When Life Imitates Fiction

My first long-ago never-to-see-the-light-of-day mystery began with a crime in a parking garage. I used the area where I worked, naturally, and parked in that garage day and night without much thought to safety. After all, it was a hop, skip and a jump from the office, well-lighted, yada, yada. Imagine my surprise, nay, horror, when a real crime hit the garage, and someone actually tried to kidnap a woman in broad daylight. It gave me pause.

My next book, The Shadow Warriors, dealth with an info war which has only broken out in minor skirmishes in real life, but that seems destined to happen. Maybe the book will take off when it does, but I really wouldn't hope for such an event, book sales or no.

Wisconsin book, Promiscuous Mode, has not sold, but there have been several mass murders in that neck of the woods. Gives one pause.

Burning Man Book, Festival Madness. So far no murders connected to festivals, at least to my knowledge. Whew!

Current book: In Flight. I picked a physical heroine out of my daily life--someone I knew but not well. Took her profession, too. The real person of course was nothing like my heroine who had had genuinely awful things in her life. Until yesterday, when the model told me of a huge tragedy which had befallen her. I felt almost guily. The issue has been building for years, long before the book was a gleam in my eye, but still . . . One charmed life, no longer.

Fiction and life are in a deadly embrace. That's why it's so tempting to fictionalize a memoir. Don't.

Another post soon. I just put chocolate panna cotta in the fridge to gel, and now I'm off to make the port wine ice cream. Yowza! Like God in France.

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