Letting Go

By Kait Carson

 When I lost my day job during the Covid pandemic, I decided to follow my dream and become a full-time writer. I envisioned myself like Jo in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. I’d retire to my writing lair and pound out the words. Problem was, it had been a long time since I wrote any new words. Writing is like a muscle. It needs constant exercise. A little light lifting seemed in order. Rather than dive into a new story, I figured it was best to edit and re-release my previously published books. My rights to the Hayden Kent series had reverted and, to be frank, there wasn’t much revision needed to get them ready for prime time. They’d been through two rounds of professional edits before publication, and they were also technologically contemporary. Once they were in hand, I polished and independently published the third offering in the series, Death Dive.

Then came the hard part. I had a sparse catalogue of published novels– two prior self-published books, and an ambitious ‘works in waiting’ catalogue. What are those? Stories I’d completed, edited, and then, oh look, something shiny appeared and I shelved them. The Southernmost Secrets stories are traditional mysteries with a cozy edge set in the Florida Keys. They need updating. Not for plot or style, but for setting. That’s a problem with writing stories set in the Keys. Hurricanes come through and the landscape changes. Sometimes significantly.

Rather than tackle the Florida Keys re-writes, I returned to my roots, the first novel I’d self-published in the early 2010s. I was proud of the Catherine Swope stories. At the time I wrote them, I was working an insane number of hours at a full-time job. I knew my marketing time would be limited. I felt lucky to have time to write. For those reasons, I opted to indie publish and not solicit an agent or submit the work to a small press. The thought of deadlines gave me hives.

When I returned to the Swope books, I expected extensive revisions to the text and updating to modernize the dated technology. I’d grown since those days, and learned a lot as a writer. I was prepared to apply that knowledge to the revisions. Turned out, I wasn’t prepared for what I discovered as I reread the first of novel.

While the book held up in terms of story and plot, it contained references to a real-life incident of a Me Too nature that I had witnessed, reported, and was essentially told, “boys will be boys”. The event galled me enough to include it as an inciting incident in the victim’s death. Me Too hadn’t existed in 2010. To bring the plot into the 2020s required a new storyline, one I’m not ready to write, and maybe never will be. Rather than attempt a rewrite, I decided to shelve it. As a result, I’ve removed the Catherine Swope mysteries from my catalogue. The decision wasn’t easy, but it was the right one, for now.

I’m deep in edits for No Return, the first of a new series set in Maine, and I’ve outlined the next book of the Hayden Kent series. Perhaps when I finish those, I’ll return to the Swope series. Ya never can tell.

Writers, have you ever abandoned a work and removed it from your catalogue? Readers, have you ever read a novel and thought the author should remove it?

 Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries set in the Fabulous Florida Keys and is at work on a new mystery set in her adopted state of Maine. Her short fiction has been nationally published in True Romance, True Confessions, True Story, True Experience, and Woman’s World magazines, and in the Falchion Finalist Seventh Guppy Anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, a member of Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and of Sisters in Crime New England. Visit her website at www.kaitcarson.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter and receive a yummy, authentic, key lime pie recipe.