Hi there, guys and dolls! Isn’t September such a beautiful month? In most places, the days are still warm, but the nights have a little crisp snap to them, and the sunlight has a wonderful glow. Everything’s a little quieter, which gives me time to think.

I like to wander (as do my alter egos Andrea and Heather, big surprise there). They talk and plan, work out plot lines that my fellow Santa Lucians tell them about. For the first Poppy Cove Mystery (STRANGLED BY SILK) my girls were sitting in the non-fiction section of their main Okanagan Regional Library and came up with Daphne, Margot and the demise of the town doyenne. The cat fight at Poppy Cove in DEATH OF A BEAUTY QUEEN and the opening art show scene in A NATE TO REMEMBER were both written at a couple local beaches.

Now the girls are writing their fourth (yes, it’s on its way), and are also looking at my whole world, looking at the way they share my people and places, what they have done well, could improve and where they want everything (including other stories and series) to go. This is where the wandering helps. They roam and talk, watch the world go by, and see what filters in. It brings new ideas and helps to clear out the cobwebs. Sometimes the busiest work looks like play, but it’s where the diamonds shine.

Toodles,

Barbara Jean