AUTHOR ANNE LOUISE BANNON ON JUGGLING GENRES AND THE VOICES IN HER HEAD

Author Anne Louise Bannon’s husband says that his wife kills people for a living. Bannon does mostly write mysteries, including the Old Los Angeles Series, the Freddie and Kathy series, and the Operation Quickline series. She has worked as a freelance journalist for magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. She and her husband, Michael Holland, created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog, and she co-wrote a book on poisons. Learn more about Anne and her books at her website.

Switching It Up

I am writing the final book in a time travel trilogy. I am thinking about a new cozy mystery series, and a new historical mystery series. I’ve also got my cozy spy series currently running on my blog. Not to mention a new tech thriller coming out in June.

 

What?

 

Am I crazy?

 

Well, yeah. Of course, I am. But I don’t read only one type of fiction. Why would I write only one type?

 

How do I keep all these different projects straight? That is harder to answer. Some of it is my native creative process. Since I tend to “hear” my writing before putting anything on the screen, my characters all sound very different to me. Jannie Miller, the protagonist in the thriller, Running Away to Boston, sounds nothing like Lisa Wycherly, who is the protagonist of the Operation Quickline series, book ten of which, From This Day Forward, is the serial currently running on my blog. Even more distinct is Maddie Wilcox of the Old Los Angeles series (the most recent release there is Death of an Heiress).

 

Even when I’m writing in third person, as I do in the time travel trilogy, it all sounds different to me.

 

Then there are the different tools I use to keep everything straight. Most of them are apps, such as Evernote, Aeon Timeline, Scrivener. But I still have plenty of paper on my desk, along with pens (including several dip pens that I use for the fun of it.)

 

Ultimately, I am telling a story, and the genre that the story happens to fall into is not usually what I’m thinking about when the characters are busy acting out their scenes in my head. The recently released Time Enough, the second in the time travel trilogy isn’t about time travel, per se. It’s about Robin Parker and Roger York and all the other characters that populate this world that I made up. From This Day Forward isn’t really about the spy business. It’s about Lisa and her new husband Sid Hackbirn and how they’re figuring out what being married is. The spy part is what they do for their jobs. Running Away to Boston isn’t about computer viruses and man-in-the-middle attacks. It’s about Jannie Miller and how she and her friends go up against this evil corporation creating a nasty virus.

 

The trick is marketing these different stories. People want to know what genre a story is to make it easier to decide what to read and what not to read. I get that. So I tell people about what kind of book a given story is and hope that it comes through. Because, trust me, no one knows what a cozy spy novel is. But that’s the story my brain wanted to tell, and I went with it.

 

So if I ask you to kindly consider reading the Operation Quickline series, please understand that Lisa and Sid are a lot of fun, and hopefully, people that you might recognize doing some pretty scary things. Same with Jannie Miller. And Robin and Roger, and all the other people in my head.

 

Because there is a real blessing to switching things up, writing-wise. I’m seldom bored with what I’m writing, which means my stories get more interesting as I go on. And I hope, more interesting for you.

 

From This Day Forward

An Operation Quickline Story

Come, share the joy…

It’s The Big Day. Sid Hackbirn and Lisa Wycherly are getting married. But in the days and weeks before the wedding, the pair discover that there is something very strange going on with their work as ultra-top-secret counter-espionage agents. Courier drops are coming in without the usual processing. The bad guys tailing them are unusually persistent.

 

Then Sid and Lisa take off for their honeymoon only to find that the nice, relaxing vacation in England that they had planned will be anything but. They’re being trained for their new job and will be touring the European continent, instead. Skiing in Gstaad, Switzerland, touring Venice, Italy, doesn’t sound so bad, except that the two get sucked into a dangerous plot, with bad guys trying to kill them. Still, trying to figure out what the potential killers are planning might actually be easier than trying to figure out how to be married.