AFTER THE CHASE, INDELIBLE MEMORIES

Was it fun? people ask, knowing I’ve just returned from a tornado chase on the Great Plains. Sure it was fun. If your idea of fun is sitting in a van for 10 hours a day, reeling in the miles (3500 of them in seven days); or waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen (thank God for Walmarts, great places to hang out); or falling in a ditch in the dark (next time I’ll bring a flashlight); or clogging your arteries with fast food (I had to double my statin drug dosage). Oh, don’t take me seriously. It wasn’t fun in the sense of an Alaskan cruise or Caribbean vacation, but it was a memorable adventure. One I wouldn’t have missed for the world. I...

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CHASING ‘NADERS

On the final day, Day 7, of our storm chase, we returned to the Red River Valley to stalk storms forming on the Texas dryline. We knew conditions wouldn’t be right for tornadoes, but at least we’d be close to Oklahoma City, our departure point the following day, Saturday. So Friday’s journey took us from Salina, Kansas, to north Texas, essentially where we’d begun our hunt the previous Sunday. As we passed through a toll booth on the H. E. Bailey Turnpike, a toll collector, in a very distinctive Oklahoma twang, said, “You guys chasin’ ‘naders?” Chris, the Aussie, sitting behind me, asked, “What he’d say?” “Something about tomatoes, I think,”...

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YELLOW BRICK ROADKILL?

YELLOW BRICK ROADKILL?

Friday I leave for Oklahoma City where my week-long quest for the wily, or sometimes not so wily, tornado will begin. My wife is absolutely convinced I’m a dead man walking; certain I’ll get swept up like Dorothy and end up as road kill on the Yellow Brick Freeway. More likely, if conditions ripe for twisters go into hibernation, I’ll die of boredom. But no matter. My primary goal, believe it or not, is not to get up close and personal with a Great Plains’ monster—-though I’m not averse to that—-but to learn how tornado chasers operate. To see what their daily routine is, what meteorological parameters they examine, what monitoring equipment they...

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WHAT DOES AN AUTHOR DO BETWEEN BOOKS?

WHAT DOES AN AUTHOR DO BETWEEN BOOKS?

So what does an author do between books? Well, to be blunt, there is no such thing as “between” books. “Among” books maybe, or “all done” with books perhaps, but no “between.” At the moment, I’m still dealing with Eyewall; plotting strategy for the release of ______ (yes, sad to report, there’s still no official title for novel number two); and working on Supercell, novel number three. I’m currently QCing the audio version of Eyewall. Marshall Seese, the narrator, shoots me several chapters each week and I listen to and critique each one. He’s about halfway through the book and thinks he’ll be done by early April. I can’t wait. ...

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