Why I'm still writing...

Hi friends,

Today I’d like to share the ONE thing that has kept me writing through the ups and downs in life (aka keeping my secret dream alive).

Rewind to a few years ago. We had just moved into our current house in the rainy Pacific Northwest, and I had a kindergartener and a toddler. I didn’t really know anyone, and I was missing the last two (very sunny) places we’d lived.

I found out there was a book club nearby—in this new zip code of mine—and decided to go. The book club happened to be reading a thriller by a “local author,” and I worked up the courage to send her a Facebook DM (something overly enthusiastic like, “I’m an author too!!! I love thrillers!!”), and then…

…Jessica Payne decided to DM me back, thankfully. She’s now a very good friend, and the author I’d call in a plot emergency. While our kids play at the park, we go for walks (Jessica in her 5-toe sandals, me in my hat) and talk about writing.

I’d go as far as to say that Jessica is one of the reasons why my adult debut, Please Enjoy Your Stay, is coming out in October.

If it weren’t for her reassuring wave, her encouraging, well-timed question: “hey, how is the novel going?” delivered at the very moment that I was thinking of quitting, I’m not sure I’d still be writing right now.

(Okay, I’d still be writing, because I can’t not write, but I’m telling you, her question went a long way in that moment.)

This is a friendly reminder that there’s nothing that replaces the friends that inspire you. Friends who get you and get your dreams.

When I was younger, it seemed easy to meet other writers, especially while enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts program, and then while earning a PhD in Creative Writing (yes, a degree like that actually exists in Australia!).

But there is a distancing, an isolation, that can happen once you have kids. (Or once you move. Or once you shift jobs. Or a number of things! Or even: once you get into an everyday routine.)

So, if you have a secret dream, a goal, a vision, if you’re after “something more,” this is me encouraging you to seek out the community that will support you. Seek out the people who will lift you up. Seek out whoever or whatever might bring you a step closer to that dream you’ve been harboring.

For me, that seeking equaled joining a book club, and then sending a message to the “local author” who was going to attend the next event.

By booking a last-minute ticket to a writing conference called ThrillerFest in New York, run by the ITW (International Thriller Writers organization).

I was shocked by the number of people there. Writers, authors, bookstagrammers, booksellers, readers who just love thriller novels. Essentially: a likeminded community that I’d heard about years ago (while living in Australia, actually!), but at the time I never thought I’d actually go.

The final night, Barbara Peters, of the famed The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, talked about how ITW was formed. She said something to the effect of (and I’m paraphrasing):

Thirty something years ago, some [now-extremely-famous] thriller writers and I walked into a bar and said, ‘how can we support each other?’

And somehow that question became this huge community of writers who still gather together every year for camaraderie, for community.

I found the entire weekend inspiring (I basically teared up every time someone gave a speech at the awards ceremony). And yes, it was possible I was feeling sentimental because R.L. Stine was sitting at the table next to mine, and I read a LOT of Goosebumps as a kid.

But I think it was also this: there is something very powerful about being surrounded by people who love the same thing that you do. There is something very powerful about being next to even one person who loves the same thing you do. (Maybe they’re even harboring the same secret dream!)

So please, go join that book club.

Or go to that book event at your local indie.

Or finally commit to hopping on a flight to that conference.

Or take whatever step feels right to you, and hopefully it leads to some sort of connection, great or small. Because, if I could pinpoint what has been most helpful to me during my writing career, I can’t say that it was getting my first agent, or taking creative writing courses, or working at a publishing house.

I’m still here, writing, because of the people in my life who encouraged me at the right moments. Because of my friends who are also writers, who understand why I love what I do, because they love it too.

What about you—has there been any one thing, or person, who has kept you going when you needed it the most? Please tag them in the comments!

Currently revamping my website, working on adult thriller number 2, and holding my breath as ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) of Please Enjoy Your Stay are being sent out into the world. Many thanks to everyone who has already preordered and posted about PEYS—I truly appreciate it!

After hearing Hannah Morrissey talk at ThrillerFest, I picked up the first novel in her Black Harbor thriller series, about a female police transcriber (a job Morrissey actually had!!).

I also just devoured The Favorites by Layne Fargo, which reminded me of a grown-up, sophisticated, suspenseful version of The Cutting Edge (I’m dating myself here but IYKYK). It was utterly bingeable.

And the next ARC I’d like to read is An Immaculate Deception by Isabela Livino (of Isabela’s Substack), a captivating gothic horror set in 1870s Brazil, out in September!

If you’re based in the PNW, please come join me at the launch party for Jessica Payne’s fun and feminist (and also completely bingeable) thriller, Somebody Worth Killing, at Browser’s Bookshop in Olympia on June 20th!

(And who knows? If you venture out to see us, you might just meet your next bookish friend there. ;))

Thanks so much for reading and recommending Creative Coordinates!

x Tara