First, an update on the current book in progress, especially since many of my readers have asked: Yes, I’m working on the next Garrison Gage book. I hope to have it out this year. That’s pretty much all I can say about it at this point, since I’m always hesitant to talk about works in progress, but the book is coming.
In the meantime, I hope many of you are enjoying the third book in the Karen Pantelli series, Dead-Eyed Drifter, where Karen faces off against a serial killer. Some wicked twists and surprises in that one.
In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, we’re definitely transitioning to fall. Although we’ve just entered a rainy stretch, we had some wonderful late summer days lately, which is pretty common in September here, but the days are getting shorter, the nights cooler. The leaves are just starting to turn on many of the oaks, maples, and other trees. It’s one of my favorite times of the year.
Hard to believe summer’s almost gone. In early August, Heidi and I spent a fun week down in Mendocino, California, which is on the rugged and beautiful Highway 1, about a three hour drive north of San Francisco. We drove down from Oregon over two days, staying in the same Cape Sebastian area we stayed in last year. Here are some shots from the Oregon part of our trip.
Near Coos Bay
Bandon, Oregon
Cape Sebastian
Chetco Point (Brookings)
Brookings
Sunset view from our Airbnb in Cape Sebastian Area
While I’ve been down to the California Redwoods many times, this was mostly in the areas around Crescent City, so it was fun to finally drive through the Humboldt Redwoods and the Avenue of the Giants. The place we stayed in was just across Mendocino Bay and had a spectacular view of the city perched on its rocky coastline.
Why Mendocino? It started with Murder She Wrote, of all things. We’d been watching it occasionally in the evening, as something light and fun that wouldn’t engage our minds too much, and we wondered where the “Cabot Cove” episodes had been filmed. The answer was Mendocino, California, which, after admiring its beauty online, eventually led to our latest road trip. Some of the other highlights of the trip included visiting Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden in Fort Bragg, riding the Skunk Train, and of course exploring Mendocino. I’ll end this with some shots from the California part of our adventure.
That’s a shot of Mission Bay in San Diego, where Heidi and I spent a lovely five days a couple months ago. We went there partly to celebrate my fiftieth birthday (yikes!), but mostly because neither of us had spent more than a day there. San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, Coronado Island . . . We had a great time. It was also a nice break from weeks of gray and drizzle here in Oregon.
Not that it’s raining now! The weather has been spectacular as of late, which is pretty much the norm this time of year in the Willamette Valley. These are the months when I couldn’t even imagine living anywhere else. I once told a waiter in Istanbul (now there’s a way start to a sentence) that God created the Earth in six days, and on the seventh day . . . he realized he hadn’t got it quite right, so he created Oregon. I was only partly joking. I love this place. I’m not the only one either. Here’s a shot of Rosie on a recent hike at Pheasant Creek Falls:
Is that the face of pure joy, or what?
The third Karen Pantelli book will soon be entering production, due out in six weeks or so, and the next Garrison Gage book (I’ve got about a third written) shouldn’t be too far behind. I’ve continued to publish two Run of the House comics a week via email and at www.runofthehouse.net. You can see one of the latest at the bottom of this post. If you’d like to subscribe, Mondays are free. Wednesdays are for paying subscribers, but the annual subscription is currently 50% off.
Astute readers will notice that the website has gotten a makeover. That took more time than I would have liked, but it was necessary. The old one was getting more vulnerable to cyberattacks (the age we live in, alas, even for small fry like me). I wanted a cleaner, simpler look, anyway, especially since I’ve even more fully embraced being an Internet Minimalist. Speaking of that, I’m still off social media. I don’t miss it. That’s not to say I won’t use it again at some point, but for right now, at least, I’m much happier without it in my life. We’ll see what the future brings. I still think the best use of my time is to channel it into my creative work.
And the best way to never miss one of my books, of course, remains my “New Release Newsletter.” I generally only email when I have something new out (there are no chatty posts like this one), so please do sign up. No spam and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Back before too long. Meanwhile, I’ll see you in the funny pages:
Gage is back … and I’ve got a new book out! A COLD AND SHALLOW SHORE is available in paperback and ebook at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and all the other assorted places that books are sold. It’s hard to believe I’ve written eight books in this series, but I’m still having a blast with Garrison Gage and his assorted friends in the Oregon coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs, so hopefully many more to come. I’m also eternally grateful to my Gage fans, because they are ultimately what allowed me to make the leap to full time writer.
Gage hates birthdays. So when his daughter throws him a surprise party on the coldest night the Oregon coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs has seen in years, Gage finds himself in an equally frosty mood. And when a police cruiser stops him as he trudges along Highway 101, minding his own business, he can’t imagine the night could get any worse.
Oh, but it does. For the cranky private investigator with the bum knee, it can always get worse.
When the cops collar one of the people closest to Gage for murder, the desperate hours ahead become a frantic push to right a presumed injustice. Add in a daughter’s secret life, a bad boy Hollywood star, and a troubled new police chief with something to prove, and the night doesn’t just get worse. It forces a quickly unraveling Gage to choose between cold, uncomfortable truths—about himself, about someone he loves—and shallow but comforting deceptions.
I’m writing this from our hotel room in Newport, Oregon on a little weekend getaway with Heidi and Rosie. Although it was fairly calm, if a bit drizzly, when we arrived (as the shot above from our balcony attests), it’s a particularly rainy, blustery morning today. With gale force winds and near constant rain in the forecast, it’s not a good day if you want to get down to the beach, but it’s a great day for storm watching. We love it either way. We’ve stayed all up and down the Oregon coast, of course, but we find ourselves returning to Newport the most. Every coastal city has its own charms, but Newport is big enough to offer all the amenities you would want, plus it has areas (Nye Beach, Bayfront, South Beach, etc.) that are all quite distinct. Although we’re undecided if we’d ever live here full time once the kids are both out of the house (the central Oregon coast gets twice the annual rainfall as the valley, for one thing, and the valley is plenty rainy as it is), it’s hard for me to imagine living somewhere more than a couple hours away from the ocean. I have a big city, the ocean, and the mountains all within an hour drive. What more could I want?
I’m a little late posting this, but I have good reason. I decided to see if I could really bear down on the next Garrison Gage book and get it done by the end of the year. I’m nearly there. While I don’t think it will be published before January, mostly because it needs to go to my editor, I do think I’ll have the manuscript finished except for copy editing. So for my Garrison Gage fans, it won’t be too much longer.
I just recently passed two years as a full time writer and my productivity is up quite a bit from last year, especially the second half of the year when I got away from the daily word count quotas that served me so well as a part-time writer, or at least a fixed daily word counts. The daily quota was critical when I had to fit the writing in with the day job, but now there are times when the writing is going well, and I just keep going, and other days where it comes slower, but it’s more about just putting in the time. I still write pretty much every day, but now I’m varying the word count goal depending on where I am in the project. It’s been working well. I’ve added a few other tweaks to my methods, mostly pertaining to project selection and a publishing schedule, which also seem to be helping. We’ll see. Staying off the Internet until 5 p.m. (which includes social media and email) also really helps, not just for my productivity but for my sanity.
None of this is writing advice, mind you. Just a glimpse into my own processes, for whatever it’s worth.
When I do give advice these days, which is rarely, it’s pretty straightforward and echoes the same principles I’m trying to adhere to pretty closely myself: 1) Be prolific. 2) Read voraciously. 3) Have fun. Whether you get an MFA, attend writing conferences or workshops, read how-to write books, go the traditional “seek an agent, then a big New York publisher” or the “indie” route, is really immaterial, I think. I have my own opinions on all of those things, of course, but that’s all they are, opinions, and my opinions are only as relevant as your goals are similar to my own. There is no one right way to become a writer any more than there is one right way to be a writer. Anyone who tells you differently is, to paraphrase The Princess Bride, probably selling something. My own multi-pass method is usually (but not always) somewhere between Nora Roberts’ method and Stephen King’s, at least the way they’ve described them, but that’s not really relevant either.
What is relevant is this: Every writer has to find his or her own path, and the only way I know to find that path is through lots writing and lots of reading. I’d actually say most writers would probably be better off skipping all the classes, how-to-write books, and workshops, or at least after a year or two of that sort of thing, and just focus on lots of writing and lots of reading. Again, this is just my opinion, and I’m a lot less assured in my advice to others and dogmatic in my delivery of that advice than I was in my thirties. Even less so than in my twenties. People who are dogmatic about their advice are usually also pretty rigid in their thinking, I think, and rigid people are people who do not adapt or even learn easily. I can only say that after 30 years of trying to write professionally, twenty of it pretty seriously with at least some success, and two years full time, this is the advice I’m currently trying to follow myself. Take it for what it’s worth . . . which is probably not much. Because, again, every writer has to find his or her own path.
It’s the path I’m doubling down on in 2022, anyway, which is the other reason I mention it. Lots writing and lots reading going forward. Back before too long, but if it’s not until January . . . Happy Holidays!
