At 5:30 last night, my phone rang. “I hate the time change,” my girlfriend said. “Look outside, it’s dark.” I walked over to the window and checked. “Yep, you’re right.” “Oh sure, be smug, Ms. I live in a resort-like climate. (now I’ve never considered Tulsa a resort. But she’s right. Not to brag, but…

I woke early this morning with an uncontrollable urge to go fly fishing. (does that ever happen to you?) Perhaps my desire was feed by the endless days of clear skies, brisk mornings, and the warm afternoon breezes that send the colored leaves blowing about. But no matter the reason, the pull to be outside,…

Have you ever considered that football and writing have a lot in common? As a matter of fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that back in high school, I suspect the “artsy” groups and the jocks were actually more similar than different. This concept occurred to me while I was…

It was late and the low fuel light lit on my creative tank. Still having hours of editing ahead of me, I decided to make a pit stop in front of the TV for a mindless fill-up.(usually, that’s a minimum of one Scooby-Doo re-run) But my Tivo was full and shedded the saved episodes of…

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words.(lucky for us writers, not too often) I’ve been dying to go white water kayaking. Now I’ve been leisure kayaking, paddling casually, enjoying the scenery, but the restless daredevil who lies deep in my subconscious reared it’s head and pushed me to up the ante. With…

I was climbing a very narrow metal stairway up to the bridge on the USS Midway, the aircraft carrier turned museum permanently docked in the San Diego Harbor. ( yes, it would seem I maneuvered another sabbatical to escape the last few weeks of Oklahoma heat) After reaching the top of the first of four…

Why did you chose that career? Have you ever been asked that question? When I started writing “Risk” one of the first things I did was get to know my main character Tana Lyre. Where did she come from, what motivates her and why did she become a pilot? Now I think I’ll leave that…

That was the message a friend left on my voice mail two weeks ago. (sans the revisited) These days we both seem to have problems accessing the actual names of people and places, so if we draw a blank, we allow each other a lot of latitude and make something up. There really isn’t a…