Origin of ideas

Where do you get your ideas? It's probably the question most asked of fiction writers. I've written nine novels and close to a hundred short stories and I'd be hard pressed to remember from where most of them sprang.

However, I remember precisely where the idea for one of my Nick Bancroft mysteries originated. It was hatched when I read an Associated Press news report from Jackson, Miss. It said:

A 66-year-old nursing home patient died after being bitten hundreds of times by fire ants that swarmed over her body while she was in bed ... She died four days later from heart failure brought on by physiological stress, according the her physician.

In the opening paragraph of my novel, Death Sting, I wrote:

"However," I read from the local newspaper, "according to the coroner, it wasn't the bee stings that killed her. She apparently died from a heart attack brought on by stress."

Nick Bancroft works in Central Illinois. No fire ants, as far as I know, thus the bee stings.

The idea for the Bancroft novel I've just finished came from a municipal band concert. While I was waiting with my wife for the thing to start my mind played with the idea of a murder at the concert. Thus was born, And The Band Played On.

I also write erotic romances, using the pen name, Cyn Castle. Readers, some with astonished looks on their faces, ask me where I get my ideas.

Apparently they think my memory is gone.