Fun and Learning Something New

A lot has been going on in my life this past month. We have a gigantic fire in the mountains above our foothill home, called the Sequoia Complex Fire, and at this moment we are still on voluntary evacuation alert. The smoke is horrendous.

We had a huge family celebration for my husband’s 90^th birthday despite the Covid virus. Nearly 50 relatives attended our four living children, many grands and great grands, and four great-greats, plus in-laws. It was a wonderful party. Some of the relatives came a day early and others stayed a day later. Enough time has gone by that we know no one got sick from attending.

I’ve been working on my next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery and since it’s set in real time, I didn’t see how I could write this one without including the virus. In some ways it’s been fun because I can use all the different views people have about the Covid 19. I had the opportunity to spend some time talking to my police officer grandson, and he shared some of what he has to do now because of the virus. He was most helpful.

But I really want to share something else. I’m reading a novel, not a mystery, which has more backstory, mostly in narrative, than what is happening “now.” I’ve never read a book quite like this before. What it is doing though is really building each character and showing why each one is like she or she are now.

I don’t think I would ever write like this author has, but for this story it is certainly working. It did make me think though how I could give a little more background to some of my on-going characters for people who haven’t followed my series from the beginning.

Isn’t it amazing how we can find-out new ways of doing things from how other authors? Plus, no matter how old we are, we can always learn something new.

Marilyn