I also met with a sergeant in Collier County’s vice and narcotics bureau, Smitty, who took me on a walk and filled my head with all kinds of glorious police details and stories.
Really driving me on this book, you see, was the desire to make it as authentic as anything I’d written yet. Also, I didn’t want to write anything about politics or government conspiracies, which I’d been doing quite a lot of. But to the hammer, the world is full of nails, and I soon ferreted out some juicy conspiracies in the stories Smitty told. Nothing major, but just enough to keep me hungry while writing, to see how it all worked out.
Also driving me was the possibility of a solid crime series with a recurring character. My first published book, Habit, had a good character in Brendan Healy, but at the time I wasn’t interested in taking a protagonist through one case after another. I was wide-eyed with ideas about big business and governments colluding, sex scandals and the military-industrial complex all entwining in a sinister way. And while I’ll never regret writing the Titan trilogy, it’s just a fact that a series of standalone books with the same protagonist do better than a trilogy, and I have kids to feed.
In the midst of all of this thinking about what to write, trying to be sensible about it, is the writing itself. Today, I’m convinced that writing is a path which never ends. And along the way, you realize certain things you held as esteemed truths are not necessarily true, that there is really no standard of writing which crosses genres, no real pinning down the alchemy. Something either just works, or it doesn’t. All you can do in the meantime as you practice your craft is listen, and try things. So for years I’d been listening to my publisher / editor, and other writers, and trying things, and this new book was going to showcase my best effort at tight, stripped-down writing.
Finally, my publisher has been growing in size and success, and so their standard of books has been rising. So getting Dead Gone through the edits and publication prep took longer than any of my previous books. It grew frustrating, because there’s that part of me which wondered – shouldn’t this be getting easier? But it doesn’t seem to be the way. You journey on, the ascent steepens, the responsibility increases. I think Nietzsche said something to that effect.
So now here we are. The book is out, the reviews are starting to come in. It’s no longer mine, it belongs to the world.
I’m always comparing writing to pregnancy and parenting, and this is no exception. This part – the release of the book – I imagine to be what it’s like to drop your grown child off at college. Yes, it’s like birth, too – I know I’m mixing metaphors – but this moment really feels like watching your child walk off onto the campus.
This thing you spent so much time with, gave everything you had to, went through all manner of emotions with, and now there they go. Just like that. No parades, no one to place a medal around your neck (or theirs), just another day, another soul gone into the fold.
*Sigh*
But, it’s good! The journey continues, there are more stories to raise up and send off into the world. And I thank you for being with me.
