Skye was never supposed to be a big deal. As I wrote before, she was only one of an ensemble cast for my first ever book Gutter Folklore. She was even the last character I created for that book, thrown in as an afterthought to round out the cast.

Maybe that’s why she broke out. She was the only character I had not clearly defined, so as I wrote her, she started growing and developing, becoming a more complex character. Eventually I made the first scene in the work a Skye story. And she became the most prominent character in the book, even though no one character was supposed to dominate.

To find out about Skye’s really early life, read the tongue-in-cheek story of a punk house in San Francisco in Gutter Folklore. The story starts of with Skye punching a businessman in the nose.

Skye’s next adventure takes place in Crash Shadow: A Tale of Two Addicts. It details Skye’s descent into the world of meth amphetamine.

Crash Shadow is really two books. It follows not only Skye, but her ex Yuri. Yuri is living across the Bay in Berkeley, California, trying to get clean and sober. This details Skye’s lowest point in her drug life.

I left Crash Shadow with a hanging ending, so I was duty bound to write the sequel which turned into What the Hell ever Happened to Yuri Rozhenko? I still had a lot of Skye left to explore, so to do that I had her careful prepared life plans completely fall apart and she goes on a road trip, trying to find a piece of her life that she left behind.

If you only read one book about Skye Wright, this is the one. This is the book that really defines her, far more than all of the others.

As I do, I also left What the Hell with a hanging ending. Ergo another book about Skye. By the time I finished What the Hell I still had more things about Skye to explore so I wrote Stella Maris.

While I think What the Hell is the best book I’ve written, I am much more fond of this book. This book really gets into Skye as a person, and it details so much more about her life than just about any of the other works.

This was also going to be my mother’s favorite book. I knew she would love it, especially with the Berkeley themes. My mother is the only person who has read all five of my first novels. She even helped me edit them. With this book I was anxious to have her read it.

It was not to be, however. Literally a few hours after I finished the final draft for my editor, my step father called me to inform me that my mother had passed on suddenly.

It was a turn of events that changed the course of my life. This book is a big milestone in my life, because my mother never got to read it. I plan to go by her final resting place and read it out loud to her, so she can finally hear it.

I did not leave Stella Maris with a hanging ending, but I still could not ignore my character Skye. After writing a book about my character Preston in A Long Slow Aftermath I dived into my next Skye installment, a two book series that starts off with the book The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright followed by The Return of the Dynamite Chicks. Both of these books are out now, and they’re probably the best things I’ve ever written.

You can read the very beginning of book one here

Cover art for the new
two book series about
Skye Wright –
Art by Hellga Protiv

You know you’ve really developed a character when you lose control of them. A writers meme on social media said that no one writes their characters, they just watch them do crazy things and report their actions.

Skye is easy to write for, because she’s become her own person, and she lets me know where she’s going. There are many things about Skye that I can tell you about, but there are other things about her that I cannot explain. I cannot tell you why she decided to clam up about her boyfriend search when she ran into her old fiend Casey. I cannot tell you why she decided to share something ultra personal at a twelve step meeting in the latest work, and so many other things large and small. (Her onion rings addiction, for example.)

All I know she keeps moving as a character, becoming more complex and dynamic, and taking me along her journey to the point where I don’t know where she’s going.

She’s not the only character I’ve been swept up by. I am currently working on a new book about one of my latest characters Miranda Scholl, a woman who was supposed to simply be a supporting character in someone else’s story, but end up breaking out to the point where I could no longer contain her.

So my journey marches on.