April 29th
The last few days have been full of doctor and dentist appointments, an overnight in Denver, and a long drive back home. I’m just about at the halfway point in the book, and have written 70% of my word goal. Lot’s of trimming will be necessary in the first edit. On the way home, we had to stop in the middle of Hardscrabble Pass because three bighorn rams had launched from the cliffside and into the road. We also saw turkeys, deer, and elk on the drive.

April 24th
It’s a beautiful day. The aspens are beginning to get their leaves, and the tree swallows have returned. They are attempting to take the nesting box nearest the house from the bluebirds. But the male bluebird is having none of it, and is chasing them off. The last week has been a slow writing week due to a lot of driving and other commitments, but today has been great. It’s 11:30 am, and I already have 3200 words under my belt! Well, back to work 🙂

April 17th
Another good writing day. It’s snowing here in the mountains. Perfect weather for coffee and imagining your characters hiking through the snowfields and wildflowers of Mt. Rainier National Park.

April 16th
There are days that are wide-open for writing, and there are days like today that have doctor appointments, meetings, and interruptions (like a broken gate). These are the days when your outline does the heavy lifting. Because I know what I’m writing, how the clues work together to tell the story, I’m finding I can still write about 2000 words on these days. The wind is picking up (the reason for that broken gate), and clouds are rolling in over the mountains.

April 15th
Another productive writing day! I’m 28% through the first draft, and I am really enjoying how the geography and weather is shaping the story. I feel like I’m hiking through Mt. Rainier in late June. Although, I’ve written 28% of my word-count goal, I’ve had to add some chapters. (Actually, divide a couple of chapters into two parts). Consequently, I’m about 20% of the way through the story.

April 13th
I was up at 5am, and have been plugging away at another chapter this morning. I’m struck by how different Rainier is from the five previous parks. Much of that has to do with the temperature and water in its multiple forms.

April 11th
The early chapters and the last chapters always take more words than planned (at least for me they do). Yesterday, we drove three hours to Denver, and I worked on chapter three in the car. (I wasn’t driving, of course).

April 8th
First draft is coming a long at a great pace. Chapter One, which is usually the most difficult of chapters to write was a breeze this time. One of the benefits of having an even more detailed outline.

April 4th
BIG DAY! I’ve completed the outline! 22,563 Words!
Drafting commences Monday morning!

April 2nd
Outline is almost fully trimmed, and is 76 pages long. We’ve launched our Mt. Rainier Online Scavenger Hunt. You can access it by first solving the code on the back of the Rainier Bookmark. If yours has not yet arrived (with the presale sticker pack), you can access everything you need at the bottom of the ciphers page: https://nationalparkmysteryseries.com/ciphers/

April 1st
As I continue trimming the outline, new ideas and plot solutions feel like they appear out of nowhere. I think that the more I know the story and imagine how Jake, Wes, and Amber experience their adventure, a shift happens where you start thinking from inside the story instead as an onlooker watching it from the outside. Last time, I said I’d share more about my process. As I outline, I keep a note for each chapter entitled CLUE. Even if we are not in the scrapbook or trying to solve the clue, I want to keep the clue in front of the reader. Sometimes a chapter is all about figuring out the clue. In this note, I create ciphers, riddles and other messages that become the core elements of the book when I write the first draft.

March 30th
The first chapters of a book require a lot attention. As I’ve been trimming the outline, i’ve spent a fair amount of time going back and forth between the first eight chapters examining details, and deciding exactly when to reveal new information. It can get tedious, but it’s still fun. In my outline, I have several elements that I always want to address. NP stands for National Park: What info about the park do I want to include, or what sensory experience? GOAL: What is the characters’ goal in this particular chapter. This helps me keep focused. I’ll share some more of these in my next update.

March 28-29th
This weekend, I’ve been trimming the outline to prepare it for writing my draft. Presently, the outline is about 20,000 words, a little less than half the size of the completed book. At this stage, I have the plot and the major scenes turning over in my mind, so I’ll often add bits of dialogue and new ideas to the outline as I tighten up the story.

March 27th
Today, I finished up my clue-work. The outline is complete, and now it’s time for me to trim it. My outlines contain a lot of instances of “perhaps” and “maybe.” This language helps me to keep open to different ideas and not to latch on to one prematurely. So, it’s time take some of those and put them into the Maybe-Later Bucket of ideas, and to add some details to what I choose to keep. I’ve also had three big questions about the story that I keep turning over in my head. What is the climactic physical action? How does Amber discover… ?( can’t write it or would spoil the story). And there is one final clue that I’m still trying to figure out. 

March 24th-26th
The last three days have included a long day driving back and forth from the airport and trying to repair our fridge. The exciting life of an author! In the middle of all that, I’ve continued to work out the clue-finding. This involves a lot of studying specific places, my own photos from our trip to Rainier, all imagining what’s in the scrapbook. It’s a very imaginative process. Once this layer of the work is complete, I’ll begin trimming my outline, and then I’ll begin the first draft. The outline is the slowest part because it requires a lot of thinking and plotting. However, it takes most of the friction out of the drafting process.

March 23rd
Today has been a lot of fun. I’ve been working the clues and codes for the first five chapters. As I’ve been encoding and decoding, riddling and rhyming, I’ve imagined just how Jake, Wes, and Amber will think through these puzzles, and the texture of their conversations. My desk is a complete mess, full of scraps of paper, marked up sheets of paper, pencils, pens, notebooks, guidebooks, and maps. It’s 5:15, and time to clean up and get this place ready for tomorrow.

March 21 and 22nd, 2026
If you’re wondering whether or not I write on the weekend, the answer is “Yes.” This weekend, I was working through location details, getting durations and elevations of specific hikes, and thinking through what the characters will encounter on the trail. I made stamped metal tags for our bluebird nesting boxes, numbering them and giving them each of them the abbreviation of a specific national park. I decided to do this in the order in which the parks were established.

March 20th, 2026
Developing a story is a lot like oil painting or painting with acrylics. First, you block in the background and big story elements, then you go back in and layer details on top of those bigger elements. Friday was all about layering in Wes’s journey through book six, and it was a lot of fun. My daughter and I took a mid-day hike with Blue, our dog, into our meadow, and we set up our 10th bluebird nesting box. Just in the last week, the meadowlarks, flickers, and even the kestrel have come back to the prairie surrounding our house.

March 19th, 2026
Today was Question-Day. As I outline, I jot down questions. This keeps me from getting bogged down, and helps me to build some plotting momentum. Usually, one or two big questions rise to the top. Today’s were: “What is the climactic act?” and “What is motivating the bad guys right now, in this particular story?” That second question answered the first for me, and several other questions.

March 18th, 2026
Today was eventful. I wrote about 1400 words, and then started smelling smoke. Moments later, I stepped outside and saw giant plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. I soon learned that we were just outside the evacuation zone. We packed out bags and prayed for the best. After several hours, the firefighters appeared to get it under control, and they now hope to have it 100% out by tomorrow. It’s 8:45 pm now, and I just finished up my final writing session, taking me again to another 2000-word day.

March 17th, 2026
This has been a fun writing week so far. Yesterday was a 2000-word day! Over the last week, I’m noticing how much our team is doing without my coaching or participation. That means less time in the business and more time writing! I’ve hit the point where I’m yearning to travel again to Rainier and experience again just what it feels like to be in that space. Though, right now, much of it is deep in snow.

March 13th, 2026
The thirteenth was a bit of a detour. In between writing sessions, I’ve been assembling and putting up birdhouses. While driving a t-post into the ground, the post driver bounced, came off the post, and slammed into my head. After a trip down the hill to Colorado Springs, I came home with 5 stitches. Word to the wise, from the unwise: only use a long-sleeved post driver (at least 24″).

March 12th, 2026
More outlining. The mountain bluebirds are returning to the prairies below our house, and chirping along the fence line outside my window.

March 10th, 2026
Today, was continued work on the outline. Probably the biggest shock for Jake, Wes, and Amber is the amount of snow they encounter in late June. They saw a bit in Yosemite, but Rainier is an entirely different world of weather and precipitation. I’m excited to wake up early tomorrow, make my coffee, and keep writing.

February 27th, 2026
Lots of studying maps, thinking through elevations, specific hikes, and locations.

February 26th, 2026
Thursday was a drive 3 hours to Denver International Airport and three hours back home day. Not much progress, but a couple big idea moments. One of those ideas was specifically about how Wes and his process trying to untangle a core element of the story.

February 25th, 2026
Wednesday included lots of detailed work, reviewing and working through the evidence of an unsolved mystery.

February 24th, 2026
Let me start this update with an apology. I’ve intended to post progress reports on a regular basis, but let’s just say that life has been pretty busy. I’m sorry. And I appreciate your patience. Thankfully, we now have two employees, and I’m officially extracted from the barn. Instead of packaging books, I’m back at the writing desk.
This week, I’ve been plotting and outlining. In each writing session, I’m asking different questions, such as:
a) if there’s a treasure to be found, then what’s the treasure. What makes it valuable to the bad guys?
b) What skills do our heroes need to develop?
c) How does the scrapbook launch us on this journey?
I have a much longer list, but to share them might give away too much 😉
I’ll be posting updates every day this week, and on Friday, I’ll update the progress icons (found below).
Here’s a photo of some of my recent work. Much of it hidden to avoid spoilers.