That\u2019s where I am right now, in that odd place where I\u2019ve finally delivered a manuscript that took fifteen months to create, and I\u2019m waiting to hear back from my editor.<\/p>\n
Years ago, while reading Agatha Christie\u2019s autobiography, I learned that\u2019s the time when she was usually convinced that she would never write another book. Turns out, that\u2019s where I was, too, until a couple of days ago. Of course, having already sold the next Joanna Brady book, not writing it isn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n
During the winter in Seattle, I write in the family room. During the spring and summer and often well into fall (with the help of overhead heating) I can sit out on the back porch.<\/p>\n
So this week, while I was thinking and NOT writing \u2026 (Yes, Mr. Short-Tail is alive and well. He\u2019s on the bird feeder right now, and although he can fly much better now, he still generally stays put when I\u2019m walking by. But I digress!)<\/p>\n
I was sitting here thinking when a totally suitable bad guy for the next Joanna Brady book popped into my head. And now, hang onto your hats, because here comes another digression.<\/p>\n
In 1982, when I sat down to write my first novel, it was a thinly fictionalized version of a true crime story about my first husband\u2019s and my encounter with a serial killer in Tucson in 1970. I thought up a great title By Reason of Insanity\u2014but the book was never published, and for good reason. It was far too long, for one thing\u20141300 pages\u2014and even pared down to 650, it still didn\u2019t sell. <\/p>\n
I have no doubt that part of the reason it didn\u2019t sell had to do with it being my first ever attempt. I\u2019m sure it wasn\u2019t nearly ready for prime time, so I put that one in the bottom of a drawer and left it there. <\/p>\n
More than twenty years later, at an event in Pinetop, Arizona, I met the daughter of one of that real serial killer\u2019s victims. And although her father\u2019s murderer was then and still is incarcerated in the Arizona penal system, that woman\u2014a second generation victim\u2014is still suffering. What I felt in that moment was incredible gratitude that that original book had never been published, because the families and friends of homicide victims never get over the senseless loss of their loved one.<\/p>\n
Now jump forward another twenty-plus years. I was sitting here minding my own business thinking about the bad guy I\u2019d just encountered in my head, when I remembered that long ago and long abandoned title\u2014By Reason of Insanity.<\/p>\n
Turns out it\u2019s a perfect fit. So all you Joanna Brady fans out there, Joanna # 20 is coming. The baby has a name\u2014By Reason of Insanity. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m currently 3000 words to the good. Only 93,000 to go, but who\u2019s counting? And my period of postpartum depression is now officially over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That\u2019s where I am right now, in that odd place where I\u2019ve finally delivered a manuscript that took fifteen months to create, and I\u2019m waiting to hear back from my editor. Years ago, while reading Agatha Christie\u2019s autobiography, I learned that\u2019s the time when she was usually convinced that she would never write another book. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-Og","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3117,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions\/3117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}