An Rver's Dream Vacation Resort

After years of staying in crowded, graveled RV parks, we discovered a resort that is very close to paradise. Rancho California is located in the southern desert 18 miles east of Temecula in wine country, an oasis guaranteed to fill most RVer's vacation dreams.

 

 

The 503-lot resort has a number of waterfalls, ponds, multitude of palm trees, swimming pools, tennis and pickle ball courts, grocery mart, restaurant, chapel, laundromats and bath houses, fenced dog park, coastal mountain views as well as a golf course which meanders through the gated facility. It's a community unto itself.

The view of one of the waterfalls was taken from our 40 x 80 lot, which features an outdoor galley kitchen, 25 palm trees and a rose garden that most flower enthusiasts would die for. The large club house behind the waterfall regularly hosts plays, dances to live music, church services, club meetings and a variety of activities available to both renters and lot owners.

A view of the golf course with the coastal range in the background. Visitors regularly travel from Germany, the UK and other countries to stay here as well as RVers from every state in the union. And, surprisingly, it's relatively inexpensive.

 

 

Sunset viewed from the back of our lot, while seated with a glass of California wine to relax from the day's activities. The only drawback is that I don't take time to work on another Logan and Cafferty mystery because there are so many activities, new friends to visit with, and great views to gaze upon. It's truly an RVers paradise!

Disclaimer: This is not a paid commercial, but an invitation to fellow RVers to discover this amazing place.

The True Story of Ella "Cattle Kate" Watson-Averell and her husband, James

 

No Escape: The Sweetwater Tragedy, a Wyoming historical mystery/suspense novel, is the story of a young couple murdered by greedy cattlemen who want  their homestead land. It's also the story of a young single woman from Missouri who travels to Wyoming Territory, a year before it becomes a state, to file on homesteader land of her own.

Tired of being told what to do by the men in her life, Susan seeks the freedom offered in Wyoming Territory in 1889, including the right to vote, hold political office and serve on juries. When she meets Michael O'Brien, a young veterinarian, when she disembarks from the train in Casper, she decides to accept his offer  to accompany her to Rawlins to file for homestead land.

Surviving a tornado in their wagon, she later meets Ellen Watson-Averell and her husband James, fellow homesteaders who operate a road ranch and cafe in Sweetwater Valley along the Oregon-Mormon Trail. The Averells are later hanged by greedy cattlemen who want their homestead land, and the couple is accused of running a rural bawdy house. Ellen "Ella" receives the name "Cattle Kate" following her death and is said to have accepted rustled cattle in exchange for her "favors," lies spread by the lynchers to rationalize their actions.

Witnesses to the murders disappear or turn up dead and the mystery and suspense continue as Susan and Michael flee for their lives . . .

The novel is based on more than 20 years of research and is available on Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/cgapmrn (print edition out later this month).

The Near Death Experience

The “Lazarus Syndrome,” or NDE, refers to a near death experience. The name originated with the biblical Lazarus who was said to have risen from the dead. NDEs have been reported throughout history by the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks as well as in the Bible.

People have reportedly heard themselves pronounced dead by an attending physician. Many, including my mother, recalled traveling rapidly through a long, dark tunnel in an out of body experience. Seeing a bright light, they felt a previously unknown warmth and peacefulness. They’ve also reported being met by a friend or relative who has already passed on, and has, in the process, experienced feelings of extreme love and bliss.

In my mother’s case, she was giving birth to one of my brothers, who was born breech. She said that after traveling the tunnel toward a brilliant light, she was met by her deceased father and told her that it wasn't her time. He reminded her of her three small children at home. At that point, she struggled back to life. According to Dr. Keith D. Wilson, author of Cause of Death, some physicians theorize that the experience is nothing more than hypoxia or decreased oxygen supply to the brain’s temporal lobe. Many, however, believe that it’s a forward look into the unknown realm of death.

Carl Sagan believed that NDEs are latent memories from birth. In his book, Broca’s Brain, he says, “The only alternative, so far as I can see, is that every human being, without exception, has already shared an experience like that of those travelers who return from the land of death; the sensation of flight; the emergence from darkness into light; an experience in which, at least perceived, bathed in radiance and glory. There is only one common experience that matches this description. It is called birth.”

Well-known psychic Sylvia Browne has described the process of dying in several of her bestselling books. She claims to have spent numerous lives on earth and recalls her own demise. She says that she also traveled down a long tunnel but that the bright light seemed to radiate from her own body.

Melvin Morse, M.D., in his book, Closer to the Light, reports that the near-death experiences of young children he interviewed in the hospital were identical. Over a hundred children, ages three to nine, who had suffered NDE during surgery, all experienced the same tunnel and light as did their adult counterparts.

Morse concludes that because the children were too young to be influenced by religious teachings or preconceived notions about death, the near-death experiences hold some validity.

The Art of Writing Suspense

Centuries ago storytelling could be a dangerous pastime. Tales were told around a fire and, if the storyteller droned on and bored his listeners, they either fell asleep or they killed him, according to Sol Stein in his book, Stein on Writing. Fortunately for modern writers, the worst thing that can happen is that the reader will put your book aside and never pick it up again. So, if your goal is to have your work read, don’t write the boring stuff that readers tend to skip over. That’s usually descriptive passages that should be shoveled in lightly and gradually, not all in one lump. Or it can be tedious dialogue that has nothing to do with the plot’s race to the finish line. Editors call it padding and ask that writers delete it, or worse yet, they reject the manuscript and return it.

Suspense is the most important element in plotting. Keep your reader reading and unable to put the book down. How many times have you read until two or three in the morning because you couldn’t possibly go to sleep without first learning the plot’s resolution? And then couldn’t fall asleep because the book was so good that it continually replayed in your mind?

No matter how unique your style or intriguing your characters, if you don’t pique your reader’s curiosity and keep her hooked until the end of the story, you might as well be the campfire storyteller with a club over your head. Keep your reader in suspense with occasional rest periods so that he can catch his breath while you spoon in a little description and backstory. While writing, always keep your eye on the finish line and make the race to the book’s conclusion as suspenseful as possible.

The greatest compliment a writer can receive is for someone to say, “I couldn’t put the book down.” How many times have you said that, yourself? And what was it about that book that kept you reading? Nine times out of ten, you’ll say it was suspense and your own curiosity that kept you reading to learn what was going to happen next. Suspense, according to Stein, is the strong glue between reader and writer. And, of course, caring about the characters and wanting them to resolve their problems.

The word suspense comes from the Latin word “to hang.” So consider yourself an executioner who takes your reader to the edge of a cliff. Once there you hang your protagonist by his fingertips. It’s not your job to feel sorry for the cliff hanger or to immediately rescue him. Leave him hanging until his fingers are slipping and he’s about to fall into a deep, dark canyon. Suspense builds as the reader anxiously waits for someone to rescue the hero, but it’s not happening yet; or the villain is stomping on the hero’s fingers and the reader wants him to stop. That’s an exaggerated example of suspense, but one that a writer can use it to his advantage.

There are various forms of suspense: potential or immediate danger to your protagonist, unwanted confrontations, a fear of what’s about to happen, and a crisis that needs to be met head on. A writer's job is to set up a situation or problem that needs a resolution, but without an immediate answer. A detective is a novel killer if he picks up a clue in chapter two and says, “Ah ha, I know who this button belongs to, I’ll contact the police and have her arrested for the murder.” Unless, of course, you’re writing a short story or very short novella. Stretch out the suspense until your reader forsakes all else to finish your book.

Flawed Characters

One of the biggest mistakes novice writers make is to produce flawless characters. Handsome or beautiful, they have perfect marriages, lots of money, fine cars and homes, good educations and the best of everything. The problem is that few readers can identify with them.

Characters, aside from villains, should be lovable, or at least likable. Never perfect. Your characters must have flaws for readers to be able to empathize with them. Remember Emma Bovary in Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones?

The most important thing to remember is to focus on your character's vulnerabilities, according to writing instructor Bret Anthony Johnston."Your focus can be on physical or emotional vulnerability, but it has to be intimately tied to the character. What makes her sad, embarrasses her? What frightens her, what does she regret? What minor or major trespasses has she committed?"

In the case of Emma Bovary, we can sympathize with her mistakes and how they affect her life.

What does your character need or want? And what does he stand to gain or lose by the conclusion of the plot? Whether or not the character achieves his goal isn't as important as how badly he wants it. Your reader will hang in there with your protagonist once she understands his goals and desires. Make that desire as compelling as possible. A character who wants to achieve world peace is far less desirable, according to Johnston, than someone who craves a gourmet dinner, because the goal is attainable.

Once you decide what it is your protagonist wants, emphasize it throughout the story. From the first paragraph, your reader should understand the character's goal and it should color everything he does. And the more he wants something, the more the reader likes him.

Dialogue is a great way to portray a character's weakness. If he talks about someone else, the reader picks up information about the character himself by his description. The type of food he eats or the genre of music he listens to gives us some insight into his character. Does he stop by a fast food place for a burger instead of a restaurant for a good meal? Does he smoke a pack of cigarettes while on stakeout?

In The Great Gatsby when Nick Caraway tries to describe how Daisy Buchannan speaks, he says, "Her voice is full of money." Fitzgerald's few words tells us a lot about both Caraway and Buchannan.

A writer's job is should be more like a method actor than a news reporter. Striving to see the world through your protagonist's eyes is most important. Focus on the details and events happening in his or her life. But that doesn't mean that your fictional characters should like the same things you do or share the same views. Nor should they become your parrot. Each character should have his own distinct speech pattern and outlook on life.

Keep your protagonist in proverbial hot water as much as possible. Allow the water to cool periodically to avoid melodrama, but keep turning up the heat until events come to a boil. When your character has achieved his goal or solved his dilemma, remove him from the pot and dry him off for a satisfying ending.

My Interview with C. J. Box

Blue Heaven, C.J. Box's first stand-alone novel, won an Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2008 and has been optioned for film. Three Weeks to Say Goodbye was published in January 2009 and debuted on the NY Times extended bestseller list. His ninth Joe Pickett novel, Below Zero, became his biggest bestseller to date.


Chuck, how do you manage to write two novels a year? What’s your writing schedule like?

Two books a year is kind of a temporary predicament that came about because I've got two publishers: Putnam for the Joe Pickett series and St. Martins Press for the stand-alone novels. Each wants a book a year. It's worked out because the first stand-alone Blue Heaven was already written so, for me, it's been more like nine months between writing the books which is just about right for me.

I work every day with my best work in the mornings. I edit and do other things in the afternoons.When I'm at my cabin or an isolated place, I work in one or two more writing sessions and sometimes go deep into the night. My goal is always 1,000 good words a day, but sometimes I exceed that. And sometimes I fall short.

I know that you’re an avid hunter-fisherman. Were you in the Wyoming outback when you conceived your series characters, game warden Joe Pickett?

I was working as a newspaper reporter in Saratoga, Wyoming, when I first started working on the novel which would later become Open Season, the first Joe Pickett novel. I spent (and spend) a lot of time outdoors and while I was coming up with the premise I was doing ride-alongs with the local game warden for newspaper stories.As I learned more about the duties and responsibilities (and home life) of a game warden, I thought a game warden would be a great protagonist.I'm glad I chose correctly.

Would you rather be hunting or fishing than writing?

I'd rather be combining the three, to be honest. Do a productive session at the computer, grab my fly rod, and come back later to write a little more. That, for me, is the perfect day.

How does it feel to not only win an Edgar Award but to make the New York Times bestseller list?

It feels fantastic, because the Edgar is an honor bestowed on my fellow novelists for quality and being on the NYT list means readers are buying the books.I think all Edgar winners want to be best-selling authors, and all best-selling crime novelists want to win an Edgar.So I'm a lucky guy.

How did your novel, Below Zero, evolve?

I'd heard about carbon offset companies over the years and was both fascinated and repulsed by the concept of, in effect, buying out ones guilt for producing a carbon footprint by paying money to one of the organizations.I researched the concept and built it into one of the primary storylines of the novel.In it, a dying mobster finds out the only way he can reconcile with his extreme environmentalist son is to try and bring his massive carbon footprint to "below zero" by the time he passes.Because he only has a few weeks to live, he has to commit large-scale crimes to make his balance drop.

At the same time, Joe Pickett's daughters start receiving text messages from a foster sister who they thought had died six years before.Investigation reveals the texts have originated from locations where major crimes have occurred.As Joe pursues this, the two storylines merge.

Which of your novels was the most difficult to write and do you have a favorite among them?

Blue Heaven was the most difficult because of the structure.The novel is told from six points of view within 60 hours in real time.Only the reader knows completely what's going on.Multiple points-of-view can get really, really tricky.If the reader doesn't think of the structure or difficulty, that means it worked.But getting there is tough.

I like all my novels for different reasons the way a parent likes his or her children.But if someone held a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd say Blue Heaven, Free Fire, Winterkill, and Open Season are my favorites.

What’s the best way to promote your books? Personal appearances or the Internet?

Books are still sold one at a time by people to other people. It's a very basic, low-tech business and it's driven by word-of-mouth. Getting out and meeting readers and potential readers is the best way to build a career, I think.Of course, if the books aren't good it doesn't matter either way.

Advice to budding western mystery novelists?

Read!It always amazes me when fledgling novelists don't read widely or often.More can be learned from reading than classes or courses.And if you choose to use the west as your location, please be authentic and stay away from western "characters" and hokum.

What makes a novel successful?

The reader must empathize with a character or several characters. And the novel should be structured so the reader wants to keep turning pages.There are so many entertainment options out there an author must realize the reader has choices, and one of the easiest choices of all is to put the book down if it isn't compelling.


You can visit C.J. Box at his website: http://www.cjbox.net/

Writing a Series

After you write that standalone novel, your publisher may suggest that it become a series. So it’s important that you like your protagonist(s) and want to continue writing about them. Agatha Christie grew tired of writing about Hercule Poirot and wanted to kill him off, just as Conan Doyle attempted to rid himself of Sherlock Holmes.

When I began my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, I named my two protagonists Shirley Lock and Dora Holmes. They were known as Shirl Lock & Holmes, a corny spin on the detective and his physician narrator. When my publisher closed its doors, I resold the series and changed the names to Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. By that time my two women sleuths had become like old friends, whom I enjoy visiting to eavesdrop on their conversations.

Dana is a bit autobiographical while Sarah is like my friend Marge, who is outspoken and often so funny that she has me laughing tears. Dana is a mystery novel buff, who, with her friend Sarah, a private investigator’s widow, buy a motorhome to travel the West, as I’ve done. Making the two women mobile provides them new settings in each novel. Although two of their motorhomes have been wrecked in the first three books, Dana’s wealthy sister dies and leaves her a considerable sum of money as well as a Wyoming mansion. The money allows them additional   mystery solving opportunities as well as extensive travel.

Most protagonists have a job and the author needs to be knowledgeable about the occupation, or at least know the basics. And above all, enjoy writing about the job on a continuing basis, without becoming bored. Another pitfall is to change the tone of the writing. For instance, you shouldn't  begin writing a cozy and decide in the middle of the series to darken it to a noir. Readers will complain. I’ve covered various subjects in my series, including adultery, drug gangs and homegrown terrorists, but with humor, so I’ve been able to get away with subjects not usually associated with two 60-year-old feisty amateur sleuths. And readers have fortunately told me that each book has been a fun read.

If your series becomes popular, you may have to continue writing it longer than you had planned. J. K. Rowling was able to discontinue her Harry Potter series after seven books but Sue Grafton is committed to 26. Her schedule has changed over the years and she now only writes three hours a day with one published novel every two years. At 71, she’ll be nearly 80 when Z is for Zero is released, but she plans to continue writing about her private investigator on a standalone basis after the series ends. She admits that Kinsey Millhone is her alter ego and that she enjoys writing about her.

I can't imagine writing 26 novels about someone you don't like and I'm glad that I enjoy my characters, especially my lovesick sheriff.