Michael Pickell

  Song mood: Fox on the Run by Sweet. This week, I have been having issues breathing.  My breathing is more shallow, which shows that I haven’t been working on belly breathing.  Even two months after COVID, I have issues with my breathing.  Some days it feels like someone is standing on my chest.  It will be something to talk with my doctor about.   I get texts from the clinic saying that I’m due for a check up.  I canceled my eye exam the day before I got tested for COVID.  I will need to make another appointment, it’s just I get busy doing things and forget about it.  At some point I will need to make an appointment to get my hearing checked so I can get my tinnitus looked at. I weighed myself once this week.  I’m down to 196.4.  Goal weight is 170.  I want to be able to wear my slim-fit shirts again.  Then I will buy a suit and get my picture taken in the suit for the author photo on the mystery novel.  Try to look like the gentleman detective. I’ve made progress on the myster

  I started writing my Inspector Trevor mystery.   Well, the first one.   The first book will consist of three stories.   I decided to make Trevor a detective in Oxford because I am more familiar with that town.   I spent the last four nights planning the mystery. The mystery I started before, I didn’t put much detail in the scenes, so I can either use them for another novel or for the novel I had planned.  And Bedfordshire is so small that they don’t have their own detectives, if a serious crime happens, a detective from a different shire does the investigation. At any rate, I like the story I crafted this week.  I started writing on it last night. Currently I’m reading The Near Witch by VE Schwab, Agatha Christie’s The Big Four and Benedict Ashforth’s Verona: A Ghost Story (Kindle Single.)  Each are very different in style and genre.  VE Schwab is heavy with detail, which is needed for fantasy.  Agatha Christie has lots of dialogue, which is needed for the mystery.  Ashforth h

There was one book that I forgot to mention and didn’t think about it until I went through my Amazon browsing history.  The Memory Theatre by Karin Tidbeck.  A fantasy story  about a place called the Gardens, a paradise where time stands still.  This fantasy piece is set to release on 16 February.

For me, the two most anticipated books are both by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.  The first one is Certain Dark Things to be released 7 September and the second is Velvet is the Night to be released 17 August.  Both are after my birthday so they can’t be my birthday book.  Which is too bad.  Garcia proved she could very write well with Mexican Gothic .  I’m inclined to believe she is the best writer out there. Currently I’m listening to Untamed Shores , Garcia’s thriller that was released last year.  It is similar to Mexican Gothic except without the elements of horror. Speaking of the birthday book, I finally chose the one.  And this time there will be no hiccups.  This year’s birthday book will be: The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory.  The book is set to be released on 18 May.  Three months before my birthday and if the book is to be pushed out, I think it would about a month or so.  It’s a murder mystery that involves a boy band formed by the animal people from The Island of Doctor