January is speeding along. I’m busy working on edits for my novel, The Outsider, that is scheduled for publication in August. It’s a bit of a departure from my Hollyhill books and is more the traditional historical romance. My Hollyhill books are family dramas with lots of different characters while in The Outsider the story centers around the heroine and hero in the book.
I’ve written lots of different books. The first book I wrote way back when was a Gothic. It never saw the light of day because gothics were going out of style before I got it off to an agent. I hadn’t noticed that in my little corner of the world, and really I was too young to know I needed to pay attention to market demands. I may still be too young. Well, I can’t say actually young although I still feel young most of the time. Except after I’ve run after the grandkids all day. Just saying I have grandkids proves I’m not so young. Right? But grandkids are worth having a few gray hairs and aching joints.
But back to the different kinds of books I’ve written. After the gothic, I tried historical romance and published a couple of those. I enjoyed the historical romance genre and might have stuck to writing those if the editors had cooperated. So then I tried young adult novels. Published eleven of those for young adults and middle readers. Really enjoyed writing those too. It’s fun getting fan letters from readers just discovering the magic of books. But alas, the editors stopped cooperating again. I wrote a couple of mysteries. Tried some other things, but then decided to do as the writing experts say and write what I knew. And that was small town country life. So I came up with Jocie and her family and friends and now I’m enjoying writing these family stories where people live and love, laugh and cry, and do their best to be the kind of person the Lord wants them to be.
That’s sort of me. I’m just trying to write the best stories I can and hoping people will be glad they picked up my books to read. And of course, I’m a work in progress as a Christian as all of us are.
Next time I’ll share some of the ways I actually put all those words on paper over the years.
It tried to snow here today, but it didn’t last. Snow your way? Or are you in the sunny south?
See you next time.
Ann