This post by Elizabeth Spann Craig originally appeared on her blog on 5/21/14.
I’ve just finished the latest Southern quilting mystery—book five in that series, due to release in late 2015. So that means, right now, I’m no longer under a contract until Penguin decides if they’d like to acquire more books for the series (likely something they would determine after seeing sales figures for book four, coming out in August).
For the first time…ever, really…the only project I have to work on is my self-published Myrtle Clover series. I started book seven at my usual full throttle, and then slowed my writing pace down a bit and decided to take a more thoughtful approach.
I have a completed outline for the book. The mystery looks pretty sound. Readers told me they especially wanted more humor and the book’s outline has plenty included.
But then I remembered some of the other emails I’ve gotten. Readers have been writing me and mentioning things they’d like to see in my Myrtle stories. Others wrote that they were “so glad to hear more about____”. I remember reading these emails and being baffled because the elements the readers liked and wanted to hear more about seemed very incidental to the story.
But I know by now that anything readers like, even if it seems incidental to me, is simply a sign that I’m not getting it.
Click here to read the full post on Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog.