Type A: A Writer's Journey

As I finalize the very last bits of the publishing process for my long-awaited geopolitical thriller, I can say it's been an arduous, if gratifying, journey.

The three preview readers I gave galleys to for back cover reviews have all come back with blurbs that exceeded my wildest expectations. 

While some may attribute that to talent, I would assert that it's mostly to do with unending fortitude.

While the final chapters took less work, because the rest of the story was formed, the first sections got probably a hundred+ passes, while I moved chapters around numerous times and deleted quite a few others that I determined didn't serve the story.

I think my background as a news editor served me well: I am unattached to anything but producing the best novel I am capable of writing.

Now, I have a confession to make--or several, actually.

1) Although I have certainly seen a few Bond films and knew a decent amount about WWII before I began writing, I have never read an actual spy thriller in my life. 

I wrote this story because it's my family's story and it's my story, and I felt it needed to be told and I had to unravel its secrets for myself, as much as for anyone else.

So to hear from highly qualified readers--including a bestselling historical fiction author, a book store owner and a retired Army colonel who's also a historical fiction author--that I'd hit the mark was a huge relief.

Now for more confessions: I've never read a single tome on novel writing, or taken any classes in it. To be completely transparent, I haven't read that many novels as an adult, although I did read a lot of classics (Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, et al) growing up.

Finally--I never aspired to be a writer, although I admit I was always pretty good at writing non-fiction like news or an essay. I wanted to be a movie star growing up. It turned out I wasn't driven enough or, to be brutally honest, probably thin enough to make it in that business, though I had a few successes as a commercial actress and singer, regardless. And I was a CBS-affiliate TV news anchor long ago, in a small town market.

So I claim the title of "novelist" now with both pride and humility, because I have had both fantastic mentors in the publishing process and a good deal of luck in just meeting people who helped me out with background information and encouraged me overall.

I don't know what my next move will be. I have part of a sequel written, but 2025 will most likely see me focused on marketing the shit out of the new novel. That will also give me time to come up for air after five long, arduous years of research, writing and editing.

If I sound tired, I am. Because while finishing the novel, I was dealing with all the global and personal fallout from Oct. 7th, 2023--a situation still unresolved that hurts my heart so deeply, it's impossible to explain to those who don't understand it themselves.

Life is about endless transitions, and mine now are somewhat sobering. A lot of unknowns lie ahead, as I push further into the back nine of existence.  

We don't really control very much. I try to treat people I meet with dignity and respect, and hope when my life is done that at least a handful of people will remember me as a good human being. I have family, but no kids, so in another fifty years, I imagine I will be nothing but a curiosity for some future great-great niece or nephew to find photos of in a box.

We are all truly dust in the wind. It keeps me humble.

Wishing you all blessings for 2025. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Can you even imagine a woman writing about the quest to find a man of means as part of her personal journey now?

Back in the early 19th century--when Jane Austen wrote most of her now-iconic novels about impecunious young women of good breeding but dire prospects--this was a reality for the gentry class. If you were a woman, who you married framed most of your life, and it was a decision not to be made lightly for that reason.

If you could happen to find a really rich landowner who was also hot, slightly edgy, and a tad vulnerable beneath his dour exterior (Mr. Darcy), well--why not? And if he fell in love with you despite himself having far better financial prospects (because even rich men had to think about the astronomical expenses of maintaining an enormous, drafty estate and manor), so much the better. 

And they all lived happily ever after.

Now we are swimming in stories about equity and diversity that have about as much romantic jjzzzjj as a Walmart greeter.

As with almost anything else, literature has had its soul sucked out by the DEI movement. I attended an online authors' conference today where a publisher spoke with glee about an upcoming book about a transgender kid. Is there really a big audience for this? Are plain ol' straight kids who know what sex they are even allowed to celebrate that reality anymore? I wonder.

I grew up reading great literary fiction like Dickens, Tolstoy, and Harper Lee. Life was certainly not easy in the times these authors wrote about, but they managed to portray it with some kind of dramatic elan that made it delicious to read.

Now authors would be told to refer to poverty as "experiencing financial insecurity," which just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way.

Looking for love? You are "emotionally underserved." Beautiful? "Visually privileged." A bastard? "Born into nuclear insecurity."

DEI is killing the fucking English language, and if authors don't push back, who will save it?  I implore writers everywhere to reclaim language like a buried treasure, polish it up and put it back on display, before the linguistic Titanic on which we are all sailing hits its last iceberg.

One that even climate change won't save.