Going through a cycle of life

There is nothing quite like it. Holding a grandchild for the first time is like holding a child for the first time. It is a joyful, meaningful, humbling experience, one that reminds a person of the cycles of life.

Grandbabies are special. They are life's portable generators, little souls who lift our spirits and give us a boost when we need it. They remind us that the world, despite its many problems, is still a beautiful place.

My wife, Cheryl, and I got a reminder this week when we met Sarah Elizabeth Heldt, the first child of our son, Matthew, and his wife, Mikayla. We enjoyed a life experience that many people, particularly those in large families, take for granted. Born on November 25 in Oceanside, California, Sarah came into the world days before and days after two great-grandfathers passed away. She is the newest leaf on a family tree that already has many branches and deep roots that stretch from coast to coast.

Cheryl, the proud grandma, was particularly excited to see Sarah. She gave her a gift, an ornate Christmas stocking the new arrival will no doubt treasure for years to come. Our daughter Amy made the stocking in Puerto Rico and sent it to Cheryl to complete and bring on our trip to Southern California. Cheryl added Sarah's name to the stocking after her name, a closely guarded secret, was announced at her birth.

Matthew and Mikayla wasted no time hanging the stocking next to their own above their fireplace. They added another leaf to the tree.

As they did, they brought everything into focus. They reminded two grandparents that another generation had formed and was now going through its own motions. They brought everything full circle.

Sarah is our second grandchild. The first, Stella Irene Knipe, is now a six-year-old who snow skis, plays hockey, and develops her artistic side in North Idaho. She is growing much too fast for her grandparents.

We hope to have more grandchildren in the future. For now, though, we will cherish what we have. We will celebrate two granddaughters at a joyous time of the year and savor another cycle of life.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

Reading again by listening

I never read my books after they are published. I occasionally update errors I discover or that readers point out, but I never read a book again from cover to cover. I have too many other things I would rather do with my limited time, like writing and editing my next work.

That said, I will listen to books again. When converting books to audio, I will review the narrator's "first drafts" and listen for any flaws. In the process, I will re-experience novels I wrote sometimes years earlier.

Last month, I did just that. For several hours — 11.5 to be exact — I listened to Crown City, the fifth and final book in the Time Box series. I listened to Roberto Scarlato, a skilled voice artist, bring a familiar work to life.

As I did, I revisited storylines, characters, and passages I had put on the shelf on November 26, 2021, when I published the Kindle edition of Crown City. I revisited many things I liked and a few I did not.

When you read or listen to a book months, or even years, after producing it, you view it differently. You tell yourself, "I'm glad I did this," or "I wish I had done that." You view your own work as a person with different knowledge, experience, priorities, and biases.

In the tenth of his Top 20 rules for writers, Stephen King advises scribes to finish their first draft within three months. He does so for a reason that makes perfect sense to those of us who have produced a novel.

When you write something over the course of months, you change. Your characters change. Your plotlines and story arcs change. A tale that made sense in April may not make sense in September.

Listening to a book years after it was published gives me the opportunity to spot things I might have done differently. It gives me the chance to see what I did right or wrong and apply that knowledge to future works.

It also gives me the opportunity to appreciate the work of my narrators, who wrestle with difficult personal names, place names, unusual words, and even phrases in foreign languages. As one who grew up in Washington state, which has tripwire place names like Puyallup and Sequim, and attended college at the University of Oregon, where students wore shirts shouting "Orygun" and "Willamette, damn it!" to educate some out-of-staters, I understand the challenges.

Fortunately for me — and listeners — the narrators have risen to the challenge. Mr. Scarlato, who has narrated my last five audiobooks, has done a particularly good job. He successfully navigated the minefield of Hawaiian and Japanese names in The Refuge and nailed the many distinct accents in Camp Lake, The Fair, Sea Spray, and Crown City. He did justice to novels I rediscovered for the second time.

With the arrival of Crown City, which goes live on Amazon, Audible, and Apple Books this week, I now have twenty books in audio. I intend to convert the remaining four and others in the coming years.

Getting an early start on No. 25

Playwright George Bernard Shaw advised that you should not "wait for perfect conditions" to begin an undertaking. You should instead "start where you are with what you have." So today, I did just that.

I started my twenty-fifth novel with the limited resources I have compiled over the past few weeks. I jumped headfirst into my next project.

The Winding Road, the second installment in the Stone Shed trilogy, will continue the story of Noah and Jake Maclean, orphaned brothers from 2024 who experience the American Revolution through the magic of time travel. It will pick up where The Patriots left off.

In the first book, the brothers, ages 23 and 16, committed to the lovely daughters of a furniture maker, a patriot family, and life in the 1770s. In the second book, they will build on these commitments. They will use their wits, knowledge, and resources to better several lives and improve America's fortunes in the midst of its war for independence.

Set in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut from 1777 to 1779, The Winding Road will focus on Noah's experiences as a soldier in the Continental Army and his developing relationship with fiancée Abigail Ward. Jake and Rachel Ward, Abby's younger sister, will assume important secondary roles and again test the limits of a stone shed that can send people through time. Douglas and Donna Maclean will continue to follow Noah's and Jake's travels and confront new challenges as they attempt to explain their grandnephews' disappearance to police, reporters, and family members in 2024.

Other characters will also get some play, including a dashing American officer who befriends Noah, a villainous British tracker, and George Washington. The beleaguered patriot general, surrounded by rivals, will quickly warm to a mysterious new soldier who can predict coming events and provide his struggling army with needed supplies.

Readers who wanted more history in the first book will get it in the second. They will have the opportunity to follow Noah from the bitter winter at Valley Forge to the critical Battle of Monmouth to the developing spy wars in and around New York City. They will see the American Revolution in its deceptively quiet middle years.

At a projected one hundred chapters, The Winding Road will be slightly smaller than The Patriots. I expect to complete the first draft sometime early next year and publish the novel itself in the spring.

Image credit: "Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge," a 1907 oil painting by John Ward Dunsmore, is a public-domain image offered through Wikimedia Commons.

Review: Young Woman and Sea

As I posted in May, I am always in a history mood. As a reader and a TV viewer, I go out of my way to find a good story set in the past.

So it was a real treat to find Young Woman and the Sea, a biographical sports film currently streaming on Disney Plus. Set mostly in New York and France in the 1920s, the movie chronicles the early life of Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

in the film, Ederle, the daugher of a German American butcher, overcomes sickness, poverty, and soul-crushing misogyny and sexism to win Olympic medals, set world records, and finally cross the Channel, which she did on August 6, 1926. She also sets an example that inspired young women and swimmers generally for decades.

I found the movie even more compelling than The Boys in the Boat, a similar work featuring young American athletes overcoming the odds in the interwar years. Despite the cruelty she faces, Ederle never gives up and never loses her humanity. She serves as a role model for all.

Though Young Woman, based on the 2009 book by Glenn Stout, takes a few liberties with timelines, it offers a mostly accurate depiction of events. Daisy Ridley stars as Ederle, while Jeanette Hain and Tilda Cobham-Hervey shine as the swimmer's mother and sister.

I would recommend the film to anyone, particularly young women and athletes who like an inspiring true story. Rating 4.5/5.

You say you want a Revolution

I have long had a fascination with the American Revolution. When I was eight, I latched onto The Young Rebels, a one-hit-wonder television series that blended The Mod Squad with the War of Independence.

Later, in high school, I dove into the Kent Family Chronicles, an eight-book series by John Jakes that covers the nation's founding and formative years. I got another whiff of history as entertainment.

As an adult, I considered more serious works, like 1776 and John Adams by David McCullough, The Glorious Cause by Jeff Shaara, and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. More recently, I have binge-watched series like Turn: Washington's Spies, Franklin, The Revolution, and Outlander, set in part in the 1770s and 1780s.

So I did not need much prodding to dive into the era. The Patriots, the first book in the Stone Shed trilogy, is my first foray into the American Revolution. Set in Philadelphia in both the present and the past, the novel examines America's first year from the viewpoint of two time travelers.

When their grandfather dies in 2024, Noah (22) and Jake (15) Maclean inherit a house, a mysterious stone shed, and a family secret that dates to the 1740s. The brothers learn they are the keepers of a portal that can send human beings through time. From that point on, life for the orphans is more than a series of questions. It is an opportunity.

With a nervous uncle's blessing, Noah and Jake take a three-month "vacation" to 1776 and the world of Ben Franklin, John Adams, Peggy Shippen, the Continental Congress, and the Declaration of Independence. They see the United States as a fledgling infant.

Then the trip takes a turn. The brothers meet Abigail (20) and Rachel (14) Ward, the lovely, spirited daughters of a Philadelphia furniture maker, and a thrilling adventure becomes a transformative journey.

The Patriots evokes earlier novels. As in The Fire, a stone shed serves as a time portal. As in Class of '59, brothers from one era mingle with sisters from another. As in Hannah's Moon, an aunt and uncle in the present track relatives in the past. War, a theme in ten other works, serves as a backdrop that influences almost every decision.

Even so, this book blazes its own trail. It delves more into the human aspects of time travel than the scientific aspects. It explores the what ifs, the whys, and the how comes. It tests the heart, mind, and soul.

At 155,000 words, The Patriots, my twenty-fourth novel, is my largest and most ambitious work to date. Available in Kindle format, it goes on sale today at Amazon.com and its international marketplaces.

Remembering a family friend

It's never easy. As many people have observed over the years, losing a beloved pet is like losing a family member. You lose not only a companion but also part of yourself. We lost our cat, Charlotte, this week to an aggressive form of bone cancer. She went quickly on Sunday night after battling the illness for at least a few months.

Charlotte, for those who don't know, was an incredibly mellow and docile cat, one that would let even strangers pick her up every which way or give her long belly rubs. She was comfortable with people, dogs, and even change. Only vacuum cleaners got her attention.

She was a part of our family for fourteen years. During that time, she lived in five homes in three states and gave us enough memories to last a lifetime. In Alabama, where we let her run free, she once confronted an armadillo in our backyard and stood her ground. In 2015, in the same location, Charlotte climbed into the engine bay of my Nissan Frontier pickup and went for a seven-mile highway ride to the market. (She emerged shaken but unharmed from the harrowing experience.) In Nevada, she was a house cat and a never-ending source of amusement.

We noticed Charlotte's decline late this spring and took steps to accommodate it, but we merely prolonged the inevitable. As many pet owners know, old age is one thing, terminal illness is another.

In her last week, she ate little, drank little, and barely moved. And yet, she did her best to remind us that she was still around, still visible, and still a part of the family. On Saturday night, hours before she died, she did what she had done for years. Moving with a limp, she climbed two flights of stairs, entered my room as I worked, and plopped onto her side. She signaled her interest in getting one last belly rub.

I gave her the rub and, with my wife, Cheryl, gave her comfort the next evening when she finally passed away. Like so many others, I said goodbye to a pet that is now just a memory.

Born on the Fourth of July

On Independence Day, many Americans attend patriotic parades, have picnics, and watch colorful fireworks shows well into the night. (And sometimes, depending on the neighorhood, into the next day.)

I finish books. For at least the second time, I finished the first draft of a novel on July 4. I stopped typing before lighting the sparklers.

In this case, it was especially fitting. The Patriots, the first novel in the Stone Shed series, is all about the Spirit of '76. Two chapters, in fact, are set on a July 4, including the first Independence Day observance in Philadelphia in 1777. Both chapters set the tone for a book that documents and celebrates the founding of the United States.

In The Patriots, two brothers from 2024 travel through time to 1776 Philadelphia, where they meet several notables — including Peggy Shippen, Ben Franklin, and John Adams — and fall for the lovely daughters of a furniture maker. They begin an odyssey that will continue through books two and three and the rest of the American Revolution.

At 157,000 words, The Patriots is by far my largest novel. Despite its immense size, I still expect to finish and release it in September.

A rosé by any other name

I don't know wine. To me, a good vintage is one that's in the clearance aisle at the supermarket. Beer is my beverage of choice.

On Monday, though, I played wine connoisseur. At two wineries in Napa, California, I gave several varieties a visual inspection, swirled them around to "unlock their bouquet," aired them out a bit, and finally threw them at my palate. I did what some people — a lot of people, actually — do every day.

I liked the experience. Though I didn't understand the science of winemaking or half of my sommeliers' gibberish about "notes of this" or "hints of that," I liked what I tasted. Then again, I expected to. When you taste the wine in one of world's greatest wine regions, you are bound to find something good.

I visited Northern California this week as my wife Cheryl's administrative assistant. She attended an education conference. I edited her blog and enjoyed the ride. A fair trade. As a part of our experience, we took an e-bike tour of the Napa Valley, home to five hundred wineries.

Our guide, Don, a transplant from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was a font of information on all things Napa Valley. He educated two couples on everything from the region's geography and climate to its history and rise as a wine-making capital following a 1976 wine competition in Paris, an event chronicled in the 2008 comedy-drama Bottle Shock.

As for the bike ride, it was nice as well. Starting and ending in Yountville, home of the French Laundry restaurant, it covered about eighteen miles on sidestreets, paved paths, and even highways. Along the way, we passed not only vineyards and wineries but also lush farmland, olive orchards, and eucalyptus groves. E-bikes, in case you have not tried them, are a kick. They are exercise for the rest of us.

I hope to take a few more of these trips in between writing and editing novels. Doing is living, as they say, and I plan to do a lot more.

Review: John Adams

He was not the most glamorous founder. Or the most charismatic. Or even the most admirable. His most notable initiative as president, the Alien and Sedition Acts, prompted protests across the country.

Even so, he was interesting. John Adams, America's second president, was a study in contrasts who fascinates researchers, readers, and even television viewers. He was a man who still intrigues.

I reacquainted myself with Adams this month when I rented John Adams, the 2008 miniseries from HBO. Based on the Pulitzer-Prize-winning book by David McCullough, the seven-part series documents Adams' life as a lawyer, a congressional delegate, an ambassador, a vice president, a president, and a senior statesman.

Though Paul Giamatti shines as the moody, mercurial Adams, others turn in strong performances. Laura Linney, David Morse, and Stephen Dillane play convincing versions of Abigail Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. Ebon Moss-Bachrach does the same as John Quincy Adams, the founder's oldest son and a future president.

The loving but turbulent relationship between John and Abigail Adams is particularly compelling. The power couple endured numerous hardships during America's colonial and revolutionary periods, including hardships chronicled in more than one thousand personal letters.

No less riveting is Adams' friendship with Jefferson. The allies, rivals, and friends maintained a grudging respect from the time they signed the Declaration of Independence to July 4, 1826, the day the United States turned fifty and Adams and Jefferson died hours apart.

I rented the series to better familiarize myself with Adams, who plays a small but significant part in The Patriots, a historical fiction novel I will release in September. Adams, a delegate to the Continental Congress, mingles with protagonist Noah Maclean in early 1777.

I would recommend both the miniseries and McCullough's book to people who love history and compelling drama. Rating: 5/5.

Finding history on the tube

As a television viewer, I am always in a history mood. I don't care if a movie or series covers the French Revolution or the Vietnam War, I want it. I want to lose myself in another time. So it was with great interest I found four outstanding series on FX, Hulu, and Apple TV.

Shōgun, Masters of the Air, Franklin, and Manhunt are not just entertaining. They are history classes worthy of any college.

Shōgun follows John Blackthorne, a stranded British sailor, as he becomes embroiled in a feudal power struggle in Japan in 1600. Masters chronicles the "Bloody 100th," a U.S. B-17 bomber group that sustained horrific losses in World War II. Franklin covers Benjamin Franklin's diplomatic efforts in France during the American Revolution. Manhunt follows Secretary of War Edwin Stanton's search for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

Each miniseries debuted this year. Each is a splendid adaptation of a celebrated book. Each sticks close to the historical record.

None are dry history. Thanks to strong performances by Cosmo Jarvis (Blackthorne), Austin Butler (Major 'Buck' Cleven), Michael Douglas (Franklin), and Tobias Menzies (Stanton), the series are as entertaining as they are informative. Add strong supporting casts, stories, scripts, and cinematography and you have outstanding television.

Each series can be hard to follow. Shōgun, Masters of the Air, and Manhunt feature a large number of characters. Shōgun and Franklin require following subtitles closely. In Shōgun, a viewer can easily get lost in the nuances of 17th-century Japanese culture. Even so, the plusses of all four productions far outweigh their negatives.

I would recommend each series to lovers of history and great TV. Ratings: Shōgun 5/5, Masters 5/5, Franklin 4.8/5, Manhunt 4.5/5.

Birds of a feather

Living in the Mojave Desert, I don't see a lot of waterfowl, but I did the other day. While on a walk through my subdivision, I encountered a large family from Canada. Papa Goose, Mama Goose, and their seventeen babies seemed hellbent on seeing the sights and making their way to a busy road at rush hour. With the help of several neighbors, I managed to scoot the birds from a side street to a green space, safe from cars. It was just another day in Las Vegas.

Review: The Artful Dodger

I admit I haven't read Oliver Twist. I haven't even seen the 1968 movie, the one that won six Oscars, including Best Picture.

Even so, I am vaguely familiar with Charles Dickens' classic tale about a gang of juvenile pickpockets in 1830s London. So when I saw that Disney Plus and Hulu were streaming a highly rated sequel to Oliver Twist in the form of an eight-part series, I jumped on it.

I'm glad I did. The Artful Dodger is not just good television. It is top-notch entertainment, the kind that is increasingly hard to find.

Set in Australia in the 1850s, Dodger follows the adult double life of Jack Dawkins, the leader of the original band of thieves. Now a surgeon who learned his trade in the Royal Navy, Dawkins tries hard to bury his criminal past and start a new life in a wild and rugged penal colony.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster stars as Dawkins, while David Thewlis and Maia Mitchell shine as Norbert Fagin and Lady Belle Fox, the people who complicate the Dodger's life. Fagin, Dawkins' surrogate father, tries to lure the Dodger back into a life of crime the moment he arrives in Australia. Belle tries to pick his brain. The bright, beautiful governor's daughter strives to become a surgeon in a world run by men.

Other characters, including Belle's family, rival surgeons, local officials, and even Oliver Twist himself, add spice to a riveting series.

Though I enjoyed the production from start to finish, I was drawn most to Dawkins' relationships with Fagin and Belle, which develop wonderfully in the series. Even the somewhat predictable ending was first-rate.

I would recommend the The Artful Dodger to any viewer who likes humor, history, and a compelling, fast-moving story. Rating: 5/5.

Unraveling a Revolution

The book will be a big one. With a projected length of 142,000 words, it will be bigger even than River Rising and The Memory Tree, the weighty twin tomes that anchor the Carson Chronicles series.

I admit that gives me pause. Authors are strongly advised to limit their books, even historical fiction works, to 100,000 words.

I won't with this one though. Like many writers, I believe that if you have a story to tell, you should tell it. You should develop every major character and narrative thread until you can develop no more.

In The Patriots, my twenty-fourth novel, I will do just that. I will dive deep into the lives of Noah and Jake Maclean, two orphaned brothers who travel from the Philadelphia of 2024 to the one of 1776.

Like most boys, Noah, 22, and Jake, 15, will not be able to resist a dangerous temptation that calls to them from their own property. They will enter a mysterious stone shed and venture to the American Revolution, where they will meet Ben Franklin, John Adams, Peggy Shippen, and the lovely daughters of a furniture maker.

Unlike September Sky, River Rising, The Lane Betrayal, and The Fountain, the first books of my last four series, The Patriots will focus more on people than events. It will focus on the brothers; sisters Abigail (20) and Rachel (14) Ward; and Douglas Maclean, the boys' great-uncle and the patriarch of a Scottish clan that goes back centuries.

It will also lay the foundation for a trilogy that spans the length of the revolution, a conflict I am covering for the first time. It will set the stage for more action-oriented stories in books two and three.

Because of the book's length, I don't expect to finish the first draft before July. I do expect to have the finished product out by October 1.

Credit: Spirit of '76, an 1875 oil painting by American illustrator Archibald MacNeal Willard, is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Refuge goes audio

Since publishing The Mine, my first novel, more than twelve years ago, I have focused mostly on producing ebooks -- for obvious reasons. Ebooks are easier to create, update, and ultimately sell. They are the fastest and surest way to get a return on my investment.

Even so, I have not neglected other formats. Though print books and audiobooks are not as lucrative or easy to update, they are important. Many people will not read a book unless they can hold a paper copy in their hands. Others prefer not to read at all. They would rather listen.

For that reason and others, I have done my best to convert all of my Kindle books to print and audio. All twenty-three of my novels are already in print. As of last month, nineteen are also available in audio.

The Refuge, the fourth book in the Time Box series, joined that group last week. Released on February 29, it is now available through Amazon, Apple Books, and Audible.

Roberto Scarlato, who also narrated The Fair and Sea Spray, books two and three in the series, will narrate book five. The talented Michigan voice artist will begin work on Crown City sometime this spring.

As with previous audiobooks, I can distribute a limited number of Audible books in exchange for reviews. Please contact me if interested in a free code for The Refuge or selected other audiobooks.

A wedding to remember

I don't normally go barefoot while wearing a suit, but I did just that on Saturday when I married off my son, Matthew, on a beach. Along with my in-laws, Ken and Michelle Miller; daughter-in-law, Mikayla; wife, Cheryl (all pictured); and many guests, I helped turn Navarre Beach, Florida, into a wedding chapel. Many blessings to the newlyweds as they begin their new lives.

The impact of AI on art

I first learned about artificial intelligence (AI) in the seventh grade. While reading "EPICAC," a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, I learned all about EPICAC, the world's first electronic general-purpose computer, and two of its handlers. Like others in my English class, I learned about the possibilities and problems of using technology to produce art.

In Vonnegut's story, the unnamed narrator, a nerdy mathematician, asks EPICAC to write poems to win over Pat, a reluctant colleague. He succeeds when he passes off the computer's work as his own. Pat agrees to marry him, provided that he write her a poem every anniversary. All is well, in fact, until EPICAC falls in love with Pat and destroys itself trying to understand why it cannot marry a human.

Since that time, I have viewed the fusion of technology and art with a decidedly jaded eye. I believe literature, like other art, should be imperfect, messy, and most of all, authentic, something brimming with quirks and idiosyncrasies. It should be more man than machine.

Others take a different view. In recent years, they have flooded the market with movies, music, and images that were created with the help of computers. Some have used tools that are accessible online.

As an author, I have focused more on AI's impact on writing and publishing. So have others. The Columbia Journalism Review detailed AI's impact on journalism earlier this month. Other publications, such as Forbes and Publishers Weekly, have explained how technology is changing the way authors and publishers produce books.

Artificial intelligence has even seeped into the realm of audiobooks. A few weeks ago, Amazon began offering authors the option of having their works narrated with a virtual voice. Examples of the new technology, still in the beta stage, can be found here.

Being something of a Luddite, I have resisted the trend toward AI, but even I recognize the promise it holds and how it can be used within acceptable boundaries. For several weeks now, I have used Google Gemini, an AI chatbot and research assistant, as a tool in finding information about the United States in the 1770s. I intend to use it even more in the days to come as I finish my research for my next novel.

Even so, I will keep most new technologies at bay. I will produce books as I have done for twelve years now and will probably do for twelve more. I will use AI for research, but never for writing.

I will take that approach with other things as well, including those more personal. For 37 years, I have written my wife, Cheryl, a poem every anniversary. Most are cringey limericks, haikus, and sonnets I wouldn't share in a tavern, but all are original and authentic. Unlike the narrator in "ENICAC," I did my own work. That's how it should be.

The City of Brotherly Love

I have never been to Philadelphia. Once, in 1984, while driving with a college friend from Connecticut to Washington, D.C., I entered the city's New Jersey suburbs on Interstate 295, but not the city itself.

Since then, I have not come even close to the place that gave us the Phillies, cheesesteaks, and most important, the Declaration of Independence. Like a lot of people, I have seen the city from afar and not given it a second thought. That changed last month, at least in a figurative sense, when I began researching the Philadelphia of the late 1770s, the primary setting of my next novel and time-travel trilogy.

Since January 1, I have read books and articles, contacted experts, and watched movies and television series to get a better understanding of a setting that is as important to democracy as the declaration itself.

As I did, I learned that Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, was a pretty big deal. With a population of forty thousand, it was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere in 1776 and the center of commerce and culture in British North America. It boasted America's first library, hospital, and university. (Harvard, alas, was a mere college.)

It also featured interesting people. Ben Franklin put his stamp on the city. So did George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, William Howe, and the treasonous trio of Benedict Arnold, Peggy Shippen, and John André. All added color and intrigue to a town that never rested during America's eight-year war for independence. Some, like Franklin and Shippen, will mingle with my protagonists in the first book. Others, like Washington, will do so in the second and third.

The protagonists, two brothers from 2024, will also experience Philadelphia. They will visit the city's bustling waterfront, Independence Hall, High Street Market, City Tavern, and the countryside between Philadelphia and Upper Merion Township, where a mysterious stone shed will serve as a time portal in all three books. They will see their native Pennsylvania as it existed in the 1770s and other eras.

I hope to finish researching Philadelphia, the war, and the 1770s this month and begin writing the book itself in March or early April.

Image Credit: In "Washington's Inaugration at Philadelphia," an oil painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930), George Washington arrives at Congress Hall in Philadelphia on March 4, 1793. The public domain illustration is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

New priorities for a new year

The road ahead looks different now. Three weeks into retirement, it looks more like Nevada's Route 50, the "loneliest road in America," than a busy thoroughfare dotted with attractions and billboards.

Even so, it is not empty. It's more like a path that offers new opportunities for an author who loves challenges and a change of pace. Fresh from an enjoyable nine-day vacation in Puerto Rico, I am already mapping out the possibilities for a productive 2024.

My first order of business, of course, is to start a new series. With the Carpenters and the Second Chance triology in my rear-view mirror, I am now focused on new characters and storylines. In fact, I have already begun outlining a time-travel series where two orphaned brothers, moved by their grandfather's deathbed confession, begin a life-changing journey to the 1770s and the Philadelphia of America's founders.

If that theme sounds familiar, it should. In my next project, I will borrow from The Fire, Class of '59, The Lane Betrayal, Duties and Dreams, and other works in creating a trilogy that will blend old and new. In doing so, I will delve into the American Revolution for the first time.

I intend to research the period through the winter and begin writing in April. I hope to have the first book in the series out by the fall.

I also hope to convert at least two more books to audio in 2024, including The Refuge, which should be out sometime next month. With the release of that title, narrated by Roberto Scarlato, nineteen of my twenty-three novels will be available as audiobooks.

Though I will not be as driven to sell books as in past years, I will not neglect the business side of things either. I passed the 800,000 lifetime sales mark on Amazon in December 2023 and hope to hit the million mark before putting my MacBook Air out to pasture.

I should note, of course, that Amazon counts free and discounted books as "sales," which is why I am still writing and not building matching bungalows on Bora Bora, but the seven-figure-sale milestone is still important. It represents one of the few remaining objectives I want to reach in a career that began as a hobby a dozen years ago.

Beyond writing, I hope to do more traveling and reading in the coming year. Trips to Florida, the Pacific Northwest, and possibly the wine country of Northern California loom. So do more examinations of the framers. Walter Isaacson's Ben Franklin is my next read, followed by David McCullough's John Adams, a book I read years ago.

I am also going to keep an open mind toward getting a dog. Spending quality time with "Backup," my daughter Amy's lovable lab-pit mix, in Puerto Rico has prompted me to explore the notion again. In the meantime, I will find useful ways to use my newfound time.

I hope the holidays have been good to you and yours and wish you the best in whatever you take on in the coming year!

Photo: With "Backup," in Carolina, Puerto Rico, on New Year's Eve.

The road to retirement

I started as a paperboy. Sometime in 1974, at the ripe old age of 12, I began delivering the Seattle Times in a suburban subdivision that could have doubled as a set on The Brady Bunch. For three years, I overcame deadlines, dogs, and sometimes dreadful weather to get folded papers onto dry porches. I officially entered the workforce.

Since that time, I have held no fewer than thirty jobs. In high school and college, I washed dishes, bagged groceries, flipped French fries, sold appliances, shelved books, delivered office supplies, counted people for a census, mentored boys at a summer camp, wrote articles, and answered phone calls for a congressman.

In one summer job, at a vegetable packing plant, I stood inside a small refrigerated chamber and broke up clumps of frozen peas on a moving conveyer belt. With a long rake. For eight hours a day.

All of the grunt jobs prepared me well for the "real" world, where I made my mark as a sportswriter, an editor, a librarian, and finally as an author. Each experience taught me patience, humility, discipline, responsibility, and many other things I applied in life.

Though most of these jobs are decades in the past, I remembered all of them today as I punched a time card for the last time and officially retired. Leaving my position as a computer lab assistant at a Las Vegas library brought fifty years of labor into focus.

When people work a wide variety of jobs, they learn a lot about themselves. When they work with a wide variety of people, they learn a lot about society. They learn things that give them perspective and a better understanding of the world around them.

I know I did. I not only learned things but also put them to use. In several novels, I borrowed from work experiences, particularly those as a grocery clerk, a newspaper reporter, and a librarian. In Camp Lake I did even more. I constructed an entire story around my memorable tenure at a summer camp in Maine in 1983. I expect to incorporate even more work experiences in future books.

In the meantime, I will look back. I will remember the unexpected rewards and the special times from five decades of working for "the man" and for myself. I will recall the moments that mattered.

Perhaps the biggest came in 1994, when I walked into a newsroom to a standing ovation. My peers, fellow editors and reporters at a daily newspaper in Washington, had just learned of my award in a regional journalism competition and let me know it. They took a moment from their busy schedules to acknowledge a job well done.

I will also remember the thank-yous, which always seemed to come at the right times. In 1983, a New York woman, the mother of an introverted boy, thanked me for teaching her son to ride a bike at camp. Eight years later, a girls basketball team sent me a card after I covered their heartbreaking run through a state tournament. In 2006, a Montana man thanked me for helping him reunite with a German woman he had met in the Army fifty years earlier. I was a reference librarian then, a person who loved to solve problems.

Now, I am a retiree, a soon-to-be Social Security recipient who can shop for senior discounts, take afternoon naps, and tell teenagers to get off my lawn. (Just kidding. I don't have a lawn.)

I don't plan to remain idle. I value time like most people value food and plan to put that time to good use. Sometime in January, after returning from a vacation in Puerto Rico, I will lay the groundwork for my next book, my next series, and my next course in life.

That's what I look forward to most. Retirement, for me, will not be an opportunity to rest. It will be a chance to do more. Much more.

A last look at a series

The trilogy is now ten days old. The Duties and Dreams ebook came out November 9, the paperback yesterday. Even the Second Chance boxed set is in circulation. Yet the series, my fifth overall, is still fresh in my mind. It probably will be for weeks to come.

When you write a historical fiction series as detailed and exhaustive as Second Chance, you leave a little bit of yourself behind. I know I did. I am still getting used to a daily schedule that does not involve seven to eight hours of researching, writing, and editing. I plan to enjoy the hiatus between this project and the next. In the meantime, I intend to reflect a bit on my shortest — but arguably most important — series, one that will serve as a template for the next one.

The first thing you need to know about Second Chance is that it is a nod to Baby Boomers, the pampered, free-spirited, often-maligned mob I joined in 1961. If you were born between 1946 and 1964, you will immediately recognize the backgrounds of my protagonists, from their Leave it to Beaver beginnings to their personal and professional struggles in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond. You will understand why the Carpenters did what they did when they wandered through 1906, 1912, and finally 1918.

I choose to write about old souls because I can relate to them. Like Bill, Paul, and Annie, I could relate to coming of age and growing old(er) in a world that was much different than today's. I could relate to at least some of their experiences, setbacks, and triumphs.

Annie was, by far, my favorite character — for many reasons. She brought energy and passion to the series and probably best personified its growth. She grew in ways her more set-in-their-ways older brothers could not or would not. She represented the best of her family and her generation. She acquitted herself well.

Cassie Lee, Charles Rusk, and Emilie Perot were my favorite secondary characters. All brought something to a trilogy that was as varied as the settings. Each helped the Carpenters grow.

If there was one thing I enjoyed most about producing this series, it was researching the events that shaped it. Though I knew a lot about the Titanic, I knew little about the San Francisco earthquake, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Mexican Revolution, and even World War I. I knew even less about Baja California, Brooklyn, and Alsace, a storied French region I want to visit someday.

I also enjoyed returning to my native Northwest — Portland, Tacoma, and Mount Rainier make appearances in two books — and bringing children back into my work. From the students of Oakland Prep and Gotham Prep to Mabel Moss to Chloe the flower girl to the offspring of Bill and Annie, kids put their stamp on mostly grown-up stories. Bea and Millie Carpenter and Patrick and Henry Lee brought both comic relief and perspective to the Second Chance trilogy.

I put a stamp on the series, as well. As some readers know, I often use meaningful dates, places, and devices in my stories. I have used August 2, my wedding anniversary, more times than I can count. I occasionally use birthdays too — and, in the case of my latest release, I used the birthday. When I had the opportunity to end both Duties and Dreams and the Second Chance series on December 30, 1961, by moving up the last chapter by one day, I took it. When you are a writer of fiction, you can do those things.

I did not intend to tie the book's title to its dedication, but it happened anyway. Shortly after titling Duties and Dreams, I noticed that the book's initials (DAD) lined up nicely with the subject of its dedication page. Even before writing a word, I had decided to dedicate the novel to James Heldt, my father, who is still going at age 92.

As coincidences go, that was hard to beat. It was a fitting touch to a series I will no doubt think about for a long time.

A duty to dream

Be careful what you wish for.

The warning, from The Old Man and Death, one of Aesop's Fables, is one of the oldest themes in literature. It is also, for all practical purposes, the central theme of the Second Chance series.

In The Fountain and Annie's Apple, the first two books in the trilogy, characters wish for one thing and get another. They find that the road to happiness is littered with potholes, rocks, and nails.

Then they find it again. In Duties and Dreams, several adults, linked by blood, marriage, and history, discover that even innocent wishes come with a price.

As World War I rages in Europe, the Carpenters and the Lees make a home in Southern California. Bill and Cassie add to their family. Andy and Annie start one of their own. Paul, a bachelor, enters the world of business. All find peace in a turbulent time. Then draft notices arrive, illness strikes a child, and life for two intertwined families takes a troubling turn. Thirty years later, Emilie Perot, a beautiful resistance fighter, and Steve and Shannon Taylor, an American couple with ties to Paul Carpenter, conspire to escape Nazi occupation. Each seeks freedom and a new life in France's Vosges Mountains, home of a legendary fountain of youth that can restore health and send visitors through time. As events unfold in the different eras, the participants march on. All are unaware of the forces that seem determined to throw them together.

Paul, 30, takes a star turn in this one. From the first chapter to the last, he is the focus of the story. Readers follow the quiet member of a secretive family as he returns to the U.S. Army, travels to wartime France, and battles one life challenge after another. They see a luckless-in-love soldier make a friend from the future.

Others also step up. Annie, 27, shines as a young wife and mother. Bill and Cassie, both 36, do the same as spouses and parents. Even Andy, the curmudgeon of book two, finds his place. Now 30, the lieutenant rolls with the punches of an unpredictable war.

Though Duties and Dreams is a plot-driven novel, complete with a nasty villain, action, and running clocks, it is a character-focused story, one that examines the impact of war, disease, and separation on ordinary human beings. Set in seven countries during the most difficult days of the twentieth century, it brings to a conclusion a sweeping family saga that began with a leap of faith.

Duties and Dreams is my twenty-third novel. It goes on sale today as a Kindle book at Amazon.com and its international web sites.

Review: Band of Brothers

For an obvious reason, I rarely watch a television series twice. A series, unlike a movie or even a book, represents a serious investment in time. This month, however, I made an exception. When I saw that Band of Brothers, a ten-episode miniseries, was making a tour of duty on Netflix, I jumped on it. I am so glad I did.

When you watch something a second (or third or fourth) time, you notice things you did not notice originally. You spot nuances and themes that hid in plain sight the first time you watched.

So it was with Band of Brothers, which follows "Easy" Company, an elite American airborne unit, from its training in the U.S. and England to D-Day to the end of World War II. In watching the production a second time, I was able to truly appreciate its brilliance.

Among other things, I was able to appreciate the war's toll on Easy's members, especially those who served for the duration of the conflict. I was able to see the fatigue, the frayed nerves, the frailties, and even the pettiness of ordinary men pushed to their limits.

Though Damian Lewis, playing Major Richard Winters, shines in the series, he is not the only star. More than twenty others, including New Kids on the Block's Donnie Wahlberg and Friends' David Schwimmer, provide strong performances. All add something to a series that many consider to be the finest every aired.

In addition to the story and the performances, I enjoyed the added content, such as the comments from the actual soldiers at the beginning of each episode. I thought the brief narratives from men in their seventies, men in a position to reflect on the war and their lives, was a treat that lent even more authenticity to the series.

Band of Brothers, which originally aired on HBO in 2001, is more than compelling television. It is history at its best. Despite its violence and mature content, I would recommend it to anyone. Rating: 5/5.

A first draft for a last book

It took a while — three months, to be exact — but I finished ahead of schedule. With a final burst on Friday, I finished the first draft of Duties and Dreams, the last book in the Second Chance trilogy.

Spanning two world wars and much of the twentieth century, the series finale completes the story of the Carpenters, three siblings who began new lives as time travelers in early 1900s. It tests Bill, Paul, and Annie like they have never been tested before.

Though the novel focuses on Paul, World War I, and France, it also spotlights other family members, the Spanish flu, and Southern California, where the Carpenters and the Lees have made a home. In addition, it introduces a new character (WWII resistance fighter Emilie Perot) and brings back two others (Steve and Shannon Taylor) from Annie's Apple, the second book in the series.

Weighing in at 86 chapters and 116,000 words, Duties and Dreams is the tenth longest of my 23 novels. I play to revise and edit it in the next ten weeks and publish the finished product by Christmas.

Review: The Great

The subtitle tipped me off. Preceded by an asterisk, it told me most of what I needed to know about a riveting comedy series.

I say most — and not all — because The Great: An Occasionally True Story, a genre-bending offering on Hulu, surprised me. It surprised me in ways I found disturbing, annoying, and ultimately fulfilling.

Based loosely — and I do mean loosely — on historical events, the series covers the early reign of Catherine the Great, the bold, enigmatic Prussian princess who ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796.

Elle Fanning stars as Catherine, while Nicholas Hoult (Peter III), Belinda Bromilow (Aunt Elizabeth), Phoebe Fox (Marial), Adam Godley (Archbishop), Sacha Dhawan (Orlo), Gwilym Lee (Grigor Dymov), and Douglas Hodge (Velementov) highlight a strong supporting cast. Each brings something to a series that breaks every rule in the book.

A warning: The Great is vulgar, incredibly vulgar. If foul language and gratuitous sex are dealbreakers, run from this production with your arms raised high. This series is Animal House, Russian royal court edition. It is also violent — not Game of Thrones violent, but still violent.

I didn't care for that. I would have preferred less shagging and killing and more history. I grew weary of most of it after a few episodes.

What saved the series, for me, anyway, was the writing. The Great's writers did something that Hollywood rarely does anymore. They produced something that is genuinely funny. Crude? Yes. Over-the-top? Definitely. But still funny. The series serves wit on a plate. For that reason alone, I was able to set aside the vulgarity, historical flaws, and anachronisms and enjoy a show that evolved in positive ways.

In The Great, Catherine battles everyone from Peter, the emperor husband she deposes, to the royal court to the Russian Orthodox Church. She does so in a usually vain attempt to bring Russia into the modern age. The empress' volatile relationship with her husband is particularly well done. She goes from loving him to loathing him to loving him again in a way that is not only believable but also poignant.

Though Fanning is only one of a dozen actors playing primary roles, she is the only one who really counts. Nominated for several awards last year, including two Golden Globes, she carries the series from its rocky start to its satisfying end. She is on the small screen what Catherine the Great was on the world stage. She is her own woman. Rating: 4/5.

Giving a French region its due

For some, Alsace is a backwater. Tucked in a remote corner of France, next to Germany and Switzerland, it is a region often overlooked by travelers and guides. It is a land that time forgot.

Strasbourg, its largest city, pales next to Paris. The Vosges, its mountain range, pales next to the Alps. Even its vineyards do not compare to those in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne. Alsace is, in many ways, the Rodney Dangerfield of France. Yet, for me right now, this crossroads of Europe is the most important place on earth. It is the primary setting of my latest work in progress.

I picked Alsace, the Vosges, and the nearby city of Saint-Dié as settings several months ago. I did so mostly for practical reasons. All three venues played vital roles in both world wars. All supported the narrative in Duties and Dreams, the third and last novel in the Second Chance series. Each place seemed appealing and interesting.

But it wasn't until I started writing the book that I realized how interesting they were. I soon became immersed in learning about places I have never seen and had not studied until recently.

Among other things, I learned that Alsace is almost as German as it is French. Germany conquered and annexed the region in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. It gave it up after World War I, grabbed it again in World War II, and surrendered it in 1945.

That created both possibilities and problems for me. On the plus side, I was able to set compelling stories in two distinct eras. On the down side, I had to deal with different spellings of placenames. For much of the time period between 1871 and 1945, Strasbourg was Straßburg, Villé was Weiler, Lièpvre was Leberau, Sélestat was Schlettstadt, and Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines was Markirch.

Some of these places, all featured in the novel, also have Alsatian names – names that might have appeared on maps and road signs of the times – but I did not bother with them. I wanted to keep things as simple as possible for both readers and myself.

Of course, in D and D, I will do more than explain the names of places. I will describe their features. I will take readers to an abbey in Mont Sainte-Odile, a railroad crossing in Leberau, an isolated cottage in Weiler, and the conical sandstone peak of Climont, home of the "Fountain of Youth." I'll give them a taste of Alsace.

I hope to complete the first draft of Duties and Dreams in the next six weeks. I plan to publish the novel itself in December.

Photograph Note: Climont mountain (top image), Strasbourg in three languages (bottom). Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

August author update

For authors, summer is supposed to be the quiet season. It is supposed to be the time we set work aside, take rejuvenating vacations, and take a break from the rigors of writing, editing, and marketing novels.

For me, though, this summer has been an opportunity. It has been a chance to accomplish a lot while others relax and play.

Sea Spray tops the list of projects completed. The novel, the pivotal third book in the Time Box series, is now available in audio.

Veteran voice artist Roberto Scarlato narrated the work. He previously narrated Camp Lake and The Fair and will soon lend his talents to The Refuge and Crown City, the fourth and fifth books in the Time Box series. Eighteen of my twenty-two novels are now available as audiobooks on Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books. (A note to those who requested these books: I do listen to you!) I hope to convert the remaining titles by the end of 2024. As I noted in March, I have a limited number of free promo codes for my audiobooks, including Sea Spray, that I can release to prospective reviewers on request. Please contact me if interested.

Also this past month, I began writing Duties and Dreams, the third and final book in the Second Chance series. Set mostly in Southern California, Washington state, and France in 1918, the novel will follow Paul Carpenter, Andy Lee, and their families through World War I, the Spanish flu, and a medical crisis that will finally open many previously closed doors. I am currently nineteen chapters and 27,000 words into the novel and hope to publish it by the end of the year.

I also attended to marketing, the bane of every writer, even though summer is notoriously slow for sales. Two major promotions are on tap. BookBub will feature The Mirror, book five in the Northwest Passage series, for the first time in five years on August 20. EReader News Today will run The Fountain as its Book of the Day on September 15.

I hope readers will take advantage of both offers. I remain very grateful to those who have expressed their support in the past.

The dog days of summer

I've been in a dog mood lately. My last dog, Mocha, passed away six years ago, and I miss her terribly. Because of circumstances — Las Vegas, for one, is not the best place to raise a canine — I have not replaced her. I have instead taken every opportunity to greet the dogs of others and wallow in dog videos. (I'm partial to surfing bulldogs.)

I have also watched more than a few dog movies, including three in the past month that I highly recommend. Togo (2019), The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019), and Dog (2022) — yes, Dog — are all grand entertainment. All three films feature difficult, often neglected animals that tug at the heartstrings. All demonstrate that dogs really are man's best friend.

Togo is the story of the lead dog of the main sled team in the serum run to Nome, Alaska, an event that riveted the nation in 1925. Unlike Balto, who was rewarded with international acclaim, books, movies, and a statue in New York's Central Park, Togo was mostly forgotten to history, despite covering more miles and more dangerous terrain in the 674-mile relay. Willem Dafoe shines as temperamental musher Leonhard Seppala in an adventure film that gives credit where it is due.

The Art of Racing in the Rain, based on the bestselling novel by Garth Stein, follows the adventures of Denny Swift, a Seattle race car driver, and his perceptive golden retriever, Enzo, who serves as the movie's unlikely narrator. Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried, and Kathy Baker star in a compelling drama that covers courtship, marriage, birth, death, and even reincarnation. Kevin Costner gives voice to the dog who becomes a vital part of the lives of his human handlers.

Dog, an American comedy drama road film, revolves around two struggling veterans of the war in Afghanistan — Jackson Briggs, a former U.S. Army Ranger suffering from PTSD, and Lulu, the military dog of Briggs' fallen comrade. Briggs offers to drive the aggressive Belgian Malinois from Fort Lewis, Washington, to the comrade's funeral in Arizona in exchange for a promotion that will reintegrate him back into active service. Channing Tatum stars in and directs the movie.

Though the films occasionally stretch the limits of believability, all are highly entertaining. I would recommend them to dog lovers and non-dog lovers alike. Ratings: Togo 9, Racing 8.5, and Dog 8 out of 10.

Photograph: Mocha wearing the "Cone of Shame" in 2010.

Reaching for the stars

If I have learned one thing as a parent, it is never to underestimate. Children with drive will find ways to succeed and shine. They will not only reach for the stars, but occasionally pull one from the sky.

My son, First Lieutenant Matthew E. Heldt, did that today in Meridian, Mississippi, where he received his wings as an aviator in the United States Marine Corps.

The winging ceremony at Naval Air Station Meridian capped a four-year, four-state journey that included Officer Candidates School; The Basic School; Naval Introductory Flight Evaluation; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape; primary flight training; and intermediate and advanced jet training. It included tests and trials that most of us, particularly civilians, will never face, much less conquer.

Then again, Matthew, 26, has always been a striver. Long before he mastered the T-6B Texan II and T-45C Goshawk training aircraft, he earned a private pilot license and a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Louisiana. As a Marine aviator, he logged more than two hundred thirty hours of flying time.

Now, Matthew is off to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, where he will learn to fly the F-35B, an advanced fighter jet. A more permanent assignment will follow. Here's to hoping he reaches for the stars wherever he goes. I could not be more proud of him.

(Photo: Matthew and his new wife, Mikayla, celebrate at NAS Meridian after his final qualifying flight in a T-45C Goshawk.)

Back to the Evergreen State

In the beginning, it was my go-to venue, the place where the Northwest Passage series developed. Washington state was a secondary setting in The Journey and The Fire, the primary setting in The Mine and The Show, and the sole setting in The Mirror.

Since then, it has received only one mention, a wedding chapter, set in Vancouver, in The Fountain. That will soon change.

In the book three of the Second Chance trilogy, I will return to my former home state, setting chapters in Camp Lewis, Tacoma, Mount Rainier, and perhaps other venues. I will revisit familiar territory.

Last week, I began researching the series finale by paying a visit to the Lewis Army Museum, part of what is now Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In the process, I learned a lot about Washington's early history, the United States Army, and Camp Lewis, a sprawling city of 37,000. Situated in the shadow of Mount Rainier (pictured), it was the largest military post in the country in 1918.

Southern California, the destination of the Carpenters and Lees at the end of Annie's Apple, will also get a turn in book three. So will northern France, the site of some of the fiercest fighting of World War I. Along with Western Washington, the venues will form the foundation of a novel that will bring a family saga to an end.

I intend to research all three places — and others — this spring and summer and begin writing the book itself in early August. I hope to publish the finished work no later than February 2024.

Note: The public domain photograph of Camp Lewis, featured on a 1917 postcard, is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Second Act of Second Chance

The second act is usually the most difficult to write. In literature, as in life, it is the tough center of a story, the important and sometimes unsteady bridge that connects a beginning and an end.

Annie's Apple is my latest second act. The bridge of the Second Chance trilogy, it follows three time travelers and their significant others through the elegant, unpredictable, and often dangerous world of 1911 and 1912. It develops a story in progress.

In the spring of 1911, Bill and Cassie Carpenter, both 29, have it all. The New York City educators have jobs at a prestigious prep school, a new home, and a bright future. They have everything they want except the thing they want the most — a child.

Annie Carpenter, their housemate, is in a similar spot. Though Bill's sister, now a blossoming beauty of 20, has begun a promising career as a society writer, she longs for hearth and home. She yearns for the very things that prompted her to jump into a fountain of youth in 2022 and begin a new life.

Paul Carpenter and Andy Lee also battle disappointment. Now 23, the sergeants, best friends and brothers-in-law, ponder their own futures as they try to keep the Mexican Revolution from spilling into the dusty border town of Douglas, Arizona. They anticipate better things in the final year of their enlistment in the U.S. Army.

Then fortunes change. New orders arrive, romances bloom, and the impossible becomes possible. In a snap, New York City becomes a place where the dreams of five young adults take shape.

In Annie's Apple, I develop these stories. I push the Carpenters and the Lees in ways I didn't in The Fountain. I present different sides of characters I introduced in the first book of the trilogy.

I also present a city. From the first chapter to the last, I give readers the Big Apple in the age of Model T's, Gibson Girls, and bicycles-built-for-two. From Manhattan and Brooklyn to Coney Island and Rockaway Beach, readers see a storied metropolis in its prime.

Unlike in all of my other works, Annie's Apple does not feature an act of time travel. It does feature two disasters. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the sinking of the RMS Titanic serve as bookends to the character-driven story. Personal trials and a lingering mystery, one that sets up the series finale, fill the spaces in between.

Annie's Apple is my twenty-second novel. It goes on sale today as a Kindle book at Amazon.com and its international web sites.

Author's Note: Today's release is a tribute to my grandfather, a folksy, adventurous, resourceful man who was born April 1, 1893, on a Kansas ranch. Andy Hoeme inspired not only two characters — Andy O'Connell (The Fire) and Andy Lee (Annie's Apple) — but also parts of several books. Whole chapters in The Memory Tree and The Fountain were based on his experiences in Mexico and the American West in the early 1900s. Happy 130th Birthday, Grandpa!

Writer's block revisited

Of all the tools and techniques I employ as a writer, it is the one I use the most. When I experience writer's block, I take a walk.

I did it just this morning. Faced with solving a plot hole in Annie's Apple, my current work in progress, I took a walk, cleared my mind, and came up with a fix. I did what I couldn't do sitting still.

Others favor different approaches. As I noted in a blog post eight years ago, the web is full of suggestions. Purdue University Global offers seven, including some that are rooted in common sense. Like other online sources, it urges writers to declutter their workspaces, develop good habits, and write in manageable chunks.

More advice can be found at SmartBlogger, The Writer, Writer's Digest, Writers.com, Inc. Magazine, and other sites. SmartBlogger encourages writers to "talk to an imaginary friend," "curse like a sailor," "chug some caffeine," "browse your photo albums," and "wash the dishes." (My wife would like the last suggestion.)

I still prefer walking. When I am out and about, I can focus, solve problems, and sometimes create. I can do the things I often cannot do while staring at a blank page on a computer screen.

More often than not, I will think of more ideas and remedies than I can track in my mind. Even on a walk of fifteen to twenty minutes, I will resort to taking notes on my phone or on a small notepad.

Most writers, of course, know all about the importance of taking notes. They know that inspiration does not always strike at convenient times or places. They become proficient at recording even minor and seemingly unimportant details for future use.

So the next time the words don't come, take a walk with a notepad. Get outdoors and away from household distractions. You may find that writer's block is little more than a temporary affliction.