X is For Xray, Xylophone, Xena-Transplant Labs and...

X is For X-ray, Xylophone, Xeno Transplant lab, Xhosa Tribe and Skull Music or Diamonds, Death and Deceit.

Skull Music, the mystery suspense novel began as a writing prompt including an x-ray of a skull, a tape cassette with a weird sound, and a dolphin. The x-ray became the key that unlocked the story for me…I have no idea how I found or concocted the xeno-transplant lab.

Any word could be a trigger. Who would think a xylophone might be?  Orchestrated Murders, [A Works In Progress] a whole, life-sized orchestra suspended from a real museum ceiling with life sized mannequins—or are they mannequins? The sight sparked an amazing story for me that is still unraveling.

An old Piano, an even older theatre, a piano man and his cast came from a man's face in a piece of wood-grain wall paneling where I lived one cold lonely winter, his image haunted me until he became a character in Ghost Music of Vaudeville and I changed his name to Piano Man.

Give me a word or three and I'll give you a mystery, because that is what I do, that is my livelihood and my life.

My mother's penchant for a quote or saying to fit every occasion created many stories for me. When she told me her grandfather, who I never knew, always began his story telling with "Back when Tag was a pup and turkeys chewed tobacco..." That became the thread that created Watch ForThe Raven  in a practically non-stop writing marathon.
She died before I got it finished. Matter of fact she died before I finished any of my thirty some books, having never read a one or even knowing I was writing for publication.

If you want to be a writer watch for a phrase, a word, a picture that strikes a note. Jot it down and at your next opportunity examine it with x-ray vision. What can it say to you? Write that story, write it now!

Read with a writer's eye. Take that first sentence, make it yours and write its story. X-ray, Xylophone, Zanadu.

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