Update on My Son and Some Things I've Learned

The big ferocious looking fellow in the middle in my son as a bouncer.

Since he was attacked he's lost weight, has a problem with one eye--has seen eye doc and getting glasses, still has the blood clots but they are being treated. The recovery center where he is has done miracles with him though--couldn't have asked for a better place for him to be treated.

What I've learned through this ordeal--when hit in the head, no one jumps back up and fights his way out like you see in movies and read in books. When attacked by a whole bunch of people from the back, you might not make it. Frankly, we thought our son would die and so did the docs. In my opinion, prayer made the difference. He went two weeks without proper treatment for anything, managed to get pneumonia from the doc's office filled with sick patients and for him to get medicine for that, I had to yell at the doc. Funny note: doc had just finished reading my An Axe to Grind and told son I was a sick woman. I don't think he expected an old lady to write a book about someone who had his head cut off. I think he was just a bit afraid of me--and he did prescribe antibiotics for the pneumonia.

Some workmen's comp docs (I've seen this with another one) are out to save money for workmen's comp, they don't really have the patient's best interest in their mind. I'm sure there are exceptions, just haven't seen it in my experience. Who came through for him was the night club's insurance company--they sent a nurse to examine him and she made the decision that he wasn't getting the right treatment and put him into the brain trauma center where he is now.

I also learned that the police don't necessarily do anything about something like this. I don't think they are even investigating. Perhaps they are, but I know my son has not been questioned by them.

Another interesting fact is that the treatment center is an Adult Residential Facility licensed by the state. I had an ARF licensed by the state, but the people I served were developmentally disabled and they lived with me full time.

I'm sure son will find another line of work after this is all over.

Now to get back to mysteries, will I use any of this in a mystery one day? Probably some of it. There's very little that happens that I've observed that I don't use in one way or another.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

Why I Write Mysteries

Everyone has different reasons for writing mysteries, but my interest probably began way back when I was a kid. At the time, my family subscribed to three newspapers, The L.A. Times, The Herald, and The Daily News. My mom was an avid reader and read them all--don't think my dad did anymore than glance at the front pages.

The Daily News resembled some of the lurid newspapers of today--all the scandalous doing made the front page. When Lana Turner's daughter killed her mom's boy friend, Johnny Stampanato, the news was filled with gruesome photos and graphic details. I read the all.

My sis and I had a Philco radio that picked up police calls. We were forbidden to listen to them but after we went to bed we listened anyway. The night the Black Dahlia was killed we heard the police after they made the horrifying discover of the cut-up body.

My fascination with real-life murders continued into my adult years. I never subscribed to three newspapers at once, but I always got the local newspaper and read it thoroughly just as my mother did. When we lived in Oxnard, the first murder that happened in years in Ventura county was a mother who paid someone to kill her daughter-in-law. The details intrigued me. Of course as the years passed, the murders increased.

It doesn't come as any surprise that my next fascination was for men in law enforcement who solved the cases. We had many of them living in our neighborhood and we partied with them, I visited with the wives, and our kids played together.

It wasn't too long before I decided I wanted to write a series about a small police department and the men and women who worked in it as well as their families--and of course each book would have to have at least one murder.

The book due to come out in the next few days is An Axe to Grind which has mainly the same cast of characters as the previous books in the series. Though I write each one as a stand-alone, there are things that progress for each character, like the on-going romance between Officer Stacey Wilbur and Detective Doug Milligan. The romance is not the most important aspect of the plot, but it is affected by what is going on.

The idea for the murder itself came from a gruesome slide of a decapitated corpse that a coroner once showed at a Sisters in Crime meeting several years ago. (The coroner spoke right before lunch and gleefully showed us lots of slides of gory murders and I think he thought he would make all of women sick. He was wrong.)

In real life, murderers sometimes get away with their crimes, or they aren't even discovered. One thing about writing a fiction story about murder, I'm in control, and you can be assured the murderer will always be found out.

I'm sure there are many other motivations behind my desire to make-up stories about murders and murderers and how they are found out, but looking back, I think those are the main ones.

Marilyn

http://fictionforyou.com

About to Launch a New Book

In a couple of weeks I should have copies of the latest in my Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, An Axe to Grind.

As yet, I haven't planned the exact dates for my book launches, but have talked to the two places where they'll be held--a fairly new deli/bakery in my little town and in a used bookstore in the nearest city. I don't like to set actual dates until I know the books are really going to arrive on time.

I've been busily writing blogs for my blog tour that will go on during the month of March. I've written on topics like why I write about a fictional town, Rocky Bluff is on the Southern California coast between Santa Barbara and Ventura. I've interviewed one of my characters, told where my ideas come from, espcially for the Axe to Grind, among other subjects.

Of course I'll be posting to Facebook and Twitter and all the lists that I'm on.

I'm going to several conferences: Epic, Mayhem in the Midlands, PSWA and Bouchercon. I've been asked to speak at a couple of libraries and I'm doing several craft shows including a Jane Austen Festival. Though my books have nothing to do with Jane Austen, the organizers thought it would be fun to have a local author and I'm happy to oblige. I'm going to speak to a couple of writers groups too.

As the year progresses, I'm sure I'll find other places to promote An Axe to Grind.

I must admit I had fun writing the book and I suspect I'll have even more fun promoting it.

Anyone who is interested can pre-order it from my website: http://fictionforyou.com

The book that came before this one No Sanctuary is a finalist for best e-book from Epic in the mystery/suspense category. Unfortunately, it's up against three other very excellent books--but I'm thrilled to be a finalist.

Marilyn, who wrote the Rocky Bluff P.D. series as F.M. Meredith