Month: August 2019

On Creativity

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Falling Water, acrylic, 30 x 30

I just finished reading “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes as if she’s sitting across the table with the reader, cup of coffee in hand, leaning forward, and you’re having this great discussion, except she supplies both sides of the discussion. In this case, the discussion is about what qualities we need to cultivate in order to live our most creative lives. It’s all very upbeat and encouraging, whether you think of yourself as a creative person or not. As someone who has to admit to some level of creative impulse in her life, I found it very enlightening.

Speaking of creativity, for a while now, I’ve been exploring abstract shapes, colors, textures and designs in my paintings. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m certainly not done with that aspect of my ‘colorful journey’, but I was inspired recently to return to a genre I painted earlier – landscapes. In ‘Falling Water,’ I used my recently acquired ‘abstract’ skills to try to capture the almost explosive power of water as it thunders and roars its way down a mountain. I hope this painting manages to capture some of the electric energy I felt looking at scenes like this up in Alaska recently.

Death on the Danube

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I spent the last couple of weeks working on the technicalities of my latest mystery novel, the least favorite part of my job. There’s a reason why traditional publishers get paid the big bucks! Book design isn’t a lot of fun, but there’s plenty of help out there, so hopefully, the finished product will look fantastic as well as being a good read. I’m publishing the paperback and Kindle versions simultaneously, and there will be a special offer for Kindle pre-orders, so be on the look-out for that. In the meantime, what do you think of my cover?

From the back cover:
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It was meant to be an idyllic cruise on the Danube, filled with castles and romance.  But first the omelet maker disappeared, and then a body was found in the refrigerator, and Bella Sarver and her new husband, Art Halperin, were suddenly up to their necks in murder – again.  Past history and drama play havoc with the present in this newest adventure of artist-turned-amateur sleuth Bella Sarver.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner said it first, but Bella realizes the same sentiment while visiting the Belvedere Museum in Vienna and viewing examples of “degenerate art,” so-defined by Adolph Hitler back in the 1930’s.  In fact, reminders of the Nazi era are everywhere in Eastern Europe, and Bella finds that the events of that time are still exerting their influence today.  But some of the passengers cruising the Rhine-Main-Danube Rivers on the M/S River Muse will never need to worry about these things, or anything else, anymore.

Death on the Danube

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This week, I began draft #5 of Death on the Danube. I finished the 4th draft about a month ago and decided to just let it sit for a while. In the meantime, I let my husband read it. He thinks it’s really good, but he had some helpful suggestions, too. I’ve been mulling things around, and now I’m ready to approach the project with a fresh eye.

The story is done. The mystery is solved. (Hint: Bella Sarver provides the key information, though she has a lot of help from the German and Romanian police.) But now it’s time to really whip this book into shape.

This is my fourth novel, and I’ve learned quite a bit about the writing process. It’s all very well to come up with a basic mystery, but fleshing out the characters, letting them tell the story in their own words, and letting the story go its own way is where the work part comes in. It’s fun, too, though, a new adventure every time. So back to work, and I’ll keep you posted on progress.