I am no kind of hero, and though people who know me might disagree, for the most part I’m relatively sane and mentally stable. But there have been times and places in my life when things happened that that gave me the heebie-jeebies and made my skin crawl. Let me tell you about one of […]
I always tell new authors that writing a book is the easy part. It’s after you finish the last chapter that the real work starts, and that’s what we’ve been doing the last few days since I finished Debt Collector, the fourteenth book in my John Lee Quarrels mystery series about a small town Florida […]
In terms of writing, it was a productive weekend for me. I knocked out somewhere around 6,500 words in my new John Lee Quarrels book. Then I read through the last three chapters I wrote and printed several chapters out for Terry to start the editing and proofreading phase of things. When she gets done […]
Yesterday, I received the cover for the print edition of Big Lake Parolee and uploaded it to Amazon. That took a while because it seems like they have changed a couple of things in the process that kept getting me stymied. As I write this blog, at about midnight local time, it still had not […]
After taking a few days off with the publication of Big Lake Parolee, I decided I’d better get in gear and start making myself useful before Miss Terry kicks me to the curb. Over the weekend and on Monday, I was working on my next book, Debt Collector, which will be the 14th book in […]
It looks like winter has come to the White Mountains of Arizona. A cold front sweeping through the region is bringing snow and rain with it, and we’re told that we can expect up to 4 inches of the white stuff here at our house in Show Low. Ten miles up the road in Pinetop-Lakeside, […]
Thanks to a tremendous amount of work by Terry, Judy, and Roberta, I’m going to make my goal of having my newest book, Big Lake Parolee, out by the end of the year. Roberta sent me her suggested changes for the last chapter yesterday morning, and by the end of the day, I had them […]
In yesterday’s blog, I said I wasn’t sure if I would reach my goal of finishing my newest book, Big Lake Parolee, before Christmas and have it out by the end of the year. As far as the writing goes, I’m doing good. I got three more chapters written yesterday, somewhere around 7,500 words, and […]
We started out yesterday with a trip to Chandler, one of the many cities that make up the Phoenix metropolitan area. I wanted to go to Scheels, a huge sporting goods store that Tiffany and Kenny have told us about several times. It’s supposed to be like a Bass Pro shop on steroids. It’s so […]
Yesterday was another hot one in the Phoenix area, the temperature topping out at 110°. Needless to say, we didn’t spend any time sunbathing. Just walking out to the car from our hotel room was enough of that nonsense. There is a lot to be said for having a remote start feature, which we have […]
We left home about 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon, headed down to the furnace that some people call the Valley of the Sun. When we left Show Low it was about 80° and when we arrived at Terry’s parents in the Apache Junction area it was 114°. I don’t care if it is a dry heat, […]
After a brief respite from the insane desert heat here in Arizona, temperatures are rising again, and the weatherman says the next couple of days will be in excess 110⁰ in the Phoenix area. So it only stands to reason that we were headed down in that direction today. As I said in the blog […]
After getting little sleep Friday night because of weather alerts on our phones going off, and then dealing with the tornado on Saturday, by bedtime we were both exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillows. We both slept very well during the night, but even so, we were both […]
Our attempts to sleep were interrupted several times Friday night by weather alerts on our phones, warning us of heavy thunderstorms in the area. A little before 4 AM one inch hail started coming down hard on our roof, and within a matter of a couple of minutes the decks and yard looked like they […]
We are bracing for several rounds of severe storms starting tonight and lasting through Sunday morning. The weatherman says we can expect golf ball sized hail, heavy rain, thunderstorms, and the very real possibility of long-track tornadoes. It sounds like it might get ugly. In the two years we’ve been here, we’ve never had to […]
I think every state has some oddball laws on the books, many of which don’t make sense in the present day. But apparently at some time, people in state government thought it was necessary. Here are a few from Alabama. Wearing blue jeans while walking down Noble Street in Anniston is prohibited. – Why just […]
My newest book, The Ballad Of John Lee, is now available as an e-book on Amazon, and free for Kindle Unlimited members. I hope to have the print edition out in a couple of weeks. It is my 58th book and the 13th in the John Lee Quarrels series about a small town deputy in […]
Terry has been working hard going over the final manuscript for The Ballad of John Lee, and I have been doing a lot of pre-publication work. As I shared a few days ago, I wrote the first chapters for two different new John Lee Quarrels books, one of which will go in the back of […]
Forget fast food joints and those $15 hamburger restaurants. The other day Terry made me the ultimate bacon cheeseburger. We’re talking about a heart attack on a bun. She came across the idea online and asked me if I might be interested. It was basically slices of cheese sandwiched between two hamburgers, and all of […]
I’m back with more questions from blog readers about RVing, my writing activities, what’s happening in our lives since we hung up the keys, and all kinds of other things. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally. Q. For a while you were giving us updates on your […]