Back in the Dark Ages (a.k.a. 2010) I had the
ever-so-brilliant idea to float a body in my pool. Okay, don’t call the cops just yet. The stiff dude was a prop. For a Halloween Party.
I spent hours making my faux corpse realistic. After covering a large block of Styrofoam
with a white shirt, I attached a pair of jeans and stuffed the legs with
packing peanuts. I completed the look
with flip-flops, positioned exactly right and added a straw hat to give the
illusion the body floated face down. The
piece-de-resistance, I plunged a knife in Mr. Cad Diver’s back and used spray
paint to simulate blood. Beautiful,
right?
Okay, perhaps beautiful isn’t the precise adjective we need,
but you get the picture. I was so proud
of my very genuine-looking corpse and couldn’t wait for my guests to view. The general reaction? Why did you do that?
Well, duh? Halloween.
Mystery Writer. Fun.
Obviously, not the reaction I expected. Which made me wonder, why would they have
done had the body been real? So, while
my floater wasn’t the life of the party, my novel, Styrofoam Corpse
was born. In my alternate reality, guests
were wowed by the life-like, eh dead-like floater and voila, the next morning a
real corpse had taken Cad’s place.
With the exception of Mr. Diver, the book was entirely
fictional, but somehow, having the prop seemed to propel my writing. Since then, books two and three of the Corpse
series have been under construction. The
victim in Burned Illusions is discovered in the torched vehicle and will likely
be called Pyro Corpse. In the third book, the body is discovered hanging from the
side of a building, and will probably be called Condo Corpse. More important,
all three novels feature heroines in the precarious situation of being the
number one suspect. Perhaps I should subtitle my new series, “You’ve got the
wrong girl.”
For a recent virtual retreat, I submitted 22 pages of book
two, for our critique sessions. That prompted
me to restart the journey to “the end.” I needed something to set a fire under my bu...keyboard. Maybe I should burn a car for Halloween…
2 comments:
Loved the background on your Styrofom Corpse mystery! Fun post, Robin. Just remember what they s about playing with fire...
So glad to see you are still as crazy fun as ever.
I like the series name, "You've got the wrong girl." (big grin)
As for burning a car for Halloween...um, nah, unless you are just looking for a hot date.
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