I’m new here and decided it would be fun to introduce myself by telling you a tale about a writing coincidence I had some years ago that still gives me chills.

For the fourth book in my first series, Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries, I needed help with a murder I had in mind. The premise for the Widow’s Walk League is that the husbands of women in a ladies’ walking group are being murdered one by one. I wanted to kill off one of the husbands at Woodies on the Wharf, an annual event in Santa Cruz where I live.

I had an idea about how he should meet his end, but I wasn’t sure if it was feasible so I contacted the president of the local woodies club to ask for advice. I presented my idea for how the victim should die and, once he was convinced that I was writing fiction and not a murderer plotting a real killing, he was eager to help.

 We met for coffee. I came armed with questions; he brought diagrams, photos, and a wrench. He not only explained how easy it would be to use a wrench on the undercarriage of the car to reverse the transmission, he had a photo of the make, model, and year of the woodie to use and told me where it should be parked on the wharf so my victim would plunge into the bay and sink to the bottom so quickly, he wouldn’t be able to escape the vehicle.

Now for the shivery part. A recuring character in the series is a police officer named Dave. He’s my protagonist’s buddy—you have to have some law enforcement connection in a cozy mystery—who has talked himself into a job as the police department ombudsman after losing an eye in a shootout. He’s based on a real friend also named Dave who lost his eye in a shootout while on duty. Remember that for a minute.

The book came out a week before Woodies on the Wharf so I decided to take a copy to the helpful woodies club president. I also decided it would be fun to see who was parked in the deadly parking space and tell him to be careful because things hadn’t worked out well for the last man who parked there.

As we introduced ourselves, I noted that he had the same first name as my murder victim. When I jested about being careful, he said nothing scared him because he was a retired homicide detective and had seen it all.

“Where did you work?” I asked.

“San Jose,” he replied.

“One of the characters in my book is based on a real police officer who worked for SJPD until he lost an eye in a shootout,” I said.

He snorted, “You must mean Dave. I was with him the night that happened. I told him you never  pop your head up to look over a fence when pursuing an armed suspect, but he didn’t listen to me.”

Writing is so much fun, and when things like this happen, it’s even more entertaining.

Hello, Ladies ~

When I was a kid, I loved playing the game of “Clue.” Piecing together the clues to decide if Miss Scarlett killed the victim with a candlestick in the conservatory was exhilarating.

And was there anything better than watching “Perry Mason,” “Matlock,” or “CSI?” I would settle in to watch these shows armed with a pen and pad, making notes of possible clues to help me solve the crime before the episode ended.

A few weeks ago, a writer friend and I were talking about writer’s block, something she’d been struggling with. When I said I never suffer from writer’s block, she raised an eyebrow.

I continued, sharing that my brain sort of takes over and directs my fingers across the keyboard, or guides the pen in my hand across a blank page.

“Can you give me an example?” she asked.

My response, then became my blog for this month …

While I don’t write mysteries per se, I do like to add a touch of mystery to my books. In my first novel, “Peril in Paradise,” I discovered that my writer’s brain had automatically planted clues about my crime and villain. In my series México Mayhem, the reader knows who the villain is from the beginning, but I still create a sense of mystery by adding perfect hidden gems to keep the reader guessing.

Two of my favorite additions were characters who weren’t meant to be in more than a couple of scenes. In “Peril in Paradise,” I created Billy Boyd, who becomes my villain Damian’s cellmate. I didn’t know when I created Billy, initially intending for him to add color to a few scenes with Damian, that he would become his own interesting character.

In “Malice in Mazatlan,” Alba’s only purpose was to paint a picture for the reader of how difficult my villain, Sarita Garcia, could be. But Alba ends up stealing a scene and becoming a perfect hidden gem.

As I reread the current WIP for my México Mayhem Series, “Vanished in Vallarta,” I realized I had added some hidden gems during the first draft that I could now use as clues for the Hero and Heroine as they try to tie a suspect to a murder. When I edited the Villain’s chapters, I discovered I’d done the same thing with her storyline.

Every time I find these intriguing nuggets, I’m in awe of how my brain has placed a little of this and a little of that in the right places of the storyline, which I can now turn into tantalizing tidbits for my readers. Another fabulous thing occurred, too. Without knowingly inserting this information, I created a storyline for my next book, “Lost in Loreto.”

In the first novel, “Redneck Ranch,” of my Stoneybrook Mysteries, I added stab wounds to my victim and placed her on the dirt floor of an old barn. But I didn’t know at the time the stab wounds would reveal Morse Code for a number or that the barn floor being void of blood would suggest a different crime scene for this victim.

I just finished a short story, “Jamboree Jealousy,” for an anthology, and when I did my read-through, I smiled at the hidden gems I’d already added to the story: A missing cowboy hat. A gold hoop earring. A few pages with lyrics for a song.

I hope there are many Hidden Gems in your writing endeavors, too! Happy Writing, Sisters!