Frank Zafiro's guest post

Greetings! Frank Zafiro here, former panelists on this gang of happy writers. Dietrich was kind enough to ask me to guest post this week, and I jumped at the chance to say hello again. Answering the query of the week is pretty easy, so I thought I might also update you on my recent doings, if that's okay.

First, the question. When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Who hurt you?

No one hurt me. I mean, people have -- that's the human experience. But pain isn't what made me a writer.

What did, then?

I don't know. All I know is that I've always been one. Ever since a young age, this is how I saw myself. What I aspired to be. No, more accurately, what I aspired to fulfill. 

Now, if that sounds pretentious, okay. I would equate it to a musician who knows from early on that she's going to sing or play guitar (or both). It's part of my earliest sense of identity and it simply is.

I know some people discover writing later in life. After retirement, that sort of thing. That's great, and they're writers, too. That just wasn't my path. I was telling stories (my parents called them lies, but what did they know?) as soon as I could speak, and writing them down as soon as I could write.

As for the "hurt" part... well, that's another post. Certainly, writing has, at times, been a means of catharsis, a way of relieving or addressing pain. Not exclusively, of course, but at different times in my life, more than a few hurts found their way into the prose... and somewhat out of me as a result.

Maybe that's a boring answer -- "I've always been a writer" -- but if the truth is boring, so be it.

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Hopefully, you won't think this next part boring -- what I've been up to since last we spoke, which was November of 2022.2023 was a busy year. 

I wrote five novels, one novella, one short story collection, and one coloring book (believe it or not, that last one was in production the longest!)

You can see the titles in the photo. Several of these were installments in my various crime fiction series, such as All the Forgotten Yesterdays being #14 in the River City series. I've been moving many of these series (though not River City, which is my flagship) toward a point in the series where a resting place makes sense -- more on that in a bit.

The episode of A Grifter's Song that you see here is part of a novella anthology series that I created, edited, and contributed to over five seasons. Into the Dying Sun is the final episode. I edited six others for season five, leading up to this finale. This is a series with some incredible authors, including two who is on this very panel.

Line Changes represented the end of a four-book arc for Sam as a peewee hockey player in this middle grade series. The coloring book, on the other hand, is targeted at a slightly younger age group.

2023 also saw me revive my podcast, Wrong Place, Write Crime, from its hiatus. This came with a caveat -- less frequent episodes. The reason I shut it down was due to time constraints, so I needed to find a happy medium between my desire to keep it going and my need to spend time elsewhere -- writing and marketing and oh, yeah, spending time with my wife.

I was fortunate to win a couple of awards at the Public Safety Writers Conference in July 2023 for my 2022 novels, The Ride Along (Charlie-316 #5) and The Worst Kind of Truth (River City #11).

At the end of 2023, I set up a direct sales option for readers, the Code 4 Press Bookstore. As part of this strategy, I left Kindle Unlimited, which had been underperforming for me for most of 2023. I've also altered my process for new titles. Now, all new releases will be exclusive to my bookstore for the first 90 days before releasing to retail outlets. Additionally, my bookstore prices are less than retail ($6.99 instead of $7.99). 

What about 2024 so far? 

Well, it's been busy, too, though the releases that result in that work will mostly happen in the latter part of the year. A few things have made it into the world already, however.

 Sam & the Magic Hockey Gear, the children's book (for which the coloring book serves as a companion) was finally released after a long development process. Meant for kids under 5 who are excited about hockey.

Think of Laura (Stefan Kopriva Mystery #5) is out, too, though currently exclusive to the Code 4 Press Bookstore. Also in Kopriva news, my short story, "A Checkered Past" appeared in Tina Wolff's anthology, Games People Play: Opening Gambit. (and related Murder to Die For podcast).

Lastly, my science fiction novel, Kemper's House, came out in May. I wrote this under a different pen name. What up with that, you might wonder? (I also "re-authored" my 2018 alternative history novel, An Unlikely Phoenix, to this pen name to align the genre)

There is more on the horizon. At least three short stories in different anthologies, for starters. On the novel front, we'll see a new entry in several series:  River City #15, SpoCompon #6, Charlie-316 #6, and Sandy Banks #3. The latter three books will likely represent at resting place for those series, at least for a while.

Why? Because I'm delving into the fantasy series that has been hounding me for about a decade -- Seasons of Wither. Given the world-building that goes into such endeavors, I am giving some of my crime series a rest to focus my attention here. 

I grew up on fantasy and science fiction, so it only makes sense that I'd find my way back around to those genres. I think the timing of my career really taking hold while I was working in law enforcement certainly informed my choice of crime fiction as a genre to play in for a long time. I still love it and will never leave it entirely, but I've written over fifty books and out of those, crime fiction titles number in the low forties of that figure. Stretching as a writer is important, but even more important is writing what you want to write. There's only so much time we have on this planet, right? And the benefit of being an independent author is having the latitude to make that choice.

Circling back to the question that started this post, the one thing that isn't a choice is that I'm a writer. I will always be writing. What I write may vary, but writing is who I am.

If you're still reading this guest post, thanks. I'd love to hear from you in the comments or directly via other means. 

And... I hope your writing and reading journey is all you want it to be, or more.