The Real Bill

The nice man pictured above is my husband Bill, to whom I refer in my posts.

My (unfinished, unpublished) cozy murder mystery is set on the Dancing Bee Farm, a place much like The Dancing Bean Ranch. The protagonist is an amateur sleuth who, as luck would have it, is a lot like me.

Originally, she was to have a husband, much like mine. I was still outlining the story, however, when I realized the perils in that decision. Would he be a second protagonist? An antagonist? Relegated to a walk on? More troublesome was how to write about a real person--a person I live with--in a way that wouldn't raise, well, let's just say issues.

I finally decided to plunk him into backstory and made my beekeeping sleuth a widow. When the real Bill came home that night, I broke the news that I'd had to kill him.

Being a good natured sort of man, his only response was to ask: "Did I suffer?"

"No," I told him. "But it's just as well you not cross me. After all, as long as I'm still working on this bad boy, I can go back and change that."