“I have no idea what to write.”
That was what I told my wife, Kathleen.
People always ask where writers get their ideas. They never understand the simple fact: we become writers because our brains are wired in such a way that the ideas come to us with such ferocity that we are compelled to write them down, and then ideally distribute them to as many people as possible with—ideally—our names accompanying them in as large letters as possible.
But sometimes the ideas don’t come. Especially, for me, when it comes to something very specific. In this case, it was for Russ Colchamiro’s new short story anthology for Crazy 8 Press, Love, Murder & Mayhem. The story was to have a science fiction setting and involve love and murder. I had thought about it, pondered it, but nothing was coming, maybe because writing science fiction isn’t really my strong suit. Fantasy, yes. Star Trek, of course. Superheroes, definitely. But an SF themed story just wasn’t singing to me.
And Kathleen said, “Sean and I came up with a story idea ages ago. But we never wrote it.” Sean is her brother.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We were joking about how it would be great to have someone sleep for us, because we had so much stuff to do,” she said. “And that kind of led us to the idea of what if you could? And that led to the idea of what if one of the sleepers discovers that one of his ‘brains’ was a murderer?”
Immediately my mind raced. “Oh my God, that’s perfect. Can I take that?”
“Sure,” she said.
And I did. And I wrote it. And I credited both Kath and her brother in the byline. Because sometimes you get your ideas from the people sitting right next to you.
So be sure to go out and buy Love, Murder & Mayhem so that you can read “Mortal Coil” plus a bunch of other great stories.
But mostly mine. Well…ours.
Love, Murder & Mayhem is now available for sale both in print and ebook formats.
Peter David is a prolific author whose career, and continued popularity, spans nearly two decades. He has worked in every conceivable media: Television, film, books (fiction, non-fiction and audio), short stories, and comic books, and acquired followings in all of them. He is also a founding member of Crazy 8 Press.
In the literary field, Peter has had over a hundred novels published, including numerous appearances on the New York Times Bestsellers List. His novels include Artful, Sir Apropos of Nothing (A “fast, fun, heroic fantasy satire”—Publishers Weekly), Knight Life, Howling Mad, and the Psi-Man adventure series. He is the co-creator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books, and has also written such Trek novels as Q-Squared, The Siege, Q-in-Law, Vendetta, I, Q (with John de Lancie), A Rock and a Hard Place, and Imzadi. He produced the three Babylon 5 Centauri Prime novels, and has also had his short fiction published in such collections as Shock Rock, Shock Rock II, and Otherwere, as well as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Peter’s comic book resume includes an award-winning twelve year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as X-Factor, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Fallen Angel, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens, and many others. He has also written comic book related novels, such as The Hulk: What Savage Beast, and co-edited The Ultimate Hulk short story collection.
Peter is the co-creator, with popular science fiction icon Bill Mumy (of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame) of the Cable Ace Award-nominated science fiction series Space Cases, which ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon. He has written several scripts for the Hugo Award winning TV series Babylon 5, and the sequel series, Crusade. He has also written several films for Full Moon Entertainment and co-produced two of them, including two installments in the popular Trancers series as well as the science fiction western spoof Oblivion, which won the Gold Award at the 1994 Houston International Film Festival for best Theatrical Feature Film, Fantasy/Horror category.
Peter’s awards and citations include: the Haxtur Award 1996 (Spain), Best Comic script; OZCon 1995 award (Australia), Favorite International Writer; Comic Buyers Guide 1995 Fan Awards, Favorite writer; Wizard Fan Award Winner 1993; Golden Duck Award for Young Adult Series (Starfleet Academy), 1994; UK Comic Art Award, 1993; Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, 1993, and the Julie Award in 2007. He lives in New York with his wife, Kathleen, and their daughter Caroline.