The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Written
It’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything other than a book review. Why?
Well, first of all I doubled the amount of children in my house. I had a baby girl at the beginning of the summer, and she and my son have been keeping me extremely busy.
The other thing keeping me extremely busy is my latest project, which I call Murder Rom Com because it is a rom com with murder. And it is by far the hardest thing I have ever written. It nearly broke my brain about 500 times, but I sent an early draft off to a few readers last week, so I thought I’d talk about it for a minute.
So, why was it the hardest thing I’ve ever written? For one thing, it’s a genre blend. Part murder mystery, part rom com. I love a good genre blend, but man they are tough to write. I’ve only ever written romance, so tackling a mystery was quite the challenge. Second, there is a large cast of characters, which I’m not used to. Those group scenes with so many characters? WOW. So difficult. And then of course there’s coming up with the murder and clues and making it hard enough but not so hard it doesn’t make any sense.
I’m a plotter, but I’ve never plotted so detailed as I did with this. I had to make sure every piece was exactly right before I started. I spent about a month planning, which is a lot for me. Hours and hours going over details, creating timelines for every character. Of course things changed and I added things, but overall I could never have written it without the extensive planning. I don’t know how mystery / suspense writers pants it. I’ve read that a few really popular ones do and it blows my mind.
The truth is, I don’t know if it’s any good. That’s why I had to send it to a few readers (who knew nothing about it) much earlier than I normally would. I don’t know if I’m on the right track. I’m very excited for them to read it… but also thinking about people reading it makes me want to throw up. Like a lot.
But I will say this is by far the most proud I’ve been of a manuscript. I mean yes I’ve been proud of all of them, but this one feels special. Maybe because it was so incredibly hard. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, it definitely feels like a huge accomplishment.
