Susan Keene Author

Where to book Ideas come from?

I wanted to write a series of mysteries based around the Springfield Cardinal’s Stadium. First thing I did was get a job with the team for the summer.

It didn’t take me long to realize I would not learn anything about the team or see any of the stadium except the souvenir store where they had me work.

We were not allowed to sit down and I only had time to eat and go back to my post at dinner time. Thus, my hopes of knowing the inside scoop of the stadium would not happen. Mostly I came out with a jacked up knee from standing on contrete.

But, all was not lost. When I came home in the dark, I had to travel down a road with no shoulders, no center line, and no lights other than my headlights.  To my right the railroad tracks sat elevated so if a train went by, it rode above my sightline.

Scrub brush grew down the grade and to the road. On the left side a row of trees and brush hid the farm land behind it.

Nothing short of catastrophe could make me stop on that road.

Luckily, I never had a problem making it home without stopping, but something else happened.

My unconscious mind picked up the fear I had as I drove home and gave me a recurring nightmare.

My nightmare went like this. I drove down the road I discribed above and at the half

way point, my headlights landed on a box with a small child chained to it.

I would wake up in a sweat and finally go back to sleep. This went on for a two full weeks. I told myself if it happened one more time, I would get up, write it down and read it back. My thought was the dream would go away.

The next night, the same thing happened, but this time I got up, went to my office and wrote down word for word what happened.

A strange event took place. I sat down there at about 2:30 a.m. and by 5:30 I’d written twelve chapers of a book I eventually called the Twisted Mind of Cletus Compton.

The book is dark and gritty, not my usual light hearted cozy mystery flair.

If you want to dive into the dark side for an hour or two, pick up a copy of the book or listen to the audio.