Speaking to San Joaquin Chapter of Sisters in Crime

An idea for a presentation hit me when I was at a meeting of my chapter of Sisters in Crime, and I asked if I could be a future speaker. Obviously the president and program chair agreed.

This past Saturday I spoke to a wonderful group of Sisters and two Misters about where I got the ideas for my books.

I brought one copy of most of my books (those I had on hand) and put them on a table in the order they came in my two series--and I brought 2 other books as well. Lingering Spirit because it's based (loosely) on the death of my police officer son-in-law who got me started writing about law enforcement.

The other non-series book was the first mystery I wrote that was published, The Astral Gift. I lifted it from life too. No I never astral projected, no Internet to research at the time I wrote it, but I found several books on the subject, and it fit right into my story.

I continued on with the Rocky Bluff P.D. series that I write as F. M. Meredith, beginning with the newly edited and re-published Final Respects. At the moment it has two covers. Bits and pieces of this plot came from my son-in-law's stories he told me and also the fact that my daughter who was about 10 at the time had a friend whose family owned a mortuary. Daughter and the three daughters of the mortuary owner played hide'n seek in the mortuary among the dead bodies.

Several of the books I talked about, plot ideas came from speakers who'd come to visit our chapter.

It was so much fun recalling where the ideas came from for each of these books, and then I did the same with my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series.

The audience was great and we all laughed a lot. After I was done I sold a lot of the books I'd talked about.

I belong to three chapters of Sisters in Crime, this one, the L.A. chapter, and the Central Coast Chapter. I'm one of the founding members of the San Joaquin chapter and it's the closest so I attend most of their meetings. I participate with the Central Coast chapter any chance I can get because I have many friends in that chapter--plus it's on the coast. I haven't been to an L.A. chapter meeting in years--just too far, but I love their newsletter and listserve.

It was a great day for me, and everyone seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.

Marilyn

(I don't have any photos--my daughter usually takes one, but she said she got to caught up in my stories she forgot.)

Trying Something New with an Older Book

For a Christmas surprise I decided to offer Lingering Spirit for .99 cents on Amazon's Kindle. The sale will be from December 7 through the 11th.

Though this book is more of a romantic suspense with supernatural elements, it is one of my favorites.

It won an Eppie award for best supernatural e-book the year it came out.

One of the reasons I'm so fond of it, it is based on something that really happened in our family. Of course it's been fictionalized--but much of what I wrote about did happen. I loved writing it and must confess, it was sort of a healing process for me.

My publisher claims it's one of her favorite books and she's reread it numerous times--especially when she's down in the dumps.

I do hope some of the readers of this blog will try Lingering Spirit.

Blurb:

After her police officer husband is killed in the line of duty, Nicole Ainsworth struggles with the changes forced on her life. Her efforts to focus on her daughters and cope with her grief are kept off-balance by images of Steve, her deceased husband who seems to be trying to communicate with her. Eventually, Nicole finds that Steve isn't the only one watching over her, and discovers a second chance at happiness.

http://www.amazon.com/Lingering-Spirit-Marilyn-Meredith-ebook/dp/B001RTTLNU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1446061837&sr=1-1&keywords=lingering+spirit+by+marilyn+meredith

Marilyn

That Spooky Time of Year

I've definitely written my share of spooky books. I've always been fascinated with haunted houses and things that go bump in the night, and that's probably why I tend to write about such things.

My very first mystery, The Astral Gift, was about a young woman with the ability to astral project but unable to control it.

http://www.amazon.com/Astral-Gift-Marilyn-Meredith-ebook/dp/B001TUYVJG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1444658950&sr=1-1



One of my favorites is more of a romance--though there are mysterious elements is Lingering Spirit. And of course, there is a ghost.

http://www.amazon.com/Astral-Gift-Marilyn-Meredith-ebook/dp/B001TUYVJG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1444658950&sr=1-1

I even ventures into the spirit world with my Rocky Bluff P.D. series with Violent Departures, when Detective Milligan and his family move into a haunted house.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_16?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=violent+departures+by+f.+m.+meredith&sprefix=Violent+Departur%2Cdigital-text%2C272

And of course, all of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries have some form of supernatural goings on--but when it comes to haunted houses, Spirit Shapes has the most haunted house I've ever conjured out of my imagination.

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Shapes-Tempe-Crabtree-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00FEJDA04/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1444659852&sr=1-1&keywords=Spirit+Shapes+by+Marilyn+Meredith

Over the years I've had a lot of fun writing spooky stories.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

The Rocky Bluff P.D. Series Began Because of This Man

Officer Michael Cole was my son-in-law and felt like a son to me. Married to my daughter, he was the father of their three boys. Twenty-three years ago, only a couple of years after this photo was taken, he was killed in the line of duty.

I doubt seriously if I'd have written the Rocky Bluff P.D. series if it hadn't been for Mike. When he first became a police officer, he would always come over after his graveyard shift and tell me what all had happened on the job.

He took me on a ride-along once, after making me promise I wouldn't tell anyone I was his mother-in-law. I was impressed by how he could quietly calm a volatile situation--I was not impressed with his very fast driving. (This was in the days before seat belts.)

When I first stared writing, he let me see some of his police reports and I confess, some of what he wrote sneaked into my books.

I also used situations in told me about, ones that involved other police officers. Of course I never wrote anything exactly as it happened--but the incident would trigger an idea that I worked into a plot.

He never did see any of these books in print--he was gone before that happened.

What he told me had a great influence on my writing. His being a husband and father also influenced my writing greatly and part of the reason I've always put a lot of what is going on with the families of the police officers I write about into each Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery.

Some of the characters are similar to some of the fellow officers, male and female, that he told me about.

I also wrote the award winning book, Lingering Spirit, which is not a mystery but more of a romance with a bit of the supernatural, based on Mike's untimely death and what happened after, though highly fictionalized.

Available as a paperback and for Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/181-7754031-6536415?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Lingering%20Spirit%20by%20Marilyn%20Meredith

Coming soon, the latest in the RBPD series: Murder in the Worst Degree.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

About Eppie Winner, Lingering Spirit

For those of you who don’t know, my son-in-law, Mike Cole, a 15 year vet of the Oxnard P.D. became a deputy in El Dorado County. He was there 6 months and was killed. I loved Mike like a son. He came to my house for coffee after his shift, told me all his stories and even took me on a ride along. He’s the one who got me interested in writing about law enforcement. When he died, it was devastating to everyone in our family. He left a wife and three children. This happened a long time ago—but he is the one who inspired me to write about mysteries containing people in law enforcement and their loved ones (and sometimes not so loved ones.). My Rocky Bluff P.D. series is the result of Mike’s influence.

A few years after Mike was gone I wrote Lingering Spirit, a much fictionalized version of what happened to Mike and his family afterwards and I called in Lingering Spirit. My description of the book is that it’s a romance with a supernatural touch. It was first published by an e-book publisher I wasn't happy with, and I finally pulled it. After I became one of Oak Tree Press’s authors, Lingering Spirit was published as a trade paperback. Later, it was once again an e-book and made available for the Nook and Kindle. Oak Tree entered the e-book into the Epic’s e-book awards for supernatural/mystical romances—and I was shocked and delighted that it won at their annual conference this weekend in San Antonio.

Still floating on air,

Marilyn Meredith

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