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I’ve just returned from Bouchercon 2025, held this year in the always-spirited city of New Orleans. If you’ve never heard of Bouchercon, it’s one of the largest annual conventions for mystery, crime, thriller, and suspense writers and readers—named after legendary mystery critic Anthony Boucher. Though its focus is mystery fiction, the panels and discussions often transcend genre and offer valuable insights for any writer, myself included.

This year’s conference took place at the Marriott Hotel, just steps from the French Quarter. Over several days, I attended a wide range of panel discussions—from character-building and pacing to action scenes and emotional arcs. While the crowd leaned heavily toward crime fiction, I found that the advice shared applied just as well to historical, adventure, and even speculative fiction.

One panel that especially caught my attention focused on artificial intelligence in writing. Not surprisingly, many traditional authors expressed concern or outright disdain for AI tools. But as someone who has found AI helpful for brainstorming and refining my own work (as you may have seen here on the blog), I found the conversation revealing. The creative community is grappling with what these new tools mean—and that conversation is just beginning.

Another panel I made sure not to miss was on paranormal fiction. I’m currently developing ideas for a paranormal/mystery novel, so hearing how other authors approach the genre gave me lots to think about.

Two of the conference highlights were live interviews with Craig Johnson and Michael Connelly—giants in the crime fiction world.

• Craig Johnson, best known as the author of the Longmire series (which inspired the popular TV show), talked about his rural Wyoming roots and the balance he strikes between character-driven storytelling and the gritty realism of crime in the American West. He shared how Longmire started with a single image and grew into a multi-book (and multimedia) phenomenon.
• Michael Connelly, creator of Harry Bosch and The Lincoln Lawyer, described his background as a crime journalist and how that shaped his fiction. He emphasized how deeply he researches police procedures, legal details, and locations to lend credibility to his stories. His discussion of character evolution and longevity was especially interesting—something I’ll be thinking about in my own future series work.

Of course, no trip to New Orleans would be complete without some time away from the conference hall. I wandered the historic French Quarter, listened to street music, and enjoyed excellent food at several restaurants. Of course, beignets at the famous Cafe Du Monde!

One of my personal goals at Bouchercon was to share my own writing, so I brought my novels and gave away 30 copies of Timepath, Enchanted Journal, and Red-Haired Distraction. I’m hopeful that those books find good homes—and that some new reviews might appear soon.

Whether you’re a writer or a reader, Bouchercon reminded me of the deep value of community. It’s easy to think of writing as a solitary act, but events like these show how much we can learn from one another—and how stories connect us, regardless of genre.

I’m already looking forward to what’s next—both at the keyboard and on the road.

After finishing The Viking Princess and TimePath, I knew I wanted to keep writing novels. The process had become something I loved—not just the storytelling, but the surprising discoveries along the way. But after those first two books, I hit a wall. I couldn’t find inspiration for what to write next. Days turned into weeks of creative frustration. I kept searching, waiting for a spark. Then one night, it came—in a dream.

I dreamed of a wagon train crossing the rugged West and of a mysterious journal—an enchanted one—that guided a young girl traveling with the train. The dream was vivid, haunting, and oddly emotional. When I woke, the images stayed with me. It was eerie how real it had felt. What surprised me most was the subject matter. I had once been an avid fan of westerns, but I hadn’t read or watched anything about wagon trains in years. Yet here it was, clear as day, handed to me by my own imagination.

The very next morning, I wrote what became the opening scene of Enchanted Journal. But then I hit a new obstacle—I didn’t really know much about the Oregon Trail. I’d never been on it, and I had only a foggy idea of what life was like for the pioneers who made that journey.

So before I could write more, I dove into research. I studied maps, journals, and historical accounts—anything I could find. What I discovered was that there wasn’t just one Oregon Trail. There were multiple routes, variations that pioneers took depending on the season, the year, or the challenges they faced. My first task was to pick a specific trail to follow in my novel. Once I had that, I chose the prominent stops and camping sites from actual pioneer accounts and worked them into the storyline.

Then came the characters. I began defining the people who would make up this fictional wagon train—their backgrounds, hopes, and conflicts. But as I wrote, the story kept growing. I realized I needed more characters to fill out the world of the trail—each with a purpose and a backstory. Writing Enchanted Journal was a long process, mostly because of the research required to make it believable. But it was also deeply rewarding.

About three-quarters of the way through, it hit me—this story didn’t end when the wagon train reached Oregon. A sequel was obvious. So after completing Enchanted Journal, I went on to write Pony Express, which tells the story of what happened after the pioneers settled in Oregon.

Looking back, I’m still amazed that it all started with a dream. Enchanted Journal became a story about courage, mystery, and the long road west—but it’s also a story about inspiration finding you when you least expect it.

I hope you’ll take the journey with me and read Enchanted Journal.

After finishing Pony Express, I found myself in an unusual place as a writer — I wanted to keep going, but the well of inspiration had run dry. I tried to force ideas, but nothing stuck. So I did what many writers do when the creative spark dims: I read.

I dove headfirst into a stack of Western-themed novels, hoping that something would stir me. I read the classics, the dime-store paperbacks, and the modern takes — all with wide-brimmed hats, dusty trails, and hard-eyed gunslingers. But instead of inspiration, I kept running into sameness. The characters started to blend together. The plots echoed one another. After a while, I joked to a friend that all these Westerns are the same story in different boots.

That’s when the idea hit me — or rather, when my friend nudged me toward it. He sent me a brief blurb about something called a “Hoodlum Wagon.” It was just a quirky little note, almost an offhand comment, but something about it stuck. I scribbled out a short scene based on that idea — nothing more than a sketch, really — but it was enough to shake loose the dust in my imagination.

And then I thought: Why not write the most generic Western I can? One that deliberately includes every trope and cliché I’ve been reading about? I decided to lean into it. To have some fun with it. And so, I began writing.

Of course, my Western needed a beautiful girl, the kind who turns heads but doesn’t put up with nonsense. There had to be an aimless country bumpkin, sincere and out of his depth, and a bully — someone you’re just waiting to see get what’s coming to him. There would be longhorn cattle, a trail drive, and yes — the obligatory stampede. A quick-draw gunfighter was a given. A gunfight at high noon? Naturally. I was building a Western from the bones of every Western I’d ever read.

What I didn’t expect was for the story to grow into something more.

Once I had a rough draft, I shared it with a thoughtful reader who took the story far more seriously than I had at first. She asked questions. Deep questions. About the characters, their motivations, their pasts — questions I hadn’t thought to ask myself. She challenged me to consider why they acted the way they did, what they feared, and what they wanted beyond the surface of the story.

That changed everything.

I rewrote. I layered in backstory. I gave my characters the weight of real choices. What started as a playful exercise became something richer, more meaningful. I dug into themes of identity, pride, hardship, and resilience. The clichés remained — but now they had roots.

In the end, the novel I set out to write as a generic, even ironic Western became something I’m truly proud of. Red-Haired Distraction is, without question, my best work to date — not because it’s full of gunfights and cattle, but because it’s full of real people, living through a time and place that shaped them.

Sometimes, inspiration doesn’t come in a lightning bolt. Sometimes, it comes when you lean into the ordinary — and take it seriously.