Okay, it's been a month. The holiday season is my only excuse.

Since I didn't send cards this year, or form letters, I'll list a few memorable (for us) events:

After 6 years of substantial work and frequent anxiety, the college we created became legitimized by the most recognized accrediting agency for distance education.

The book Pam (my wife) and her friend Dr. David Noel Freedman published, What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why Do They Matter?,  was selected as the best history book by the San Diego Book Awards. But dear Dr. Freedman (an inspiration to us for his brilliance, humor, dedication to his work, and generosity, died in April, the month before the award was announced. 

My novel The Vagabond Virgins came out, to excellent reviews, and I had a swell time on the road for a book tour. 

Our amazing Zoe finished kindergarten, and half way through 1st grade still loves school, which is a blessing, since she has a mixed heritage on that issue. Pam always loved school. I didn't, until college.

Darcy (my big girl), upon completing an MA in Education Leadership at Northern Arizona University, got hired as the assistant principal of the first laptop high school in the country.

In other words, all's well. 

Installment 3: Beginning and Structuring a Novel

While staying a jump or two ahead of the one-page-a-day October pace I set (other work is killing about 40 hours a week), in my scene-to-scene brainstorming, I’m attempting to build a supporting cast I can feel compelled to write about, and which has some historical connections.

The story is set during Prohibition. Tom is a nightclub dance orchestra musician. The sister he’s raising is of the wayward sort, and I’m beginning to suspect she hangs out at some speakeasy. And one of my earliest and most consistent impressions of Pentecostal Christians, which the victim at least used to be, is that many of them lead double lives. Meaning the victim could well be involved in, or be suspected of being involved in, some underworld shenanigans.

Also, the victim is a black fellow married to a white woman. The Ku Klux Klan was on the rise in the 1920s and had begun to make their presence known in LA. So Tom needs to investigate the Klan’s possible involvement, even though readers would have just cause to lynch me if at the end they learned these most obvious suspects did the murder. Still, Tom’s duty as a tough guy detective is to stick his nose into some Klan business and get it punched, or carved like Jake’s in Chinatown.

And the Angeles Temple needs to play a role in all this intrigue. After all, the victim was a Sister Aimee devotee, and was found hanging in the park across the street from Aimee’s temple.

So this week, my toughest and most critical job is to find the most effective ways (that will lead to the most gripping scenes, conflicts and character developments) to send Tom out snooping into the secrets of these three sinister or potentially sinister (in the case of the church) organizations or cultures.

Another challenge I’ll need to tackle before long is deciding whether to create other suspects or to consider the bootlegging underworld, the Klan, a mega-church, and the kingpins of the LAPD (who are covering up the murder) enough. How about William Randolph Hearst and his infamous newspaper empire? Shouldn’t I rekindle their infamy, I wonder.

And here’s one more puzzle. Why is Tom Hickey willing to risk his life to learn who killed somebody he hasn’t seen in years, when he has no claim to a professional stake in any of this? He’s not yet a cop or PI. 

I know why he should be willing to take some chances. The problem is, he doesn’t know what I know yet, and I’m not sure how far along in the story he should begin to learn it.

All this stuff is making my head spin.