There's No Off-Position on the Genius Switch (D. Letterman)

Lilac Hill Farm? Nah, we decided. We don't have any lilacs and we're not on a hill. How about Rose Valley? No valleys, no roses. From there, we went through a series of uninspired ideas. Then our respective genius switches (which evidently do have an off position) flashed to red at the same moment. Dancing Bean Ranch! A graphic artist had already done camera-ready artwork from the drawings on Chris' letter of years before. The logo was obvious.

So there it is, the saga of the Dancing Bean Ranch. My most recent guests asked how we happened upon our name. "It relates to a college nickname," I told her. "It's all on my blog."

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My (unfinished, unpublished) cozy murder mystery is set on the Dancing Bee Farm, a place much like The Dancing Bean Ranch.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."