Thanks for all the great comments, everyone! I wish you all luck in the contest. I share my own birthday with Eric Matthews from BOY MEETS WORLD. Wish it were someone cooler.
Thanks, Brenda. I think I'd freak out, too, if I woke up next to a dead man, or a strange live man. Some things are more fun to write than to actually live them.
Pam, I think that's exactly right. We all start with a bit of ourselves, and then take it off somewhere else. But at a certain point, good characters really do take on lives of their own, and that's great.
Patricia, I think some people have lost a sense of that privacy sphere. But if they don't care that they're spilling their business, they can't care when other people listen.
Pamela, I like the combination of mystery and humor, too, not just as a writer, but also as a reader. Look at Alyson's comment -- things that are both funny and sad happen all the time in life.