Writing on a Whim

Looking at the various genres on my bookshelves, you’d think they belonged to different people.

There’s an urban fantasy series by Chuck Wendig sandwiched between Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy and Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight. On the shelf below sits the coming-of-age story The Second Home by Christina Clancy hobnobbing it with Michelle Obama’s Becoming and the cartoon series Strange Planet from Nathan Pyle. I could go on, but you get the gist.

I’m a terrible fan. People look at me sideways when I say I don’t have a favorite author, book, or genre (at least, I think that’s why they look at me funny). But I grew up with friends and family suggesting books they read and/or thought I’d enjoy. I rarely come across books “in the wild” and am not often in bookstores, even online. Not that I don’t like bookstores—I love them, and my boyfriend and I visit independent bookstores when we travel. I just have so many people giving me so many unique suggestions that my to-read pile only grows.

So it’s no surprise I write the same way. I started with poetry and silly short stories in elementary school and changed to essays as I got older. The internet was still young then, so blog posts weren’t a thing. But after college I became a reporter, wrote a weekly column, and got more comments on that than my daily articles. Apparently, my personal anecdotes were more memorable than my journalistic style.

In my mid-twenties, I thought of writing a book about a quarter-life crisis, and it was the first workable idea I had for a novel. As an English major, with a concentration in writing, I had produced a lot of different projects, but none longer than a dozen pages. But no matter how much I tried to develop the idea, it eventually fell apart and I struggled to figure out what my first real novel would be.

Fast-forward a couple years, when three mass suicide shootings by teenagers happened in one year. This caught my attention, and I started researching the topic. Eventually, my interest grew into a book idea, and three and a half years later I self-published my first novel, a suspense called Letting Go and Holding On. More on that in a later blog post.

But after years of dealing with this heavy subject, my mind and spirit were looking to write something lighter. I had 100 pages I wrote for a Three-Day Novel contest, a story based on a job I had the summer after graduating college watching retired greyhounds. I added two characters based on guys I’d dated, and voilà! My next book, a romcom called Running with Hounds…and an English Degree was born. More to come on that, too.

Now, that process wasn’t as smooth as my first book. Even though I did no research and it was based on real life, it took twice as long to finish. Between my father passing (another blog post) and having breast cancer (oh, you betcha) I had some roadblocks to overcome. But the older I get, the more story ideas I collect. My writing journal contains ideas for a sci-fi dystopia, OC monster fantasy, a play about three sisters, and a satirical self-help book on how to have your best breast cancer. Very different storylines. But now you have a better understanding of why.

I was warned at a conference years ago that writing in various genres would make it difficult to build a fanbase. Then others told me it was more about having a consistent voice, one that’s uniquely mine. There’s also the fact people aren’t writing within strict genre rules anymore. It’s much more common to hear descriptions like, “[Mystery title] meets [magical realism title].”

After mulling over all of that, I’ve decided the best way to market myself is to market myself—be as raw and authentic as I can be. I’ve always hated when others put my personality into specific boxes, so why would I do that? I hope those who feel the same will find their way here, where all stories are welcome.