Props

When I was a freshman in high school, my best friend decided we should join the Drama Club. Being painfully shy (at the time, I wouldn't even answer the phone) it was torture for me to get up on that stage--as an extra--and learn the chorus parts of the musical OLIVER. I definitely did NOT have acting in my blood. And--thanks to a cast member telling my friend that she had NO acting talent just a week or so before the first performance--she decided that WE would QUIT. Boy, was I relieved.
Still, the world of props has always fascinated me. I use them in my writing. Either I have some tchotchke that inspires me, or I'll go out and find something I've written about.

Mr. L collects barware. For years we scoured flea markets, antique shops and garage sales for vintage barware. Was that the reason I made Jeff Resnick a bartender or was that just a coincidence? I'm not sure anymore.

In the first Booktown Mystery, Tricia acquires a little gold scatter pin. A few years ago, I bought a box lot of jewelry for $15. At the time it seemed an exorbitant amount of money. In the end, I think I sold most of it for about $150 in my both at an antique co-op. Not a bad investment, but I kept the most valuable piece--the gold scatter pin, for myself. I've never worn it, because I tend to lose things far too easily, but it has sat on my computer keyboard for a couple of years. And every day I look at it and admire this lovely little pin and remember the history I wrote for it.

I've collected other things that have/or will some day appear in a book. In the third (so-far unpublished) Jeff Resnick mystery, Jeff learns about the paternal (Jewish) side of his family. For years I searched for just the right Menorah. It now sits on one of my bookshelves. Not that a Menorah is mentioned in the story--but once I decided to write about Jeff's extended family (in the month of December), it became important for me to find that Menorah.

I suppose one of the most tangible things I've incorporated into my work is my cat, Cori. She's been dead for almost a decade now, but she came back to life for me--and lives on as Miss Marple, Tricia's cat in the Booktown Mysteries. I wish the cover artist would have contacted me before she did the wonderful painting for Murder Is Binding--I would've gladly sent her pictures of my beloved Cori-Belle. And yet, Miss Marple on the Bookmarked for Death cover is much prettier than the one on the first book--but she still isn't half as beautiful as my Cori.

If I gave it more thought, I'm sure I could come up with a lot more examples of things I've borrowed from my life to inject into my fiction. These pieces of flotsam and jetsam are pieces of me I embed into my work. For some reason, incorporating these things into my fictional worlds make them more real to me--and hopefully to my readers, too.