Favorite Characters: Corporal Patrick Riley

Recently I was interviewed for another blog, and one of the questions put to me was: Which of your own characters is your favorite, and why? Hmm... My first impulse was to examine all the main characters from my books, and there are many that I have great fondness for. However, the one character that I love above all others happens to be a secondary character. He is Corporal Patrick Riley, a striker in my time travel books Finding Travis and Being Travis.

If you're unfamiliar, a striker was an enlisted man in the frontier US Army who was tasked with being a servant and assistant to an officer. The title originally came from the fact that the striker was the one who struck the tent of an officer when the Cavalry was getting ready to move.

In my two-book series, my main character, Lieutenant Travis Merrill, is flung backward in time to 1877 at Camp Verde, Arizona Territory. In my efforts to be completely authentic about his experience, I knew I had to write in a striker for him. During this time, there were many Irish and German men who moved west, looking for the opportunities they did not have in their homelands or in the eastern US, so making Travis' striker an Irish man made sense. I introduced the character with little fanfare and few expectations.

Imagine my surprise when Riley morphed before my eyes into a funny, stoic, steadfast man who said little but saw everything, who kept his own counsel but watched over Travis like a favorite uncle, giving Travis enough rope to hang himself but staying close by to help him untie the knots if need be. As the relationship deepened and grew stronger, I realized I was writing a friendship unlike any I had ever written before. 

Riley has a dry and very wicked sense of humor, and he and Travis learn to talk trash to each other while staying within their bounds of enlisted man vs. officer protocol. Much that passes between them is unsaid, yet they understand each other completely. Riley is the perfect foil for Travis, and ends up stealing every scene in which he appears. 

Who knew a secondary character could come to the fore and embody such heart, such restraint, such compassion? Certainly not me. Maybe that's why I love him. He was a total surprise, and he absolutely makes the books. 

It was as much for him as for Travis that I wrote the sequel.

Where Are YOU in Your Own Story Arc?

A while back, I was being interviewed by a reporter at the local paper for a weekly column called A Day in the Life of …  These columns feature local, everyday people, from business owners to artists to worker bees to civil servants and volunteers. My particular column was to be A Day in the Life of a Writer. The reporter and I know each other, so the mood was casual, more a friendly chat than a grilling. He asked many of the questions I’ve fielded before: what genre(s) do I write, how did I get started, etc. Pretty much your basic interview. Suddenly, though, he asked me a question that poleaxed me. I sat there, mouth agape, brain churning, trying to figure out the answer to something I’d never thought about before.

“Have you written your best book already, or is that still to come?”

“Uh …..”

It was a serious question and it required a serious, deliberate answer. It also required me to delve deep inside myself right at that moment and find out how the two options felt. Had I written my best book already? I’ve got nineteen novels and one non-fiction to my credit, all of which have been well-received. But my best? No. I knew on a visceral level that I still had more to come, more and better. I may never write the Great American Novel, but I knew without a doubt that I will write more stories, and they will be good ones. No, I have not yet written my best. I’m still on the rise. I’m still on the upswing.

I told the reporter about my father. He was an artist all his life, a commercial artist by day but a wonderful representational artist in his free time. I’m sure you’ve never heard of him: Howard Munns. He sold some of his work through a handful of galleries around the country, but he was a quiet man, unassuming and modest, and he was not comfortable promoting his work nearly as much as the rest of the family thought he should. He was self-taught and had a lifelong love affair with the landscapes and wildlife he painted. He died some years ago at the age of 90. The truly remarkable thing about him, though, was the fact that he was doing his best work when he was in his 80s. His eyesight wasn’t good, and if you looked closely you might see little places where the paint didn’t cover the canvas, but the pictures he was painting in his last years were the most beautiful and inspired work I had ever seen him do. The picture above, the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, was done when my dad was about 84 years old.

How many of us might be able to say that?

On the flip side, I can think of two authors right off that, in my opinion, peaked early and have never duplicated their best work. Stephen King’s The Stand is by far (again, IMHO) his best work. Compared to this, I find his other work to be commercial and uninspired, although to be fair, I must admit that I haven’t read any of his in the last few years. John Irving reached a similar pinnacle with A Prayer for Owen Meany. Likewise, his other works pale in comparison (and I freely admit I have not read every book he’s written). For both of these authors, the named books were absolutely perfect gems set high above the dross of 99.9% of all other books. I would kill to write a book like that.

But I would never want to know that my best book was behind me.

I don’t know about you, but I want the work that I do in my 70s to be better than the work I’m doing now in my 60s. I want the work that I do in my 80s to be better than the work I do in my 70s. It may sound weird, but I’d almost rather die with my best work undone than know that I had hit my peak somewhere along the way and was on the downhill slide in my writing. I’m not sure I could bear that.

So what about you? Where are you, as a writer, in the story arc of your life?

Originally published on Indies Unlimited January 27, 2015.

New Release: STAR WALK

I am happy to announce the release of my newest book, Star Walk, Book 3 of the Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery series. 

As you may or may not know, Lacey is an ex-cop turned private investigator and Sam, a Navajo medium, is her partner. Together they work to help tortured souls move on from the haunted houses they are bound to, and the pair often investigate murders by talking to the victims themselves. The latest book takes them deep into the gilded age of Hollywood:

Ex-cop Lacey Fitzpatrick and Navajo medium Sam Firecloud are working a new investigation into paranormal activity. This time they’re called to clear an old Hollywood mansion of the multiple ghostly tenants that are threatening the home owner’s livelihood. At the same time, however, Lacey gets a call from her ex-boyfriend, now prison inmate, for help in a more earthly manner. He fears his sister is siphoning money from his elderly mother, and only Lacey can find out the truth. Between saving her ex’s mother from bankruptcy and researching deep into the families of the tortured souls haunting the mansion, Lacey finds the revelations of family dynamics to be both fatally flawed and heartbreakingly inspired. 

To celebrate the new release, I have put all three eBooks in the series on sale for just 99 cents, through June 18, 2017.  And they are FREE for Kindle Unlimited readers.

Praise for Ghost Walk

I don’t normally gravitate toward mysteries but Sam Firecloud, a half-Navajo man who communicates with ghosts, hooked me.  I think this is going to be an enthralling new series to follow and I am looking forward to more from Lacey and Sam’s new partnership.

I had a good time reading this installment and can not wait to read the sequel. Hopefully, there are more books like this. Recommended!!

I loved this book. It is the second one I have read by Melissa Bowersock. She has a wonderful way of weaving the story line together and leaves you wanting to know more about the cases of Lacey and Sam.

Let me start with the end of this book and the closing words: Coming soon: Skin Walk, Another Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud mystery. Surely the best words to read when you’ve enjoyed a book so much, you want more, and thankfully, there's the promise of a sequel!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all Bowersock’s novels…she’s an author who can turn her hand to an eclectic array of genres…but I have to say this probably earns the title of 'my favourite'…or, at least, one of my favourites.

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Praise for Skin Walk

I sure hope Ms. Bowersock has more story ideas for Sam Firecloud and Lacey Fitzpatrick. I’m loving this series.

This sequel certainly lived up to its predecessor. I enjoyed the development of the couple as they grow more comfortable with each other as a team.  I think I’m looking forward to the progress of their relationship as much as the cases they’re commissioned to solve.

Great stories. Excellent character development. Makes you care about the people in the stories. Cannot wait for the next book in this series. Read Ghost Walk, the first book in this series and had to immediately download Skin Walk. So glad I did. 

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Do you love mystery? Love the paranormal? Then you'll love Sam and Lacey. From downtown LA to the Navajo reservation in Arizona to the whispered excesses of Hollywood, they are on the job!

And be on the lookout for Book 4 of the series, Dream Walk, coming soon!