My Blog
Sharing my thoughts and providing real life stories for my readers to think about.
Author offers “equal opportunity” for evil female characters
Sometime last year between waiting for my first copies of Persona Non Grata and beginning writing its sequel, Day of Reckoning, I was listening to the radio and heard a news clip about a young mother and former Mrs. Orange County who’d been arrested for producing and...
Real life “Lisa” in Texas sends perverted relative to jail
Life Imitating Art “Are you listening to Gary and Shannon?”my husband breathlessly asked when he called me last week, referring to a radio show on our local talk-radio channel in Los Angeles, KFI. “They’re talking about a woman in Texas with almost the exact story as...
For the record, I love dogs. And beer. In their proper contexts.
Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. -Rumi Attila the Hun Lives! I’ve been agitated lately about one thing or another, but nothing in particular. Nothing I can put my finger on. That is, until very recently. That’s when I...
How random acts can alter our perspectives
Surviving Random Acts I survived a fairly violent 4-vehicle traffic accident recently as I was en route to my bimonthly West Coast Swing Dance in Long Beach. I got hit on the right front side of my SUV by another, smaller SUV traveling at about 60 m.p.h. What does...
How my dad influenced my search for wisdom
Search for Sagacity When I was a young adult, I looked forward to getting older because I wanted to be as knowledgeable and wise as my parents’ generation. Seriously. I could listen for hours on end to my parents’ and their friends’ life stories: their experiences...
Second Amendment applies to all in U.S., straight or gay
Political Blog I am struggling with my thoughts as I contemplate writing a politically-tinged post, trying as hard as I can to avoid it. Respecting different points of view and political leanings, I am absolutely steadfast in my beliefs, though I try to keep an open...
Evil-ution and other thoughts on violence
Evil and Violence Never have I sat down to create fiction with the intention of writing happy, fun and lighthearted prose. Never. But don’t misunderstand me. I am not a morose person seeking to transmit my melancholy onto paper as a cathartic exercise, as if by doing...
Serial killer fascination stems from real-life incident
Serial killers have always intrigued me. They are typically loners or outcasts from society, and invariably derive sexual satisfaction from perpetrating their abhorrent deeds on others. While I never feared I’d be the victim of one, I yearned to know more about what...
Author channels ideas as PNG sequel unfolds
This is what it's like inside my head I don’t get distracted. Really, I don’t. It’s just that at times, I have conflicting writing agendas in my brain that are competing for attention; I have difficulty deciding on which one to concentrate. It’s kind of like zipping...
Bringing characters to life in Persona Non Grata
Creating characters is one of the many joys of writing fiction. I love inventing characters who will be adored and hated with equal passion. Sometimes, I will infuse the actual temperaments and idiosyncrasies of people I’ve known in my life with the ones I create on...
An author’s urgent journey to finish book in 6 months
When I started writing Persona Non Grata, I was eager to complete it in six months, fearful that the timeliness of the underlying theme — guns and gun control — would no longer be in the headlines and the topic would be yesterday’s news. I was certain that readers...
Welcome to the first Persona Non Grata blog
Welcome readers! I am humbled and thrilled to be sharing my thoughts with you about the two-year journey that became my third suspense novel, Persona Non Grata. To say it was a labor of love would be clichéd and totally missing the point. To be completely transparent,...