Trying to Be Social

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

I'm a small business owner. Nothing emphasizes that point more acutely than passing Thanksgiving, when it becomes obvious I've spent too little time marketing my wares.

Part of that effort is to have a presence on social media. Facebook, Twitter... I have a blog, a web site and books to sell on Amazon. If you want, you can get them on your Kindle, or have them printed. Bring it by the Academy and I'll sign it. The print copy.

Of course, that means I have to write. I have to have opinions and express them. The books don't sell themselves, suddenly pop into a reader's presence and insist on being read. So, from time to time you are offered the opportunity to read other things I've written. 

My web site, for example.

Writing about law enforcement, and law enforcers, has given me an opportunity to make sense of our profession not only for you, but for me. It's given me the chance to create people not out of thin air, but out of the experiences of others. Karen isn't who she is because I invented her. The women with whom I've served helped make her real.

Go onto social media and type something to the effect of "Guns should not just be banned, they should be confiscated." See what happens. A More Perfect Union examines that pitched battle between conflicting principles from a police officer's perspective.

How about a good woman with an abusive husband? How might she juggle the end of one relationship, the beginning of another and do justice to a murder investigation that won't go away? Out of Ideas.

Your friend is dead. Everything about his end suggests suicide - in law enforcement today that's a rational assumption with far too many tragic examples. It gnaws at you. Before you know it you find yourself fighting for your own life. You'd have discovered The Heart of the Matter.

Finally - a mom, a wife... A police supervisor awash in the downside of the digital revolution. My first novel, my first main character. A Miracle of Zeros and Ones.

Every one is a product not just of my own experiences in law enforcement, but of hundreds of men and women who have done their best to serve. If you want to know what real cops think, not just when the body cam is on but when they are being themselves... 

They fit nicely in a Christmas stocking.