Some thoughts on what to do when your genre is sinking.

I recieved quite a shock recently. This one wasearly as big as the heart attack I just recovered from. Oh and yes a thank you to all those who wished me well and kept me in thier thought.

This shock was also sobering. It looks like the Action/Adventure or Techno-Thriller is having a hard time in the market place. What? How can this be? Readers no longer interested in action, shootem-ups?

I did a bit a thinking on this puzzle. I believe that stories, and the interest therein is in direct proportion of world and national events. If I had the ability, (and I just might) to write a novel about a nasty, scandle ridden election, it would sell at this time.

However I like many readers go to our books to get away, to relax. Why would someone want to read a military Techno-Thriller when the evening news offers the same thing?  I think we all want to slow down a bit. Writers, take us somewhere nice for awhile. We want something too feel good about again. We want hope and maybe if you are good enough, you can make me feel some hope.

So what is a guy like me to do? I know warfare. I know submarines, but no one is interested. Do I give up? What do I do? Is it time to abandon ship?

No, not yet. Some writers I know and respect greatly are switching genres for the time. I wish I could, but having spent my entire adult life in the service of my country I would violate the first rule of novel writing. "Write what you know."

I realize that this, like so many other things in life is a blessing. What I have to do is make my work so good and so interesting that readers have no choice. Another thought is to make my writing like a good meal. Serve a bit of what everyone likes, what everyone is craving. Tough to do? Oh you bet it is, but if this was easy everyone would be doing it.        

So I will stay on this ship. She may list, and she may take on water, but I'm here to stay.