My friend Susan has already found some surprises in Coyote Smart. There is one huge surprise that is revealed near the end of the book. Let me know if you guess what it is.

Meeting Characters at the Equator

COYOTE SMART will be out in sometime in late November or early December I hope, but I am already looking forward. Although I don’t plan to start another novel until maybe next summer, I am always thinking ahead, planning the next one, drawing characters in my head and my heart.

You see, I have to have an emotional attachment with the characters, but emotion and passion have a wide range. It doesn’t mean I have to like them all; on the contrary, I can despise them, but there has to be a reason for the attributes or flaws in each. You will understand quickly that I certainly have no positive feelings for Maxwell in book three, but there is a reason for him and he plays it well.

Developing characters is fun. In most cases they evolve from watching, studying, talking with or hearing about various people. My characters never portray one person I know, but instead, are generally a composite of many. Most of the time they are just a figment of my imagination with a peppering of realism.

Everywhere I go I listen to strangers, begin conversations with unfamiliar people and carefully note their stories. I try to remember little nuances; the way they hold their mouths or move their hands, what they wear or how the lines on their faces tell a story. I have always enjoyed meeting new folks and visiting with them. I’m fortunate that I can travel, which allows me to meet a wide spectrum of “characters.” Although I admit I talk a lot, I am a good listener as well. So be careful, what you say, you may be in the next book!!

Along the Border

As I mentioned in last Monday’s blog, I didn’t write Coyote Smart because I wanted to make a political statement about illegal immigration. However, I think it will be obvious in the book that first, I abhor the human smugglers because of their callous and ruthless behavior, and second because I believe that we must secure and seal the borders for a number of reasons, not the least of which is national security.

I became interested in the issue because I live near the border. Proximity often puts a different face or perspective on a problem.  I have met and even befriended those whose relatives came to America many years ago, maybe not through entirely legal channels, and their offspring, several generations hence, are now a product of that passage. They are productive, legal citizens who hold advanced degrees and high paying jobs.

I have also seen the devastation left in the wake of the hundreds who come for a better life, but often do it without thought to how it adversely affects others by trashing ranchlands, killing innocent people, and bringing in drugs and heartaches. Coyote Smart is a story about both kinds of people.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the issue. Maybe together we could solve a problem that obviously Congress can’t or doesn’t want to tackle.

Border Agent

Although Coyote Smart is a novel, it was very important to me to deal with the subject of illegal immigration and human smuggling in a factual way. I wanted to be certain that I portrayed events correctly in order to create an accurate picture of the border and its current hazards. Granted, research is essential in writing any novel, but this particular subject seemed to require even further attention.

To do that, I got a lucky break. I was chairing a school accreditation visit last spring, and after the team had completed our task, we began talking about personal and professional interests. I mentioned my books (imagine that!!) and when I described Coyote Smart, one of the team members suddenly became interested.

With a degree in criminal justice he had become a U.S. Border Patrol Agent a number of years ago before quitting to become an educator. After starting out with a gung-ho attitude, it didn’t take long for this talented young man to become frustrated and disillusioned with the constraints imposed on the agency such as “sitting on X.” This term is used to indicate that the agent is required to sit in one place sometimes for eight hours watching for illegal immigrants. As you can imagine, this caused him irritation, not to mention boredom. The worst part is that after apprehending a number of migrants, he was sometimes forced to let them go because of lengthy processing times, large case loads, and bureaucratic ineffectiveness.

In all of his accounts, however, he was extremely positive about his colleagues, and it seemed to me that he didn’t leave his career because he disliked his assignment, just the limitations of it. It was easy to understand how a smart, articulate young man could get exasperated.

Day after day of watching and waiting can take its toll, especially when one feels that much of what he is doing is futile. This is in addition to the isolation he often felt and the acute dangers he faced daily, not to mention the human suffering he observed on a regular basis.

We talked for over an hour, and he told me events he had personally witnessed while serving in the Naco, Arizona area during his tenure. Several months later I flew to El Paso where he is now a school administrator to interview him. On his own time, he spent several hours showing me photos he had taken and describing incidents that he had been involved in that gave me great insight into the issues of both human and drug smuggling along the U.S. / Mexican border. His expertise was invaluable. What a great resource for the book. Thank you, Ignacio!

Border Fence

Today is a big day as I introduce you to book three—Coyote Smart. I don’t think there could be a timelier subject than human smuggling. The book is not a political statement, but simply a novel about those touched by the issue, and once again how the resilience and grace of the human spirit envelopes each of us. Here’s a little enticer!!

The dying season begins each spring along the 2,000 mile stretch of the United States and Mexico border, but the term is not used in reference to the parched land or the animal carcasses that waste in the dry gulches and deep gullies littered with cans, bottles, clothing and syringes.

Instead it applies to human beings:  poor, desperate people in search of a dream.  In many cases, the dream turns into a deadly nightmare because of men like Maxwell Collin Ridgeway III, kingpin of the largest smuggling organization in the United States.

Ridgeway is COYOTE SMART, a fact that would be easy to miss by his humble beginnings as the son of an illegal alien. Turning against his own people, he is determined to be powerfully rich and inhumanly brutal, and he is successful at both —until he meets a young lawyer named Faith O’Brien England, who sees him as the most despicable, vile human being she has ever met.

Their encounter may be brief, but what it brings, changes his life …and eventually hers.

Book #3

My goal was to complete book three this summer, and I did just that—well almost. The actual draft is complete, but now I am making minor adjustments and editing. Writing is the fun part, and as you have heard me say before, editing is a real drag. The good thing is that I didn’t have to move any chapters around; the entire manuscript pretty much flowed as I wrote, and the characters came to life easily.

This book, named COYOTE SMART, is actually quite different from the first two, but I will let you decide whether that’s good or bad. Personally, I think it is my best writing, but I don’t want to sway your opinion. Well, maybe just a little.

Hopefully, I have your interest piqued! Just wait until next Monday, and I’ll share more information about just who is COYOTE SMART.

Do you have questions for me about my writing, my books, my thoughts on life? Send them through the Contact form and I’ll answer them here.

Do you have a sense of where the publishing industry is headed, and what impact will it have in the near future on those aspiring authors who want to be published?

Oh, I probably shouldn’t get started because it is so frustrating to me. It seems like the only people who ever get a break are those who are already rich and famous. I do think we will see less and less print copies and more e-books, Kindle books, etc. That is just the way this fast-paced society appears to be going. I still like to hold my books in my hand, but I love my Kindle, too.

What advice do you have advice for aspiring writers?

Be very patient and persistent! And above all else, just keep writing. Remember, it is not a book until it is finished.

Cindy Bradford

Every so often I get an email from someone who really makes my day, and that happened to me on Saturday. A friend of mine from my University of Texas at Brownsville professor days who now lives in Tennessee has been so kind to read both books and comment on them.

He also sends me regular emails that really motivate me to continue writing. His compliments are extra special because he is an old English major and quite a literary expert. Also, he and his wife are just generally wonderful people.

He recently loaned out Keeping Faith to a friend and wrote and told me on Saturday that she was impressed that it was my first book, and likened the descriptions of Italy to those by John Grisham. I don’t know which book of Grisham’s she is referring to, but I’m going to find out and read it just so I can make my own comparisons.

Another friend who lives in the same town in North Carolina as Nicholas Sparks wrote to me several months back that my book was every bit as good as any of his and she’s quite a fan of his. Now, I know my writing has a ways to go to compete with these guys, but it certainly makes me feel good. So, any time I can get comments like those, I will remain a “writing fool!”

Do you have questions for me about my writing, my books, my thoughts on life? Send them through the Contact form and I’ll answer them here.

Has writer’s block ever affected you? If so, to what degree and how did you cope?

I really don’t think so. Every now and then I simply can’t get the scene or setting to gel, but it isn’t really writer’s block, it’s just that I’m sick of it for the moment and want a diversion. So, I simply play at something else and come back to it whenever I feel like it. I don’t write for a living so I can take my time, although I try not to be away from it too long or I will forget where it was going.

What is your writing schedule like and what do you suggest writers consider to develop a routine that is perfectly tailored to them, since “one size fits all” doesn’t apply to such things?

I have been so busy lately with my educational consulting job that I haven’t had a real schedule, but now that summer is here, I will get back on my schedule of continuing to write my third book. That means I’ll write about 5 hours each day until it is finished. Usually I take off a couple of days a week or at least not work as long on a couple of days. Because it is not my “job” it is hard to convince people that I don’t want to be interrupted so that is going to always happen. No matter what, I stop at 5:00 for Happy Hour. I have my priorities!!!

Do you have questions for me about my writing, my books, my thoughts on life? Send them through the Contact form and I’ll answer them here.

Cindy, can you give us an example of an idea you had for one of your novels, and how that inspiration led you to the story it ultimately became?

Crazy as it might sound I had a dream about a minister having an affair. I started thinking about the general topic of the clergy and how, unfortunately, people with power and charisma often use those two elements in a negative way.

At the time the child abuse issues of the Catholic priests were just beginning. The book, Keeping Faith, is a result of my thoughts stemming from these issues. It is not an attack on the church, but rather about how the effects of abuse can change a person’s life and affect every relationship that occurs over that lifetime. I pay very close attention to current events and human interest stories so my ideas often come from hearing a news happening, and then I let my imagination take me to a whole different set of fictional events.

What is your story germination process? At what point do you begin brainstorming and asking “What if?” Then what?

When I get an idea I try to think immediately about the first, middle and ending I want to happen, but sometimes I can only get two of those at first. I then just start thinking about a reasonable, believable route the story should take. My books are about life experience so they are just an extension of what might happen to anyone. I think that is what makes them interesting. The reader understands that the good, bad and ugly are all a part of each of our existences.