A gorgeous day, I abandoned my laptop to go hiking. I drove to one of my favorite rural footpaths only to find the access road under repair. Driving further to another scenic trail, I was stopped by more construction. Road workers were conspiring against me! Frustrated, I turned at the next corner with no idea where I was going and simply drove aimlessly down various roads. I landed in an unfamiliar locale but spotted a small lake bordered by trees.
 
Parking, I walked down the lakeside path where a robin bounced on the grass in front of me. Hold on – that was no robin. It was a northern flicker, a plump bird with a long beak, black scalloped plumage on a tan body, and a bright red patch on the back of its head. I’d only seen the gentle looking woodpecker when hiking near Canada, not around my backyard.
 
An amateur birdwatcher, I was delighted! A pair of them scavenged for bugs on the ground. I stopped walking to admire their plumage, living in the wondrous moment. When I got back to my car, there was another northern flicker hopping up a fence post only six feet away.
 
He winked at me.
 
I drove off praising the road workers who sent me down an unpredictable path. I’d forgotten what I learned when driving in Ireland with no GPS: My best discoveries are made when lost.

A friend has been pushing me to publish my manuscripts. She can’t understand my hesitation to “put it out there and let everyone fall in love with your words.” She has no idea how book sales work these days requiring authors to dive into marketing campaigns where SEOs, algorithms, and reviews gathered from affiliate online sites or posted by BookTok influencers ultimately define a book’s desirability to the public.
 
When I began writing, my dream was to have my work published. I thought that was the ultimate goal, the great reward. I decided, for marketing reasons, not to publish until I had four complete manuscripts written for the series. That took time. Somewhere along my writing journey, I realized that art – no matter its form – provides intense pleasure to the sculptor, painter, writer, or composer. The act of creating is uplifting; a passion that delivers intense fulfillment. An audience – while deeply appreciated – can’t deliver the euphoria felt when we set aside our brush/pen having completed each work to the best of our skills.
 
I used to think that publishing was the beginning of success. Now I realize that unveiling the sculpture, recording the song, or publishing the book is a door we close on a chapter in our life. Unchangeable history. We can only let go and move on. Paint more, write more, compose more because the creative arts do not sit silently within the soul.

One of my writing strengths is descriptive settings like this passage from The Tide Turns:
 
They sat in comfortable silence, watching the sky catch fire when the sun approached the sea. Clouds swirled in a mewling pink, then flamed in hot scarlet, before melting into creamsicle orange. The water mirrored the blaze in breathless closure of the night. When the sun slipped beneath the horizon, a gibbous moon and stars claimed the sky. Scant light pierced the darkness. The seaside seemed so placid, yet it was twisted with trauma.

That visual description flowed easily from my pen, but what about sound? The scene was utterly silent. I’m always learning as a writer to improve my craft and read about the need to incorporate all of the senses in our work. Embedding sound within writing is new to me. I had to go back to book 1, page 1 and sit within each scene planting sound. Sound that can make a passage leap off the page or draw a reader in with the familiar. I wrote…
 

• The service room’s door creaked like an old man’s bones when he pressed upon it.
  
• Dry leaves scratched against the pavement like the Devil’s nails on a coffin.
  
• The storm strengthened. Rope tethers creaked on moored vessels. Cusk eels croaked with pleasure while drowsy waterfowl honked in annoyance.
  
• The wind in the dead of winter lamented loudly, quivering brittle corn stalks in the field.
  
• The song of the selkies rose from the slack water. Songs of loss. Ballads of loneliness.
  

 
To pump up my use of sound in writing, I listen to recordings when I write. I upload YouTube videos which are hours long, playing them in the background. The soundtracks carry me away from my laptop and drop me into the storyline. The roar of the surf crashing along a shore, gulls screeching, firmly sets me beside the Boat Club in Barrington Bay. The chorus of birds rising at dawn has me striding beside twitchers across the foothills of the Anglo-Scottish borderlands. The rhythmic groan of a foghorn on a misty morning carries me along the jagged coast looking for fresh clues.
 
Sound has an enriching impact on my writing and my readers’ imagination. I’ve also realized something unique in my manuscripts. While Colin Dexter gave Inspector Morse divine operas in all of his mysteries, I invariably offer my readers the noise of nature – my favorite soundtrack.
 

I stumbled upon the Edward Stratemeyer Syndicate the other day. This was a book packaging company that put out thousands of children’s and young adult books from around 1910 to 1980. Books our parents, siblings, and children grew up with: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, etc. The books were published under a variety of pen names that Edward Stratemeyer owned. The authors, however, were ghostwriters who developed the stories based on specific formulas and series outlines provided by Stratemeyer who maintained final say-so on all manuscripts, book covers, and illustrations before publication.
 
Does this game plan sound familiar? James Patterson, Danielle Steele, Tom Clancy and R.L. Stine all admit to using ghostwriters, some credited and others not. An extremely profitable practice for established writers and their publishing partners. Ghostwriters also whip out their pens behind most political figures, popular sports players, and famous celebrities. It is acceptable and deceptive at the same time as few are willing to admit to using ghostwriters.
 
What I found most interesting about the Stratemeyer Syndicate is that public libraries banned their books for several decades. It was felt that the fast-paced, formulaic series were “junk-food” for children’s minds hampering intellectual development. The book series were mass-produced for profit from what was viewed as literary sweatshops (underpaid ghostwriters). Incredibly popular books but viewed as antithetical to true literature, they were removed from shelves.
 
While Nancy Drew has transcended to video games, library bookshelves are now littered with AI-generated volumes. Talk about junk-food for the mind and being antithetical to true literature! Librarians are scrambling to remove “AI-slop” from their shelves as it often includes untrue facts, non-existent sources, and sometimes disturbing illustrations.
 
Transparency is essential. It builds trust and enhances accountability in all human relationships, including the bond between writers and readers. Let’s draw back the curtain and advocate for laws requiring publications to provide authoring credit for ghostwriters and mandatory disclosure of AI use for editing or prose-generating. Then let readers decide if their want to open that book.
 

Ironically, the very thing I applauded in my last blog (1/13/2026 – Hats Off to the Editors) became the very thing I deplore in this month’s blog. All that marvelous, razor-sharp advice offered by professional editors on YouTube sent me down a path of doubt. Overwhelmed with every writing nuance they believe I need to address in my manuscripts, I became frozen with doubt and lost my confidence as a writer.
 
Creative writing was chucked out the window to address line-by-line edits. Yes, their advice is helpful. Yes, it polishes dialogue and sharpens scenes. It also crushed my passion and squelched my emerging voice as I fret over each line I compose. I no longer enjoy writing. I’m just running through the editors’ checklists searching for my mistakes.
 
I need to step away from it all – both their spiraling spreadsheet of advice and my own draft manuscripts. Go for a long walk. Lose myself in nature. Take several deep breaths and find a healthy balance between my creative passion and their definition of acceptable prose. I need to find a way to let them guide my work without dictating the final product.
 
It’s a balancing act, and I’m the sad juggler who has dropped the pins.
 

I’m back after taking time off from writing (and my website) for the Christmas/New Year’s holidays. I found myself scrolling through YouTube during that down time and encountered posts by book editors offering their opinions and insight on good writing. I already follow posts by a handful of literary agents who keep tabs on shifts in publishing as well as market trends in reading. But these book editors had my rabid attention.
 
Editors posting on YouTube are, of course, hoping to boost their client base. No problem with that. Everyone on YouTube hopes for new followers. However, they are also offering free advice from professionals who have worked successfully in the literary field for years. Their knowledge was incisive and overwhelming. I ended up creating a spreadsheet with their suggestions broken down into categories like quick fixes, building powerful sentences, characters/backstory, plot pacing, dialog beats, and chapter reviews. Spreadsheet in hand (well, actually on my laptop screen), I ran through The Stars Prevail polishing that still-a-bit-rough stone into a glittering diamond. The difference was impressive.
 
My loud applause and profound appreciation goes out to book editors who are giving us all a leg up as we attempt to craft intriguing stories populated with interesting characters. Thank you for adding so much zest to our novels!

I wrapped up my rewrite of The Nighthawk’s Nemesis yesterday and went to bed knowing that the manuscript is so much better as a result of that work. Pouring a cup of coffee this morning, I suddenly realized I’ve nothing to write about as all four manuscripts in the Remy Lane Mystery series are done. I face a day with no writing. A week with no writing. Months with no writing. Oh, sure, I can pen query letters to literary agents in an effort to get trad-published or dive into the online marketing game of self-publishing, but no new story? No fresh characters? No unsolved mystery? Impossible.
 
Writing is my passion. My creative imagination has me jumping out of bed in the morning, popping open my laptop, and penning a fresh narrative. Characters and their various encounters swirl in my brain all day. Snappy dialogues find their way to Post-it notes and fresh scenarios have me pondering possibilities when I lie in bed later that night. Writing fills me with purpose as surely as breathing fills my lungs with air. Can’t live without either of them.
 
Sipping the last of my coffee, I’ve decided to be like Janus, Roman god of beginnings, endings, and transitions – a divine character I learned about when writing The Tide Turns. I’ll rifle through my “ideas” file and begin churning fresh plots for the next story in the series while also looking back over my completed manuscripts to embed stronger emotions into characters. (Readers love vibrant characters.) That new growth and evolution will keep me writing throughout the winter months. I can’t wait to start on them.