Sunday, October 29, 2006

WHY I WROTE "MARATHON MADNESS"

The Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime doesn't produce an anthology every year, and when the call for submissions went out for the last anthology, I was a new member and not interested.

This time I really wanted to enter the contest. Disappointment threaded through me when I learned the stories had to involve, in some way, a Los Angeles landmark. I live sixty miles inland. What did I know about L. A. landmarks? Zilch.

But there's a thing about marathoners and writers...we don't give up. As the deadline loomed, I couldn't let go of my determination to enter this competition.

It came to me one morning when I was jogging that I was an idiot. Hadn't I run the Los Angeles Marathon several times? Stayed in the historic Biltmore Hotel, run past the Coliseum, ridden Angel's Flight, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Of course I knew something about fabulous L. A.'s landmarks! And although there was no connection to the race, hadn't someone even been murdered one year near the Coliseum on marathon day? Hmmm.

They continually change the course, and I think I've run three different routes, so I dug through my records to find one that had taken us past the most landmarks, and tacked it up on the wall. Checking the Biltmore site online, I discovered it'd been sold and refurbished. I called the concierge to find out what colors were being used in the lobby these days. I've been in the Bonaventure, so I double checked that online as well.

In the course of my story, I had to know how long it had taken me to reach areas crucial to my tale. This took me to the map to measure distances. I'm not a fast runner, so I filched the time of someone who'd come in first in the age group in which I'd placed my heroine.

More research, and, finally, I had my story. It was submitted blind to the committee.

They liked it! "Marathon Madness" appears with nine other short stories in "LAndmarked for Murder," and I'm thrilled.

The reviewer at Top Publishers writes: "Dee Ann Palmer cleverly combines a genuine city landmark, the elegant Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A., with a landmark yearly event, the L.A. Marathon, in the story of a shocking murder that occurrs in the most open of places."

Experience plus a little imagination is a good thing.

Time for bed. The clock says it's an hour earlier today than my body believes it to be.

Sleep well,

Dee Ann
Posted by Dee Ann Palmer 8:57 PM 2 Comments:

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