Writing A Cozy Is Not As Warm And Fuzzy As It Sounds by Heather Haven

Several nights ago I finished Casting Call for a Corpse, Book 7 of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, labeled a fun detective cozy. Fun or not, I actually didn’t finish it. My little pea-brain just likes to think I did.  What really is finished is the initial creative stage. I immediately emailed this ha-ha magnificent work of literature off to the content editor. She will return it several weeks from now noting a bazillion errors, mistakes, misquotes, and/or things that made no sense or didn’t work for her. I will sob for a while, and then will make the corrections or clarifications. I will then send it off to the line editor, who will also find a bazillion things wrong, such as grammar, language, syntax, names, dates, you know, that sort of stuff.  Sobbing, I will do the corrections and pretend that I knew ‘whom’ went there instead of ‘who’ but I was so busy being creative, doncha know, it got by me. And Paris? So in France. Did I write Spain? Whoops. After that, the manuscript will go to the Beta readers. Repeat any and all of the above.

Meanwhile,  I will need to come up with an elevator pitch condensing an 86 thousand-word story into under 25 words. Then I will write several back cover blurbs in varying lengths. But whether the blub is 2 sentences, 2 paragraphs, or 10, it has to be so exciting and pithy, it just makes anyone who picks up that book want to buy it. What is saving my sanity is I no longer have to do the publicity for this little gem. I am paying someone else to do that. Which is good. Because I will be too busy sobbing and being fed up. I will have had it with the stupid story, the stupid book, the stupid series, not to mention the stupid writing process. But soon, as follows the night the day, it will be up and running. And so will I.

I will be running on to my next novel, Spring Thaw, Book 2 of the Snow Lake Romantic Suspense Novels. And I can’t wait to get started!