Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Writing Your Views - A Guest Post by Sandy Mason



Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Sandy Mason. Mason has combined his love of sailing Florida's scenic west coast with the thrill and excitement of an intriguing mystery in his Johnny Donohue Adventures series. Mason was our featured writer on December 1, 2019.

Writing is a great way to get things off of your mind. If you hold a certain view about something – be it a political, religious or social issue, you can deal with it through writing. Just create a character who espouses your view. Take control of the issue and watch your character run with the ball. You can create harmony, chaos or indifference through the voice of your characters.

After a while, these characters become almost real to you. When you start talking to them, you’ll know you’re involved. When they start to talk back to you then you’ll know you’re in too deep. Character development is like making new friends or in some cases new enemies. Writing lets you experience the best and the worst of humanity. When done well, it will transport you to a different time and place and put you in situations that you never expected.


To that end, I have created the character of Johnny Donohue. Johnny describes himself as a drop-out from big technology companies. He grew up in Westhampton Beach, Long Island, the child of two wonderful parents. It was here, the place of his childhood, that he grew up and found his love of the water and developed his skills as a boater. It was the perfect environment for his formative years. 

Donohue had his first job digging clams in Eastern Long Island. While lots of kids in the neighborhood worked in restaurants for a minimal wage, Johnny could make ten times that with a twenty-foot work boat. He paid his way through college by digging clams. As the years went by, that experience stayed with him and helped his character to become independent and strong.

Time has a way of changing us, whether we like it or not. A few years after college, his brother got him a job as a software salesman in New York City. So, he moved out of Long Island and headed for the concrete of New York City. After a few mediocre years and painful marriage, he left that behind him, moved to a marina on the West Central Florida, and never looked back … well maybe once or twice. 

Life at the marina was filled with interesting characters. Interesting characters require interesting stories. After a short time, Johnny Donohue became more and more involved in crime-fighting. Johnny, along with his best-friend and ex-cop, Lonnie Turner, solves some baffling crimes including murder. The quiet time on his trawler is interrupted by crime-solving escapades that keep Donohue moving all across Florida, Cuba and the Caribbean Islands. Home base was in a full-service marina on the beautiful Manatee River in Bradenton – a small city in the vicinity of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.


I have always been interested in American history and have woven events surrounding the wars of this nation throughout my stories. In Man Overboard, Johnny finds a Korean War Citation - long lost and hidden away in his parent’s attic. It was meant for his father.

Shoreline found the authorities looking into the death of a minor league ballplayer. Things were not going well for the local police. So, they sought help from Johnny and Lonnie. Following a series of dead leads and a lack of evidence, the murder seemed destined for the round file. Johnny manages to do some digging on his own and as a result, uncovers links to the murder that led back to the Vietnam War.

Silver Voyage chronicles the search for a hidden treasure that was buried somewhere by British mathematician Alan Turing. Turing saved the world several more years of wartime agony by cracking the Enigma Machine code used by the Nazis submarine commanders. Turing was a genius but eccentric enough to hide away his fortune from the Nazis only to lose it to himself in the havoc of World War II. Or is it still around?

As a student in high school, I vividly recall the Cuban Missile Crisis. When I was young, Jack Kennedy was president. On inaugural day I watched him bring those words – “Ask not what your country can do for you …” It was an exciting time. Then, there was Jackie – the First Lady. When I was a child, Mamie Eisenhower was the First Lady. Need I say more? 
 
My interest in that period led to my novel Cuban Exile. It showed how Cuba was ruled by a dictator hostile to the United States, and the absence of first amendment rights.
Johnny Donohue’s love life had its ups and downs throughout the entire series but lately, his beautiful Bahamian girlfriend, Carmen, who loves to sail with him, has made up her mind to stay. At least that’s the way it is today. Carmen loves her life on the water and works with Johnny to uncover thieves who were embezzling money from environmental projects funded by the government.

The Florida lifestyle is in danger of becoming extinct if nothing is done to stop the advances of red tide. In Killer Tide, Carmen and Johnny do some tap dancing around the Constitution to gain the evidence needed to put the bad guys away.

I think about Johnny often and wonder where he will take me next.


For more information, visit Mason's Amazon Author Page at https://www.amazon.com/author/sandymason
 





 


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