Green shoots
Dear Blog,
I know that’s not your real name but I like to feel that I am writing to someone instead of just spilling words into the ether.
I am excited! And excited when I thought I might feel a little anticlimactic and sad. When I began my Shropshire Mysteries, I planned to write four books in the series, which, now that Bones of Caer Caradoc is in the editing process, I have done. Now that we’ve reached our milestone, Georgie and Marianne need a break. They’ve had a pretty intense year and neither I nor they want them to get stale. They have many more adventures to come, not least Marianne’s mission to Devon to find justice, but for now they deserve some time to themselves without any murders to disturb their peace.
Realisation of this made me feel a bit lost. What am I going to do? What am I going to write about now? I toyed with doing a spin-off series with DS Corby at its centre, but unless I move her to a new place, I have to remove Georgie from Shropshire, which I don’t want to do. This is Georgie and Marianne‘s home and where they belong, just like it is for me. When you’ve had a rootless past and you find a place that you love, your home becomes precious to you.
Time then to look for something and somewhere new. Do I stay with straightforward crime fiction, in the style of a police procedural — although I’m never sure that my books fit neatly into that box? Do I move across genres and stay with crime but go towards the cosy end? I discovered recently that there is a whole category on Amazon devoted to ‘cosy hobbies and crafts mysteries’ and another called ‘cosy food mysteries’. If only I’d known that before, I could have used Marianne‘s baking prowess and made my books cosy food mysteries, but the Shropshire landscape to me doesn’t lend itself to cosiness.
Where then? Somewhere with cream teas and quirky characters? I trawled back through my life for places that I know well. I’ve spent a lot of time in Devon when I used to surf and hang out in campervans, and I’d always thought that I might set my next series of books there. Why then am I drawn to Somerset? I went to boarding school there from the age of ten and later my mum moved to Wells, so I’ve had a connection with the area for well over 40 years. Could that be the place for fresh adventures?
And then, of course, I have to find new friends with whom to have those adventures. Little seeds are germinating in my brain and every morning when I take my lovely dog Suki for a walk, I give those seeds a little more water and a little more warmth so that green shoots are just poking above the ground.
Like any time of new life, it is exciting, and reminds me of the joy in writing. Why I do what I do. As an indie author, it is easy to get lost in the whole marketing/editing/business side of things. Thanks to the writing gods* for a wonderful reminder of the joy in doing what I do and the great privilege of having found readers who enjoy my stories. A childhood dream come true.
*Elif Shafak was recently talking about an ancient goddess of writing who I think must have been the Egyptian goddess Seshat, often seen as wife, daughter or sister to Thoth, the god of writing. Seshat invented writing and Thoth taught man to write, so let’s remember that when it comes to discussions about whether women should be taken seriously as writers.
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