Kelly Elizabeth Huston: On Writing

I don’t remember learning to write. And I certainly don’t recall learning to write the way my children have been brow beaten in public school, but perhaps it’s like childbirth—something you block out after you’ve survived it, so maybe, just maybe, you’ll do it again someday.

Becoming a writer came late to me. I’d often received compliments on my writing style, but I wasn’t the kid with reams of journals full of stories or the musing of a prepubescent girl. No, I was well into my fabulous forties before I embarked on this wild ride, and that may be my only regret. The late start. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t a storyteller, as my working life began in the theater, but today the stories are my own creation.

I don’t think I’m alone with my “first pancake” of a manuscript. The messy one that will always be messy and live in a drawer where I revisit it now and again, nibbling at its edges, stealing the occasional morsel and finding a place for it elsewhere. I wrote my second story and eventual debut, Tex Miller Is Dead, for the masses, or so I thought. It won me accolades and an agent and I will always be grateful for that experience. If a sweet love story with a quirky plot about a woman of a certain age finding her place in the world with help from her imaginary muse sounds fun, give it a try. I love it and have zero regrets publishing it when and how I did.

But when it came time to write the next book, A Very Crowded House, I fell flat. Panicked even at one point. Um, maybe four or five. I couldn’t remember how to do it. It turns out, this recurring crisis happens between all my stories. My engineer husband and biggest cheerleader never doubts. “Just sit down and work the problem,” he says. Every time. He also believes simply hitting the delete key is a viable solution when I write myself into a corner. “You’re in charge, not the characters. Bend them to your will, Kelly.” Yeah, he’s cute like that.

Love is love in my metaphorical book and in my tangible ones, too, and I love it in all its forms. It’s difficult to imagine ever writing a story that didn’t include it, but I’m also a fan of a little mystery and some darker moments. So while I aimed to follow up Tex Miller with something similar, my muse said, no.

Emphatically. I should have seen it coming. The words were wriggling their way into that dreaded (for me) first draft. The bread crumbs dotted my path, but I kept on like the rom-com writer I thought I was. Then, at the midpoint, things turned. In an instant, I called into question everything I thought I knew about Jojo and Gigi. That one-eighty delighted me and I hope readers appreciate the mild case of whiplash.

Maybe that is the most fascinating aspect of this vocation. The unpredictability of it all. The voices insisting on getting their way, showing me who they really are. For people who do not write fiction, this may sound kooky and unbelievable and I’m not saying all novelists live with such a crowded headspace. Some readers questioned in after reading Tex Miller Is Dead, but I’m here to say my characters often talk to me—and usually between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. They light my way, for better or worse. It’s their story, after all.

I recently attended a writers’ conference in Chicago. Though I prefer a retreat where the focus is writing, conferences are wonderful places to learn what you are doing “wrong” and to see how much you’re getting “right.” That’s said with my tongue firmly in my cheek, because I don’t believe in the rights and wrongs of this process.

It’s a creative one, lest we forget, which leaves room for many avenues to myriad kinds of success. My goal has always been to entertain. Sure, I hope my readers will think and feel and open their minds to other ways of thinking and feeling, but I want it to come with a heaping scoop of enjoyable distraction. My tangentially-linked, character-driven stories differ from one another, but whatever your genre of choice, you’ll find laughs, banter, a smidge of mystery and occasionally a dead body. Maybe two. Also, there’s love. There will always be love. But I think my biggest takeaway from my recent Windy City summit was the notion of how incredibly gratifying it is to get read. Selling books? Great! Extra mad-money in my pocket? Fantastic! But hearing from a reader genuinely moved by words I put on a page? It’s the runner’s high. The actor’s standing O. And I’m eager to have it continue. So, please (legally) share books, request them from libraries, join a book club, or start one, and tell the world about what you’ve read in widely distributed social media posts dripping with effusive praise—okay, settle down, Kel.

If you made it this far into my ramble, you just might be my target audience and, in that case, I’d appreciate it if you gave my eclectic mix of stories a whirl. Book #3, A Girl, Stuck will be out March 2024 and it would be my favorite book if I had a favorite, which I most definitely do not, because—you never know who’s listening. 

—

Kelly Elizabeth Huston writes women-centric, genre-straddling fiction that always includes laughs and a love story. But sometimes there’s heartbreak, a smidge of mystery, moments of suspense, and maybe a dead body… or two. Maybe. Above all, she hopes her protagonists are better for it in the end, and she entertains her readers along the way. She currently lives in Georgia with her husband and two nearly-grown sons, who are, hands down, the best cheer squad a writer could wish for. After spending a few years in the traditional publishing space, Kelly leaped to the indie side without looking back and is eager to dole out her book babies and get them read. She hopes you’ll join her in the adventure. www.kellyelizabethhuston.com

A VERY CROWDED HOUSE

A catastrophe forces Jocelyn Durand, the author of a decades-old and quite accidental publishing one-hit-wonder, to meet her idol, best-selling suspense writer Asher Cray. Each harbors a literary crush on the other, but if gossip rags are to be believed, Asher is a philandering charmer and more than the naïve Jocelyn could ever hope to handle. Still, while social media has labeled him a notorious Lothario, they might have the story all wrong. Regardless, those rumors are the least of Asher’s worries compared to the horrific case of writer’s block hounding him.

Sparks fly between the two would-be wordsmiths, but uprooted nightmarish memories and a revolving door of uninvited visitors create plot twists no one sees coming, threatening the pairs’ less-than-storybook romance and upending the Durand siblings’ long-held beliefs. Happily-ever-after means the insulated Jocelyn and her stalwart sister must confront a wiped-away past, recognizing monsters come in unexpected forms, and maybe they aren’t all bad—a daunting task one wickedly hot Hamptons summer in a very crowded house when everyone’s personal histories blur the lines between fact and fiction

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers