You write two very different series and stand-alones as well. How can you write so many different kinds of things?
The question should be, rather, how do some people write the same kind of things for so long? Maybe I have a low threshold for boredom, but the thought of writing just one series of characters would drive me to a very early retirement. Immersing myself in the Russell world for the space of a year, England in the 1920s, then going to the San Juan Islands for the next book, keeps me from becoming tired of the characters and myself. As for how I write them, it’s made easier because the styles are so different. The Russell books are first person, written in a formal English-English down to the spelling (when, that is, the typesetter allows.) The Martinelli books are a straightforward American English, nothing very formal about them, and in the third person. The stand-alone novels contain elements of both, being American English but somewhat more ornate than the Martinelli police procedurals. Each style contains its own world, for me as a writer, and I no more stray from one into another wh
