Protecting Your Brand -- Should You Follow Your Muse Even if it Takes you Through the Genre Jungle?

Let's face it, as an author, brand is everything. I would even venture to say that brand is everything to readers too, because without it, they have no idea what they're getting when they buy a book from their favorite author. For example, if you love a great erotic paranormal and New York Times bestselling author Iamsexy Allthetime is an auto buy for you, you might be a bit disconcerted when you by Iamsexy's latest release and discover that it's a Christian Young Adult mystery.

There's no question that, as authors, we should nurture our brand and keep it safe and uncluttered. However, what if you have several genres dancing around in your head? What if you try to stick to one genre and your writing begins to suffer because your heart's just not in it anymore? What if you get bored and start viewing the writing as a chore? Will your readers notice? Will your brand suffer?

You bet. They'll notice and your brand will suffer.

While it's important to create a consistent brand that readers can count on, it's also important that you keep the fun in the writing because if you lose that sense of fun and adventure, you might eventually figure it's just not worth doing anymore. More than a few authors have found themselves in this trap, where the writing felt too much like work. Some of these authors have given up as a result and are no longer writing.

I know what you're thinking. Writing is a job. It should feel like work. I actually disagree that it's a job. It's a career. But it's also a creative endeavor. And being creative it needs to include some element of magic...some sense of adventure...or you'll lose it altogether. Just as negativity can kill a muse faster than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidotious, so can boredom.

So what's a multi-genre-at-heart author to do? Write what your muse (and your heart) tell you to write. Show some restraint, of course. Don't write every genre and every age group or you'll even start confusing yourself, but do give yourself some leeway so you'll continue to enjoy your craft. If you write suspense, try your hand at a little science fiction or paranormal if you feel like it. You write paranormal? Try writing historical. If you feel like writer's block is taking over your life, maybe branch out and play with another genre for a while. Get the joy back in your writing.

A side benefit is that you'll probably improve your writing. By stretching that writing muscle you'll strengthen it. And, sure, you might muddy your brand a bit...but a brand won't mean anything if you stop writing because you begin to hate what you're doing. And, who knows, you might discover that a lot of your readers are happy to take the new journey with you!

Happy writing everybody!

Where Miss Fortune meets Miss Chance

Miss Felicity Chance’s father is missing, and her sexy PI Calford Amity thinks he’s found him. Together, they follow a trail of gold coins to Sinful, Louisiana, where a homeless guy named Bayou Bubba turns up dead with an alligator tooth in his hand and a gold coin between his teeth. Is Bubba Miss Chance’s long lost father? Or will the mystery of his disappearance suck her down into the bogs of the Bayou, and ruin her favorite purse?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Miss-Fortune-Series-Novella-ebook/dp/B00TP4S5RC






Bubba Dub Dub, three crooks in a tub, and only enough scratch for two!

Felicity Chance returns to Sinful looking for a message from her father. Following a trail of clues
Felly hopes will help her find him, she enlists the invaluable…and distracting…aid of Swamp Team 3. Unfortunately their search is complicated by the usual things—Carter and new mayor Celia Arceneaux have made it their mission to keep a close eye on Swamp Team 3 plus 1. The team also finds itself running from the Russian Mafia as well as the local bad guys. Will Felly and the Swamp Team find her father before all the bad guys do? Or will she get bogged down by the swamp, and sucked into the muck of her father’s shady past?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Miss-Fortune-Series-Novella-ebook/dp/B010C8PK90

Juggling Multiple Projects - Could you? Should you?

Available Now! 

I can't believe it's the end of June already. Suddenly my writing schedule for the year is starting to feel a little cramped. It's all my own fault of course, I have so many ideas and so much trouble saying no...  Or it could just be that old adage that whatever amount of time you have, you're going to fill it up.

I'm currently working on trying to finish up a book I really should have completed last year, but it just kept being shoved off the calendar to make way for something new and shiny. #:0) I'm also starting work on another book which will go into a box set in late Summer. In addition, I have two more series books that need to be written waiting in the wings and another couple which aren't promised or scheduled, but which I'd really like to finish because they're fun projects.

Add to all that a six book series that I got the rights back on, which needs to be re-edited, revamped, and rebranded before launching again by the end of the year...and you can maybe see why I'm panting a little bit. LOL

Right now you might be asking yourself if I'm just a tiny bit crazy. The answer to that would be, yes, of course I'm crazy...I'm a writer! But seriously, I do sometimes get feeling a little overwhelmed, but the feeling generally has little to do with my writing world and more to do with juggling the real world with all my writing projects.

So why do I do this to myself, you might ask? I would jokingly tell you I have writer's ADD and can't focus on one project for any length of time. That's only partly true. #:0) I actually like being busy, and I also like being productive. In addition, I generally write totally different types of projects at the same time, so I can use one as kind of a brain freshener when I get stuck on the other.

Moving back and forth from sci fi or paranormal to mystery or suspense keeps my brain fresh and agile. The wide creative shift enables me to totally slough off the kinks in the first project and tackle the next project without any hangover from the first one. The shift from one to the other builds creative elasticity. Yes, I'll occasionally put the wrong names into a book because I'm fresh from writing another story, but this doesn't happen as often as you might think.

In the course of doing this over the years, my brain has become a well-toned athlete (except when it isn't, LOL), performing a daily high wire act that rarely finds the net far below. Sure I still get stuck once in a while and, when nearing the end of a book I find I'm unable to shift away from it, but for the most part the system works for me, both short term and over the long haul.

Should you...could you...try juggling more than one writing project at a time? Only you know the answer to that. Not everybody is wired for project shifting. But I can tell you that it has its own challenges and definite rewards. If you're willing to give it a try, you just might discover your own athletic brain along the way!

Happy writing!

Felicity Chance returns to Sinful looking for a message from her father. Following a trail of clues Felly hopes will help her find him, she enlists the invaluable…and distracting…aid of Swamp Team 3. Unfortunately their search is complicated by the usual things—Carter and new mayor Celia Arceneaux have made it their mission to keep a close eye on Swamp Team 3 plus 1. The team also finds itself running from the Russian Mafia as well as the local bad guys. Will Felly and the Swamp Team find her father before all the bad guys do? Or will she get bogged down by the swamp, and sucked into the muck of her father’s shady past?

BUY BUBBA