In the course of my life, I’ve shared my home with four dogs, eight cats, and one dog in a cat’s body. I don’t know if that makes me a dog person or a cat person, all I know is that I live in the country where coyotes, mountain lions, and other dangers mean that to have a pet now I would need to take supervised outdoor walks with them which my knees no longer let me do. And it’s even questionable if that would be enough to ensure my fur-babies safety; one of the cats was taken in broad daylight in a lightning-fast snatch as she preceded my husband out to the back patio where he routinely enjoyed morning coffee while she enjoyed napping on warm sunlit bricks.

It’s not bad living petless in the country as I do, though. I share my country home with scurrying bluebelly lizards, hummingbirds that sip water as I sprinkle my garden, foxes who bring their babies to visit, ravens who recognize me and perform arial shows as synchronized as the Blue Angels, and even a bobcat who is so friendly she lets me sit outside with her while she baths. Those creatures are special, certainly, but I do still miss my dogs and cats and I have many deep recollections of their quirks, foibles, and some of the adventures we shared.

To honor them, I have found a way to keep those memories alive by introducing lost pets in my books. In my Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series, Sophie and Granite are mentioned regularly and some of the other cats make cameo appearances.

But I decided that wasn’t enough for me, so when I began to write the PIP Inc. Mysteries series, I made my Dalmatian Freckles (she was part of a long line of show dogs and her official registered name was Dama Pecosa) my protagonist Pat Pirard’s Dalmatian Dot while my real ginger cat Lord Peter Wimsey became ginger cat Lord Peter Wimsey in the books.

Those of you who have shared your lives with furry critters know they all have distinctive personalities; it didn’t take much for me to use my pets as characters in the books. Freckles came to my rescue more than once. In my younger years, I worked in a small library that, except for one two-hour overlap, was staffed by one librarian. We were open nights and I often worked alone until 9:00. A man started coming into the library whenever there weren’t any patrons inside complaining about the heat. He would start to disrobe and suggest that I should, too.

I was told if I was ever in trouble I was to call the main library, identify where I was and tell the person on the other end, “Tell Mercedes her book is here.” That was code for call the sheriff and send help immediately. Unfortunately, when I tried it, all I got in response was, “Who is Mercades and which book do you mean?”

My two-hour job share person was married to a deputy sheriff who tried to stake out the library, but the disrober remained elusive. Finally, in desperation, I decided to take Freckles to work with me. The librarian on duty sat behind a high counter on a bar-height chair. I looped Freckles’ leash handle under one of the legs of the chair and told her to lay down. She behaved perfectly, mostly napping as patrons came and left. That is until the man came in.

I still don’t know if she picked up on a vibe from him or sensed my fear, but within seconds, she was on top of the counter, teeth bared, snarling at him, and tugging at the leash. He never came back.

Usually, she was a sweet dog. Neighborhood kids would ask if she could come out to play. I knew what she was capable of, though, and wrote her into “The Funeral Murder” as the hero/defender she was under her spotted coat.

Wimsey gets his due in the books as well. The live Wimsey was a defender of his harem and took care of and older, smaller male, too. I never doubted he would defend me should he need to, never mind how aloof he might seem most days. He got his chance to defend my protagonist in “The Funeral Murder,” too.

 So live on, my furry friends, as I get to remember you in more of the PIP Inc. Mysteries series.

In the past, I have embraced AI, not as a lover but as a fellow worker. It did the grunt work I didn’t want to do or couldn’t do as well. For instance, after decades of trying to figure out the “i” before “e” except after “c” scenario I am still at a loss. This is because it isn’t an exact science, this spelling game, as in the word “science.” It’s all very weird. And I rarely spell that one right, either.

Nonetheless, I’m afraid I have to declare open war on AI throughout the land. Not as a servant which it should be, but as an equal which it shouldn’t. Let’s face it, the out-in-the-world AI has no soul, and we have to be very careful about enticing, soulless tools. These tools are going to be as honest as the person using them. And I have found there aren’t as many Honest Abes around as there used to be. But I wax poetic. Or tried to. Let’s see what AI does with that.

Lately I have been wondering why so many businesses are virtually cramming AI down our throats. Successful companies tend to have a projected plan for the future. What is the one with AI? Do they see us in ten years’ time with no longer any thoughts or will of our own? Do we just open our wallets and shell out for yet another AI product that does everything including wipe our noses? If so that means we might wind up no longer thinking human beings but drooling, babbling idiots.  As my mother said, “use it or lose it.” And I’m taking a stand that the mind is a part of this loss.

My new Windows 11 computer came with AI, a Mr. Co-Pilot. He’s everywhere. He does not sleep. He noses his way into any part of my life he can get into. I have been dealing with Siri on my phone for years. Yes, she can be intrusive, but I know how to put her in her place. All it takes is a strong “oh, yeah?” then turning off my phone. When I turn it back on, she’s gone. But this Mr. Co-Pilot, he’s a different breed. Literally. He’s always lurking around inside my computer, waiting to butt in.

I am most offended when he tries to rewrite my books as I am in the very process of writing them. After years of developing a voice, which every writer has to have, he keeps trying to take mine away. Of all the fat nerve. That’s messing with my bread and butter, mister. And he has absolutely no sense of humor. Not a drop. I can write the funniest sentence ever and all he does is try to rewrite it into something bland, bland, bland albeit grammatically correct. Turning the computer off and on again does nothing. He pops up time after time. Unlike Siri, he just can’t take a hint.

I may have been lured in with spellcheck all those years ago, but now I wonder if AI has graduated to something more sinister. Has Mr. Co-Pilot been programmed to rip off the best of my work and send it to somebody directly from my computer? “They” say no. but “they” say a lot of things. Plus, I don’t even know who “they” are. Just some unknown enticing soulless – whoops, I already said that. Sorry.

Whether or not I am being paranoid – pardon me while I take a Valium – I have good reason to think the above could happen. Seven of my novels have already been snitched off the internet and uploaded into a program that offers to write anything for a client from a eulogy to an after-dinner speech to a full-fledged novel. The middleman could have already been eliminated – the internet – and now AI could be going directly into my personal computer fattening up the databanks. I can see the ads: Yes! You, too, can be another Shakespeare. No talent, time, effort, or work required. Don’t dawdle. Send us your $$$ now!

Regarding my pirated novels, there is an ongoing class action suit involving thousands of writers and millions of dollars. Should I live long enough, I might just receive some sort of restitution from these AI pirates. Whatever the sum – it could be a dollar ninety-eight – I’ll take it. It truly is the principle of the thing.

But back to Mr. Co-Pilot, my unwanted partner in nearly everything I do on the computer. I understand it is possible to disable him. As the instructions are several pages long, I suspect it will take many hours to do so. Also, it isn’t clear exactly what else gets disabled, but there is a huge warning there can be consequences. Is that a ruse? Or will other features take a powder as well? Got me. So, I have asked my IT guy to come over and help me out. It will take some time, effort, and $$$. but it would be grand – no, a relief – to get back to writing my stories solo.

Every writer learns early or late that readers have views. We’re used to the views of paid or unpaid reviewers, and learn a way to respond to them—ignore the reviews, take them personally, or some response between the two. The views of ordinary readers, those not expecting to see their opinions in print, have come to be more important to me.

One of the first reader responses came in the form of a postcard. A reader in the 1990s in the Pacific Northwest wrote to tell me, in terse language, that she’d just finished reading Double Take and she wouldn’t kill for the motive I ascribed to the killer. My first reaction was something sarcastic, but then I thought she was telling me something—this reader wanted a motive she could relate to, which in turn meant she wanted a killer more complicated, as well as more relatable. This is fair, and a pretty good lesson for any writer, so I’ve kept it in mind.

I found an unusual report on OSHA about a home-heating device that filled a home with a kind of exhaust, depriving it of oxygen. A woman arrived at the summer cottage as expected and after a while felt ill. She tried to light a match to start a fire, but the match wouldn’t light; she gave up, and went out onto the porch, where the reception was better, to call her husband on her cell. An editor found the situation unbelievable, but I cited the OSHA report. That wasn’t enough, she said, because the reader wouldn’t be likely to know this technical point, so the story didn’t work overall. The lesson there is to fit the technical information into the story before it’s necessary, or at the point where it can counter the reader’s skepticism. I followed that lesson in another story that depended on the victim having technical knowledge not available to the villain to enable her to survive.

Conferences are a great opportunity to hear from readers, as we all know, and in my experience they tell me exactly what I’m overlooking. I treated Chief Joe Silva in the Mellingham series as an iconic figure—he literally appeared in the town square in an early chapter, and I liked his independence and unattached presence. Not only did he not have a lady friend, a partner, even an occasional visitor, he never mentioned his family. And my readers felt the absence. They wanted to know about Joe’s family. While I was populating the small town of Mellingham with all the quirky souls I loved, my fans were reading between the lines in search of hints about Joe’s parents and siblings, perhaps an ex-wife or two hiding somewhere. It took me a while, but in the end Joe’s family got two books, one for his birth family and one for his own, constructed family.

I’m not always sure what the best response is to some reactions. In Below the Tree Line, the first in a series about farmer Felicity O’Brien, the action revolves in part around timbering. As a former farm owner working with state and private foresters, I knew something about managing a forest for income (it’s not lucrative). But what we call timberingin New England is called logging in the West, and this difference surprised the reviewer. I read the reviewer’s own mystery, also about a woman who owned a farm, and even allowing for the license allowed a writer of a mystery novel, I was appalled at some of her behavior. I couldn’t see it happening in New England, at least not without consequences. Certain aspects of life are more geographically defined than I realized—and this goes well beyond local accents.

In the Felicity O’Brien series I was prepared for the concern some readers expressed about cats in mysteries, and made a point of feeding my cat, Miss Anthropy, on time and giving her attention, even though she was not one for cuddling. The rescue dog, however, brought out a lot of unexpected advice, most of it unnecessary but interesting. It was a reminder of the boundaries of our chosen genre, and the core decency of our readers. Violate the standards at your peril.

The last lesson comes more from watching readers react to changes in other series, reactions I’ve heeded as warnings. In the Mellingham series, Joe Silva can grow and change in relation to the world around him. Because he is who he is, a middle-aged police chief in his prime, without the handicap of a dark past, he’s expected to grow into relationships like any other normal person. And he does. In the Anita Ray series, Anita’s environment is the hotel with her beloved Auntie Meena, the desk clerk Ravi, and other staff members from the surrounding village. This is a light-hearted, static world, and somewhere along the line I understood she could not change without disrupting that world. New hotels might go up, tourists from newly independent countries might arrive, war might break out, but Anita and her compatriots would remain the same. Joe’s world is dynamic, as is Felicity’s, but Anita’s is not. 

The interaction between reader and writer in crime fiction is one of the best features of this genre—the community is so fully engaged that we as writers can only benefit. It may not always feel that way (So, exactly why did Felicity do that?), but in the end the readers are usually on to something, and I’m ready to listen.