Music

All of my main characters are baby boomers. My heroine is my age. Coincidence? Of course not. Music is a running theme in the novel. She listens to it in her car. Her best friend is a D.J. The thing is, I realize I'm lost now in the two thousands. By the way, have we come up with a good name for this decade yet? Anyway, I of course grew up with The Beatles, The Stones, Motown, ahhhhh what a great time for music. That carried us into the 70s and we rocked right along with Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd and Queen. In the 80s we were still dancing to U2, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince and lots of heavy metal that I'm sure was swell but that I didn't listen to. We were still mostly in the game in the 90s with Pearl Jam and Aerosmith and Nirvana. But now, we don't watch the Grammys anymore because we don't know anyone nominated, unless it's for the lifetime achievment award. I ride in the car with my kids and they have to tell my what the singer is singing about. Birthday Sex was number one. You wouldn't think a song with a title like that could lose with me, but it did. He sounded like he was actually whining about having sex on his birthday. I like some of the songs now, the ones that sound like the songs I used to listen to. Thank God, U2 is still making albums and I like Death Cab for Cutie and Coldplay is my style.I'm sure there is a lot of good stuff out there, but I don't feel like torturing myself through the crap to find it. As for the novel, I guess my heroine is gonna have to tune into an oldies station.

Damned Coppers

I have never seen a single episode of Law and Order. I'm pretty sure that makes me about as unique as a lady suma wrestler. It occurred to me, when trying to write the police bits in my book, that I don't watch nearly enough crime dramas on TV. I think the last police show I watched was Dragnet. If I have one of my officers say, "just the facts ma'am" will that be somehow dated? I do like courtroom dramas. My favorite books of all time are To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind. But if I have my courtroom spectators cooling themselves with one of those "cardboard on a stick" fans with the name of the local funeral parlor on it, it might make my story a teensy bit less believable. Fortunately, I have a friend of a friend I can consult with on police matters. She is a cop who has worked with gangs and now is in charge of the "property room". I can't wait to hear what kind of cool stuff gets locked up in there. But I digress. Perhaps a little more TV watching wouldn't have hurt me in the background for this book, but I'm hoping my cop acquaintance will let me hold her gun. No way I could get that from Sgt Joe Friday.
Next, I will go and sit in a courtroom and watch a proceeding or two.I'm sure they'll be no Atticus Finch or Henry Drummond type lawyers sweating away in a steamy courthouse; but I'm gonna stick a fan in my purse just in case.

Thrills, Sex, Adventure

If you can create those on page, can you not create them in your life? Do you have to in order to write about them? Of course not. The saying "those who can, do and those who can't, teach" can also be; "those who only wish they could, write about it". I kinda think that John Grisham probably never had some large corporation out to kill him to hide some ugly truth, but I'm sure he thought it would be exciting if they had. Stephen King never owned a killer Plymouth Fury, but I'll bet he wished he would have, even for a day. You just know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fancied himself a great detective and H.G. Wells really did want to go to the moon It is not only in the fertile imagination of the writer that all things become possible; it is also in their deep desire to live an alternate existence that makes them create on paper. The author, I'm guessing, really wants to interact in the world they create. But then, can you actually take pieces of what you've written and try to live them out yourself? Let's face it. My characters are having way more than I am, and I resent it. And I don't have to build a rocket and try to fly it to the moon. I only have to get out there and create a real life adventure for myself. My one dimensional characters are an inspiration to me. I don't really want murder and mayhem to ensue, (or do I?), just a little more of getting out there and living. Let's face it; life may be short, but it's wide.