I don’t know about other writers, but this is the way stories are conceived for me. It can a brief story in the newspaper, something seen on the street—or in the woods. Today it was the woods. I snowshoed through fields into the woods at the far side, followed meandering deer trails, across a stream, up a ridge through a cedar stand, under towering hemlocks, the occasional big white pine. It was quiet. A pair of ravens flew over, cronking to each other. A gaggle of chickadees tumbled past. And when the birds were gone, there was the sound of snow falling from the tree tops, suddenly and inexplicably, leaving floating clouds of powder.

And then there was the chair.

It was on top of a knoll, overlooking a clearing that probably was wet in the spring. The chair was blue, one of those folding things people bring to soccer games or the beach. It had a foot of snow on top of it, probably hadn’t been sat in since deer season ended in November. I snowshoed up to it, looked out at the view the person had when he or she eased back. What would it be like to be walking in these woods in the summer, to look up and see someone watching you from a chair? A baseball hat. Sunglasses. Would you stop and go the other way? Go over and try to strike up a conversation? Would he have a rifle across his lap? What if the next time you were in the woods, he was watching again. From a different place. By the time you got to the chair, he was gone, slipped back into the trees and brambles without a sound. And it kept happening until you felt you were being stalked. It was so unnerving you stopped going into the woods. You walked on the roads. You stayed close to home.
And then one night the phone rang. You picked up and nobody spoke. You were about to hang up when someone, a man with a voice like a ragged whisper, said, “Where have you been?”
“Who is this?”
“You stopped coming.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.”
A long pause.
“You should be.”

Writing from a woman’s point of view is interesting—and challenging. I finished a draft of a “novel novel”(working title Blade)  two or three years ago with a woman protagonist. For some reason it was easier to depict her as a very tough loner, emotionally guarded, which makes me wonder about the difficulty of writing well from the point of view of women in healthy relationships. My next challenge.

The book was supposed to be a break from crime novels but somehow the characters kept straying. I’m not sure the book was entirely successful though it certainly had its moments. It hasn’t been published as I’m still not sure what I think of it. I should take it out, reread it, and see if it passes the test of time.  It did include some characters I grew very fond of, including a jovial waitress in a town a lot like Eastport, a creepy hotel clerk, a smarmy real estate salesman. Once you’ve invented these characters, it’s hard to abandon them. After all, they are living, breathing people.

Sarah Rogers, aka Marla Moon, is still missing. Rogers left her home in Barrington, N.H. Dec. 13. She made it as far as Clinton, Maine, in Kennebec County, where her car was found, abandoned in a snowstorm in the center median of the interstate. She was dressed in shorts, a tank top, and a spring jacket. Footprints led to the southbound lane where they ended. Rogers/Moon, 29, hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Now a story in the Morning Sentinel family reports that Sarah is bipolar, was off her medication, and left a toddler son behind. She’s left home before but always has been located soon after.

One hopes she found a sympathetic soul and will turn up when this phase of her illness diminishes. One hopes.

Reading about Sarah Rogers, I’m reminded of all the missing-women cases I wrote about over 18 years in newspapers. Sometimes I interviewed family members, clinging to hope. Sometimes I wrote about those hopes being dashed— a body found, a murderer arrested. In more than one case, nothing was ever determined. In some ways those cases were the saddest. When a person vanishes, neither hope nor grieving ever really end.

As a novelist, I can picture Sarah/Marla. I can hear her voice, or at least what I imagine it to be. I can envision this as the beginning of a novel. I’d love for Sarah to turn up— and the rest of the story to be fiction.