Lois posed an excellent question to me recently: How do you manage to write in two different genres that appeal to such different readerships?
Wow! The answer is far from simple.
Going back about ten years, I was about a third of the way through what I hoped would be my debut novel. I was struggling because I was writing about a cop, who was supposed to be me—glorified. It wasn't working.
At the same time, I was in an elementary class for beginning writers. One day the instructor passed out photographs in a completely random fashion. Mine was a photograph of two girls looking up at the Mona Lisa. The assignment was to take fifteen minutes and describe the setting. I failed to do as instructed.
You should know I am a pantser, through and through. I had a flash of inspiration about a story. In fifteen minutes, I had an historical novel outlined/plotted on a 3x5 card. Robbers was shelved.
I began writing and realized I was not talented enough to write the story as I envisioned it. I started taking English classes at the local Las Positas Community College and became a straight A student.
When I was a young student living in a beach house with four other young men trying to avoid the draft as long as possible, I was a robust D English student. In our last year together, I never once saw any of us do homework.
The English classes helped, but not enough. I needed fiction writing. I discovered and enrolled in the low-res Master of Fine Arts – Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. My program centered around The Mona Lisa Sisters. I studied with outstanding mentors and a fantastic cohort of fellow students.
I wrote an assignment where my characters met over dinner during a shipboard trip from France to New York. My mentor pointed out that people converse over dinner: Where's the typical dialogue? I rewrote the entire piece and resubmitted it. I may have overdone it. "WTF." He shouted. Then he said something about not everyone at the table talks after every bite. I had overdone it.
Two years later, with my thesis and something like forty-eight great books read, and my MFA under my belt, I returned to Las Positas College for more instruction.
Then I finished The Mona Lisa Sisters, published by Russian Hill Press.
Returning to what was to become Robbers and Cops was easier than I thought. While still an apprentice in the writing world, I wrote the first of twenty or so rewrites. Allowing my bad guys to tell me their life stories, I found that most of what I had learned writing historical women's literature applied to the police procedural with the exception of time, place, subject matter, and readership.
While I doubt I'll ever write something like The Mona Lisa Sisters again, I gained so much in the process I will always have fond memories of the experience.
Robbers and Cops was released last November.
Currently, I am in the midst of a series, The Hector Miguel Navarro Novels. The first book, New Liberty, will be released on May 9, 2023, and is available for pre-order. I will release Book II, New Liberty – Unfinished Business, in the fall.
A Hector Miguel Navarro Novel, Book 1
Outside Phoenix, two gangs rule...
...and one police officer is caught in the middle.
How will he stop them?
Hector's parents, wealthy east coast college professors, raised him to work towards making the world a better place. In New Liberty, Arizona, gangs have ravaged the city. As a young police officer who lost his mentor, he struggles with the question.
Why did his partner kill himself?
Across town, a sickly-looking, small man approaching fifty is about to make a move. DeShawn "The Knife" Galloway has a reputation as a contract assassin who prefers to kill with the Japanese Tanto.
It's time to take control.
The war will start on his terms.
In a world of human trafficking, drugs, and violence, two people's lives are about to be intertwined in a way where only one can survive.
Buy Links (preorder now, available May 9th)
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