M.J. Payne
asked
E.Michael Helms:
What frame of mind were you in when the idea for the plot of "Deadly Dunes" came to you? Do you often get ideas as if your mind is working on a book while you do something else or just daydream?
E.Michael Helms
Hi, M.J.~ I was daydreaming and remembered a trip my wife and I had taken to Seaside, FL, over twenty years ago. Seaside is a beautiful "planned" resort on the panhandle coast built to resemble architecture back in the 1940s or '50s. There are quaint shops around a town square, with an outdoors amphitheater centered in the square. They hold concerts, people picnic, or just hang out there. The houses all follow the period mode. Just across the highway lies the Gulf of Mexico fronted by beautiful sand dunes and a beach as white a pure sugar.
I remember thinking "what if" historical artifacts had been discovered on the site, artifacts that proved an encampment of a famous explorer had occurred on the site before construction began. What if the site was of such historical significance that it threatened to stop the planned development dead in its tracks. Investors who had staked fortunes in the planned resort stood to lose everything. Would anyone among them be so desperate as to commit murder to silence the discovery before it went public? So, an experience I had socked away in my mind for two decades became the idea for Deadly Dunes. I think that's what most writers tend to do. We observe and file things away, often in our subconscious. That's what works for me.
I remember thinking "what if" historical artifacts had been discovered on the site, artifacts that proved an encampment of a famous explorer had occurred on the site before construction began. What if the site was of such historical significance that it threatened to stop the planned development dead in its tracks. Investors who had staked fortunes in the planned resort stood to lose everything. Would anyone among them be so desperate as to commit murder to silence the discovery before it went public? So, an experience I had socked away in my mind for two decades became the idea for Deadly Dunes. I think that's what most writers tend to do. We observe and file things away, often in our subconscious. That's what works for me.
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