Inside Jokes

There's nothing better than a contest to kick off the year! Here at Killer Fiction, we'd like to thank all our readers for a fabulous 2010 and kick off 2011 in fine fashion. And what better way to kick off the new year than with free stuff! All the rules for the contest are on the sidebar, so read up and make sure you're entered to win great prizes.


IMPORTANT NOTE: All contest winners will be drawn the weekend following the end of the contest. So if you didn't hear about the contest right away, don't despair - you can still go back to previous blog posts and enter.


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I’m giving away a $25 egift card to BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com - winner's choice!  Winners will be notified at the end of the contest period.
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Inside Jokes


One of the questions I get asked the most by readers is were I get my inspiration. My short answer: everywhere. I am a notorious real-life thief when it comes to my work. That’s not to say I steal stories - when it comes to the major plots of my books, that’s all fiction (thank God! I’m so not brave enough to stumble upon real dead bodies.). But the smaller details in my books generally come from my real life. I have my heroines visit the same places I regularly haunt, the characters are given names of people I’ve known, and I often kill off people that cheese me off as a cheap form of therapy. ;) (Changing the names to protect the guilty, of course.)

A lot of this life-stealing in my books comes from the old adage, “write what you know.” It’s so much easier for me to describe places I’ve been to and people I’ve known, and they usually have a more genuine feel to readers, too. Research on the internet can only get you so far, and until my research budget includes trips to Paris and Milan, I do my best to equate the setting and characters in my books to real ones from my own life.

 But there is another reason for my life-stealing. It’s fun. Honestly, I get a total kick out of putting my mom in my story as a minor character, or describing something that my best friend and I did, or (yes, I’ll admit it) even killing off an ex-boyfriend or two. I’ve even been known to giggle out loud while typing up familiar scenes, and the people I know usually giggle when they read them, too, enjoying our inside joke.



'Spying in High Heels' in Poland



Out of all the books that I’ve ever written, probably the most of my own real life was poured into my first book, SPYING IN HIGH HEELS. When my best friend first read it, she laughed and said, “You’ve written a book about yourself!” Without meaning to, I guess I kinda did. The main character, Maddie Springer, is a California blonde, like me, who is often underestimated as “too girlie.” (Something a five-foot tall romance writer who likes to wear pink never experiences. *cough, cough*) Maddie has a major shoe obsession, a minor cash flow problem, and a totally screwed up love life. (Check, check, and check!) Though, at the request of my mother, I have to point out that Maddie’s fashion-challenged and stuck-in-the-80’s mom is NOTHING like my chic mama. She is pure fiction.

In addition to the obvious similarities between some of the characters in the book and the characters in my real life, here are some of the other “inside jokes” that I put into SPYING IN HIGH HEELS:



1) While Maddie dreams of haute couture, she pays the bills by designing children’s shoes. Years ago, while working as a temporary tattoo artist, once of the other artist I worked with designed children’s shoes (most notably the Elmo toddler shoes that were super popular at Marshalls that season). This woman was an incredibly talented artist, and it stuck me as humorous at the time that instead of creating fine art, she was creating shoes to smear peanut butter and mud pies on. So, when I came to picking Maddie’s profession, this one jumped out at me from my memory banks as the perfect job.





'Spying in High Heels' in Germany



2) A porn studio is one of the locations that Maddie visits while investigating a murder. Sadly, this studio is a real place I actually visited. I used to work as film extra (after the tattoo artist job), and was accidentally sent to a porn shoot one time by my agent. Oops. Luckily, everyone realized the mistake before I saw anything that scarred me for life. But the experience left an impression!

3) The character of Maddie’s boyfriend, Richard, is based on an actual ex-boyfriend I once had. Note the word ex. Yeah, I had fun torturing this character. ;)

4) Mrs. Rosenblatt is a psychic friend of Maddie’s mom, who is based on my experience working for the Psychic Reader’s Network (between film gigs). Yes, I actually worked as a telephone psychic. And, let me tell you, it provided me with character fodder for years!

Okay, so you’re all in on all my inside jokes in SPYING IN HIGH HEELS now. So, it only seems fitting that I should make sure you all have a copy of your own to read. From now until Jan 21st you can download a free copy of SPYING IN HIGH HEELS from Smashwords.com in a variety of ebook formats, including ones easily viewed on your home computer. Just enter this coupon code: NJ67R

Happy reading! (And anyone should recognize themselves in one of my books… don’t’ say I didn’t warn ya’! ;) )


~Gemma "Trigger Happy" Halliday