From Mary Anna--Tiptoeing into the blogging world...

I've had my hands on computers in one form or another since the days of FORTRAN, but I've never gotten really good at using them.  I typically learn just enough tricks to accomplish the goal of the moment, and that's about all.  So I learned sufficient FORTRAN to get my thesis written.  Along the way, I learned some arcane noise and air quality modeling programs that I needed for my engineering work.  And it's hard to get through life these days without spreadsheeting something, so I figured out how to do that.   Then I started writing fiction, and I thought my days of technical bafflement were over.

Au contraire.

I'm on my fourth word processing program now.  They've all worked pretty well, but I imagine somebody will find a reason for me to learn a few more before I retire.  I acquired an agent about the time the web mushroomed out of the techies' world and into the lives of the rest of us.  She insisted that we communicate by e-mail, so I learned to do that.  I discovered that the Internet  could bring experts right into my office, making book research so very much easier.  I found that online communities could introduce me to folks who shared my interest in mysteries and writing and music.  Now I have friends that I may never meet in person.  When my first book was published, I built my own website.  (My kids were really impressed by that one.)  And now I'm blogging.  Wait'll my kids find out.

So why am I blogging here with the other Lady Killers?  I write a mystery series featuring archaeologist Faye Longchamp.  The first two installments, Artifacts and Relics, show Faye's evolution from a black market archaeologist operating on the fringes of the law to an earnest, ambitious graduate student hoping to earn that all-important Ph.D. someday.  Faye has a penchant for turning up trouble while she's turning over dirt, and that's not going to change any time soon.  In the next book, Effigies, she'll go toe-to-toe with a man who's willing to bulldoze a 2000-year-old piece of history--an ancient Indian mound.  Faye's about five feet tall and she weighs about a hundred pounds, but I wouldn't want to cross her.  My money says that the Indian mound lives to see another day.

Faye is multiracial.  Her ancestry is mostly European and African, but she has a little smidgen of Creek blood.  Her best friend Joe Wolf Mantooth is mostly Creek (and fully gorgeous), but he has enough European ancestry to give him a pair of sea-green eyes.  You could say that Faye and Joe are living, breathing shrapnel from the great explosion that took place in the New World in 1492.  As a writer, I find looking at the world through Faye's and Joe's eyes to be exciting and challenging.  They let me take a fresh look at America's past, and they give me some new stories to tell.

You can find out more about Faye and Joe and my work on my website:  http://www.maryannaevans.com
Remember?  It's the one I built myself, thereby astonishing my children.

Hey, kids, look!  Mom's blogging...

Comments

[J.B. Thompson]

Ladies, welcome to the blogosphere! Love the site - purple's one of my favorite colors. ;) Not to mention the great posts so far. I do wish you fun and success with your new venture, as well as continuing your current ones ...

[Elaine]

Bonheur Cara!