Difficult Books
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I was so happy at finishing my most recent book on Thursday that my sigh of relief might have been heard miles away.
This book was the sixth book in a series and my 20th book altogether (not counting the box sets). But this book was a reminder to me that sometimes it doesn’t get easier as we go. Or, really, that each book is just different.
It was the hardest book to write (aside from Hickory Smoked Homicide in 2011…a book I nearly deleted in frustration several weeks before deadline). And it was the book I’ve run behind the worst on. I’m releasing it a month later than planned. It needed a lot of extra time to make it a really solid mystery. I’m happy with it now, but there were many things that made the writing of this book complex:
Writing something different. I’ve never tried writing a cold case before and it was trickier than I thought. Incorporating the past in a meaningful and interesting way (while using an amateur sleuth, though she is a gifted amateur) made it a real challenge.
Writing independently after writing this series for Penguin-Random House. This was the first book in the series since I got the rights to my characters back. I’ve wanted to make sure that the transition for readers was fairly seamless–I didn’t want them to even know or notice that I was publishing the books myself. I wanted the story to be just as good, the editing just as careful. The one big change is the cover, which had to be different since the previous designs were copyrighted by Penguin.
Writing totally solo where before the series work had been collaborative. My editor for this series always worked really well with me–bouncing ideas, easily seeing what the story needed more of. It’s been weird working on this book without her input. I’ve tried to look at the book through her eyes and think about the kinds of things that she would point out.
Writing something personally affecting. I’ve decided that, in the future, it’s probably not the best idea to base any of my characters on living people or pets. It wasn’t very easy writing the dog into the book as a living character when my corgi passed away around about chapter two.
But…what’s good about difficult books? They help me realize I can make it through the toughest projects and craft a good book at the end, despite the hurdles and the days of mediocre writing. It took longer to clean the book up this time, but I felt amazing when I finished the book yesterday.
Do you remember your writing experience specific to particular books? Were there some that caused you more trouble than others?
As a separate note, I’ve heard from many writers who’ve subscribed to my blog posts that they’ve had problems receiving posts this year. I switched to a new plugin and have had some issues…issues I hope are straightened out now! Welcome back to the email subscription, if you’ve been out of the loop for a while…and my apologies for the problem!
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