Ride it out
Sometimes, a book can be daunting to work on, even in the earliest stages. I’m going through that right now.
I’ve been identified as a crime and thriller author for fifteen years. I ran as fast as I could away from the label of “Mexico guy” to the Camaro Espinoza novels, and as that phase of my career faded, I ran from her, too. I still have one more Camaro book waiting in the editing stage, but my days of writing that sort of novel are over.
Luckily, I have an opportunity to do something different, thanks to the folks at Betimes Books. They were kind enough to publish The Guilty a couple of months ago, opening the door to the kind of fiction I always wanted to write in the first place. Weighty books with equally weighty themes. Perhaps with genre elements, but with the through line being more than thrills.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been wrestling with a challenging book. I’m only in the outline stage, but it’s been emotionally exhausting to work on. Today, I decided I needed to step back with the outline incomplete, talk to my therapist, and find my way back to the story when I’m mentally prepared.
This may happen to you, too, if you work with something heavier than genre-centered work. One day, you’ll be prepping, and suddenly you’re crying. That means you’re cutting close to the bone, and the book will be that much better when it’s done.