When it comes to my writing, I have a fire in the belly. Or maybe it’s acid reflux. It’s hard to tell sometimes. All I know is I finished writing Casting Call for a Corpse, Book 7 of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, on Sunday night and now I’m itching to start the next novel.  Of course, Casting Call is not really done yet. A million unfinished bits of business needs to go into making it a “done” work. I can’t help but look forward to a new book, a new set of laughs and problems to give to my readers. Let’s face it. An author is a masochist with delusions of readership. Because isn’t that the end result, readers? Isn’t that what writing a novel is all about? Otherwise, wouldn’t it be a diary or journal?

I’m asking a lot of questions for someone who creates questions and then pretends to have the answers. I stack the deck, too. If it’s a question I don’t know the answer to, I veer off to the left. Or right. Sometimes I Google it and try to find whatever the answer is I want to give. That’s the kind of fiction writer I am. Some authors present a reader with a problem and leave them pondering. Aha, they effectively say! There you are! Now deal with it. That’s called shining a light on the truth.

I don’t do that. I blast a bulb on the wannabe, wanna do, wanna live. Of course, I try to throw a life lesson in now and again, but happiness is my raison d’etre. So whatever the next book is, it will have a happy ending with the bad guys being punished and the good guys becoming B&BPs (bigger and better people). Because I am a firm believer, like Thomas Jefferson, that we have the right to pursue happiness. Even on the printed page.