Five Days To Go

Five Days until my first mystery, Parallel Secrets is released, a few thoughts about starting a new career later in life. 

Like Vicky in Parallel Secrets, a few years ago I was at a crossroads in my career, my life. Vicky is deciding whether to take another job in TV news or try her hand as a true crime travel writer. My first TV job was as a small-town news reporter; my last was General Manager of a major market TV station. In between my family and I moved several times for career reasons. When I retired, I started writing for myself for the first time. I began by writing about my life—by most objective standards I’ve had an interesting one—but for personal reasons set that project aside and turned to fiction.  

It was an eye-opener, to say the least, to go from a field in which I was experienced and knowledgeable to one that was largely foreign to me, where my television credentials counted for little. I didn’t know the vocabulary, the hierarchy, the practices of writing books, much less how to get one published. I’d never before focused on point of view and internal narrative and correct dialogue punctuation. Agents? Query letters? Synopses? Pitching? What an education!  

A few years ago, my husband and I moved for the first time for ourselves, not our jobs. We relocated to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to our grown kids. Now, living near our granddaughters and their parents, and my first mystery about to be published, I couldn’t be happier in this phase of my life, though I’ll always be grateful for the experience that came before. Oh, and what did Vicky decide? You’ll have to read Parallel Secrets to find out.