Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️

🤣

It's not ready yet.🙄 Beta readers on it now... I expect one more revision.
Please stay tuned if you like this sort of tale. Nautical but nice, and based on a careful linguistic study of the place and time.
You can find excerpts on #WIPSnips, as well as snips from a 2nd novel, Lakeshore Heights.

Movie pitch: a Forrest Gump-esque epic adapted from the Diary of Samuel Pepys that traces all the immense historical moments of 17th Century England that Pepys brushes past without noticing, because he's too busy insulting sex workers and complaining about his wife

ICE Agent Stuffs Sock Under Mask To Give Himself Chin

ICE Agent Stuffs Sock Under Mask To Give Himself Chin

A song for Minneapolis. For immigrants. For Alex Pretti and Renee Good. For anyone who refuses to get used to this.

“Fire Ellison,” I say. “He’s the problem. Remove him, we all get back to work.” “Not that simple. Wrobleski says if this holds up, HR and Legal will recommend letting both of you go. Quiet resignations, no record of misconduct. But only if you cooperate.” “Ellison, sure. But me?” My eyes narrow. I set my folder on her desk and slide it forward. “You’re about to deal with a different set of questions.” “Such as?” I tap the folder. “Questions about a distressed real-estate portfolio. A Manhattan hedge fund buying shares days before the announcement. Internal memos showing you had access to the deal before it was public.” Rachel pulls the folder closer. On top: a spreadsheet of shell companies, wire transfers, Montana holdings. Beneath: emails between Rachel, Marc Welland, and Bob Wrobleski. “And Bob?” I add softly. “Neck-deep in the same transactions. Quite a story, don’t you agree?” Rachel gasps—fear and calculation mixing. The spreadsheet alone could trigger an SEC visit. “This isn’t what you think—” “I know exactly what it is.” I lean in. “One: insider trading, funneled through Nevada and Wyoming LLCs to exploit Rainstone—especially Butte. Two: a laundering chain the FBI would salivate over. And we both know whose money comes through Cyprus. I have emails, routing authorizations, screenshots. Enough for a federal visit. And if this hits the media? Shareholders will riot.” Rachel goes white. “You bitch. I trusted you.” “Only one part.” I lean closer. “You don’t have to like me, hun. You don’t even have to respect me. But you will not fire me.” “Think you’re untouchable?” “No. But you tipping off your brother before the Rainstone acquisition makes you more exposed than me.” I place a USB flash drive on the desk. Rachael recoils as if it’s radioactive.

“Your copy. Print was the appetizer. This is the entrée. And if anything happens to me, copies go to the SEC, the FBI, and the New York Times.” “You’re bluffing.” “Fire me. Let’s see who blinks.” Rachel blenches. “Relax, Rach. I’m not here to destroy you. I’m here to negotiate.” Her lips cinch tight—those same lips Phaedra kissed at the Theodore. “I know nothing about crimes.” “Sure you do.” I nod at the flash drive. “Review it.” “You’re extorting me.” I laugh under my breath. “I’m surviving. You’d claw someone’s eyes out to do the same.” “What do you want?” “For you to choose the least-bad option. My husband calls it Mutual Assured Destruction. MAD. I keep my job and reputation. A senior title and salary bump wouldn’t hurt.” Rachel’s phone buzzes. She reads, clenching her jaw. “HR. The Board wants heads. Legal recommends suspensions. They’re forcing an investigation.” I smirk. “Then investigate. Drag Wrobleski and the others into the light. Put Zane on leave or fire him. He stalked me—I’m the victim. Fire him, keep me—my data evaporates.” Rachel presses her lips together. “You expect me to play that game?” “No. I expect you to understand the stakes. Investors breathing down your neck, HR circling, the Board sharpening their blades.” I tilt my head. “One wrong move and this gets ugly. I don’t care which option you choose, Rach. Only that you choose the one that keeps us both intact.” She nudges the folder away, as if distance could protect her. She still won’t touch the flash drive. “If I take this to outside counsel—” “They’ll find what my guy found. The drive will help them. Blue Ember alone triggers a full internal probe. The Board will drag you and Bob into a closed-door inquisition. It’ll be carnage. If you fire me, I go public. Go ahead, call it extortion. It’s truth.”

Rachel’s expression changes—running scenarios: subpoenas, negative press, investor mutiny, indictment, prison. I’ve presented simple math: preservation or exposure. “What do you want?” she repeats. “Take it out on Ellison. Demand a written admission of harassment in exchange for a friendly separation and an NDA protecting me. You preserve me, I preserve you.” Her face darkens. “That’s blackmail—” “It’s insurance. Reject it, we both burn. Accept it, the world keeps spinning.” Rain spatters the windows. Inside, two women stare each other down like predators deciding who gets to walk away. “Fine.” Rachel closes the folder, her voice shaky. “I’ll need time to consult counsel. And if Gray hacked your email, that’s a rattail of problems.” A delaying tactic. Not a bad thing. I rise and smooth my jacket. “Why is Gray such a problem?” She gestured to the flash drive. “Did he have access to this?” “Doubt it. He wouldn’t know what it is. Take your time. Protect me. If I fall, you fall.” I leave her office with the poise of someone who’d just played a winning hand. Phaedra isn’t the only manipulative one.

#WIPSnips. Had to stretch "procrastinate" into "delaying tactic."
Excerpt from Lakeshore Heights. Cheers!!
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Mural of Alex Pretti in Seattle, Washington. Artwork by Topsy.

Megan's self-limiting behavior is typical for people under an authoritarian regime.

Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky wrote, "I write it myself, I edit it myself, I censor it myself, I publish it myself, I distribute it myself, I sit in jail for it myself." Authoritarian regimes are that powerful.

Bovino

Don Knotts

Greg Bovino to star in Mayberry reboot.

Star of Shalik promo graphic. Dark, celestial vibes with the moon and a dark forest. Five star review excerpt which reads “ I love the consistent buildup of the fast moving plot and the gripping storyline from the first page till the incredible suspense build emotional ending. The story is beautifully written, descriptive imagery.”

Conscripted into a brutal war against the mystical Lumani, Rowynn keeps a dangerous secret - an uncontrollable magic rises within her, the very magic the army seeks to destroy. Her only solace is in a mysterious demon who visits Rowynn in her dreams.

✨ Star of Shalik ✨
#BookSky #FantasyBooks

And thank YOU, Randy, for adding me to your writers' Starter Pack!!🥳

New CBS contributors announced: Grand Moff Tarkin, Lex Luthor, Norman Osborn, Cruella De Ville, Javert, Titus Andronicus, Killmonger, and the Beastfly from Silksong.

Screenshot of an X.com post by The Associated Press (@AP) stating that dozens of immigrant families protested for better treatment behind fences at a Texas detention facility, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent after being detained in Minnesota. Below is a video thumbnail showing a crowd gathered outdoors along a fenced walkway; many people wear bright blue or red outerwear, and some hold signs.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

Oil painting of a springtime butte with a lake behind. A road is visible coming up the mountain and going down the other side. A passenger ferry boat can be seen as a dot in the lower portion of the lake. An isthmus and small town is visible in the distance.

#art#blueskyart#chelanbutte
#lakechelan#spring
#oilpainting#landscape

Chelan Butte Road
with Lake Chelan
oil on canvas
20” x 16”
1/26/26

Cambridge tiled roofs along Trumpington Street. Someone has a parasol up because of the hot sun.

Trumpington Street, Cambridge, with the Loch Fyne restaurant, pastel (sold at a Cambridge Drawing Society exhibition. The channel that runs along the side of the road is Hobson's Conduit. I love drawing and painting chimneys.
#Cambridge #pastel

Fed’l judges still doing their jobs. And the point here is important-gov’t lawyers have a duty of candor to the courts. Concealing flaws in your argument violates that duty. Doing it persistently merits bar discipline. It’s time for the gloves to come off on this one for lawyers who disregard ethics

#SelfPublishing #WritingGoals #WriteMore #Storytelling #WriterSupport #bravewrite

Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center
Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center
Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center

The sandy riverbank shed the day’s heat as the air cooled toward evening. My watch read 18:55. Sundown in fifteen mikes. I parked next to the Crime Scene truck and stepped out, kit slung over my shoulder. Gravel and dry leaves crunched under my scuffed leather boots. A quick word with the responding officers and medics would give me enough to open the file. I headed toward the EMS rig and patrol cars staged along the park’s edge. Beyond the vehicle, the scene waited. Officers murmuring, medics packing up. A blanket. A body. A blonde paramedic glanced up from her Lifepak monitor. “Riley.” “Hey, Lana. What’ve we got?” “Thirty-year-old woman, unresponsive. Blue lips, pinpoint pupils. Looks like an overdose, but it doesn’t fit the profile.” “How so?” Lana nodded toward a slim Asian patrol officer scribbling in a notebook. “Kev?” He looked up. “No blood. No bruises. No sign of desperation. Just a book, a mug of wine, five grand in her purse. Whatever hit her took her fast.” “Five grand?” I offered him my hand. “Tim Riley.” “Kevin Vu.” I motioned to the large princess-cut diamond on the victim’s left hand. “Two carats?” “And a diamond bracelet.” She lay where she’d fallen, like a windstorm had knocked her over. An oxblood hardcover rested beside her. Long dark hair spilled across an off-white blanket. A white jacket, red blouse, navy skirt to mid-calf. Fit. Striking face. Cross-trainers over nylons. Could’ve been any other late-season sunchaser. Two officers took witness statements nearby. Vu nodded toward the parking lot. “Key fob unlocks the C-Class.” I looked toward a pearl-white Mercedes. “New.” “Plates come back to Yúliya Stárkova. Gated community in Ridgefield.” I sucked air through my teeth. Fifty, sixty K for the car. Spendy neighborhood.

I crouched and studied the book’s cover. Ф. М. ДОСТОЕВСКИЙ. ВЕЧНЫЙ МУЖ. “Business cards say ‘Julie Starkoff,’ Vu added. “Two effs. Interior designer.” I nodded at the book. “What’s that say, Lana?” “Dostoevsky. The Eternal Husband.” She grimaced. “Let’s hope it’s not a clue.” Lana wasn’t wrong. The husband was usually the first suspect—and often the last. “Let’s hope. She married?” Lana shrugged. “Russians wear wedding rings on the right . . . maybe the husband’s American.” “I’ll know when I go up.” Vu folded his arms, notebook tucked under one elbow. He eyed the Starbucks mug. “Gonna check that?” he asked. “Yeah.” I pulled on gloves and took the MIRA XTR from my kit; the matte-black handheld snugged my palm. I attached the SERS probe and powered it up. The screen lit cool blue. Vu leaned in. “New?” “Yep. Cuts down the guesswork.” “How’s it work?” “Low-energy laser hits the liquid; the scatter off the molecular bonds IDs it.” I shrugged. “Ethanol, tannins, and sugars sometimes muddy the Raman signal. This model should punch through most of that. Should give us a clean read.” I dipped the probe into the wine without shifting the mug. The analyzer pulsed. A second later, the screen flashed: FENTANYL: CONFIRMED Concentration: Lethal Variant: Acetylfentanyl

I’d seen overdoses before—careless teenagers, addicts, the homeless, the hopeless. Julie Starkoff wasn’t any of those. She was a successful, self-employed interior designer. Not only that, her jewelry was intact, and her purse was stuffed with cash. Vu leaned toward the screen. “Jesus,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Just as we thought, Lana.” The scene felt curated, like someone had staged it and walked away. I drew a slow breath. As always, I’d follow the evidence. Where would Julie take me? Five grand didn’t ride around with someone planning to die. “Without her psych history,” I said, “I’m betting she didn’t drink herself to death. Someone poured that for her.” I turned as the coroner’s van rolled into the park. Across the Columbia, the sun dipped behind Portland’s West Hills, taking the last of the warmth with it. The air had cooled to the temperate comfort the Northwest is known for. It should’ve felt soothing, serene. But death had gotten here first.

By some strange stroke of coincidence, today's word, "storm," makes for a continuation of yesterday, "commit."

So I've posted the entire opening scene of Lakeshore Heights over two days.🥳 #WIPSnips
#WriteSky #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity

A mixed media work combining gouache, oil pastel and acrylic ink line drawing with a dip pen. Two girls were handing out flowers to the people in the queue. It was sold from an exhibition I had at Cambridge Artworks.

This painting is based on a queue for a Cambridge May Ball. The two young women are handing out flowers. It was bought by a friend as a present for a wonderful Irish lady who runs a guest house in Cambridge and it hangs there.
#mixedmedia #gonvilleandcaius #senatehousepassage

A watercolour drawing showing Hemingford Manor

My watercolour drawing of the amazing and very ancient Hemingford Manor. This was the House at Green Knowe in the Lucy Boston series of children's books (she lived there). It found a buyer at a Cambridge Drawing Society exhibition.
#hemingfordmanor #watercolour #penandink

The Columbia arched north between Sauvie Island and Frenchman’s Bar, its cold, muscular current strengthened by the Willamette confluence a mile upriver. Once a fur-trading post, Frenchman’s Bar was a quiet park nestled between the river and Vancouver Lake. A boat ripped a frothy passage from Oregon, its engine’s percussive drone breaking and reforming as the craft bucked across the current. Fishermen dotted the Washington bank, angling for salmon and sturgeon and walleye, oblivious to late-summer revelers with blankets and chairs, some drinking wine, tending smoking grills, desperate to absorb the sun’s last rays before the rainy season returned. No one imagined death. Seventeen years on the Vancouver force taught me one unforgiving truth: every homicide ends the same—someone on a slab in the morgue. My job was to unravel motive—figure out how and why a person died, identify suspects, test their stories, and stitch the facts into a narrative that would hold up in court. That meant working the scene, talking to anyone who might’ve seen or heard something, and building a parsimonious timeline. Forty-eight hours was the magic number. Miss that window, and the trail cooled fast. Some homicides were accidental. Most weren’t. My last file had been a mercy-killing—a woman easing her cancer-stricken husband out of life with an unexpected gunshot. Cases like that were rare. The rest fell into the same three buckets I’d seen my whole career: money, entitlement, or sex. Money makes for tidy murders. A mugger, a home invader—someone killing to take what isn’t theirs. A clean motive, in a way, or as close as this job ever gets to clean. You can almost understand it, which presents a danger all its own. Entitlement is worse. Entitlement curdles people from the inside. Ambition, contempt . . . the conviction that their wants and needs matter more than anyone else’s. Those cases left a residue beyond fingerprints and blood—they left the bitter aftertaste of someone who thoug…

But sex . . . sex is where the floor drops out. Sex calls up old sins: envy, lust, obsession. Envy travels with resentment, a slow poison. People kill for what they covet, and when they can’t have it, they destroy it. Lust is no better. Shakespeare called it a joy proposed—but he never had to stand over a body and see the price of that joy. Obsession is the deepest cut. Obsession strips people down to their reptilian brain, the part that knows only hunger and fear, not right and wrong. When obsession grabs hold, you can watch a person’s moral scaffold collapse in real time. Sex-driven motives hide in plain sight. Everything looks normal—work, errands, dinner, school events, but one person has a foot in the shadows. It starts small: a furtive glance, a clumsy exchange, a look of hunger that becomes a secret growing up like a mushroom in the night. But secrets don’t stay buried. When they surface, betrayal hits like a biblical force. The knife in the back is incidental. No—nothing ignites desperate passions like intimate treachery: that’s when people improvise. And improv is ugly. Every human heart carries a fault line. Cross it, violate the marriage bond—the closest covenant we have—and either partner can become unrecognizable, even to themselves. I’ve seen the most unlikely people commit acts they’d never imagine, even in wartime. The worst is that even after seventeen years, you never stop asking how they got there.

#WIPSnips "commit"

From my domestic thriller noir, Lakeshore Heights.

#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Christi Noem should testify under oath in Congress and explain why she lied about the facts around the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

WSJ says ICE is lying.

Read that again…. The Wall Street Journal is calling out the lies

Derek was seen inhaling Carmela yesterday morning. Nothing to stop him, Astrid said. Stuck-up princess. Long dark hair, olive skin, eyes glistening like obsidian, a fine specimen of fuckable femininity. Charms worth hating. I clear my throat to squelch brain static. Carmela has far less power at Beaumont than I do. “Not gonna lose what I’ve built, Derek. Thought I’d explained that.” “Sorry. Things are tense right now. Stuff I shouldn’t talk about.” I roll my eyes. “Spare me the mystery-man routine.” “No, really,” he murmurs. “If this blows up, it won’t be just me.” A flicker, a half-memory of his rambling tries to surface. I shove it down. Yeah, whatever. Not my circus. Men love pretending they’re in some thriller. Probably thought I’d swoon at the idea of being his femme fatale. “Just so we’re clear, capìsci?” Ooh . . . my new word. The new girl uses it. Carmela. It turns heads. She turns heads. “Don’t let it happen again. You made a total arse of yourself.” Derek draws a breath, defeated. I let a pause do the work. “I still like fucking you. But try harder, love, lest you bore me.” Force him to grovel. Lift him up. Shut him down. Brilliant, as Rach says. Make him wonder. “Just . . . be careful,” he blurts. “Of what?” “People notice things—who you talk to, who you’re seen with.” His voice has that frayed edge again, like he’s bracing for something. I huff. “Jealous much?” He hesitates. “It’s not that.” “Sure it isn’t. Adults talk.” The phone buzzes again the moment I hang up. I forward Derek to voicemail. Off you pop, sweetheart. What a fucking spectacle that was.

A silky red from Walla Walla, a productive chat with Dalton about troubled accounts. That’s how I kicked off the 2024 Beaumont Sinclair Christmas party. Furtive glances with Rach, another glass of wine. Then Graham Kerrigan. Tall, handsome, gray. Like his nickname. A few extra pounds, an Ivy-League chin cleft. Gray greets Rachel and Brad, then gives Carmela Corsetti a once-over as he threads through the bar. Ti manca sulu la bava, bedduzza. Men’re drooling dogs, sweetheart. It’s wiring, biology. Right? Certain prey wakes the pack. They like Carmela’s geometry—even the ones bad at math. Primal urges are never about numbers. Animals—circling, sniffing, howling at the curve of the moon. Living to pant and grunt and wheeze and hump in the shadows. To hit nirvana and move on. Gorgeous Carmela, the newbie, was fresh meat. Which made her a threat. At Beaumont, the hyenas make the rules. They fight to devour antelopes that sparkle. Gray waves to his wife. Celeste is sipping wine on the loft in dark green, her honey-blonde hair in a chignon. He climbs the circular iron stairs to kiss her at the rail. A commotion below—something triggering Derek Thurman. Lighting his fuse, pulling his pin. All eyes turn. Thurman, top broker, puffs up crimson like a jealous schoolboy in front of Rach and her husband and a whole restaurant full of Beaumont employees. You’re fucking kidding me. Rachel moves fast, ordering Derek outside to cool off. We all roll our eyes and refresh our drinks. Twenty minutes later, Derek blows back through the door shirtless. Yeah. Shirtless. A cold, rainy December night in Portland, Oregon. WTF.

#WIPSnips "notice"

This is me trying to hone my "voice noir." How did I do?😬 (I'm new to this.)
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Thank you, Bev. I'm planning one more revision.

Something inside me moves. My turn. I lean in, but it feels like watching someone else. My fingers skim her jaw, dancing across her throat, coming to rest on the fragile ridge of her collarbone. The movement is distant—my body is a marionette, and I’m holding the strings from a few feet away. “I like the cinnamon.” She pauses. “Ever had a Bandol Rouge?” She nods toward a green canvas wine caddy on the bed. “Can’t say I have.” “Brought some Provence Mourvèdre . . . relax—Rainstone’s in the bag. Our proposal is a killer. Old Man Withers would be mad not to take it.” “Hard to believe that’s his name.” “I know, right?” She laughs. “Built the company from scratch, but with his wife in hospice, he’s ready to cash out. That’s our upper hand. I feel like Velma . . . you’re my Daphne.” I arch an eyebrow. “I get to be the pretty one?” She laughs again. Darkly. I unzip the case, a bottle slips out. Domaine du Gros’Noré. “The other,” she says. “That’s too muscular to start with.” I swap it and uncork the other. Château de Pibarnon. “Give me a few.” Rachel grabs a toiletries bag and disappears into the bathroom. The shower hisses on. I pour two glasses and switch on the lamp. The wine catches the light and glows a deep carmine. A glass of blood, daring me to drink. Less than a minute, Rachel steps out in black nylon and lace, steam curling behind her. A long sip of wine. Her body is lean, gymnast-cut, taut hips and sculpted legs, complemented by a cheeky hipster. I loosen. Jesus. Talk about a muscular Mourvèdre. What the fuck, Phaedra? Now you’ve done it. Rachel vanishes back into the bathroom. I’m left standing there with two goblets and the sense I’ve opened a box I can’t close. Has this happened before? I can’t recall.

#WIPSnips "bone"
From Lakeshore Heights.
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

After yesterday's remarks about t.A.T.u....

I imagined the haunting rap verses from "Stars" playing in my character's head, as if his life was careening toward an inexorable heroin overdose.

Never search, never love
Don't regret and don't sleep.
Never let anyone
Cross the line you must keep.