Bad Dates, I've Had a Few: Or, Writing Inspiration Is Everywhere

 A Guest Post by Barb Goffman

Writing inspiration can come from anywhere. The news. Overheard conversations. Or, as in the case of one of my 2024 stories, a long-ago bad date. I'm talking about my story “The Postman Always Flirts Twice.” It was published in the Down & Out Books anthology Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy: Thirteen Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection. The book’s cozy mysteries are all written by winners of the Agatha and/or Derringer awards, and my mailman story is now a finalist for the Agatha Award.

You may be wondering about my story's title. Maybe you’re guessing that since The Postman Always Rings Twice was noir, I changed Rings to Flirts because Flirts sounds cozy. Not so much. I chose my title because it is fun and because it is much catchier than The Postman Pressured Me Into a Date.

Say what?

To steal from Sophia on The Golden Girls:

Picture it. Indiana. Summer 1994. 

I had my first full-time job as a newspaper reporter. My apartment complex had all the tenants’ mailboxes in one spot near the complex entrance, along with two newspaper boxes, one for each of the two—two!—dailies that small city had back then.

One day I stopped to get my mail while the postman was finishing filling the mailboxes. He started to chat. I’ve never been a fan of small talk, but I participated for a minute or two. The social niceties, you know. Then he glanced at the mail in my hand.

“I know your name from somewhere,” he said.

Wondering if I was being punked, I said, “Yeah, from the mail.” And I pointed at the envelopes in my other hand.

“No. That’s not it.”

So I nodded at one of the newspaper boxes. “I’m a reporter. You probably saw my name in the paper.” Back then, before everything was online, a lot more people read newspapers—on actual paper.

“No. That’s not it.”

I shrugged. “Well, those are the only ways I think you’d have heard my name. See ya.”

As I turned to go, he said, “Would you like to have dinner sometime?”

I offered him an uncomfortable smile. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

“Aw, come on. You gotta eat.”

That was true. But I didn’t have to eat with him. I shook my head.

“You sure? It’s just one dinner.”

Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was my imagination. But I suddenly thought, if I don’t go on this date, I may never get my mail again. I was in my mid-twenties, nowhere near as assertive as I am now. And back then, all your bills came in the mail. I needed my mail. So, reluctantly, I said yes. We agreed to meet the next evening at that hot spot of romance, Denny’s.

All of you who love meet-cutes are probably thinking the dinner must have been wonderful. Sparkling conversation, love in the air, the beginning of happily ever after.

Dream on.

The conversation was forgettable. The food was … Denny’s. And the only future I was looking forward to was getting home.

As the meal wound down, he said, “What would you like to do now?”

It wasn’t even 8 p.m., but I yawned and said I was going to have to call it a night. I had to get to work early the next morning. You’d think my meaning was clear. Subtle but clear.Not interested. And maybe it was, but he was determined to go out swinging.

“How about if I come back to your place and give you a massage?”

I may have wanted my mail, but I didn’t want it that badly.

I thanked him for my burger, went home—alone!—and called my best friend to fill him in on the date. When I got to the bit about the massage, his outraged voice boomed through the line. “If that isn’t a sex invite, I don’t know what is!”

In the end, I never heard from my mailman again, thankfully, and my mail kept coming. Now, all these years later, I put the experience to good use in “The Postman Always Flirts Twice.” If you read it, you’ll recognize some of the details. It’s a whodunit about love, family, and friendship. Someone murdered Hazel’s mailman and hid his body in the woods behind her cul-de-sac. Desperate to point the cops in another direction so they don’t look to closely at her, Hazel starts her own investigation—focusing on her neighbors.

I had fun writing this story, and I am delighted it has been so well received by readers.

Circling back to the beginning of this blog, if you’re wondering if it’s a good idea to mine your past for story ideas, yes, it is. If you’re wondering if I killed my mailman, no, I did not. 

With the caveat that I write fiction, that is my story, and I’m sticking to it. 

In advance of Agatha Award voting at Malice Domestic at the end of April, all five nominated stories are available online for free reading. Click here: https://www.malicedomestic.net/agatha-awards/copy-of-agatha-nominations. The five short story titles link to pdfs.

If you would like to buy Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy, check with your favorite indie bookstore. You also can buy the book from:

• The publisher (buy the trade paperback and the ebook is included). Click here.
• Barnes & Noble. Click here.
• Amazon. Click here. 
• Amazon UK. Click here. 
• Amazon Canada. Click here.
• Kobo (ebook only). Click here.

Thanks to editors Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer for including "The Postman Always Flirts Twice" in the book, and thanks to Writers Who Kill for allowing me to join you all today.

And now a question for you all: Have you ever had a bad date whose details are begging to be shared? Believe me, we all want to know. Here is your chance!

Barb Goffman  www.barbgoffman.com

Current Agatha Award finalist for "A Matter of Trust," from Three Strikes—You’re Dead! Read it here on my website. Or if you prefer to read a PDF, click here.

Current Agatha Award finalist for "The Postman Always Flirts Twice," from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy. Read it here.

Current Derringer Award finalist for the anthology Murder, Neat