Marilyn's Musings

                                                        Where do writers get their idea? As the old joke goes, sometimes they buy them at Wal-Mart. In my case, however, I get my ideas by watching real live people do real live crazy things, which is exactly how I came up with the plot of THE LLAMA OF DEATH. I may be best known for my noir-ish Lena Jones mystery series, but I also write the humorous and cozy-ish Gunn Zoo mysteries, which means some pretty loveable animals turn out to be characters in those books. We’re talking koalas, anteaters, lemurs, giraffes, wombats, honey badgers… On second thought, maybe honey badgers aren’t all that adorable, although their mothers probably love them. ...

That title probably sounds a bit dumb--but there comes a time when I have to pay attention to how I'm feeling. Stress started to take over. I can no longer do all the things I used to be able to do and not feel pressured. Because of that there are some things I'm pulling out of, and I've said "no" to some requests. There comes a time in one's life when it is necessary to prioritize. What's most important to me right now? Number one has to be family. My youngest son (who is not a kid) has had some serious health issues from what happened to him on the job. (He was working as a bouncer and was jumped by several men and beaten, resulting in a concussion, brain bleed, other injuries, and blood clots in his leg.) My attention has been on him--of course. I have a new book coming out soon, and there are some things I need to do for that. Fortunately, I planned a blog tour long before the family crisis struck, and had most of the posts written. I've be...

The story begins much like the old joke, “A guy walks into a bar…” Except, in this case, the bar is a restaurant and the guy behind the bar is a waiter or waitress who looks perfectly wholesome and trustworthy. Unfortunately, your server has a camera phone and a friend who steals credit card information. Con artists and scammers come from all walks of life; they look just like you and me. The difference is that most people don’t want to make a living by taking advantage of others, but those other guys…well, they’re just different. That’s part of the reason I like to write about them. I have a column on Examiner.com that focuses on real-life scams and cons. While I love doing the investigation and writing for that column, it’s much more fun to bring characters with less-than-honorable intentions into a novel where they can really cut loose. Let’s take another look at that opening example. What if the waiter is a young kid struggling to pay down his student loans a...