I’m not offering unsolicited lifestyle advice, just paraphrasing something a book editor told me years ago as we were discussing proposed McMorrow plots.

This editor was pretty much hands off when it came to telling me what to write. But she said this with a vehemence that got my attention then and has stuck with me since. “No drugs.”

Her words have come back to me of late as I consider McMorrow No. 10. I’m in the mulling stage, starting to write bits and pieces, ideas, descriptions of characters, portions of the plot. Ideas come and go, some survive and some end up on the writing-room floor. This is the most mysterious part of the process: thinking, waiting, mulling, being taken off guard when an idea or an extension of an idea suddenly comes to mind. Do you “think” of these things, these fabrications? I don’t think so. I think you just feed in some raw material and then put yourself in a frame of mind to receive something back.

In the middle of the night. Driving on the highway. I had an idea today as I was driving in a snowstorm, ostensibly concentrating on keeping the car between the guardrail and ditch. And poof.

But no drugs. Yes, back to that.

I read a lot of newspapers, everything from my local weekly to Maine dailies to Al Jazeera. But it’s struck me of late that nowadays most of the crime in McMorrow’s neck of the Maine woods is related to drugs. People robbing banks for drug money. People robbing pharmacies for drugs. People doing home invasions for drugs (story in today’s Waterville Morning Sentinel about a guy who invaded a house, taped a  woman to a bed. He thought a drug dealer lived there, instead it was just some random lady. Whoops. So long, sucker. Better intel next tie. Some people just aren’t cut out for a life of crime.)

Anyway, to my point. If 80 percent of the crime around here is drug-related, why not write a crime novel with a drug plot. The answer: drugs are cliche. Drugs are boring. People who commit crimes to feed addictions just aren’t particularly interesting. They’re like laboratory rats. Poke the lever, get the reward. Ho-hum.

Unless the guy goes to rob the drug dealer. Except she’s not a drug dealer. She’s a 65-year-old woman, living quietly. Alone. She goes to a drawer to get money and instead takes out a gun. Shoots him dead. Doesn’t call the cops. Loads him in her car. Drives him down a remote road in the boonies and rolls him out of the trunk into the woods.

Why not call the cops? Why not be screaming into the phone? There’s a man in my house and he was trying to rob me and I shot him. Come quick. I don’t know if he’s dead.

Because there is a reason she’s living quietly. Alone. There’s a reason this woman who lives with her cat, keeps to herself, moved to this country road because it was quiet and peaceful, keeps a loaded Glock 26 in the kitchen drawer. Why she was able to put a round in his chest, another in his head, that he was dead before he hit the floor. A reason why she’s burning the blood-stained carpet in her woodstove, that she’ll go about her business tomorrow as if nothing had happened, nothing at all. Groceries. A movie on Netflix. A romantic comedy.

Why? I’m waiting. Driving down the road. Listening to music. Waking up in the middle of the night.

It will come. And that’s why this business never gets old.

I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past month, sitting in my chair, ice water pumping through the “immobilizer” on my leg, crutches propped beside me, Mozart cranked up.  And of course, much of what I think makes its way into a book. So in the future you may see these notions pop into a Jack McMorrow or Brandon Blake novel. Most of life, as they say, is research.

* It’s a very vulnerable feeling to be stuck in a chair, hooked up to a machine, alone in the house. My wingchair is on the north side of the house. The side door, entering the kitchen, is just out of sight. The door to the woodshed and barn is behind the kitchen, way out of sight. Needless to say, I can’t get up. Or if I can, it takes a few minutes.

I’ve told friends to just let themselves in. If the music isn’t on, I hear the kitchen door slide open. The storm door shut. Footsteps coming toward me. I lean forward to see who it is. So far, it’s been somebody I know.

Maybe I’m getting paranoid, stuck here with my leg up, but what if the door opened. The storm door closed. I heard someone in the kitchen. I called, “Come on in.” My visitor didn’t call back. But I heard the footsteps coming this way. Saw boots. Jeans. Leaned forward. A stranger. And he’s carrying a …

* On crutches, the route to the car is through the woodshed and the barn, a long level walkway. There’s a door into the shed from the back. It’s held closed by an iron hook. There are three doors to the barn on the first floor. There is one on the second. Crutching my way through the shed, concentrating on the steps, planting the rubber tips carefully, I don’t look to my right, into the workshop. Where the door leans open. And someone stands in the shadows. Waiting.

* At night, I heave myself into bed. The ice machine is pumping. I’m attached to it by a long, thick rubber hose. Getting out of bed requires me to throw off the covers, reach down to the connector. I squeeze the two tabs to release the hose. Drag my bad leg across to the edge of the bed. Ease the leg over the edge, and propping it up with my good leg, slowy lower it to the floor. I reach for my crutch. Brace myself. Hoist myself to my feet. Elapsed time: thirty seconds. An eternity.

* Driving by, he sees the guy on the crutches, his leg bound in a brace from thigh to ankle. Looks painful. Looks like it must hurt. Looks like they must’ve given him some serious meds. Oxycodone. Oxycontin. Might be worth popping in, after the wife leaves for work. But maybe worth watching, make sure there’s no dog. No alarm. Nobody else in the house.

The next morning, the wife pulls out, takes off in a hurry. He waits. Makes sure she hasn’t forgotten something, gonna roll back in. Gives her twenty minutes, time to get down the road. No dog. The door to the house fell shut behind her, no evidence of it locking. He pulls into the driveway. Takes the carton off the seat, the one he uses every time. Speedy delivery!

The door opens. He hears the guy call. “Come on in!”

If y0u insist.

* So that’s what goes through your mind when you’re stuck in a chair. You write the stuff down. Think some more. Wonder if it might not be a bad idea to tuck a handgun between the cushions. Nice light Sig-Sauer .223. Just in case the next time someone cometh, it isn’t the Iceman.

Until next time …

PS I flushed the meds, fyi.