Critical acclaim, definitely.

The first short story I had published came with payment, and that was pretty great. But I also got a message from my aunt listing all sorts of positive descriptors and emotions and impressions and things brought up by my story, and that… well, that was amazing.

I have a day job. I’m a librarian and I love it.  I used to work in bookstores and I loved that, too, but I found it frustrating that I’d have to recommend the books we needed to sell rather than the stories I knew they’d love.  In libraries I get to fight for everyone’s right for access to the stories they love, information they need, everything.  It’s wonderful.

I would say, “Please keep writing as much as possible.  Don’t worry about other people’s reactions or non-reactions and don’t think you have to choose between writing and any other goal or adventure.  You will always pick it up again, so you may as well just continue.  You keep getting better at it the more you write and that will feel so very good.  And the lottery numbers for the big rollover in August of 1998 are…”

I’m a photographer.  It’s a great balance for writing because not only are the photographs (and the places I take them) good inspiration for stories, but the act of photography is about as far from storytelling as I can get: an instantaneous shot that I can’t really edit.  Motion and sound and texture frozen into a box of colour and shading.  Click.  Of course I know I could go further into it and spend hours lining up one shot to then take it apart in Photoshop, but that isn’t what I do.

I like mysteries.

The Mystery genre, provided you aren’t going for a Cozy or a Police Procedural, is extremely malleable.  It can be character- or plot-driven, have one or many heroes and villains, and there’s no end to the options for red herrings and twists.  When I was writing about spies they were still more or less mysteries, and I’m sure if I were to skip to YA, Romance, or anything else, mystery would be involved.  When they’re done right, both the ride and destination are satisfying.

The most challenging thing about writing a mystery is making sure it can’t be guessed from page one, and balancing that with making sure the reader feels like they could have figured it out, somehow.