Where on Earth Have I Been??

1. Santa Fe:

shopping mecca and home of this year's Left Coast Crime convention. It was great fun to hang out with other writers and readers and add to my turquoise collection.

2. The Amazon Henge:

my work in progress. This is the novel that I wrote in a month last November for NaNoWriMo, and it's morphed on me yet again. Strange, how a re-draft takes longer than the first draft!

3. Reading frenzy:

I'm a slow reader, but I managed to read 16 books in the past 2 months. Here are some favorites that stood out:

Open Season, by C.J. Box (first of the Joe Pickett game warden mystery series set in Wyoming)

Tell No One, by Harlan Coben (a thriller about a deadly secret)

Zuzu's Petals, by Lauren Ward Larsen (a chilling story of surviving preeclampsia and the uplifting story of second chances)

The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville (a noir treatment of guilt)

4. Gone, painting:

Look out, world, I've discovered that talent is not a prerequisite to paint. Like writing, talent helps, but practice is critical. So...working on that! Here's my first painting: