This Writing Life - Letting Go the Novel

I am almost finished writing my crime novel Ending in Death under my author name P.B. Barry.  I have done at least twenty edits - I don't count them and it could be more than that - but now I just need to read the whole thing over again from start to finish and see if I've made any glaring mistakes and then I'm ready to go. It feels like the first time your child goes to school.  You have to let them out into the big bad world where they will be taken at face value.  The fact that this is your darling child has absolutely no influence on how they fare. Yes, you'd like to nurture them and keep them close but you know that's not the right thing to do.  So you watch them take their first steps away from you.
I've had a lot of fun writing this novel and I hope my readers will enjoy it.  

Ending in Death is the second novel in the Sergeant Alan Murray mystery series and will be available on Amazon Kindle e-books from the end of April 2016.  It is set in the fictional village of Ballyamber in the Kerry mountains.  A young girl's body is found near the village.  Who is she and what was she doing in such a remote area? Murray has only started investigations when Stanley Wallace, a businessman who has lately moved to Ballyamber, is also found murdered. Were both victims just in the wrong place at the wrong time or is there a more sinister explanation? 

Writing is fun

I feel a bit like a secret agent.  I've just uploaded my third novel to Amazon under yet another pen name, Death in a Lonely Place by P.B. Barry.
The reason I am doing this is because it is a crime novel and my last book Love at a Later Date is a romance, so I don't want to get people confused.

The idea for Death in a Lonely Place came to me nearly ten years ago while touring the Ring of Kerry.  The landscape is so wildly beautiful down there that I wanted to capture some of the feel of it.  I then combinded this idea with a legend about the river Blackwater which is reputed to claim three lives a year (although few people have heard of this).  I simply transferred this myth to a total fictional mountain in Co. Kerry and the idea for Death in a Lonely Place was up and running.  Not quite.  It took a lot of writing, editing and tweaking before I was at all satisfied with it.  It is not a police procedural although I had debated making it into one but I know far too little about the workings of any police force to even try.  I do envy authors who thank all those high ranking individuals with fascinating titles for their assistance. I'm afraid I don't know anyone to ask (said she wistfully) not even a traffic cop.

Someone asked me the other day with raised eyebrows why I write.  She really meant why I waste my time writing but it's a reasonable question since I am neither rich nor famous and never likely to be. The answer is that I have no idea.  These people trample about in my brain and become as real as a wet Monday or whatever, but real anyway as soon as I put down their story on paper.  Sometimes I have to alter their destinies, their characters and adventures but that's the fun of the game.  I love it all.  Of course there are days when my brain refuses to work, when everything I write seems dull and stupid.  But there are those wonderful days when the words flow.  Agatha Christie once wrote in the preface for one of her novels (I think it was Endless Night) that she'd had a lot of fun writing it and wondered if readers could tell this - and she said that a lot of what she wrote was hard work.  What a comfort to know that such a prolific author had her struggles, too.

Be all that as it may, I hope some of my readers will take the time to check out my latest baby, here is the link if you are interested. Death in a Lonely Place

Have a good week everyone.