Very little lasts these days. Media is created to be binged and then forgotten, and I’ve often struggled with this. When the marketplace (and books are certainly no exception) is hurtling along at lightning pace, what place can thoughtfully constructed stories occupy?

Think of it like a meme. You can spend hours crafting a witty, insightful, and meaningful meme, but odds are it’ll get buried because hundreds of other people were quicker and what they came up with was good enough.

Where am I going with this?

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of writer I want to be. I’ve been writing novels for ten years (!) and I finally feel like I’m starting to get good at it. Writing is a craft, and if you’re not learning and improving with every novel then you’ve either been doing this a lot longer than I have or else you’re just that good and you can probably stop reading this now.

During those ten years, I’ve self-published (PWNED, my first novel, released at the urging of an acquaintance who assured me it definitely didn’t need to be professionally edited {HA!}). My most recent books (Blood Money {2013}, Bai Tide {2015}, and Take the Bai Road {2017}) were published by an indie press. That, too, has been a learning opportunity and come with its own set of challenges.

So here I am, ten years and four published novels in. I have a name that, when I first started writing was unique enough but over the course of years has become the maiden name of an incredibly famous erotica author. I have my first spy thrillers, of which I’m still quite proud. And I have a new project I’m ecstatic about that’s different than anything I’ve ever written.

What to do?

Well, what I’m going to do is pivot. My writing is going in a new direction anyway, and my books haven’t exactly been bestsellers, so what I’m going to do is pull them from the marketplace for the time being. I’m going to focus on pitching this new project in the hopes of securing an agent who’s as passionate about what it is and what it could mean to other people as I am. Last but not least, I’m going to try really hard to think up a cool pen name (Is Stephanie Queen too on the nose? It is, isn’t it? Drat.)

Things are going to be changing soon, in what I hope is a good way. It’s taken me a third of my life to figure out what kind of writer I want to be, and that’s okay.

As for what I’ve decided, I’ll leave you with this advice I once got from Anne Rice (yes, she said it right to me. I asked her a question in a Q&A). She told me, “Go where the pain is.” To write stories that mean something to people, you have to be willing to be vulnerable. You have to bleed a little, and be comfortable with other people seeing you do it.

Those are the kinds of stories I’m going to focus on writing for now. There has to be a place in fiction for damaged people who have put themselves back together, and if I can provide this that will be fine work indeed. My writing up until this point has skirted this, because it’s easier for me to make people laugh than it is to be vulnerable with strangers.

I’ve decided it’s time to be honest. Wish me luck.