The Idea Man (page 2)
By Wendy Markham (who also writes as Wendy Corsi Staub)
©2005 Wendy Corsi Staub. All Rights Reserved.
This is the first paranormal romance I’ve written, but it isn’t the first ghost story. My supernatural thriller IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (Pinnacle Books, March 2002) was also inspired by real life. For one thing, the book is set in Lily Dale, New York, a gated Victorian spiritualist community located a few miles from my hometown. Growing up, my friends and I occasionally visited the mediums there, mainly to find out who we were going to marry. Some of them were surprisingly accurate; others were clearly reaching. But I was fascinated by all of them, and I knew I would one day create characters based on them.
I was also captivated by tales of real-life hauntings, probably because I had experienced an inexplicable phenomenon myself as a thirteen year-old. I was babysitting for my cousins in my Aunt Mickey’s large Victorian house, and it was very late at night. As I sat watching television, I felt a cold draft on my neck and turned around to see the front door standing wide open. At first I thought it was one of the kids playing a trick, but they were upstairs in their beds, sound asleep. With the door closed and triple-locked securely (knob turned, deadbolt latched, chain fastened), I resumed watching Saturday Night Live. A few seconds later, I again felt the draft—and turned to see that the door was wide open again. Naturally, I freaked out and called my father. Accustomed to my creative imagination and adolescent histrionics, he wasn’t concerned. I tried to watch television again, keeping one eye on the door. The moment I relaxed and turned away—you guessed it. It was standing open again.
My aunt and uncle didn’t seem all that concerned upon their return, but I never forgot that incident. Years later, my aunt admitted that she knew at the time there was “something” in the house, but didn’t want to confirm it. She said, quite accurately, that if she had validated what had happened to me, I would never babysit again. She told me she also knew the “spirit” was harmless. So, do I believe in ghosts? You bet. Have I milked that believe for fun and profit? You’d better believe it.
When my publicity tour for IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE took me my hometown, I recounted my experience to a local reporter without mentioning my aunt by name (I have many!), or the location of her former house. The next day, a stranger showed up at my book signing and said she knew exactly what I was talking about, because she was the current owner of my aunt Mickey’s old house. She told me about several odd experiences she and her husband had; most of them mischievous pranks similar to what had happened to me. At the time, it seemed ominous, and I can’t say that I’m anxious to relive the frightening evening. But it was terrific fodder for a budding writer’s imagination.
In the past twelve years, I have published more than sixty novels. Each of them ignited with the spark of an idea; each spark was gradually fueled to a roaring blaze by a series of What If’s.
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