Karen McCullough

This breaks my heart:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/barbara-mertz-writer-better-known-as-barbara-michaels-and-elizabeth-peters-dies-at-85/2013/08/08/e92bb442-004b-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html

Her books are among my very favorites, and she’s been one of the biggest influences on my own writing.

Ammie, Come Home, written under the Barbara Michaels pseudonym, is still one of the scariest novels I’ve ever read, and probably still my favorite. Among my other favorites are Into the Darkness, Witch, Wait for What Will Come, Prince of Darkness, and all of the Vicki Bliss novels, which she published as Elizabeth Peters.

Her stories had an almost perfect mix of adventure, mystery, suspense, romance and humor. Her characters were intelligent and acted like it. A lot of the Barbara Michaels books had paranormal elements, sometimes things that stretched credulity, but she could make them believable by the way she based them in historical fact and a sharply, observed, detailed setting.

RIP, Barbara Mertz. You will be missed, but you’ve left us a wonderful legacy of special stories.

I’ve been writing for almost thirty years now and I’ve been published for twenty of those. I write mystery, romantic suspense, paranormal, fantasy, romance, and science fiction. Frequently I combine several genres in the same book. Nearly all my books are described with more than a single genre label. A GIFT FOR MURDER is mystery with romantic elements, while A QUESTION OF FIRE is romantic suspense and WIZARD’S BRIDGE is romantic fantasy.

I recently outdid myself for crossing genres with my original ebook, THE WIZARD’S SHIELD, which (I swear!) has elements of mystery, fantasy, suspense, adventure, romance, and possibly science fiction.

It’s fun to let my imagination take me wherever it wants to go, but it’s not a great strategy for career success.

Most people who build a following do so by writing a series of similar books or at least books in the same genre. Think Stephen King, Janet Evanovich, J.K. Rowling, etc. (Some are even accused of writing the same book over and over, but that’s a different blog post.) Most authors find success only when they are known for doing a particular kind of book or series. Not necessarily the same book, but similar to each other in some important ways. Publishers and fans expect it.

So I knew that writing so many different sorts of books would practically guarantee I’d never go far in the publishing world. And yet I’ve done it anyway.

I had to.

I don’t know if I have a short attention span or get bored easily, but I find it drains me to do two books in a row in the same genre. I keep wanting to do something new and different with each new story I start. I need a new challenge, a fresh direction.

It’s not like I’ve ever made a decision to write in multiple genres. It’s just worked out that way. I can only write the stories my creative brain comes up with.

Apparently I have a wide-ranging imagination, and one that refuses to be contained in the same box time after time.

When it came down to making a choice between writing what needed to be written and writing what might give me a chance for a more successful career, I chose the path of writing what I had to write.

Smashwords is having their Summer/Winter sale during the month of July, and my books are included in the promotion!

Free books:

Programmed for Danger  (Coupon code: SW100)

The Night Prowlers (Coupon code: SW100)

Books that are half off:

A Gift for Murder (Just $2.00 with coupon code: SSW50)

A Question of Fire (Just $2.00 with coupon code: SSW50)

The Wizard’s Shield (Just $2.00 with coupon code: SSW50)

My blog is feeling terribly neglected these days, and it has every right to feel that way.  I’m afraid I haven’t paid much attention to it for the last few weeks.

There’s a good reason for my distraction: new grandson!

Cassian James Gerdon was born on May 9, 2013 at 7 pounds 9 ounces!