We experienced power outages overnight and in the early hours of this morning as wicked storms surged across the Midwest. I realized that I can live without lights and no telly, but no morning coffee? Come on! Life doesn’t move out of first gear without a cup of java to jolt my brain. The outage would last for hours as crews scrambled to address extensive damage caused by the storm, so I climbed in my car and drove to a local coffee shop. They were also hit by the outage. No coffee. I shook my head to clear it of cobwebs and drove to the lakefront.
 
Lake Michigan is fronted by dense woodlands which were still soggy from the storm. Leaves dripping and mud oozing, I stuck to a stone-covered path that descends sharply to the beach. I crossed the rain-packed sand and discovered that the shoreline was deserted. I had the entire stretch of sand as far as the eye could see to myself. Waves were massive; the surf driven by a storm still howling somewhere over the lake. Lake Michigan is a vast body of water covering 22,000 square miles. Nearly 1,000 feet deep, it holds over 1,500 shipwrecks. So not a good day to be out at sea, but the perfect morning to stand on its wind-tossed shore.
 
     Clouds surged. Wind flattened tall grasses. Waves lashed shoreline rocks.
     She screamed in frustration. Screamed again. Wind snatched her raucous noise
     and tossed it into the frenzied surf. Remy felt a keen affinity with the heaving surf:
     Troubled. Turbulent.
                                                      - Excerpt from The Sacred Stones
 
The stiff lake breeze stung my eyes, spiked my hair, and cleared my muddled mind. I plodded back to my car, drove home, and wrote that passage; a fresh scene in The Sacred Stones. Caffeine wasn’t even required! I just had to step into an imperfect day and let Mother Nature rattle my bones to find inspiration that would have otherwise eluded me.

A blood moon appears in The Stars Prevail, setting the stage for murder. The image it conjures up in the reader's mind is unnerving, no? The rare opportunity to see a total lunar eclipse and blood moon presented itself across North America this week. Witnessing it meant I would have to climb out of bed after midnight and stand outside on a brisk March night. Brr. Doubting the sanity of that plan, I decided to ignore the lunar event until I heard that the next total lunar eclipse with a blood moon wouldn’t occur in North America for 27 years. Will I be around to enjoy it then? The odds are against me. And what if it rains or snows on that date? No, I best seize the day – or the night in this case.
 
I set my alarm for 1:00 a.m., put a jacket on the chair, and prayed for a cloudless sky before drifting to sleep under a cozy blanket. I woke to the sound of my alarm in a pitch dark room, put on my slippers, forgot the jacket, and stumbled outside. When I looked up, stars winked down on me and there it was – the moon slipping into the earth’s shadow, pulsing orange-red. My eyes snapped wide open! I stood in my sleeveless nightgown for quite a while, mesmerized by the phenomenon, before I realized I wasn’t cold. It was only 53 degrees out – downright balmy for mid-March – and I didn’t have a single goose-bump. No, I was in the throes of a heart-racing adventure: a once in a lifetime chance to see the cosmos put on a magic show.
 
When I finally retired I realized how desperately I need to have unusual events lift me out of my ordinary, ho-hum life. To have a unique experience set my heart racing, make my eyes water, and remind me of just how amazing life can be. We experience less as we grow older. The day-to-day raising of a family, holding down a job, taking care of our home or aging parents leaves little room for extraordinary experiences. We become inured to life’s offerings; too busy or too tired to care.
 
I’m indescribably happy that I crawled out of bed to witness the cosmos’ mind-boggling performance and eternally grateful that a blood moon dripped a bit of its magic down on me.

I’ve haunted rummage sales and antique shops since I was in my twenties fascinated with objects crafted in the past. I recall buying my first antique, a Chinese Chippendale gateleg table. It was followed by a Georgian period Hepplewhite dresser and a Victorian era Eastlake loveseat. I managed to fill my house with dated furnishings and vintage artwork before Antiques Roadshow ruined everyone’s fun by elevating prices on any object found in an attic. I’m thrilled that – according to YouTube decorators – antiques are now “back in style” and these old items scattered around me are rising in market value. They never lost any value in my eyes.
 
I’ve always admired bone china teapots and silvered mirrors but never studied history until I began writing my series. Abbey ruins. Viking relics. Megalithic tombs. Roman rubble. It is all scattered throughout my mysteries where crimes revolve around coins minted in AD 43, books written in the 16th century, and 1940’s swing dances. No surprise my sleuthing protagonist is a historian. Like me, she has one foot in the past as she searches for her personal history.
 
Plot ideas send me down an endless number of rabbit holes where I continually learn about the past and layer it into storylines because, let’s face it, history enriches us. Gives us our sense of place in the grand scheme of things. Reminds us that our problems are temporary and what seems incredibly important right now will simply fade away along with our memory. You see, I’ve learned history’s biggest lesson and greatest comfort: Life goes on long after we disappear.

One of the honors of voting or having a driver’s license in the U.S. is that you can get called in for courtroom jury duty. Yes, the DMV also provides a database used by courthouses to find potential jurors when not enough names can be pulled from voter registration lists. I recently spent time at a local courthouse where I met several other upbeat, highly engaging people who were doing the same thing – that is, hoping we wouldn’t be placed on a jury.
 
You would think that someone who spends a part of each day writing murder mysteries would find jury duty fascinating. You imagine me being eager to sit in on a case because where else can you come face-to-face with a real live criminal? No. It is a dreaded duty for all of those I spoke with, myself included. Perhaps our hesitancy is a result of how juries are portrayed on film:  a group of strangers who are stuck with each other for days on end, unable to go home if sequestered, always with one bully in the deliberation room, or enough doubt that everyone can’t agree on the verdict. Did you know that in criminal cases you must have total jury member consensus on a verdict here in the states?
 
During the voir dire – when the judge and lawyers choose jury members from a larger group – I found myself already deciding if the accused was guilty or not. That is not how it is supposed to work. We are supposed to decide guilt or innocence after the trial, but the mentioned evidence was rock solid, extensive, the victims many, and all were minors. An adult taking sexual advantage of multiple minors and filming it? Guilt was pretty clear to me. So, should I excuse myself? Or do I keep my hand down and mouth shut so that I can say “guilty” when I strongly believe in that verdict? Fortunately, I didn’t have to make any decision as I wasn’t among the thirteen chosen to sit on that case.
 
I returned to the waiting room. After two more voir dires, I was sent home. On the pavement, I listened to others who were leaving. Those who had to return the next day to serve on a jury were not happy; very vocal about the dreaded task. Those who were not chosen expressed profound relief. It’s an odd phenomenon, no?
 
Perhaps we all dread deciding someone’s fate when we only know that person for this one moment in time, this one act. As DCI Tremaine says in The Tide Turns, “A man is more than the sum of one deed.” We are all imperfect. Pretty hard to pass judgement unless that one deed is truly immoral. And that is why they call us down to the courthouse in the first place – because someone has done something either immoral or illegal or perhaps both. Yes, criminals need to be held accountable. It’s just not easy to take on that mantle of judgement. But then, the profoundly important things in life are never easy.

That revising and rewriting that I was whining about last month? It has turned into a blast! A fun-filled adventure where I’m finally able to “show, don’t tell.” Oh, I’ve studied that golden rule and tried to write by it but failed all to often. Now, I’m inserting physical actions and sensory details that bring my characters to life.  
 
How? Credit goes to Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s marvelous book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression. It was recommended by a Sisters In Crime (SinC) peer for writers like me who struggle with imbuing characters with emotions. It makes sense that I would falter here because I was raised to never express emotions: Suck it up, buttercup! Never show your emotions – people will take advantage of it. Others will think you are weak! What a bunch of foolish rot.
 
Angela and Becca (I use first names because with heartfelt gratitude I feel they are my BFFs these days) provide tremendous insight on how physical manifestations of emotions and nonverbal elements in dialogue can allow our characters to express their feelings. I won’t need to “tell” readers what is going on – they are already responding to the characters’ emotions. Then the authors offer 250 pages of physical signs, behaviors, internal sensations, and mental responses to bring our writing to life. No excuses now: Show, don’t tell.

I’ve received feedback from several beta readers on three of my manuscripts and some key advice from a literary agent who rejected my first novel. They all encourage me to edit, edit, edit.
 
Ouch! Seems that I’ve been working on those four manuscripts f-o-r-e-v-e-r. And now I need to go back and edit again? Mind you, the advice is sound. Adding romance (per the literary agent) will allow the series to enter the romance genre listings as well. And face it, romance sells. The beta readers caught some glaring potholes that I completely overlooked and raised questions on pacing. That is the value of having strangers read your work before publishing. Once you put it out there (self-publish or traditional), you can’t take it back for a do over. Best to sharpen the pencil and wear out the eraser now when changes can boost the readability of the stories.
 
I admit that being told to rewrite/edit once again is off-putting. What started as a lark to fill my evenings has turned into a ten-year project with no end in sight. Frustrating but still the only thing I truly enjoy doing. Time to plant my foot firmly on the backside and get to it!  

I spent yesterday roaming around a historical cemetery with a dear friend. That silent city houses the remains of local politicians, industrialists, writers, suffragettes, soldiers, and lesser-known residents. Their monuments and mausoleums are astounding examples of funerary art across time, and we soon found ourselves surrounded by angels – both sculptural and spiritual.
 
During the Victorian period, families would spend entire days picnicking at cemeteries. Odd? Not really. During that time period, independent farms were squeezed out of the countryside. Unwilling to become tenant farmers, many workers fled to cities which were plunging into industrialization. Multi-generational families soon lived in crowded tenements rubbing elbows and, no doubt, driving each other crazy. There were no parks or playgrounds. But cemeteries offered pastoral surroundings with trim lawns, lush trees, joyful birds, and the heady scent of flowers beneath a clear sky. Children could run endlessly. Adults tidied graves, sharing sandwiches, ale, and lemonade while remembering those who came before them and hoping for a better life. The time spent with family, both living and dead, also allowed them to speak of the old ways.
 
“I love it when the old ways work,” the repairman, Toby Remeck, says in my novel The Sacred Stones and local baker, Addie Jesper, notes, “The old ways offer comfort that these modern times lack.” I agree with both of my characters. There is pleasure to be found in the old ways. That’s why we love old dogs who remind us that we both once ran as fast as the wind, we adore old school chums who call to mind the zany things we once attempted, and we favor old recipes that flood our kitchens with memories of family gatherings. Such comfort can be found in the familiar. Standing in that cemetery, I realized that there is also a profound human need to feel connected to the past; to be a part of the history of humankind – that river which flows forever.
 
Visit a quiet, old cemetery. Wander among those who dreamed long before us, and you’ll find that the past adds an enriching layer of meaning to our present lives.