling in, attending rehab for my injured knee, and working on a second book of Latin translations. As a matter of fact, Latin translations had obsessed me already for a couple of years and this new book, diabolically tricky, had come close to being the only thought in my fool head. So the novel, the fourth in my Seattle BOP mystery series, sat as an orphan in a deep digital corner. Unread and unloved. And, meanwhile, I worked obsessively on a second Latin project that maybe no one would read. After all, I'm not an established Latin expert or even a proper academic. A handful of Facebook friends read the first little book, on Propertius, and loved it. Two teachers I'd sent copies were enthusiastic and wan...