While I am told AI will do all our thinking for us down the
road, I still pin my hopes on articles I’ve read that explain how to age better
and keep your brain working by changing strategies. For example, try doing
normal activities with your non-dominant hand. Brush your teeth with your left
hand if you’re right-handed. Or mix up your exercise routine because your body
gets used to the same old thing and gets lazy. Over my writing years, I’ve taken
that advice to challenge my brain in the mysteries I write.
My first Endurance mystery, Three May Keep a Secret, was pretty straight-forward. I chose third- person narrative and a linear plot to write my first book. When the publisher told me it would be two years before book two came out, I decided to try a little exercise in change. I researched novellas, writing an 82-page one about my detective, TJ Sweeney, called The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney. Less a cozy than a police procedural, it pushed a different part of my brain. The plot was linear, but I couldn’t use subplots or have the luxury of 300 pages to develop my characters. I had to learn how to self-publish, and it was a big challenge.
When book two, Marry in Haste, came along, I kept the
third-person narrative but added a double plot. My town of Endurance in the
early 2000s versus Endurance in the 1800s were the settings. Creating a whole
history for the setting’s house and a map of the earlier town, I also had to
figure out how to do this double plot so it fit together. That was an exercise
in sheets of paper combining plots all over the floor of my house. It worked,
but it also really pushed my brain.
Eventually, I got an agent who talked me into writing a
trilogy, the Art Center mysteries, which had to be plotted before I even
started writing. One plot was hard enough, but three? Not only did this little
exercise keep me up at night, it also had a huge change to first-person
narrative. I discovered I really liked to write in first-person. I also learned
a lot more about character arcs and series arcs. My Endurance mysteries, so
far, have simply been one book after another with character arcs, so this second
series was a whole new world.
Now, I’ve embarked on a new change in my writing. Back in 2010, I wrote a memoir about my teaching life called The Education of a Teacher (Including Dirty Books and Pointed Looks.) It was creative nonfiction, and I’d never authored a book before. That was sixteen years ago. I published it with a vanity press. It did exceptionally well, selling a few thousand copies. Then, I had the rights reverted a couple of years ago and let the book go out of print.
My new project is to revise this memoir adding a new
introduction and a new cover. It’s been fun for my formatter because we haven’t
had a deadline and have worked at our own speed. I anticipate it will be out in
March or April. My sixteen years of practice have made me a better writer these
days. I’m also doing investigative work on my own. This book has fifteen
stories from my teaching life, and while some are hard to believe, I assure you they really
happened. The only fiction in “creative nonfiction” are the conversations I had
to recreate. Most chapters are centered around a specific student over the
thirty-five years I taught in high school. I’m planning a postscript at the end
of most chapters to reveal where these former students are now and what
happened to them after they left high school. This week, I did a zoom call with
a former student who is now working as an engineer at Nvidia. What an amazing
story he had to tell!
So, stay tuned. We’ll see if I can pull this one off. I’m
having such fun finding these “kids” I knew when they were 16-18 years old. In
several cases, I’d never guess the paths their lives have taken. It’s a whole
new brain challenge, and I’m up for it.
Have you ever moved out of your safe space to try something
totally different? Was it a success?
