THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF
PATRICIA WYNN  

-- A Newsletter --

If you have visited this site before, I hope you like the new look. I finally gave in and got professional help with the design, and I'm very pleased with the cleaner layout. If you have seen me in person recently, however, you know that this picture is old. I keep planning to have another one taken, but putting on makeup and posing are about as low on my list of things to do as anything can be. Just take it from me that I have aged another 7-8 years and my hair is whiter.

My news on the writing front is that The Motive from the Deed will be out in paperback as of October 1. A big thank you to those of you who have written to find out when my next Blue Satan mystery will be out. Unfortunately, it takes me a long time to write these books, and the next one has posed some plotting problems. Since I weave my stories through the day-by-day historical events, it can be hard to reconcile what needs to happen with the fictional part and the factual calendar. I'm too uptight to bend the history more than a couple of days, so if the Frost Fair took place on the Thames from a certain day in 1715 until January 28, 1716, and I have an incident that can only take place when London is frozen, then I have to use that event between those dates. Meanwhile, other historical events are taking place that I want St. Mars to get involved with, so I've got to find a story that pulls everything together.

Then, of course, Isabella's baby is due in January, and even though that's not a part of the mystery plot, it is a very important plot point to the series. These are the joys of writing a series that progresses through time. I begin to understand why many fictional series freeze their characters at a certain age. Imagine how hard it would be to write Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts if the characters aged. How would Agatha Christie have handled Miss Marple if she had a husband and children? Or Poirot if he had a wife and kids (admittedly a ridiculous idea)? Characters without families or jobs are so much easier because we don't expect things around them to change or look too closely at the fact that they have been old or middle aged for 20 years.

I swear my next series will be one of those.

I did not get to England this January as I had hoped to do. That's because I had such a wonderful opportunity to go to Alaska last September, and now have plans to go to Kenya in June. I'm at the time of life when I'm making up for all the years of being a stay-at-home mother. The trip to Kenya is a lifelong dream. It's a photo safari, mostly to the wildlife parks, but we will also visit a school sponsored by our guide, a professional photographer who has been visiting Kenya once or twice a year for over 20 years.

I certainly hope nobody expects me to pass up something like this just to get a book written!

So as not to waste the opportunity, I've bought a new fancy camera and have taken photography classes. If I get my act together, I'll post some of my pictures here eventually, although you may have noticed I haven't posted any from Alaska. That's not because we didn't take any, but because they were pre-fancy camera and pre-lessons and leave something to be desired.

But, returning to the subject of my next book, as of March 20, 2008, I have 100 pages written, which may not seem like much, but it was by far the hardest 100 pages. There's no way the new book will be out before Fall, 2009, and it may be as late as Spring, 2010. If that's the case, I will have averaged one book in this series every 2 1/2 years.

The next series will definitely be one of these easy ones with only the fraction of a series plot and no complications, either with history or baggage like family.

In my last newsletter, I promised to devote some of this site to information about Lyme disease. I do not have a blog, and there are many, many online groups devoted to tick-borne diseases, so the best thing would seem for me to explain why this has become my biggest cause. Soon, I will add a page to this site to do just that.

Meanwhile, you can read about Lyme Disease at LymeDiseaseAssociation.org or at the organization I founded Texas Lyme Disease Association.org.