2025 is the 20th anniversary of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries. I created the family of detectives living in Palo Alto back in 2005, centered around protagonist Liana Alvarez, better known as Lee. The anniversary made me nostalgic, and I thought back on each story. Dumbfounded, I discovered that Lee was in one dangerous situation after another in every single book.

I had to face it. I like to have Lee in peril. Actually, I love it. And the more challenging the peril, the better. When I come up with a new catastrophe for her to endure in one of the books, I chortle in a way that would make Vincent Price feel right at home. When I think of another calamity, I shamelessly chortle louder.

I’ve stranded Lee at the top of a tree eye-to-eye with a territorial falcon. In another book, she crawls around inside a yucko garbage truck looking for a specific clue, ruining brand-new silk pajamas. In yet another, she’s chased by a woman armed with deadly poison darts, then held captive by said lunatic at her own wedding, a wedding at which nothing goes right. Lee’s been conked on the head, arrested for murder, trapped in an airless mine shaft, and even shot in the arm by a villain on a boat in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane.

What’s the matter with me? Why did I do twenty years of these things to a young(ish), charming woman, whose only fault was being in my books? As I look back on it, I’ve been merciless.

In my latest WIP, Cleopatra Slept Here, Lee reluctantly accompanies her entire family, pets included, on a private plane to Egypt for a working vacation. They are to join an archaeological dig, receiving no pay but having free room and board on a beautiful ship docked on the Nile in Luxor. The goal of the dig is to discover who Cleopatra’s real mother was. Apparently, they didn’t have birth certificates back then.

Once in Egypt, the Alvarez family is followed by unknown persons. Then Lee receives a warning note telling her to go back to where she belongs. But she soldiers on, looking forward to seeing ancient pyramids, temples, and museums, the sights that make Egypt one of the most magical countries in the world.

But I got in there, and in my own nasty way, made sure Lee doesn’t see any of the sights. Instead, she’s in and out of police stations, grappling with felons, crawling around in the ship’s hold seeking a missing youth, and leading a camel chase through the desert.

Wait! Maybe I can be absolved. She does manage to see the Nile River while on the elegant Blue Nile, the ship housing the dig’s personnel. On further thought, no absolution here. Lee sees the Nile a little too “up close and personal” when she has to jump in to save Tugger, her cat, thrown overboard by an unknown bad guy. Right after that, there’s an encounter with a deadly Egyptian Cobra hiding in the wardrobe closet of her cabin. And then there’s the – never mind. Sufficeth it to say, I’ve been coming up with messes for her to get into continually. Why, on why? Well, there’s only one explanation:

The devil made me do it.

As of late, I have been MIA from the writing scene. Actually, I’ve been missing from most of life. I’ve been through something that came out of the blue and lasted for 3 months. But I have no intention of writing about it. It involves pneumonia, a blood infection, and a nasty bacterium that landed on the aortic valve of my heart, damaging the valve. All of that led to open-heart surgery. Hmmm. Well, I guess I’ve just written about it.

But that’s about all you’ll read from me. No day-to-day happenings, no long-winded tales about the experience, other than one word: scary, intense, and mind-blowing.. But I have to acknowledge how miraculous it is that open-heart surgery exists, and it can save your life. Hmmm. Well, I guess I’ve just blown the one-word thing, too.

You see, I don’t do non-fiction. Not even my own. I’m not comfortable with it. Fiction is my game, and writing about real life, other than pulling out what I need for my made-up mysteries, is not for me. True crime novels and movies scare me. I really don’t want to think about real things that happen. Nope, give me fiction every time. And if you can make it light-hearted or funny, so much the better.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I follow the news every day, online, in newspapers, “ABC World News with David Muir,” and CNN. Then I gnash my teeth, pull out my hair, and wonder what the world is coming to. When I’ve had enough of that and my blood pressure is at an all-time high, I switch the station to “The Big Bang Theory,” “Mike & Molly,” or “Matlock,” depending on my mood. Here, I know justice will be served and, if I’m lucky, I will have a few laughs.

Every word of my work-in-progress, Cleopatra Slept Here, book 11 of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, is made up. At the moment, it lies fallow, being a scriptus interruptus. But I plan to get back to this pack of lies as soon as possible. My bogus characters and storyline patiently await me. They will do nothing without me because, thankfully, they aren’t real. They exist only in my head. And that’s the truth.

A lot of people think Ernest Hemingway wrote that. He didn’t. It is often attributed to him, but this brilliant writer wouldn’t have done anything as self-destructive as being smashed out of his gourd when writing, at least not long-term. For Whom the Bell Tolls does not refer to last call at your local pub.

It isn’t that Hemingway didn’t imbibe. One of my favorite cocktails is named the Hemingway Daiquiri. And it’s quite nummy. Hemingway was a man who prided himself on being a man’s man. He drove an ambulance in the middle of a war.  He was a big game hunter. He got into brawls. He was a womanizer. He drank, yessiree Bob. Hemingway was a man of the 20^th Century. But he also liked cats, so in my opinion, he had a few redeeming 21st-century qualities. I’m with Mark Twain on this thought: “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”

But back to writers boozing it up while on duty. I don’t think so, colorful as it sounds. When I’m writing, I’m trying to find words to form into sentences. It becomes very basic. Most of the time, they don’t even have to be pretty words. They just have to make sense. This is something I can barely do while slurping down my morning latte, much less a martini. I strain my brain to try to come up with the word for that latch thingy-hooky that’s at the top of a whatchamacallit to keep, you know, the lid on. Or the name of who’s-a-biddy, the assistant front desk manager in Chapter Six. You know, the one with the long, dark hair.

So if Hemingway didn’t say the quote, “write drunk, edit sober,” who did? They have no idea. One possibility is humorist Peter De Vries. He wrote a character named Gowan McGland. The character, McGland, gave an interview and said, “Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation — the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.”

Now doesn’t that sound exactly like what a sober writer would pen of a fictional character while trying to give him color?

I’d been waiting all year for the 2025 Left Coast Crime Conference to happen. I signed up for it sometime in the summer of 2024. My husband, Norm, and I made reservations on the Amtrak going from Emeryville, California, to Denver, Colorado. We were going to join friend and fellow writer, Janet Dawson, on the 36-hour train ride across the Rockies, play cards and scrabble, eat wonderful meals, and arrive in Denver in time to check in for the conference on Wednesday evening. I had registered and paid for the conference and bought tickets to the Awards Dinner for Norm and me. I was on a fun panel. We had airline tickets to fly home Sunday evening at the end of the conference. There was even an afternoon tea at the famous Brown’s Hotel on the agenda. All was right with the world, and the trip was planned to the last detail. But pass the cheese, please. The best-laid plans of mice and men.

6 days before we were to leave, I started coughing. I wasn’t too worried. I had nearly a week to shake this, right? Besides, I had all the vaccinations you can have. Nothing could happen, right? Wrong. Each day the coughing, sneezing, wheezing, and congestion got worse. On the 4^th day of this scourge, I saw my doctor and got tested. No Covid, RSV, or flu. Just one of your common, every day, unnamed viruses that knocks your socks off for at least 10 to 14 days. Stay home, drink plenty of liquids, take whatever over-the-counter meds make you feel better, and ride it out. That’ll be $25, please. Thank you, Doctor. I could have told you that and saved myself 25 bucks and a trip to Kaiser. I have since named the unnamed virus. After all, they name hurricanes, and this was my very own personal hurricane. I call it Fred.

But I digress. So, home I went, feeling enormously sorry for myself. I crawled back into bed, Norm brought me chamomile tea, the cats cuddled, and I resigned myself. We were scheduled to leave for Denver in three days, and I could barely lift my head from the pillow. There was no way I could make this trip. Even Norm, Mister-You-Can-Do-It, shook his head in sympathy. Time to put on my Big Girl Panties, so to speak, and let friends, associates, and fellow writers know I wasn’t coming to LCC this year. My life was over. Well, not really. But when one feels like a bucket of horse manure and locked out of one of the most wonderful and fun times of the year, one is allowed to go there. So, there I went.

It was short-lived. Soon, I got texts and pictures from the train taken by our wonderful Janet, who was disappointed we couldn’t join her but was making the best of it. In those brief moments, I felt a part of the trip, enjoying the shared moments. Janet continued to send me highlights of the trip, conference, and even the high tea at Brown’s. Then a few other pals wrote emails or sent me texts, some with pictures. Even the panel moderator, Chris Dreith, decided not to replace me with another writer but wanted me to answer the same questions she would have asked had I been there. Chris made a sock puppet in my image. I gotta tell you, the resemblance is uncanny. See right. Using her ventriloquist skills, Chris used the sock to voice my answers. Then she gave the puppet sock and my latest book to a contest “winner,” Grace Koshida, who happens to be the Fan of Honor at the conference. Because Grace is a sweetheart, she alerted me on Facebook about this and included more wonderful pictures.

I may not have been at the conference, but so many people went out of their way to include me and make sure I knew I was missed, like Baird Nuckolls pictured left, that I feel warm all over when I think about it. I am well now, but I am keeping the emails, texts, and pictures sent by my friends and associates from LCC 2025 for the future. If I ever feel sorry for myself, that nobody cares, and I’d better eat some worms, before I get out the frying pan I’m going to remember this incident. I’m going to be thankful I live in a world with friends who are mystery writers and readers because, surely, they are the most thoughtful and kindest people on the planet.

And why I sometimes need basting.

I am always impressed by the creative gifts of many of my fellow authors. Not only are they good writers, but their talents often extend to book covers, ad campaigns, blurbs, banners, and more. And let me add, whatever they touch turns out pretty danged good.

As for me, I’ve spent time and energy doing a lot of my own book covers. Here I let out a deep sigh because the American academic grading system would probably only give my efforts a C+. And I throw myself the extra + because this is my post. It is not something that comes naturally to me. Regardless, I love doing the Persephone Cole covers and some of my other books. But not without tons of feedback from trusted pals. For the record, I am never allowed to touch the Alvarez Family covers. The Powers That Be have mandated.

This brings me back to my fellow mystery writers and why I love ’em. As we go through this crazy journey of being a wordsmith, we regularly ask each other for advice or to look at a WIP with a fresh eye. No one has to say please be candid without being cruel. The last part is a given for my pals. They haven’t got a mean bone in their body. And as we’ve all been taught in our writing classes, “Sweetie, I love your hair, but …”

Last month Janet Dawson, one of our very own, had a new banner for her post on Ladies of Mystery and I was smitten with it (see below). I had to have one, too. Actually, I wanted hers but plagiarism is still nasty-naughty, even though AI does it with aplomb and their masters think it’s not only okay but the wave of the future. Really? Have a REAL plum, honey.

Moving on. After hours of going round-robin, I sent Janet the first version of my banner for feedback. It wasn’t working. As usual, she came up with helpful suggestions. Janet said, in a very supportive way, it was a little busy and dark. Keep the work simpler and lighter, she advised. She even offered to help me do it. I was touched and relieved. Yayyy! A partner. But at 12:45 am, I woke up with another thought: Why not take the cartoon image I’ve been using and add to it? In other words, build on what I’ve got. So I did. Ta-da! My masterpiece, such as it is (see the orange thing at top of page).

I probably would have never arrived at going simpler or using white lettering on a darker background without Janet’s help. That’s why I love round-table endeavors. I love brainstorming. I love it when people put the work first and not their egos. And I try to do the same. Learning by osmosis, don’tchaknow. So, I want to thank all my fellow writers who have offered friendship, support, and words of wisdom.

But I am not surprised. Because that’s what mystery writers do with aplomb.