To be honest it’s a pretty fucking cool thing to be but there’s a lot to it. Like anything. It’s not as simple as writing a story. (Good on you if you actually think writing is easy or ever simple.)
You have to write, be published, and be on all the *social media, and constantly be accessible. And then you have to deal with the loonies. That very much depends on your genre though.
Different genres breed different levels of loon.
I write crime thrillers or crime whatever. It appears that the loon level that goes with that is very high. (Not meaning there are more loons but the level of lunacy.) If we could measure lunacy on a scale 0 -10 … the lunatics lurking around the crime genre fetch a nice fat 9. They are very special.
In times past I have detailed some of the lunacy in various blog posts because it’s absolutely fucking nuts. I even made a poster out of comments from one particular lunatic.
Consider me talking about crazy fans and just plain crazy people as a public service. A wee warning for unaware new authors. You will get your own special loons. Just wait. 🙂

*FYI, I am not on ALL the social media.
You should all know by now how I feel about TikTok and its info-gathering for China.
I have considered a burner dedicated to that but haven’t got there yet. It’s not a high priority. I have enough on my plate but I will sort that burner out one day.

I was thinking about generations this morning. I’m gen Jones, in fact, all my closest friends are generation Jones. We are the generation that grew into teenagers from the mid-70s to the early 80s. Often children of the Boomers and parents of Millenials and Gen Zs. We’re the overlooked generation after the Boomers and before Gen X (we are the end of the Boomer and the beginning of Gen X but we don’t fit in either). We are the ones who will change retirement homes because we will do it our way. You can shove your group events and bingo nights firmly up your bums.
We’re the jean-wearing, loud music-playing, very much into tech generation. We were children during the Vietnam war. Our first TV news experiences were unfiltered images of war. We learnt that napalm sticks to kids because we saw the footage. We’re well-rounded like that.
We had techless childhoods (we played outside, played in the bush, did whatever and came home for tea) but were still young enough to grab tech with delighted hands as soon as it emerged. We had the Bay City Rollers, The Clash, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols, and Elvis died while we were teens … our listening pleasure remains eclectic. I think it’s because for the most part we were exposed to everything. There were no filters to protect us from anything. We survived (mostly).
I don’t know why I was thinking about generations except perhaps that it is so very very easy to horrify, disrespect, and otherwise upset Zoomers. They’re a far cry from Gen Jones, that’s for sure as eggs.

Anywho, writing … slowly working my way back to it after a piece of something flew from my fingers. Not sure what it will be but it’s got Ronnie and Crockett so good chance it’ll be a Veronica Tracey Spy/PI novel. 🙂 It’s working title is [Charlie India Alpha] just for funsies.

I mentioned (while at the library today) that I’ll probably be in to talk about a book launch for June/July. I feel like [Whiskey Tango Foxtrot] might benefit from a proper launch. This series has been way too low-key and needs to pick up its game and fast!
Such fun.
Yes, the launch will involve cake but it’ll probably be a carrot cake. I’m done with fruit cake for a while.
[I make amazing carrot cake.]

If you’d like to be part of the Veronica Tracey Spy/PI series picking up its game then by all means please share any posts regarding the individual books or the first boxed set you see on social media. I’d much appreciate it. Would be nice if it did well enough to cover the cost of printing the books. 🙂

Have a great day!

PS: I’m teaching via CEC this Feb. Introduction to crime writing if you’re in the Wellington Region then sign up and come along. Trust me when I say it’ll be fun.

PS: I’m also teaching with Margot Kinberg online this Feb. We are teaching a seminar in crime writing, so if you live wherever you can sign up for a co-tutored online (Zoom and Google classrooms) seminar here: Writing Wrongs

Let 2023 be the year you challenged yourself to learn to write crime novel (or short stories).