Taking Time Off

Yes, I did--and had a great time with family, and going to an Escape Room. This was the third time I've done this with family members. You'd think since I write mysteries I'd be really good at figuring out the clues. Nope, I'm too slow.

In these rooms you have one hour to solve the mystery. By the time I think I know what should be done, one of the younger members of our crew had solved the problem and moved on. Though everyone contributed, the under 30 group was the quickest--a granddaughter in her late twenties, a great-granddaughter who just turned 21 and another who is 17.

Don't get me wrong, everyone figured different things out, and when they were stuck, I told them what they should check again, and I was right. (Another problem I had, it was very dark, and I couldn't read some of the directions--clues that we found. It was supposed to be night time in the castle, with only candlelight to see by.)

These rooms are all different, and great fun. This one was set in medieval times. Another was a treasure hunt, and we didn't quite finish in time. The second I don't quite remember the theme, but it had something to do with paintings--and we didn't do well at all. Some are more difficult than others, and you can ask for clues when you get stuck.

But this last one went great and we finished with 15 seconds left.

If you've never done one of these rooms, gather a group and try it.

And while I was gone, my good friend Lorna Collins was busily getting my Deputy Tempe Crabtree books ready to be published again. I'm loving the covers.

Here's an older one called Intervention (my first locked room mystery) that is once more available.

Available for Kindle and Trade paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1095685120/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Marilyn Meredith

And the Favorite of My New Covers

This is absolutely perfect for INTERVENTION. For those of you who haven't read it, the intervention is done by a great blue heron spirit or an angel. This depicts that perfectly.

Now, once the covers and the newly-edited books are together, I'll be promoting the series like crazy.

This has been a wild year of re-editing old books--both series, the Tempe Crabtree series and the Rocky Bluff P.D. series.

I'm still working on a new Deputy Tempe Crabtree series and waiting on the new Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery to come out. I turned it in a while ago, but the process of changing those covers and the re-editing has slowed everything down.

I've been to the Public Safety Writers Association writing conference and will write more about that next time.

Marilyn

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

My guess is that every author has been asked that question many times. And I would suspect that most of them have more ideas than they'll ever have time to develop into a story or book.

Sometimes something that happens in life will trigger an idea for a story. That has happened to me more than once. I used a murder that actually happened in our area for three different books. The female owner of a mountain lodge was murdered in one of the cabins while asleep in bed with her Indian employee. (The handsome employee lived though he was shot too.) Her husband was in the southern part of the state tending to his automobile sales business giving him an airtight alibi. As the years passed, the man hired to do the murder decided to blackmail the husband and got killed for his trouble. That's when the husband was found out and arrested for the murder of his wife.

I used the murder of the owner of an inn, rather than a lodge, for my firs Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, Deadly Trail. The story wasn't much like what actually happened, the murder victim was the male owner of the Inn, not female, and he wasn't killed in bed, but that real murder is what triggered the idea.

For another mystery in the Crabtree series, Intervention, I used the lodge in the real murder as the setting for a completely different story.

And once again, in a later Crabtree tale, Kindred Spirits, I lifted some aspects of that first real murder.

I like to save newspaper articles of interesting crimes and murders too. The story I write won't be exactly like the real happening, but often will give me a jumping off point for a plot of my own.

We recently had two deaths in our community that are far too coincidental. Female friends were found dead in their homes within hours of each other. No autopsies were done. One lady had no family at all and the other's family didn't acknowledge her until after her death. Of course I will work that into one of my mysteries.

And my latest book, Lingering Spirit, a romance with a touch of the supernatural, was inspired by a tragedy in my own family when my son-in-law was killed in the line of duty. I must add that it was only the inspiration, what happened after that is fiction.

You can learn more about any of these books on my website http://fictionforyou.com

What about you? Where do your ideas come from?

Marilyn