Unfortunately my sister and brother-in-law had some flooding of their house in Houston last year and my nephew and his family had far worse. Happily, they’ve all recovered and as my sister and brother-in-law were re-shelving books, she logically keeps mine all together. Her husband apparently stopped and said something like, “I never realized she’s written so many.” Sis’s response was, “Yes, and in such a range.”

I’ve posted before about the difference in writing fiction and non-fiction and even within that, there’s a distinct difference in my fiction. (Okay, as I mentioned when I completed To Play on Grass Fields, that one is the exception to anything else I’ve written or am likely to write.) Anyway, I did not actually plan to do a series when I first wrote Shades of Murder. My original intent was to write different, stand-alone books. Entering more into the scuba community was what led me to make the decision to go with a series and when I created the character of Chris Green in Shades of Truth, I had not planned to spin a series off featuring her. I didn’t develop that concept until several months later and did set up Shades of Gold to account for the next step.

As I have also discussed in previous posts, the Small Town quilting series came about because I had wanted to write in the “cozy” sub-genre of fiction and until then, hadn’t come across a suitable theme – one of the basics in cozies. Notwithstanding the joy I derive from all of those novels, Irises to Ashes, is still in some ways my favorite and is a “stand-alone”. There are definitely a few autobiographical elements, but the story itself was fiction.

On the non-fiction side, those have been a combination of topics I was either simply interested in or felt my own experiences could possibly be of use to other people. The co-authoring situations fall into a slightly different category and I have no desire to ghost-write. I’m not saying “never” on that, but it would have to be a very compelling reason.