Christopher H. Jansmann's Blog, page 2

Summer Planning

It’s that part of the summer where I begin to think about the projects I’m going to tackle for the rest of the year. Part of my approach is to review any items left over in my ideas folder (yes, I do have one, and it’s full of stuff), the majority of which are news articles I’ve clipped over the last couple of years that have something intriguing about them – and that I think I might be able to spin into a full story. Quite a few of my novels have their basis in something I’ve culled from the current events; not all of them, to be sure, but enough that it’s proven to be a pretty valuable way to begin my research process. I usually combine that with some particular item that I want to have some commentary on, something that will make the novel relevant to contemporary times but also be a driver of the plot. I don’t always want that part of the story to overwhelm the rest of it, but I do want it to be extra flavor to the overall novel.

Having just finished up a Vasily novel, I usually turned my attention to Sean and begin to plot out what I want to do for his next book. I’m in an interesting place in terms of the timeline between these two characters, for Vasily is on the cusp of his wedding and Sean is at an inflection point with his career. I don’t want to give away any spoilers for the most recent book I’ve written, Silenced, but suffice it to say I put enough pieces in place to be able to deal with both of these angles whether it’s from Sean’s perspective or Vasily’s.

I’m also craftily thinking about juxtaposing the wedding against Sean’s relationship troubles; I’ve said it a few times now that I’m a believer in happy endings, so I truly want my main characters to find theirs. Both characters have gone through so much to get to the point that they’re currently at, so in many ways I feel like they’ve earned their chance at happiness, something that weighs on me heavily when I see the direction that Sean and Suzanne have been trending.  

Redemption is always possible, quite often hard and occasionally needs some outside help; in this case, I think Rosie is going to step in and provide that catalyst to finally solve the equation that is Sean and Suzanne. It’s an intriguing angle that will also allow me to talk a little bit about Rosie’s background; we don’t really know a whole lot about her history other than the fact that she’s been an incredibly successful author and become something akin to de facto family for Vasily and Alex. There’s a side comment that Rosie makes to the facility in my most recent work that kind of hints at the depth we have not yet seen from her; while I think Vasily has long suspected there was once somebody significant in Rosie’s life, his wedding will give me the chance to talk a bit about it, explaining, perhaps, why she’s alone when we first meet her in Pariah. 

So much good stuff there; the real challenge is to figure out how to do it while balancing out my typical mystery plot. It’s a challenge I’m looking forward to.

One more thing before you go

So, I’ve gone and done it – Reflection in the Shadows is now available for preorder. It’s definitely something different from me; yes, it’s still a character-driven story, with what I think is an interesting underlying mystery. I do sprinkle in some Mesoamerican mythology and tie it all together with a bit of a classic hero’s quest, but will completely understand if you decide to wait for the next book in my other two series. (Still, if you have Kindle Unlimited, maybe give it a shot and let me know what you think?)

Preorder Reflection in the Shadows

Dictation

I’ve been thinking recently about a classic Star Trek episode from I believe the second season of this show; entitled Return to Tomorrow, the episode ostensibly dealt with the Starship Enterprise returning to 1968 to watch the launch of an Atlas rocket. As with most things in Star Trek, things didn’t go entirely according to plan, but the thing that struck me the most about that episode was an automatic typewriter. While it wasn’t incredibly integral to the plot of the show, I was fascinated with this idea that somebody could simply speak to a typewriter and it would correctly, essentially, capture the dictation on every page. Back when I first saw the show sometime in the mid 70s, that was actually pretty spectacular —especially because there didn’t appear to be any sort of computer that was connected to the device. I know now that it was some sort of standard movie magic of course, but the point remains it was a “feature” I never thought as a young child I would see brought to life with actual technology. 

Fast forward to today: many of our digital phone assistants have been capable for years now of essentially translating what we’re saying into brief text messages that we send to our friends and family. I use that technology regularly, especially when I don’t want to type out something long but also don’t feel like shortening what I want to say to someone. I’m sure that’s probably more of a problem for those of us who are writers—my young friend out in California is very good at getting her point across with a few acronyms and a handful of emojis—but the point remains that it’s pretty nice having a digital assistant that’s capable of understanding what we want to say and more often than not correctly gets it right.

The reason I’ve been thinking about it—and part of the explanation for why the blog has been quiet for a bit—is that I developed something of a wrist problem and I’ve had to take it easy when it comes to using the keyboard. The doctor has mandated forced downtime, which of course is making me go a little nuts; for the past four or five years now, not a day has gone by that I haven’t been working on some project that’s required a few thousand words each day, so not spending any time in front of my laptop has truly affected my being.

I have been aware for a while that there are various tools out there that would allow me to essentially dictate what I wanted to write, but I haven’t really spent a whole lot of time working with any; honestly, I was a little bit afraid that I’d have to spend a lot of time training whatever it was I wanted to use as a tool to understand my cadence, the sorts of words that I enjoyed using, and even the kind of formatting that I did. I also knew from talking to other author friends who had had experience in this space the dictation allowed them to actually work a lot faster, something that I had a hard time wrapping my brain around because, again, I’m something of a keyboard hound and couldn’t really contemplate literally telling my computer what I wanted to write. I was also a little bit worried about how much editing would have to take place after the fact; what I spent all this time speaking into my microphone only to have to go back and spend the same amount of time cleaning up what the computer had actually put to the page.

The wrist injury—or whatever it winds up being since the actual diagnosis is still out—more or less forced me to kind of revisit some of the research I’d done on this a while back. In this brave new world of AI infused products, I discovered that there are quite a few more options than existed when I looked at everything the first time around. I don’t typically use Microsoft Word as my base word processor of choice while I’m writing my novels, but I do use it for all the editing and the polishing that takes place before I actually publish anything. The actual product that I use for crafting each of my novels is a tool named Scrivener which I’ve talked about in some prior entries; that product doesn’t natively include the ability to do any sort of dictation, but because I’m running it on a Mac I have the option to use the built in dictation Provided by the operating system. So, naturally, I’ve spent this enforced downtime experimenting on how everything works in today’s environment.

I have to admit to being quite impressed with what Microsoft Word can do these days; When I last tested everything dictation it was a little bit hit or miss and required a lot more editing when I was finished. With whatever magic that Microsoft has brought to the table with all of its investment and copilot, I’m now finding Word can understand even my (many years removed) Maine accent, though admittedly, it used to be fun seeing what it thought it heard me say. I don’t quite have all the ins and outs of it down yet; getting it to do italics—which I use a lot—is something of a challenge, but I figure over time (and assuming I continue to use the tool) I’ll figure out all the shortcuts — much like the command line tools that I use in my day job. Scrivener is a little bit more interesting; the work Apple has done doesn’t feel to be as complete as what Microsoft has brought to the table, so there are a few more gaps and a little less (if you’ll pardon the expression) intelligence behind how it’s translating what I’m saying. I’m pretty confident that it’s going to get there though, and honestly, even with it working at about 80%, I’m finding it’s truly faster than my typical typing pace.

Since I’m going to be using this for a little bit, I’ll let you know how it goes over the next couple of blog posts; I’m actually in between projects at the moment but I had my eye on starting a new novel in July. I don’t think I could probably do the whole thing using dictation, but until my wrist heals up completely, I’ll probably get a significant part of it done that way. Who knows; maybe this will allow me to catch up and get back on target for the number of projects I wanted to get done this year.

That would be quite a win.

Long Weekend

It’s something of a quick post this week; we’re wrapping up the academic year on campus and I’m off to Southern California for a quick visit with my friends. In between buttoning up the final chapters for Silenced and trying to clear the decks at work so I can escape a day early, I don’t have a ton of spare cycles — especially since I still want some quality face time with my beloved and our dog.

The pending trip did remind me that I’d not written about finally taking the train out to California — well, that’s not entirely accurate, as I have taken it before; rather, the trip I took back in February was the very first time I’d ever booked a sleeping accommodation. My plan had been logical, for given how the Amtrak schedule works, my return to Tucson would have been at the very start of my normal workday; having a room on the train meant I’d have access to a shower, allowing me to step off the platform and head directly to the office. It would have been a great plan, too, save for the fact that my professional schedule got juggled at the absolute last minute, forcing me to fly back far earlier than planned.

I did get the chance to try out the bed on the way out that trip, though; the room I booked was extremely tiny, but the mattress more comfortable than I expected. The slight rocking as the train moved along the tracks was oddly soothing, too, so falling asleep wasn’t really much of a challenge. About the only downside was having to wake back up at the ungodly hour of 3:45am so I could get off at the proper station; this time around, I’m heading all the way into Los Angeles instead, partly because I’ve always wanted to see Union Station but also because my friend and I were rather put off by my arrival at an unattended station. There’s something comforting in the thought of arriving in the big city with all of its lights ablaze; that small platform I saw instead back in February was (in its defense) well lit, but once I exited, I was essentially standing on a sidewalk in the middle of a small suburb that was still fast asleep.

I’ll let you know how this trip goes; I’m hoping to get some great pictures of Union Station while I wait to return to Tucson.

One more thing before you go

So, I’ve gone and done it – Reflection in the Shadows is now available for preorder. It’s definitely something different from me; yes, it’s still a character-driven story, with what I think is an interesting underlying mystery. I do sprinkle in some Mesoamerican mythology and tie it all together with a bit of a classic hero’s quest, but will completely understand if you decide to wait for the next book in my other two series. (Still, if you have Kindle Unlimited, maybe give it a shot and let me know what you think?)

Preorder Reflection in the Shadows

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Writing on my latest Vasily Korsokovach Investigates novel has run over into May slightly, creating a bit of overtime that I’d not entirely counted on. As I’ve written about previously, I made a tiny tactical error a few months ago and tried to write Silenced side-by-side with Reflections. At the time, it felt like a wise move, something that would allow me to bounce back and forth as my creative mood shifted; in practice, I found it quite difficult to shift from one set of characters to another and wound up focusing my efforts on finally finishing the first draft of Reflections before completely turning my attention back to Vasily.

So I’m a bit off my normal writing schedule as a consequence; not necessarily behind, per se, but not quite where I wanted to be as I reach the midpoint of the year. That being said, I’m coming along nicely with Silenced and can see the last chapters on the horizon. As with all of my stories, I had a sense of the tale I wanted to weave (and, of course, the underlying message I wanted to convey) when I started; with the end in sight, it’s my last chance to determine how close I am to my original notion, or just how far away I managed to veer without truly realizing it. The good news is I seem to have equal parts (!) of both — the story is right where I want it to be, with some very interesting detours that help to round out the narrative. I hinted at that in my halfway point post a while back, and now feel bold enough to (maybe) make some stronger hints about what is to come in my ace detective’s future.

I laid the groundwork for the underlying story a few books back when I introduced a character that was a local reporter who tended to rub Vasily the wrong way. Not only did she cover his assault and subsequent departure from Rancho Linda in more detail than he would ever have been conformable with, she continued to be a thorn in his side after his return to duty, prodding and endlessly publishing unflattering stories about the work being done in his department. Much of this animosity takes place offscreen, of course, but I dropped in hints of it in various spots (bonus points if you can name them all, by the way) between Peril and Masks. One of my favorite things to do as a writer is to take a secondary character like this reporter and suddenly thrust them into the spotlight; readers who have been with me for a while then get treated to a slight sense of feeling as though they know this character, despite them being pretty much background up to that point. Vivian Grandchester plays this starring role in Silenced, though unlike some of my other background characters, she’s not likely to have a repeat performance (though never say never).

Grandchester started off as a placeholder, someone to pull out when I needed that cop/reporter tension in a story; as the series progressed, I found myself painting in more details about who she was and why she was so motivated to do what she did. I’ve long felt that journalists who are invested in getting to the bottom of a story are some of the bravest people in the universe; there are often many forces arrayed against them getting the truth out to the masses, with some having more of a vested interest than others. It’s tragically not an original concept to tell the tale of a reporter being dispatched to protect some sort of secret; my twist was to add more of a personal angle to the act. Who was Grandchester? Why did she have such a need to dig into that particular story? Did she know she was in danger — and confide in anyone about it? Or were there unknown other reasons tying her to a story that powerful people didn’t want told? I think by the time readers arrive at the end of the story, I’ve provided satisfactory answers to all of those questions — and maybe a few others you hadn’t thought of, either.

I think I have another week or so before this one is done; my thinking is that it will appear next Spring. I’m already thinking ahead to the next Vasily novel — and that one will (finally) have the wedding in it. I know of at least two people who are quite ready for that to happen; me? I’m going to be sad to have to stop teasing its pending arrival…

Practical Magic

It’s a bit hard for me to accept I’ve been back in my original department now for a little over ten years; in a few weeks, I’ll be celebrating the start of my twenty-fifth year on campus. Back in the pre-pandemic years, the University used to celebrate such milestones at an annual lunch catered by the Student Union; my twentieth came up smack dab in the middle of the work-from-home period, so I didn’t get the lunch part of the deal, but did wind up with some very nice wineglasses bearing our official seal. That last lunch was also a bit melancholy, for my boss at the time had just decided to retire — a decision that set into motion a series of changes that I’ve talked about a few times; now that I appear to be nearly the last person standing from the original crew, I find myself beginning to take stock of all that has changed since I arrived in Arizona all those years ago.

One memory that pops up has its genesis from my first few months back at the business college. My Star Trek buddy and I had been following a master modeler on YouTube who had a multipart series on building the movie-era USS Enterprise; somewhat impulsively, I decided I wanted to do the same thing, and wound up ordering the model kit plus a lighting pack to make it come alive. My efforts came out fairly good, considering I was no where near as accomplished as the icon I was trying to emulate, but was also a pleasant reminder of how things used to be done when it came to special effects in some of my favorite science fiction television shows and movies. The movie-era Enterprise holds a special place for me for a number of reasons, not the least of which was how real it seemed to be when it debuted in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Fully lit and detailed to such an extent that it seemed like it had actual metal panels in the hull, it helped to sell the notion that it was carrying real people out into the vast unknown of the galaxy — and doing it with panache.

Having been a theater nerd in high school, the backstage aspects of filmmaking have always fascinated me; shooting miniatures, especially in a realistic way, is an art form that I’ve come to appreciate after years of reading up on the subject and obsessively watching “making of” documentaries that gave tiny glimpses into what takes place at MagiCam or Industrial Light & Magic. It feels a bit sacrilegious as a tech head to say that while computer generated effects have come a long way in recent years, nothing can truly replace the depth that comes from filming an actual model.

Then again, the newly crafted effects shots that were added to the most recent Director’s Edition of TMP are actually rather stunning; it’s widely known that the movie was more or less unfinished when it was released in 1979, so seeing the scenes that were always planned but could never be filmed is an extraordinary — and pleasant — surprise. Articles that accompanied the disc noted that the artists working on that release worked extremely hard to make sure the CGI model of the Enterprise looked as though it had been shot on film; the way the light plays off of it convincingly mimics the actual in-studio shots done back in the day. Honestly, if I’d not known what to look for, I’d have been hard pressed to tell someone what shots were the original model, and what had been added.

I guess it’s one more sign that everything does, ultimately, come full circle.

If you’d like to go down a small rabbit hole on building the Enterprise movie model, might I suggest the following sites? (I won’t tell anyone if you do sneak off to visit them.)

https://forgottentrek.com/phase-2/designing-the-phase-2-enterprise/https://forgottentrek.com/the-motion-picture/designing-the-motion-picture-enterprise/https://artmuseum.arizona.edu/collections/archives/major-archival-collections/robert-mccall

Tidbits: Masks

When Vasily Korsokovach sprung to life many, many years ago, I only had the vague contours of the character. A few things were certain: he was always intended to be a swimmer, and he had an intellect that was equal to his then-partner, Sean Colbeth. I knew he would be quite conscious of his appearance, and that age was something he would become increasingly acutely aware of; what I’d not thought about — or consciously intended — was for Vas to slowly become something of a social justice warrior. But as he has grown as character, it’s become apparent to me as the author his views on society — especially in the realm of how we treat each other — are a key component of his personality.

Masks was partially born as a result of my curiosity surrounding how Vas might handle having to deal with a segment of the Rancho Linda population that would just as soon see those they don’t care for simply disappear from the face of the planet. While I’ve often hinted that Vas spends a ton of time volunteering for causes that he believes in, rarely have I shown him actively advocating for those who have no voice. Partly that’s due to my own growth in that area; as things have shifted in the real world over the past decade, I’ve begun to find my own voice and have become far braver at using it. Vas hasn’t had the same restraint, of course; he’s only suffered from having to wait for me to get to a spot where I feel comfortable letting him lead the way.

I don’t profess to be at the level of those authors who have done a phenomenal job of tackling this particular issue; my goal was to present an uncomfortable reality within the normally cozy confines of my universe, and then make it far worse as the novel progresses. It wasn’t an easy story to write, for it forced me to bury my own natural proclivity for inclusiveness in order to portray just how possible it is for any of us to live in willful ignorance of what might be going on around us. I think I succeeded, but it cost me a lot in the process of getting there.

I promised to do some Tidbits for Masks, and though I’m a week beyond launch, these will hopefully still be fun (and maybe informative). Here they are, presented as a Q&A:

Did Alex really go “full Vulcan” for his costume?

Why yes, yes he did — right down to shaving his eyebrows. Vasily was both horrified and impressed.

I see there are chapter titles in this book. That’s a new look for you.

I’ve long had informal titles for each chapter, though they generally don’t survive into the final manuscript. This time around, I thought it might be fun to hint at what is within each chapter — without, of course, giving away the store. There are some wild puns in there, not to mention a few inside jokes that don’t make sense until after you read the chapter.

Okay, so which chapter title is your favorite?

I think it’s a tie between Chapter Fifteen (Nights of Wine & Rosie) and Chapter Twenty-One (Alex Lays Down the Law).

Hang on, what happens in–

I’m going to stop you right there. No spoilers!

Fine. Can you at least confirm the wedding finally takes place in Masks.

I can confirm… it does not. But a date is finally set. Kind of.

That’s the same answer you gave in Mirage.

Did I? (Looks embarrassed.) Well, like I always say, I don’t actually control these characters. Not one bit.

One Last Thing Before You Go

I’ve had a few questions about the availability of an audio book version of Masks. I’m happy to report that as of this writing, it has finally appeared in the Audible store. While I’m not entirely enamored with the virtual voice narration, Amazon has made some tweaks to the process and improved the tech quite a bit since launching this option a little less than a year ago. The upshot to doing it this way is that it does allow me to make my works available and accessible to more people; if I ever hit the big time, though, I intend to get them professionally redone.

Get Masks Audio Book

Go, Alejandro, Go!

I might have mentioned back during my post about the panel I did at the Tucson Festival of Books this year that one of the questions I was asked was why I choose to write my stories from a first-person perspective. I usually respond by saying I like the readers to discover the clues right alongside the main character, and that I find it far more interesting (both as a writer and reader) to be inside the thoughts of my detective as they piece together the puzzle to solve the mystery. It also feels far more personal to me, allowing the deep emotions of the character to be exposed in a way that is sometimes challenging to achieve from a more traditional third-person perspective.

That’s not to say that I haven’t written material from a third-person angle. Both of the holiday shorts I’ve crafted so far — Baubles and Snow Drifts — were intentionally done that way because I wanted more of a cinematic feel to those stories, with more vibrant backgrounds than I can sneak into a typical Sean or Vasily narrative. Don’t get me wrong: those two are pretty good at describing a setting, but it comes across a bit differently — hits a bit differently — when the scene reads as though an omnipotent camera was panning through a wide shot.

The conversation at the Festival panel was very much top of mind this past weekend while I was working on my latest novel. Silenced. As the series has progressed, Alejandro has moved well beyond being just a love interest for Vasily; while their relationship remains central in the ongoing character development for my detective, Alex seems to find ways to be more involved with each case — but in a different way than how Rosie is able to insert herself into the action. Masks has one of the more chilling examples of this; I had that in the back of my head, too, when I settled in to write a set of scenes in Silenced that directly tie to the mystery Vasily is currently trying to unravel.

My original concept had been a long phone call between the two of them; for reasons I don’t want to spoil, Vas has to fly to another state to follow a lead, and while he’s out of California, Alex has a run-in with some Very Bad People who may or may not be tangentially related to the case. I will hasten to add that in no version of the plot did Alex get hurt, but the incident is physical in nature; as I began to transcribe the conversation where Alex relates what happened to Vas, I began to realize it lacked some of the punch I was hoping for (pun intended). Alejandro is a good storyteller, but something was lost in translation; I tried a few times to correct the problem only to realize I needed to come at it from a completely different angle.

With the work I did on Reflection in the Shadows, I knew I was capable of shifting viewpoints between chapters and made the unexpected decision to tell that part of the story through Alejandro’s eyes. I also knew from having written him as the lead in Baubles that he’d only come to life from the third-person perspective; what worried me more was whether the reader would be happy going from Vasily in one chapter to Alex in the next and then back to Vas as a bookend. I’ve ready plenty of novels where this is a normal pattern, but honestly, I was a bit freaked out about doing it. Still, it seemed like a good time — and the right place in this particular novel — to give it a shot.

Decision made, I found the words suddenly began to flow; Alex was, predictably, in no mood to be taken down by some flunkies and (no surprise) takes the day. Re-reading what I had after it was done, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked inside the overall architecture of the story, and that Alex gets a moment to shine all by himself. Vasily is also, predictably, quite unhappy about what happens to Alejandro, but is too far away at the time to do anything meaningful about it; I’m fairly certain that will bubble into a later chapter once he returns to California, though I’m also aware that Alex — as much as he loves it when Vasily goes into Full Protect Alejandro Mode — feels like he’s quite capable of taking care of himself. It’s not really a source of friction between the two of them, but it does underscore some of the dynamics at play in their relationship.

Hopefully you’ll like what I did!

One more thing before you go Masks (Book 8)

Masks appears in a few days, which usually means I do tidbits from the forthcoming novel. I completely spaced on this, for which I am incredibly sorry; I’ll try to make it up to you by doing something similar the week after the book launches. We should also have a podcast ready in late April; my usual schedule got thrown off wildly after spending so much time on Reflection in the Shadows, which means I feel like I’m incredibly behind this year. I appreciate you hanging in there! In the meantime, feel free to grab a copy of my latest novel.

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Four Eyes

I’ve been wearing glasses for just about my entire life. While I don’t recall the exact first time I donned them, I do remember visiting the optometrist when I was very young; at least, the one we had in Portland after we moved down from Bangor. His office was in the heart of the city, which meant it was a something of an adventure for us to go. I’m not entirely certain my mother felt quite the same, considering she had to herd my brother and I to the appointment; still, I remember parking in a small lot beside one of the grand old department stores that was still in residence at that point, and then crossing (what seemed to me to be) very busy streets to get to the building in question.

One of the signature features that I remember vibrantly is that the elevator was still manually operated; young me was enamored with the fact that someone actually had to be stationed inside the carriage all day in order to make the thing work. I’m pretty certain I thought I had discovered my life’s vocation at that point, though it became rather clear a year two later that more modern elevators would find even Portland by the late 1970s. It was also my first lesson in how automation can have a dramatic impact on humans — something I’ll delve into later.

Wearing glasses in elementary school was a hit or miss thing; mostly miss, for I generally despised having to wear them. It was the late 1970s and early 1980s, which meant they were big, bulky and generally pretty damn ugly — even for a kid who otherwise had no cares about fashion. I sat up front in most of my classes anyway due to alpha split most teachers did, so seeing the chalkboard wasn’t an issue (and yes, in those days they were still chalk). And as a swimmer, I couldn’t wear them into the pool, either, so in the end, they usually wound up sitting on my bureau at home.

By Junior High School, though, even I had to admit that seeing the real world had become a bit of a problem; the glasses came back out of hiding, but as active as I was at that point (swimming, camping and hiking as a Boy Scout, working), they remained something of a nuisance. There wasn’t anything worse than pushing a lawnmower across an expanse of grass in the heat of the summer while constantly pushing the damn things back up onto the bridge of your nose.

So yeah, not a fan of glasses.

The summer I was heading into eighth grade changed a few things for me. That was the year that the far younger optometrist we’d begun to see after the original one retired made a startling recommendation during my annual visit. Unbeknownst to me, contact lenses were becoming more widely prescribed for teenagers and (clearly reading my inner angst), my doctor asked if I’d be interested in trying them out. I initially said no; my great aunt had worn the gas permeable kind (aka so-called “hard” lenses) and based on her experience, I’d assumed they’d be truly uncomfortable. (In fairness, she’d never actually told me that.)

My doctor, to his credit, persisted, and after we ran the numbers (and I agreed to use some of my money from my part-time work to pay for then), I found myself back in his office a few weeks later learning how to put them in. It was a predictably long appointment, for initially, there was absolutely no way I could force myself to keep my eyelids open long enough to stuff that lens onto my eye. I figured it out eventually, though, and today popping them in and out is nearly second nature.

I hasten to add I have never mistreated my lenses (or my eyes) as badly as either Vasily or Sean; about the worst thing I’ve ever done is sleep in them while traveling, and on those extremely rare occasions I’ve usually paid for it with a blepharitis flare up. Still, I can’t conceive of a time when I won’t be able to wear them; it’s not really a vanity thing so much as an ease-of-life thing. I hate having the world framed by my glasses and far prefer the HD version my contacts provide, though as of late I’ve had to change to a bifocal-type of lens that lets me read the computer or, heavens, an actual novel.

Maybe, someday, a special drop will be made that will give me perfect 20/20 vision for days on end. But until then… contacts are the way to go.

Halfway Done, or Half Left To Go?

I’m getting into the thick of my latest novel, Silenced. That means leads have begun to pile up, and my extremely sharp detective is beginning to connect the dots; much like the author himself, Vasily seems to get more and more engaged as the story progresses. When the story is truly flowing, I lose all track of time while I’m writing; it can get so intense that a gentle touch from my wife to pull me back into the real world sends me leaping from my chair with heart palpitations. Thankfully she’s the forgiving sort and takes it all in stride; I owe her more than I could ever pay for putting up with a writer who constantly mutters dialogue to himself while shaving, or blurts out seemingly random nonsense when the solution to a particularly thorny plot problem finally appears.

Silenced is about to crest the halfway point as I write this blog post; my novels generally top out between 90,000 and 100,000 words, so I usually begin to take stock of the story when I get close to the 45,000 word mark. This one continues to follow the (kind of, sort of) plan I had for it, though (as usual) a few interesting wrinkles have already popped up that weren’t originally in scope. I like where it’s going, and feel pretty good that it will land about where I want it to land. I did wake up this morning with the strangest thought that I had missed carrying over a thread from Masks, though; it took most of the day for me to realize what it was, and then another hour or so of noodling to decide how to sneak a fix into what I’ve written so far. I’ve not quite done that yet — that’s the plan for after this entry is done; well, part of the plan. First will be to pour myself a well deserved glass of wine for having gotten through the week; it’s a clear weekend, so I expect to make quite a dent in the back half of Silenced before the calendar fully embraces April.

April. How on earth did spring suddenly sneak up on me? About the only indicator that we got here was the significant jump in our daily high temperature from a comfortable mid-70s to near-90s. I fear that triple digits are not far behind, a fear shared by the winter visitors who have begun to flee Tucson for cooler climates. I don’t blame them; on the other hand, the desert in summer is actually quite beautiful, especially during those years when our monsoons really kick into high gear. I still remember my very first July, leaning against the bumper of my mother-in-law’s car and watching in awe as the lightning rained down across the Santa Ritas. We had plenty of thunderstorms back east, to be sure, but the miles of visibility we are blessed with here in Southern Arizona gives you a whole new appreciation for meteorology in general.

Okay, enough stalling – back to the book! But… not before I get that glass of wine…

On Gardens and Other Magical Locations

Authors are always looking for locations that can inspire them. I’ve been fortunate that my years traveling up and down the State of Maine provided me no end of unique communities that I could draw upon when creating bits and pieces of Windeport; having friends in Southern California gives me a similar excuse now to poke into every corner of Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties, searching for just the right kind of spot that can become a new location in my fictional Rancho Linda. I often treat the search as though I were a location scout for a major motion picture studio; while I usually have a general idea of the sort of spot I am looking for, stumbling across something even better during my travels can lead to a slight shift in tone or theme, giving my book a slightly different shading that I might not have originally thought about. And, frankly, it’s just fun playing tourist every now and then, too.

Case in point: back in February, I spent a long weekend in California with my friends so I could participate in a charitable event for their community. For some time now, my friend had talked about wanting to take me to The Huntington in San Marino; part library, part museum, part botanical garden, it’s an eclectic experience that the long weekend finally gave me an excuse to check it out — and try my hand at using the digital SLR camera I’d inherited from my wife. We arrived mid-morning to an already overflowing parking lot, immediate evidence of just how popular a spot the location is.

Our plan was simple — we knew in advance that there was no way to cover everything in a single visit, so we focused instead on checking out several of the gardens that I was most interested in photographing. We started in the massive glass-and-steel conservatory with an eye toward seeing if it was as hot and humid as Rosie’s solarium; our results were mixed, but then again, the Huntington’s version had to support a far wider variety of botanical specimens than the ones I think Rosie has in hers. Still, I got some great ideas about what other nifty plants might be hiding offscreen that readers may not have yet seen in my books; then again, maybe having a bed of carnivorous plants might not be the best idea.

This far…. and no further!

Next up was the Chinese Garden, guarded by an amazing sculpture. The long, winding pathways added to the sense of serenity, one that became even deeper once we found the reflecting pond at its heart.

Bridge over quiet waters.

I began to understand why people visited throughout the season, for it was clear that the various plantings were designed to add specific splashes of color at just the right part of the calendar. My visit was too early to appreciate the full flavor of the flowering cherry trees and other specimens, but there was enough to let me know it would be well worth my time to come back.

Shadows can tell their own sort of story

I’ve only recently begun to work with a digital SLR; while I used to shoot traditional 35MM film, my trusty iPhone has been able to take far better quality images for years now. Getting a chance to experiment once more with the various settings a more traditional camera can offer was a lot of fun, and some of the muscle memory slowly began to return. I’m not nearly as good at framing a subject as my wife is, but I’m getting there.

A different kind of bridge

The next stop was the Japanese Garden, a subtle shift that continued to put me into an amazingly Zen-like frame of mind. Koi abounded in the waters, and everywhere we turned, a small waterfall cascaded over carefully placed rocks before happily burbling away down a winding brook. For the most part, voices were muted as people contemplated our surroundings; I found a clarity of mind that I didn’t realize I’d been missing, something that hung around for a few days after I returned home.

There be dragons here!

Somehow, time got away from us and before we knew it, we had to hustle back out to the car so we could return home in time for other obligations that evening. I know I’ll be back; we barely touched on the wide expanse of the grounds, and now that I know what’s there, I also have a sense of how it would all look under different kinds of light. I can’t wait to return and continue my exploration.