I HATE to miss deadlines.

July 13, 2026July 9, 2026 ~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

I’m an Indie author. That means I make all the decisions from characters to plot to the endings of my books and when they will be published. I have a whiteboard that I use to keep track of a year’s work/publishing schedule. When I get behind or have to erase and change the dates, it makes me edgy and angry. I like to stay on schedule.

I knew the move I made in March would mess up my schedule. I made concessions for it on my whiteboard. Fast forward to June when I had expected to have a good chunk of the next Cuddle Farm book written and I was slogging in indecision.

Sorry about the reflections in the middle of the photo.

From the moment I finished book 1, Merry Merry Merry Murder, I knew what book 2 would be about. I’d run some scenes in my head and had already researched what I needed to know. I started the book, but it wasn’t flowing. Things didn’t feel right.

I took a break and went to a play with my daughter in an opera house built in 1912. I fell in love with the building and the ambiance, and then my height-conscious daughter walked along the balcony railing and was scared. The railing didn’t come to her knees, and the balcony felt as if it were pitching you forward onto the stage.

After that visit, I couldn’t stop thinking about that opera house. A story was forming in my mind and I had to go back. I bought tickets to the next play and dragged my daughter along again. The play was good, I paid more attention to the stage, the exits, and the short railing. When the play finished, we waited for everyone to leave the balcony and I did some experimenting and then we went down and I took pictures of the balcony from the stage. I wanted one for the cover the next Cuddle Farm book.

Yes, I set the book I’d been working on aside, realizing I needed more time (another book) in between book 1 and the book I’d been writing. It has to do with the discord between the main character and her sister. I wanted to show a bit of a change there before, what is now book 3, is written since it deals with the reason for the discord.

Back to my switching books. Because what had started out as book 2 was now book 3, and I had been brewing that story in my head for almost a year, I was switching to a book I hadn’t even thought of until 4 months ago. As I’d glance up at my whiteboard and see the looming date for the release of book 2 in the Cuddle Farm mysteries and I was still trying to pull all the suspects, the motive, and everything else into place so I could start writing it, my tension grew that I was going to miss the publish date and it would throw off all of the release dates through the rest of this year.

When I was complaining to a friend, she asked me, “But will it be a better book for the series if you write it now?”

My answer was yes.

“Then that’s the book you need to write and move the other publish dates out. They aren’t made in stone.”

Oh, but they are chiseled in my head. My greatest flaw is my greatest strength. I don’t like to be late for ANYTHING. It makes me nervous when I think I’m going to be late. I purposely give myself extra time for everything. And I had for book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries. But I had to wipe off my whiteboard and redesignate publish dates for this book, the next Spotted Pony Casino book, and the next Gabriel Hawke book. I wasn’t happy, and it made my stomach twist as I erased the dates and reset them.

However, this is going to be a good book and will hopefully pull more readers into this series. It also gives me more time to decide the direction I’m going with the next Spotted Pony Casino book. I’ve been back and forth on how to approach it, and hopefully by the time I am ready to start, I’ll have that story ready to rock and roll.

Transitioning

February 9, 2026February 6, 2026 ~ patyjag ~ 12 Comments

Life has chapters, just like books.

Right now I’m transitioning from rural life to town life. We purchased the house in town the fall of 2024 because we were putting our farm up for sale and wanted to know where we would be going when it sold. That chapter was exciting and full of wistfulness of finding the right home.

We did. I love the view from all of my windows. We are isolated enough that we aren’t looking into any neighbors’ windows and we have a gorgeous view of the Eagle Cap Mountains that I write about in my Gabriel Hawke books and the Elkhorns which will be referred to in my Cuddle Farm Mystery series. Out the dining room window we see a couple of rooftops and a hill my hubby knows elk are going to come over when there is a bad winter. 😉

It’s an older house so there has been painting, fixing, and soon a remodel because the kitchen and dining room are too small. But first I will be moved into the house by April 1st. That’s when we are to be off of our farm. Hubby will stay on helping the dairy that he’s been managing hay fields for the last twelve years. Just for this summer to help the person taking over. He’ll stay there in a mobile home on the hay ranch and come help make out new place the way we want on long weekends.

I’m excited about a smaller house to clean, I can run to the store whenever I want, not make a list when I run out of things and have to wait until someone goes to town. I’m excited for the things I can attend without having an hour drive to and from the event. I’m also close to all the areas I write about in my mystery series. That is a real plus. I hope to get to more Native American events and culture a few more connections.

This is not the last chapter in my life but it is certainly one of the most looked forward to. I’ll continue to write, but we also hope to do a bit more traveling around the U.S.

We spent a week last month in southern Utah, hiking in parks and enjoying the weather and scenery. We plan to do that for a couple weeks every winter to get out of the longer, colder (usually) winters than we are used to.

I’m excited to see how the changes, might enhance my stories by living so much closer and being able to do even more trips to locations. I’m only an hour and a half away from the Umatilla Indian Reservation the location of my Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series.

Right now, I’m trying to get all the rooms ready to put the furniture that will fit in and try to keep up with writing on my current book, Captured Hummingbird, book 15 in the Gabriel Hawke novels.

As a reader can you tell when a writer knows the area they are writing about?

Writers, do you like to see places first hand if you write about real places?

Welcome 2026

January 12, 2026January 6, 2026 ~ patyjag ~ 9 Comments

I wouldn’t say I’m giddy, but I am excited about 2026. I’m not sure why. In March, I will be living in town, something I only did for about a year when I was 19. I finally talked my hubby into retiring from farming, and we knew the only way he would actually get away from work was to move to town.

What he didn’t tell me, he will be staying on in a house on the farm he’s been managing next to ours for this coming hay season to help the new man taking over and to help the person who bought our place. So I will only see him a couple weekends or for a week a month until September. Not a bad thing, but I had hoped we’d make more progress on the remodeling of the house in town.

Because he will only be coming to the new house once in a while, Nia, my chiweenie, and I won’t have to cook meals, I’ll be able to do day trips to Wallowa County to research for my Gabriel Hawke books and hang out at the Umatilla Reservation, where my Spotted Pony Casino mysteries take place. Not to mention some girls’ weekends with my friends.

Oh! and a fun thing that is happening, both Crapshoot, book 7 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries and Wolverine Instincts in the Gabriel Hawke novels are semi-finalists in the CIBA Award. I’ll let you know if they become finalists. I’m not attending the conference but if one or both are finalists, I may attend the dinner and award ceremony.

But I’m also excited because I’m trying to figure out something to do to celebrate the fact that my first published book came out 20 years ago in May. I want to do something in May to celebrate. I can’t decide whether to offer 20% off all my books on my website or across all vendors. Or do a big social media campaign where I give away prizes for 20 days, or??? Does anyone here have some good suggestions?

I have also booked an event that I attended the first two years the event started. It’s called Wild Deadwood Reads and is in Deadwood, South Dakota. Those years, I hosted games on various trips the participants went on and we all went to the PBR Rodeo and sat in a section together as well as had short stories in an anthology that we sold at the event and gave proceeds to the Western Sports Foundation, an organization that helps injured rodeo athletes.

The event has been streamlined to a couple of learning days, a Saturday breakfast with authors and readers, and a full-day book signing. In the past, I took my niece and sister-in-law because it’s a two-day drive, and I didn’t want to do it alone. This year, I’m hoping a friend will go with me. On the way back, I’ll spend a night or two with a high school friend who lives about halfway between Oregon and South Dakota.

Right now, I am packing boxes for the move, about to publish the next Spotted Pony Casino Mystery, and starting the next Gabriel Hawke novel. There is always something book-related going on in my life, and that makes me happy. As my hubby noticed early in our marriage, I am happiest when I am writing.

Here is a peek at the soon-to-be-on-preorder book, Full House, book 8 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries.

When the past knocks on their door, the future they planned begins to unravel.

On the brink of their wedding, Dela Alvaro and Heath Seaver’s plans shatter when a ten-year-old boy appears, claiming to be Heath’s son. The truth is even darker: the boy’s mother—the woman Heath thought died years ago at Pine Ridge—was an FBI informant hidden under a new identity, left to raise his child alone before dying of addiction.

As Heath wrestles with awe for the son he never knew and fury at the FBI’s deception, the past turns deadly. When the agent who lied to him is found murdered in Pendleton, the FBI shows up on Dela’s doorstep, bringing danger straight to their home.

With their future on the line, Dela and Heath must confront a web of secrets before it destroys the family they’re just beginning to build.

Here’s to looking forward to the future with gusto and exuberance.

Last Character Development – Dela Alvaro

December 8, 2025December 1, 2025 ~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

After a reader asked me how I developed my characters, I decided to share how I came up with each of my main characters in my mystery series. Today, I’ll explain how Dela Alvaro of the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries came about.

In the beginning, Dela was actually a main character in a short story I entered in an anthology contest. The story didn’t make the book, but the character stuck with me. At the time she was from a tribe in California because the story had to be set in that state.

As I wrote the short story, her life became clearer and clearer to me and I could see her as an Indigenous person from NE Oregon. When that idea stuck and I had been interviewing a Umatilla woman who helped me with my Stolen Butterfly book in the Gabriel Hawke novels, I knew that Dela would be head of security for a fictional casino. She made her debut in the book Stolen Butterfly, helping Hawke find a missing woman.

From there I spun off her own series. Using the information I gleaned from the Umatilla woman about tribal police and casino security (she had been a security guard at the real Wildhorse Casino), I sketched out my fictional casino, imagined her duties and how she could use her position to help with police investigations.

She was raised on the reservation by a single mom. Dela was told her father died before she was born and he was Hispanic. She believed this until the day she discovered a photo of a Umatilla man who looked a lot like her. A man no one wanted to talk about. Not wanting to cause her mother, a school teacher on the reservation, any unhappiness, she talked it over with her high school boyfriend who also had a missing father. Another thing they bonded over.

To give her a strong need to protect Indigenous women, I had Dela’s best friend in high school found murdered along the interstate when she should have rode home from Pendleton with Dela. Her guilt over her friend makes Dela’s desire to find missing and murdered women’s attackers her first priority. She must save others to atone for not saving her friend.

After that happened, she joined the army and left the reservation. Leaving behind a worried mother and a heart-broken boyfriend. But she needed to leave to think and become stronger. During her time in the Army, she became an MP and would have made it her career if a bomb hadn’t ripped off her lower right leg and filled her with shrapnel.

She returned to her childhood home to recuperate and had the opportunity to get a job as a security guard at the casino and worked her way up quickly when they realized her skills. She had wanted to join law enforcement but with her disability she would have been restricted to desk duty and that isn’t her style.

To her dismay she discovers that a Special Ops officer she butted heads with and had a crush on is an FBI agent stationed in Pendleton. Their lust for one another is palpable but they both know that they aren’t meant to be together and argue instead. Then Dela’s high school sweetheart returns to the reservation and wants to rekindle their relationship. It works. Heath has always been the person she could talk to and who would listen and trust her judgement. He joins the tribal police.

Together, Heath at the tribal police, Quinn at the FBI, and Dela with her good instincts and contacts in the casino security and surveillance, the three make a formidable trio when someone at the reservation is killed or threatened.

That is how I came up with Dela. By sitting down and thinking about her strengths, you read about above which could also be her weaknesses. Her other weaknesses are : Action before thought, feeling she isn’t a whole person, and taking in strays.

The action before thought is how Heath makes her a complete person. He is methodical and can keep her from reacting without thinking. Because of her loss of limb and inability to have children she feels she is damaged. While she acts and talks tough she has a soft spot for anyone or thing that needs help. Her strays are the three-legged dog she named Mugshot and Jethro, the donkey she was asked to take care of by a neighbor and was nearly killed and suspected of killing the woman’s husband.

I hope this gives you an idea of how I put together Dela Alvaro.

Right now I have a special- get all three first in series mystery books bundled together for FREE in ebook or audiobook. It’s my gift to readers this holiday season.