Up a Tree...

This awesome climber is nonother than a 6 year old Dan Dwayne. While most boys were out climbing and playing in their jeans and t-shirts I was fashionably dressed for the excursion in chinos and a shirt suitable for any golf course. This was my usual... the unusual. But, it was 1961 and things were different then. JFK was inaugurated president of the US, Aretha Franklin's debut album Queen of Soul hit the market, the bay of pigs fiasco festered ill-will between the USA and the (then called) Soviet Union, and Earnest Hemmingway died. All that was a lot to take in for a guy who just started the first grade. It was just a year later when the Cuba missile crisis happened. I was seven and I remember refusing to go to school. I sat in the dining room listening to the radio as the announcer told about the naval blockade challenging the Soviet Union. I'm sure I wasn't the only one holding my breath that day. Nothing felt safe. It was clear (even to a seven year old)  that if the event became an actual battle and atomic bombs started flying... we all would be doomed. As a writer I don't think I could ever portray that kind of suspense accurately. It was too intense for words. Those were the days of the cold war and spy verses spy. Speaking of spies… if you haven't checked out my book 'Spies Lie and Spies Die' then do...  I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Your books sure are different from each other. How do you classify your writing?

Question: Your books are so different... how do you classify yourself as a writer?
Answer: Yes, on the surface my books seem very different. It is easy to only look at their differences, but let's stop and step back looking at their similarities. Everyone has an adventure. It started when you were born and goes till you die. (We don't like to think about that... but there it is.) Some of us have plain or ordinary adventures. Selke in "The Secret King" has an exotic adventure. It was set in a romantic time period and he had the privilege of being Jesus' best friend as they grew up together. What one might miss is that the whole story is really about Selke not Jesus. If a person is expecting to read a religious story focusing on Jesus... then they will probably be disappointed when they read "The Secret King." The character Selke is like everyone of us. We have a life full of events and adventures. our adventures are usually about us... the Me, the I, the Ego... not about anything else. That is until we open up to include others into our adventure. Sometimes these others go along with us on our adventures, and sometimes we go along with them on theirs (even if it is by coincidence and not by choice.)  This is what happens to Selke. He is having his own adventure when he is forced into Jesus' adventure. You might not have realized it but Selke is even mentioned in the bible. No... not by name. He is simply called "a man." But back to our topic. Selke's story is an adventure. I write adventure stories. Yes, I simply insist that  all my stories are adventure stories. Not all have ghosts, not all have detectives, not all have journalists, but they all have characterized people who are having an interesting adventure.  (Actually thinking about the similarities... if you look close enough you will agree that each one of my stories has a savior.) Find them on Amazon.com

 

What kind of Gun is on the Cover of "Spies Lie & Spies Die?"

I had to decide what kind of gun to use on the cover. I knew I wanted it to be golden and hang on the ribbon but should it be a Smith and Wesson? Maybe it should be Remington or maybe it should be a Barretta. All three of these guns appear in the nine stories of "Spies Lie & Spies Die." I decided on the Berretta because there are more Barrettes in the book.  I looked at one and using my mouse I clicked off the image of the gun in Photoshop. I added in the shadows and details. (Although I purposefully kept it a bit nondescript on the details.) Then I flipped it upside down onto the ribbon.