Back in 2004 I was writing about a character named Shelly. At that time I was thinking about how to do a series of drowning stories as well. I wanted to write about a series of drownings but wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it.
I was intrigued by the TV reality show Survivor and the way contestants were eliminated. It occurred to me that I could write something along those lines where “contestants” were eliminated by way of drowning. As I recall, that is what first got me thinking about it. But first I had to come up with the contestants, especially since I wanted them to be females for the most part.
I wasn’t sure about using a large number of females in a voluntary situation, knowing that all but one would eventually be eliminated by drowning. My thinking was that it would certainly take a large amount of money to entice enough women to willfully risk their lives. Thus, it seemed like an easier solution to force these females into this situation. The trick was in where to find them.
It occurred to me that if I used women who were on death row and were already condemned, the idea of drowning them would be easier to swallow, especially since justice demanded it. All I had to do was come up with some manner in which it would come across as presentable. That’s when I got the idea of an island populated by death row inmates where life was precious but death was a part of life.
I gave it some thought and set up the Survivor elimination contests into a series of challenges the woman would have to face while they were on the island. Ultimately I decided they would all be executed except for one, satisfying the requirements of the State. I made it where only the strong survive – ie., strength in contests and endurance.
Ultimately I threw in the situation where all inhabitants of the island except for the Boss were subject to execution as they were all guilty of capital crimes. That allowed the possibility of drowning someone other than the females recently brought over from the states. It turned into a series where the inmates developed relationships with each other, struggling to survive together by improving their abilities in the water, even so far as drawing alliances with each other during certain contests.
The result was my series called The Island of Female Death-row Inmates. I wrote the early chapters from 2004 through 2006 before taking a three year sabbatical. Then I finished up the series in 2009. I hope you enjoy it as I now begin to present the chapters to you one by one, starting with the first one…