Register for my Writers Workshops

 Book cover! Thrilled that I created a cover worth of the story. "Finding Bonita" will be released in September. You can mark it as "Want to Read" on Goodreads and you'll be notified when it's released. 

Super excited to be releasing my second novel, "Finding Bonita", this fall. Please click on the link to mark it as "Want to Read" on Goodreads and you'll be notified when it's released. 

Profound childhood experiences form intriguing often misguided adults whose paths cross in life altering ways as each embarks on quests for beauty, love, and meaning. Their quirky complex lives interweave in San Francisco and a tiny Caribbean island through romantic love, epic loss, culinary delights, sexual and existential obsessions, and tragic murder.
Knowing that the only way to assuage her emptiness is to discover the elusive truth behind the mysterious Man with the Camera, Bonnie’s life unravels into desperate sex with women she meets in lesbian bars.
Rachel finds healing from grief, and inspiration for art, on an island paradise, but she’ll never feel whole unless she can reconnect with the one ripped out of her arms long ago.
Attorney Henry is lured back to the tropical isle home of his youth by a confounding murder case and a passionate romance he hopes can survive the separate secrets he and his lover guard.
Ivan would be happy to fish, grow ganja, and praise Jah, if only he could stop having to battle the devil.
“Finding Bonita” is humorous and insightful and sometimes sexually explicit with an undercurrent of bisexuality and polyamory.

Tips for Creating Bisexual Characters

 Tips For Creating Bisexual Characters  My article on Unicorn Booty

Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe Print Version

My bisexual themed literary coming of age novel, with a polyamory subplot, "Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe," is now available on Amazon in a print version, in addition to the Kindle e-book version.

What Inspires Your Characters?

In order to move your plot along, you have to have your character decide to do something. You've created conflict, so there are problems, to build suspense there are more problems. Something has to change, something has to bring the story to its climax.
While it may be tempting to make events beyond your character's control bring about the resounding crescendo of your novel, readers are much more enamored by a story if the struggling protagonist actually does something that makes all the difference. This is where your character needs inspiration. Generally, this is in the form of a catalyst - something new introduced to the story that awakens the lead.  It may be hitting rock bottom as a result of an especially catastrophic event. Just like what inspires alcoholics to go to AA, the situation gets so bad for your character that they are forced to recognize that something has to be done.
Your character may be woken up by something another character does or says at just the right moment - a slap on the face during a wedding by a grandmother who has always been only kind, a statement by a co-worker that makes the character realize that her impression of who she is, is far from how others see her. It may be that a new person or relationship in their life makes your character realize things can't go on the way they have been.
Perhaps it's something subtle like a glace in the mirror at a friend's house or the way a fish struggles on the end of the hook during a camping trip.
Inspiration can come in the form of a long-repressed memory coming to the surface, or a silly poem, or the look on a dog's face.
Your plot, theme, setting, and characters will all guide you toward the best choice for your book. Just make sure your readers feel it as intensely as you do.

The Fiction Of Love

The Fiction of Love

Love is not fiction, but love makes good fiction. Readers want to be moved; they want to leave the mundane of their life when their life does not leave the mundane. Of course one of the most assured ways to get your readers there is by writing about love. Perhaps what inspires us the most in life is love, wallowing in it when you have it, looking for it when you want it, recovering from it when it's gone. Everyone can relate and almost every story, no matter the genre, at least taps into this theme. One need not write a romance to write about love.
Love is also especially useful for creating the necessary page-turning, can't put it down, that keeps readers hungry for your books. Will he find love? Will she ever get that guy? Will he ever finally get a divorce and be with the one he truly loves? Will they ever stop fighting and enjoy their love? Will she ever tell her co-worker she loves her? Will love heal the pain of his past? etc.
One of the best vehicles for using love to create suspense is the friends/coworkers/neighbors who just can't quite seem to ever get it that they are in love. The reader figures it out early on but the characters, or one of the characters, is clueless. There is flirtation that is not recognized or acknowledged by those involved. There are excuses to get together that they believe are innocent. There is fluttery stomachs and nervous laughter that are written off as a reaction to the burrito at lunch and being over-tired. When will those two ever see what we see? When will they finally figure it out? Will they both figure it out at the same time? Will they ever stop laughing at their friends when they try to clue them in? Oh, we can't wait for the moment when they finally fall into each other's arms. But every time it seems there is a glimmer of recognition, they look away and start talking about their kids' baseball game, or suddenly notice that it's pouring rain and run into their separate cars.
Love is also good as a backdrop to other storylines. Love causes characters to make that fatal mistake that messes up their best-laid plans to become stockbrokers, or to rob a convenience store, or finally do right by their long-lost child. The loss of love drives characters to commit gruesome murders, or to become overly involved in their children's lives, or debauchery, or world travel.
Yep, love is a writer's best friend... or wait, is it really just friendship, or the beginning of a torrid romance?

Books that Inspire

In the beginning, most of my writing was poetry. I started writing poetry when I was 13 and continued through to my late 20s when I started writing mostly short stories. Though I've almost exclusively focused on novel writing since my mid 30s, occasionally a poem will still find me. In fact it was a poem I wrote today that gave me the idea for this blog.
 "Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle" - perhaps the best book of poetry ever compiled for teenagers - was a big inspiration for getting me excited about writing. My pediatrician had a copy in her waiting room, and for me it was instant love. I still have the copy I got back then - a full forty years ago - the cover, of course, quite tattered. I've even taken it off the shelf a couple of times recently to recite a poem to my boyfriend. While my son was growing up, I on many occasions read poems from it to him. When his second grade teacher started getting the kids interested in poems I lent it to her and she picked out a few that she felt would be perfect for kids even that age. Yes, while many books are entertainment or a peek into a new world giving new understanding, often a book can open up a new world, lead to new adventures, inspire greatness or creativity.
Just yesterday I joined Goodreads because I heard it is a great place for authors to get their work reviewed. Right away the site asks you to rate books you've already read. Based on what you say your reading interests are, lists are presented to you. I've always felt that I don't read as much as I'd like to, but book after book that I've enjoyed over the years came up and yes, with so many of them I was able to reflect instantly on how they helped inspire and grow my writing or other aspects of my life. It was a fun and unexpected trip down memory lane.
Of course as a writer, it would be the ultimate high to know that you've inspired someone.
I'd love to hear which books inspired you and in what ways.