NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

It's A Mystery...


How anything gets done around here. (Like writing.)
WHO in their right mind can write when there are festivals, bands, trips to Las Vegas,
...uh...critiquing others, winter baking frenzies, company coming,
not to mention visitors, Taco Tuesday with The Girls,
and...oooh, yeah. UNSOLVED CRIMES that have your imagination spinning all sorts of
WHAT IF THIS HAPPENED? - or...Maybe he had a sex change to avoid being captured!

Remember Jessica Fletcher? Organized, thoughtful, kind, considerate, always willing to help, not bad at baking, quite good at bicycle riding, and amazing at poking her nose where it isn't wanted?

That is so not me. The only thing I have in common with that character is that I don't go looking for the mystery - it usually finds me. Case in point...

A best girlfriend's husband tied her up with the toaster cord and kidnapped their children. In revenge, she wanted to poison his meatloaf (his favorite dish) once they'd "reconciled" (yeah, only in his mind). The sap was allergic to peanuts...anaphylactic shock, etc...and he was a sucker for make-up sex, so she had the perfect opportunity. So she phones her BFF and says: Talk me out of it or help me decide how I can get away with this.

Some friend I am. I took that story and RAN with it, only Lethal Meatloaf just didn't cut it, so ole ABF, as she calls him (a**hole biological father) has to be allergic to the lasagna.

And that's how that story was conceived. How about the rest of you? Anything zany happen to spark your imagination, or did you just pop out of the writing toaster already buttered and knowing what you wanted to write?


(Yes, that is a leaf fight between two middle-aged women.)
Life is too freakin' short to spend it looking for trouble. I say let it find you. = )

10 comments:

Toni Anderson said...

I'm always plotting to kill people. I'm pretty sure if my beloved hubby dies under mysterious circumstances I'll be going away for a long time regardless.

Jenny Schwartz said...

I sometimes wonder how many red flags mystery writers raise in govt databases. I mean, think of our discussions :)

Toni Anderson said...

Jenny--I know. I was terrified when I was researching dirty bombs!

Marcelle Dubé said...

Well, I've killed an ex-boyfriend's lover (shoulda killed the cheating bugger, instead) and an ex-husband. In fiction, of course.

Amazingly cathartic...

Maureen A. Miller said...

All I'm saying is that if I had to die by eating lasagna, then so be it. I would die with a smile on my face. :)

Love it, Sunny! And if any of you want to get together for Taco Tuesdays, just call me!

Wynter said...

LOL! I plot to kill people, too. DH is in law enforcement so he hears all sorts of weird stories. A few have been those kernels of ideas for me.

Bobbie (Sunny) Cole said...

Do you know...I'd forgotten...

About 10 years ago, I was working on a murder mystery and phoned the hospital to see what this particular dead body would look like. Well, the ER doctor on call was new. He phoned the cops who laughed and said...That's just Sunny. She's a writer. But it really gave that doctor a jolt! - lol

Bobbie (Sunny) Cole said...

Marcelle, couldn't help but chuckle at what you said. I've killed off the same fellow six ways to Sunday. I've given him all sorts of disfiguring or teminal diseases, had him murdered, you name it. - I think writing is the ultimate revenge tool. Nobody really gets hurt and it makes me feel sooo much better.

Elise Warner said...

Death by Lasagna-Can't wait to tell our best friend who makes it for every special occasion. I fictionalized a few people I worked for-the characters wound up stone cold dead or in jail.

Clare London said...

*lol* One of my hubby's friends from junior school is by now an Inspector in the Met Police and called round recently to wish us happy christmas. Apart from the neighbours probably having kittens wondering if I was (finally) being arrested, I think he was a bit bemused when I kept quizzing him about his daily routine and some of his more lurid stories! :)

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