Post 1#
How I came up with the idea for my first detective story
It happened one day on my long and tiring commute from home to work. I had found a part-time job in the library of a prison in Sutton. I tend to think they accepted me only because no one else wanted the job. At that time, I had no experience of working in a library. It was my first job in this field. People say that working in a library is easy. But I tell you something: it is not that easy to work in a job that involves working with the public. It requires some specific social skills. It requires even more in a prison library. But, as I like challenges, I approached the new job with enthusiasm. Our readers came up with lots of interesting life stories and different backgrounds. That’s when the idea to write came to my mind. The inspiration didn’t come, however, as you might think, from a prisoner’s story. No. In fact, it was one of the members of staff who inspired me. A strong personality, in a way. It seemed to me that this person could be a sort of perfect silent killer. Then I created the motive and found the victim. I used to take the train twice a week to get to the prison library. Mondays and Tuesdays. Hard days. From the train station I had a bus that dropped me off near the entrance to the prison yard. In the morning, I preferred to get to Sutton train station early and walk about two miles. It was pleasant at that time of the morning, with the streets still clear before rush hour. About a quarter of the way was through a mysterious wood that, it seemed to me, must be one of the inspiring places for the creators of Druid myths. A few morning joggers and locals taking their dogs out for their morning walks. I had begun to get familiar with them and greeted each other cordially. I walked briskly and thought about my characters. That was how I began to think about putting the plot of my first detective story, The Sad Story of Diane Dunmore, on paper.
