Brick Stallings

A tidbit for you about Chapter 10 in False Alarm that I also talked about on my podcast: The kerosene that Sandy used to hedge the yard? Seems clearly like the pyromania that Kate suspects, but actually, where I got this was from my grandfather, Brick Stallings, who was funny and tough, and hedged his yard with kerosene and it wasn’t due to pyromania…that I’m aware of anyway. He was a professional boxer—The Mad Man from Moscow (that’s Moscow, Idaho)—and he was restless in retirement. Once he did set his pants on fire, and he did pick up my grandmother from her hair appointment with his pant leg still smoldering (I stole that, too). See, I don’t even have to make this stuff up, and neither do you. You’ve got plenty of material. I actually don’t think the kerosene caper was boxer brain damage—Brick always knew what he was doing. He just had a lot of fun, and hedging the yard with kerosene works—you just have to be careful. So you see here how you can weave in your own nuggets into your stories like a tapestry—and call it fiction. Start making your list—you’ll be surprised by what you come up with.