The joy of having written - a NEW book! WOOT! by Cathy Ace

Do you love writing or having written? Is the process enjoyable or a necessary chore to get to where you want to be?

I think of writing as being a specific part of the overall “getting a book published” process: for me, it’s the pure joy of writing the first draft, based upon my plotting, research, backstory creation, outlining, and chapter planning. Yes, I do all of that before I sit down to “write the book”. Then I literally settle my bum into the chair and type…making sure I hit the marks in my chapter outlines. It sounds pedantic, but I’ve already seen the entire book, in my head, like a movie, and have worked out the best way I know to translate that vision into a book that will be fun and easy to read (without the words getting in the way of my story), so I find it best to work this way.

I have pages of notes, I follow them, I get to the end. And, no, I don’t find that plotting adversely affects the feeling of “creation” I have as I write, indeed, I find it frees me to allow my fingers to fly as fast as they can because I know where my characters, and my story, are going. As writers we all need to find out what method works best for us; this is mine.

I do not enjoy the reading, editing, re-reading, re-editing process as much as writing, and I find the detail of proof checking to be onerous…and not something at which I am adept, which is why I have a structural/full editor, and a copy editor.

So, I love having written and I love writing…you see, like every author, I’m a storyteller at heart, and getting that first draft done is me telling the story. It’s there, in all its imperfect glory…ready for the (seemingly endless) hours of editing and polishing that are needed.

And now – if you’ll forgive me – I’ll take the chance to plug the book I have most recently written, and which was published a couple of days ago. As you’re reading this I’m arriving in Wales (if everything, including the Air Canada schedule, has gone according to plan) and that’s where the fifth WISE Enquiries Agency Mystery is set, as are the first four.

It’s been a long time since I wrote one of these books: the fourth in the series was published in 2017, which means I wrote it in 2016. (I don’t really need to tell you that six years is a long time, do I?!) Why such a long break? Hmm…the publishing house that published the first four books in the series was sold, I walked away from the contract the new house offered me, fired my agent, I set up my own company, self published a collection of short stories, a collection of novellas, a standalone novel, and four Cait Morgan Mysteries. The e-pub rights to the four WISE books were sold to a secondary publisher in 2021; they put them all out at 99cents each, then the boxed set of four at 99cents/$3.99. Their “pile them high and sell them cheap” approach lead the books, then the boxed set, to achieve #1 amazon status in several categories around the world, which was fantastic…and led to a LOT of new readers, and a LOT of emails from folks wanting more. Which was lovely, and encouraging…so I have written the fifth in the series, and now it’s available. I have self-published this one, using the same editor as the first four (she's no longer with the original house, but is now a freelance editor).

I chose to set the fifth book just a few months after the fourth – in the way we authors are wont to do – so the story of the duke and his pregnant wife, Carol’s baby, Annie and Tudor’s potential romantic relationship, Christine’s recovery from being shot, and Mavis’s constant battle to curtail the bizarre excesses of the ageing dowager Althea all continue in the original timeline…with new cases being tackled by our four private investigators to boot.

It’s been enormous fun to rejoin the ladies, and to revisit stately Chellingworth Hall and the delightful village of Anwen-by-Wye. In this book I’ve sent Annie off to Swansea and the Gower coast to do some undercover work involving a dangerous gold-digger, while the rest of the team remains in the heart of rural Powys, trying to unravel the murderous rumors surrounding one of the previous dukes of Chellingworth, as well as a strange and puzzling theft in the village.

The cover shows Dyffryn House, in Wales,
a place I've visited many times, and an inspiration for the books

I hope folks enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it – it was wonderful to “visit old friends” and, as you read this, it will be wonderful for me to return to my Homeland, Wales, and gaze upon the coastline you’ll be reading about.

I hope you choose to give this one a go: ask your local library to order it, or do the same at your local bookstore…or maybe read it on your Kindle, Kobo, or Nook. All the details are at my website, including the ISBN numbers you’ll need for the paperback/hard cover ordering: http://www.cathyace.com/wise-enquiries-agency-mysteries

PS: yes, I have started my envisioning of the 6th book in the series...more news later in the year!