But I'm not really a passionate person ...

This troubles aspiring writers

"I'd like to write but I'm not really a passionate person."

It's a comment, sometimes a question, that writers hear frequently. And it always surprises me. 

Because writing isn't about your passion. 

It's not about looking or sounding passionate, or looking or sounding like a writer. I think you know where this is going. 

Writing is about words you put on the page. About the passion expressed in the words you put on the page. And it doesn't matter if you're up or down ... hung over ... it's all still about the accumulation of words.

You might just as well say, "I'd like to write but my hair is green." 

Zane Grey was a dentist.

Raymond Carver worked in a sawmill, John Grisham built fences, Stephen King—a janitor—and Kurt Vonnegut sold Saab automobiles. It's hard to imagine any of them were passionate about their day jobs, or about writing in the early and late odd hours when they were tired, often discouraged and tempted to "just let it go until tomorrow." 

If you wanna write, you gotta write. The secret is doing it, not how you look, feel or sound about it. 

It's also not about how much you sell of it. But that's another story. 

Questions? Comments? Write anytime. 

How I turned my dad into Sherlock Holmes

Dad to the rescue.

I started reading Sherlock Holmes in about grade 7, and desperately wanted to write a similar character. Trouble was, they were all too similar. And not really that good.

Flash ahead a few decades and it came to me out of the blue: I'll use my dad for my character model! That's when I hit my stride as a mystery writer and by now I've written three mystery novels featuring an Episcopal priest in a small town in Alaska. The second one is due out in December.

I'm writing what I know. 

It's the first thing they tell fledgling writers. "Write what you know." 

So what DO I know? For one, I know Alaska. This confuses people a bit. They don't realize the Alaska I know, and adapt for my stories, is the Nenana or the Sitka of the late 50s, early 60s. Really a much different Alaska than today. But it works for me and works great!

Another thing I know about, are Episcopal priests and brothers ... monks! I left home in grade 8 to travel to St. Andrews School near Sewanee Tennessee, run by the Order of the Holy Cross. One of my favorites, Fr. Baldwin, (who I actually met in Nenana) used to play softball in his monk robes. It didn't seem to slow him down. I haven't introduced a monk to the series yet, but it's sounding like a good idea as I type. 

So are these stories about my dad? No. To my knowledge nobody ever shot at him. How it works is, if you think of a coloring book, the outline is him, the place, the time, some of his attitudes, but the colors inside the lines come out of my imagination. Even if I use a story he might have told ... and sometimes I do ... it gets the spin of how I want or need it to happen. 

Please ... like my site and review my books. 

You can read 30 pages of any of my four novels FREE on Amazon. Just search Amazon Kindle Books and then my name. If you like what you see, please give me a LIKE on Facebook. 

Also, when you finish one of my books, if you take a minute and write a line or two about what you liked ... on Goodreads or on Amazon, I would be very grateful. There are more than 600,000 books on Amazon Kindle and reviews are the best way to shine a light on an author you like. 

Questions? Comments? I would love to hear from you.