Welcome back!

Since I’m a day late getting the blog out this week (it’s a long story—nothing I can share in 101 words), let’s jump right into the Story of the Week. It was inspired by a prompt generously tossed my way by neighbor, Con Ekshuns.

          Straying From the Flock

Working undercover, Buck infiltrated the criminal world by befriending the bad people. It took time, but eventually, he earned their trust. Then something unexpected happened. He started thinking of them as friends.

Once they had all been arrested, he returned to his former life, back in uniform, working the streets. Unfortunately, he just didn’t fit in anymore. He missed his old friends, now incarcerated, and it outraged him when his uniformed colleagues bragged about abusing “the low-life scum” they arrested.

He hoped he’d only have to blow up a few cops to feel better.

He hit the detonator and drove off.

Prompt: Unassimilable

Here’s Scooter (the muse) hiding under the hide-a-bed (naturally), supervising today’s writing sesh.

NOVEL DISCOVERIES: Research played a decent part in my writing over the last couple of weeks. If you’re a writer, you know that research can be a euphemism for procrastination. For the most part, I think I’m pretty good about staying away from the massive time-suck known as Internet research, but it can be a siren call for those of us who love to write—almost as much as we love to think about writing and doing almost anything that keeps us out of the writer’s chair that we profess to love.

I’ve avoided a lot of that wasted time recently because the research I’ve been doing has mostly involved reaching out to experts (or people who can put me in touch with them). As a former member of the crime-fighting world (not associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe—although it should be), I’m lucky enough to have lots of contacts. This has come in handy, as my story has taken me into areas where I’ve needed to pick expert brains on such areas as computer forensics (to track criminals stealing unprotected Wi-Fi signals) and CSI gurus (for DNA and lock-picking evidence). Yesterday’s adventure involved reaching out to a U.S. Postal Inspector (the almost unheard of law enforcement branch of the Post Office), who enlightened me on postmarks and how my detectives might be able to trace a letter back to its collection point. For this last one, I tried going the route of you mere mortal civilians, and I hit a brick wall by going through the public phone number for USPS. Once I got a lead on an actual cell phone for an actual inspector, the hunt was over and I had my answers.

The detective work, and the detective novel, soldier on.

Thanks for listening.

Scotty out