I listen to talk radio when I write

That’s weird, I know. I can’t listen to music because it makes me want to dance or transports me to somewhere else, but I also don’t work well in silence. I used to, but after living in a construction zone for months as my house was being put back together after the CZU fire in 2020 and having compressors, hammers, and saws around me all day, I lost the ability to write when it’s quiet.

There is an unexpected consequence to writing to talk, though. I just released book six in my PIP Inc. Mysteries series, “What Lucy Heard,” and as I was reading through it again in an attempt to keep from embarrassing myself when  the editor saw it, I noticed it had subtle references to this year’s big new stories that I must have heard as I listened and typed. Evidently, they found their way into my subconscious even as I thought I was ignoring what I heard and that it was just writing white noise.

The cover of the book features a Cybertruck. When I was deciding what sort of vehicle the accused murderer should drive, something which matters for the story, I picked a Cybertruck not only because it’s quiet but also because that vehicle was so prominent in the news in the days of Elon Musk.

At one point in the story my protagonist, Pat Pirard, the former Santa Cruz County Law Librarian who has become an unlicensed private investigator to keep her and her dalmatian, Dot, and her ginger tabby, Lord Peter Wimsey—yes, a definite nod to the famed Dorthy Sayers detective—housed and fed after she was downsized out of her job, is coyly asking a suspect if it’s possible to make a text message disappear to see what they know. Her suspect says it’s easy if you use something like Signal to do it. I came up with that particular app after the news was all about a reporter accidently being included in a hi-level phone conversation he shouldn’t have heard and that a feature of the app was that conversations could be made to disappear.

The murder victim was a serial philanderer which gave me many suspects to play with since there were numerous people who had reason to want him dead. If that storyline is reminiscent of recent headlines, it’s probably not a coincidence. And the book ends with the protagonist asking her husband what will happen to the killer. He responds that rule of law must be followed or we have nothing, also a topic in the news today.

Editing is finished and the book was released on August 15^th so any new current events and news stories will have to wait until the next book to make it to my pages.

I’m preparing to read it aloud in serial form to a group called Well Connected starting on September 9^th. You have to sign up to join, but listening is free if you are over sixty.  I love doing live readings and have read all my books to that group. Here’s the link to sign up if you want to listen in to “What Lucy Heard.” https://frontporch.net/ connect/well-connected/ I hope you’ll join me.