When Your Dream Comes True: The Dark Side by Christine Falcone

LUCY BURDETTE: Today's guest has been in a writing group with me forever. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when her book sold--of course I invited her to be a guest on JRW. 

"What should I write about?" she asked.

I made a suggestion.

"No way, that's too personal," she said. "They'll think I'm crazy."

But she thought it over and decided to try it. I know you'll love her post, because just about all of us will be able to relate to what happens when a dream comes true...I'm also sure you'll love her book!

CHRISTINE FALCONE: I was sitting in my car waiting for my husband to be done with his colonoscopy. It was going on three hours now and I was freezing as it was January. I had finished reading my book and counting the people leaving the facility who weren’t my husband and decided to check my email on my phone.  My first reaction upon opening the email offering me a three book contract was amazement. I’d expected the usual “Thanks, but no thanks” I’d been hearing for years. “Yay! Oh my gosh! This is wonderful!”  That spark of joy lasted about ten seconds, then it was followed by a thought of  “THREE BOOKS! Oh, crap what do I do now? How am I going to do this?” 

It had taken me a long time, working in fits and spurts to write the first book. Fortunately, I had started writing the second book because the first leant itself to being the first in a series. Also, as a long-time member of a writing group I was expected to write, and while I didn’t always have pages to send for each meeting, I was inching along. But now I HAD to write that next book, then the one after that. This time with a deadline – no fiddling around or dragging my feet. I began to panic!

I told myself that I had been working toward this moment for years, and it happened at a perfect time. I had just retired from my day job so I would have more time to write. Now, cleaning out all the junk accumulated over the years and dreams of reading and eating bonbons all day long would have to wait – I would have to treat my writing like a new job.

Lucky for me I have two good friends, experienced in publishing and excellent writers, to talk me off the ledge. (Thank you, Lucy and Ang!). It wasn’t as if I didn’t want to write, but as it’s been said before, writing can be HARD. It feels great when the words and the plot are all coming, but torture when your brain seems as barren as a desert with the wind whistling through it stirring up dust. But no one was making me do it. Ok, there was the little fact that I signed a contract saying I would have another book written by X date. But my publishing company wasn’t going to send a hit man (or woman) after me if I failed. The situation wouldn’t be pretty but not fatal. At least I don’t think so anyway. But I did want to write those books, right? So I needed to pull up my big girl panties and as the NIKE add says – Just Do It! And also, STOP WHINING, because there are people out there working like heck to get their first book published and I’m sure would gladly change places with me.

So I’m pushing on, and finding that the dust in that barren landscape clears a little bit more the more I write, and the more I write the less panic I feel. This new job is actually fun! Most days.

Have you ever had your stomach clench in panic over something that felt too difficult at the time? Or have you ever had mixed feelings when you finally get something you always wanted?

About EX’D OUT: After their divorce, Visiting Nurse Melanie Bass must keep in contact with Dr. Artie Krapaneck, her philandering ex-husband as they share custody of her beloved dog, Bruno. When she arrives at a Connecticut highway rest stop to retrieve the dog for “her week” she discovers the body of her ex-husband along with that of an unknown woman.  It seems that now Artie will finally be out of her life forever. He isn’t.

Melanie soon has reason to suspect that her gruesome discovery has put her own life, and Bruno’s, in danger. She decides she must find out who killed Artie and why. She begins to fear that he may have left in her possession the link to something the killers want. As the police try to solve the murder, she uncovers information on her own. Melanie learns how much she never knew about the man she was married to for five years, a man she thought she knew so well. She comes face to face with his first wife, Lynn, a woman she never knew existed. However, with Lynn’s help, as well as that of a kind and eligible veterinarian who is treating Bruno for PTSD, she takes on the killers before they kill both her and Bruno. You can order the book right here...

About the Author: Christine Falcone’s short stories have appeared in publications such as Imagine, Lancrom Review, and Deadfall: Crime Stories by New England writers. After working for nearly forty years as an RN in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Christine is delighted that retirement coincides with the publication of her first full length mystery. EX’D OUT will be out in October 2022. She is a member of Sisters In Crime and Mystery Writers of America.