Saying Good-bye Is Hard to Do

WHEN I first began writing, I wanted to do a book with a female detective as a lead. Long before I became a fan of mysteries and thrillers, I was faithfully reading Sue Grafton, and I became a big fan of Kinsey Millhone. I also loved the Noir movies from the 1940s, which I used to watch on television when I was a kid. My first crush was on Humphrey Bogart (I cried when I found out he died before I was born). Of course, my female detective had to have Noirish aspects to her story.
  But I knew that was too ambitious a project for a newbie writer. Instead, I began a series based on that sound piece of advice that one should write about what one knows. I had experienced culture shock after moving from a California Bay Area suburb to a middling neighborhood in Southwest Washington, and I thought it would be interesting to use an amped up version of my own story to create the premise for the Matty Cruz Adventure series.
  By the time I finished the fifth book, The Couper Vendetta, I felt I had the writing chops to attempt that female detective series I truly wanted to do. I began planning the first book in my head while writing The Couper Conundrum. I even had the cover for Fallen Angel created by my graphic designer. I was so anxious to start that I briefly debated setting aside the last Matty Cruz book and beginning the new series. Fortunately, I came to my senses, and I persevered.
  To satisfy my desire to get started on my new project, I did put a parallel story for Carol Karuso (a prequel for her series) in the last Matty Cruz book. I also created a high-level outline for Fallen Angel, and I began reading a series of classic American detective novels to get that Noirish flair going in my mind.
  Finally in January 2016, I published The Couper Conundrum. Then something happened that I didn’t expect. I had a hard time letting Matty Cruz go. Since I’m using her best friend, Carol Karuso, many of the characters (including Matty), and the Couper, Washington setting for the new books, you might wonder how that could be. The truth is that Carol’s point of view is vastly different from Matty’s, and since the new series would be seen from her eyes, everything would change.
  But isn’t that what I wanted? Yes, but that didn’t mean I should give short shrift to Matty’s books. There were a few nice-to-do tasks for that series that I had put off until I had the time (which never came), and I couldn’t let them go. Half-way through the rough draft of Fallen Angel, I set it aside and took out that task list for Matty, and I did my best for her. I even paid to have better covers done for the print versions of the books, even though I sell very few of those. Finally, when the last item was crossed off, I bid Matty a fond farewell, at least for the time being, and went back to Carol Karuso.
  For those readers who are bemoaning the delay this caused, let me reassure you that at the same time I was putting the final touches to the Matty Cruz series, I was doing research for the new one. Carol Karuso is a fledgling private investigator and I’m determined to make her believable. I also want to inject that Noir spin to her tale. The more research I did, the more I began to realize that this first book, and the whole new series, would take longer to write than Matty’s story because Carol’s road to redemption is a tougher and more complex one.
  My fingers are crossed that everything I did attracts more people to the Matty Cruz Adventure series, and what I’m doing now makes Fallen Angel a book worth waiting for. Time, hopefully well spent, will tell.