My Other Crime Novel

I’m T-minus ninety minutes from my writing challenge. When I returned to my NaNoWriMo account and looked at my two previous projects done there, I recalled how important that month in 2020 was for my growth as a writer. I had already written the All The Young Punks-Postcard-Venice stories but it was less developed than the work I later published on the nameless platform. Joe’s reunion with Tina in NYC had not yet been written.

I took the one-month challenge exactly four years ago because my writing style was limited to what you know in punks, verbose, taking tangents, and a string of short stories turned into a rambling novel. In late 2020 I had almost 100 chapters of Joe Theroux and I needed a break. 

I also needed to tighten my writing in a more disciplined style staying on the main plot and not deviating too far from that story. Crime is the perfect genre for direct concise writing. I happen to love crime as a genre but it is not easy work creating criminal cases from thin air. Detective tropes are fun and fine in moderation but the story must be an original take.

I decided to go with a non-detective, ex-attorney, and now housewife as my protagonist and sleuth. Katherine Price Landry is my first female lead, so I’m very fond of her, as I am of Joe. I wrote 59k words for Watching The Detectives and when the month of November ended I was so jacked up I did another crime novel in the same disciplined style but allowing myself a little freedom. 

That is the topic of this blog post, my other crime novel written in 30 days.

The novel is called Sacred Heart. I’m as proud of that novel as any but no one has read it. The story is too dangerous in the political climate we’re living in. It’s impossible to write a near-present-day story that involves politics without pissing someone off… or everyone. I wrote my vigilante crime novel on the heels of the 2020 election. Current events sparked my imagination and I ran with it.

I had never written in the action-crime subgenre. Sacred Heart, my vigilante, is a combat veteran with special forces skills in weapons and physical endurance with a specialty in cyber intelligence. He is apolitical but has a serious problem with predators in a decaying society.

The story is near future, 2035, and the challenges we are facing today have played out politically over several election cycles. Wars have been fought, won, and lost. Geopolitics is fractured. Climate change is not a hoax. We’re kinda fucked. Civil society has broken down and this is not limited to big cities. People are fed up and just don’t give a fuck anymore.

Sacred Heart is not dystopian. It’s a story on the path to dystopia unless humankind can get its shit together. 

I’m a lifelong independent from a state that prides itself on its independence. Rhode Island has the Independent Man statue atop its State House dome. There's pride in our history as a rouge colony built on true separation of church and state. Rouges Island was the first colony to tell King George to piss off and the last to sign the Constitution. Independence is in my DNA

I have never been a member of a political party and I never will be. Over the years I have pissed off an equal number of Republicans and Democrats in my life. When I lived in Rhode Island, a heavily blue state, the ruling Democrats drove me nuts. I pointed my finger and said. “I’m not one of them.” And I split my ticket for more than two decades. Then I moved to Arizona in 2002, at the time a very red state. Back home I often used the term conservative independent for myself. After a few years in the desert, I reconsidered. I pointed my finger and said, “I’m not one of them.” And I split my ticket as always, an independent who’s conservative on some issues and liberal on others. I do like my cannabis. Thank you Arizona voters.

Why am I telling you this? Because I wrote Sacred Heart down the middle. As an equal opportunity offender of both left-wing libs and right-wing cons, I can walk that line and drop word bombs on both sides. I might piss everyone off unless they enter my near-future world understanding that I mean no offense. I’m trying to make my work real, using the language and attitudes we’re living today. If you haven’t noticed, it’s not pretty out there.

That’s why my other crime novel has never been seen by any eyes but my own. This week, after I went dark, I opened my NaNoWriMo page and saw the book cover for Sacred Heart, my heart sank. I love that story but I’m afraid to publish it because I don’t trust the climate readers are living in. If reading for you is a form of escape do I want to show the road to dystopia our divisions might lead us to?

I just did a dry October because I know I am going to need a wet November. It is going to be an overreactive shitstorm no matter who wins. 

My last one-month writing challenge was done during the 2020 Election. I’m hunkering down this November for another thirty-day frenzy. I think I may be subconsciously distracting myself from reality by hiding in my world of fiction. 

NaNoWriMo 2024 starts at the stroke of midnight on Halloween. The first time I joined on 10/31 and began writing on 11/1 with no preparation. This time I’m ready. As I have stated previously in my ramblings about writing my project is the sequel to Watching The Detectives.

I finally landed on a title. Sunset ‘77 is Kat Price’s break into the LA detective business, in sleazy and sparkling Hollywood. All three of my crime novels are NaNoWriMo entries. It makes sense. If you’re going to write a novel in one month, crime is a good genre. It must be focused and tight.

I may revisit Sacred Heart and try to give it a rewrite that softens the political side and focuses more on the crime and vigilante tale. The problem is, If I go too light I feel like I’d be betraying the inspiration that gave birth to my novel and I don’t know if I can do that. Maybe that story is just for me. 

Now I’m going darker.