literary agents

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone!

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After my most recent book Smashing Castles; how a young autistic woman discovered her authentic self came out earlier this year, I’d planned to finish writing a suspense novel I started several years ago. Then there was the women’s utopia book I’d been researching. But a spark of inspiration from a personal encounter urged me to move Up Close and Personal to the front of the list.

My usual genre is psychological suspense — light on physical violence, heavy on mental manipulation — but Up Close is definitely more thriller.  I’d initially envisioned Up Close to be a fun, quirky story about a newly retired journalist who routinely embarrasses her family by asking controversial questions of strangers.

Then I met two New York literary agents at Sleuthfest 2019. After hearing my long, convoluted telling of a feel good story that eventually turns harrowing, they both urged me to write Up Close as a thriller. I protested vehemently that I don’t write James Bond; snipers, bombs, and jumping from roofs or trains to catch a bad guy just aren’t part of my repertoire.

Both agents told me that if I wanted to get traditionally published this time, I’d need to step it up. They introduced me to the domestic thriller; a style of psychological thriller that focuses on interpersonal relationships, familiar settings, and underlying causes that ignite the whole. It was then that I realized all of my novels, and even my recent book on autism, shared these characteristics.

So I took a gamble and let my writing juices fly. Since May, I’ve visited my Up Close pages five days a week, sometimes writing 1 page, sometimes writing 7. When I sit down at the computer, know what scene (chapter) I’m going to write today, and which characters are involved in that scene. But I have no clue what’s going to transpire; I attempt, sometimes more successfully than other times, to lock my super ego in the closet so I can allow the dialogue I’m hearing in my head to just flow.

And, yes, Up Close will be published through a traditional publisher — this I promise. Please help me make that happen!

Self-Publishing Again!

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Yep, I’ve decided to once again self-publish — this time it’s mystery novel Number Four! Instead of sending out queries on Psychobabble to forty or fifty carefully selected literary agents as I’ve done in the past, I only reached out to half that number. When I failed to receive a bite, I did not flush my word marbles down the toilet. That’s because a psychic I trust told me my best chance to get my newest psychological suspense novel up and running was to go the self-publishing route.


This psychic was one year off about when my daughter would get pregnant, so you’d think I would have learned my lesson. But in my heart — as well as in my accumulated knowledge base — I know self-publishing is the correct choice for me.


I’ve already had a psychologist, a mystery author, and several Beta readers (mystery fans) read and critique my manuscript.  Although I was unable to hook CPD detectives to review my manuscript for accuracy, I still can hit up detectives I’ve met through the Sheriff’s Citizens Police Academy in North Carolina. (Notice I’ve said “met,” as in you gotta do the footwork and can’t just rely on the Internet and CSI.)


For the back cover, I plan to get book blurbs by the psychologist and mystery author. Writing a tantalizing couple of paragraphs that will hook the reader to read the book is more tricky and takes me days to accomplish. (I ask my book editor to critique those paragraphs before proceeding.)


Stay tuned for my next post on my further adventures in self-publishing! Be sure to send me your comments or questions, too!