The Idea Man (page 3)
By Wendy Markham (who also writes as Wendy Corsi Staub)
©2005 Wendy Corsi Staub. All Rights Reserved.
An article I read in a tattered parenting magazine in my OB-GYN’s waiting room morphed into my YA novels OBSESSION and POSSESSION. The article discussed the fact that multiples whose in vitro counterparts don’t survive often go through life feeling as though something is missing—even when they aren’t aware that there had once been a twin or triplet.
As the first-time mother of a newborn, I was awakened from a dead sleep by a deafening crash over the baby monitor. I rushed to the nursery and discovered that the baby had simply rustled his blanket. The ultra-sensitive monitor had me thinking an intruder was prowling in the nursery. I stumbled back to bed, but the wheels were already turning. Thus, my domestic thriller ALL THE WAY HOME was born.
Sometimes, I fictionalize entire incidents lifted directly from my own life, and sometimes, my characters are thinly veiled versions of my former self. For instance, Tracey Spadolini, chick lit heroine of my Red Dress Ink trilogy SLIGHTLY SINGLE, SLIGHTLY SETTED, and the upcoming SLIGHTLY ENGAGED, bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain small town girl who once moved to Manhattan, worked in an advertising agency, and clung to an unrequited love for her college boyfriend, a self-centered thespian. When he left for three months to perform in summer stock, I—I mean, Tracey-- embarked on a self-improvement campaign and ultimately lost both forty pounds, and the boyfriend. Devastated at the time, I never imagined that my broken heart would one day result in a smash hit. I have to say, whenever a fat royalty check rolls in from that particular book, I can’t help but think Revenge is Sweet--and well worth the wait.
On the heels of SLIGHTLY SINGLE, I found myself at lunch one day with my editor recapping how I met my husband while on the rebound from that doomed relationship with the actor. By then, I was working in a major Manhattan ad agency, and had read the usual December magazine articles about what NOT to do at your office Christmas party. You know: don’t arrive early, don’t be the last to leave, don’t dress provocatively, don’t drink more than one glass of wine, don’t dance, and for God’s sake, don’t flirt with the boss’s roommate. All right, I threw in that last part. That was exactly what I did, and my evening as the All Time Queen of the Office Party Don’ts led to a lifetime of Happily Ever After with the boss’s roommate.
My editor was enthralled, and suggested I write about it. The next thing I knew, I was making the rounds of early morning news programs promoting SLIGHTLY SETTLED as my former boss’s former roommate sipped coffee in the green rooms and watched his wife reveal that fateful first romantic Office Party encounter to the world.
My husband is used to seeing himself pop up occasionally in print, as are my children, my parents, my siblings, and my friends. But every once in awhile, somebody will look at me and say, “You’re not going to use that in a book, are you?”
To be honest...you just never know.
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