P.I. Fiction Progress Report

Within a week of deciding to revise my first P.I. story, I've submitted it to SDO Detective. Amazing to go from thinking the story should scram to liking it again.

In the previous drafts, my P.I. was a Laker fan living in the '90s, just after Magic Johnson gave way to Nick Van Exel. As time went on, I soured on the players and didn't think my P.I. could root them, either. So, I tried keeping the story in the mid-90s, with the Lakers still playing out of the Great Western Forum. On top of the period details was the challenge of writing about a place I only remembered from a visit now seventeen years old.

The P.I. had a cop buddy, a wife he loved...all the ingredients for stasis. Last Sunday, I threw out that dynamic and started almost from scratch. Today, I took my shot.

Thanks again to Dave White and Jim Winter--test readers in my P.I. experiment--and to Sarah Weinman, Dale Stoyer, Ray Banks, and Graham Powell--who encouraged me on this blog.