The Reasons Behind One Author’s Journey
By Linnea Sinclair

An old, and perhaps overused adage often dangled before a writer, is to ‘write what you know’. The wisdom in that saying rests in the fact that it’s difficult to convincingly portray something you’ve not experienced. How can you make a reader feel, smell, taste, love, or fear something you’ve not?

But that adage, in my humble opinion, ignores another old adage. One that has equal, if not greater weight in my authorly mind: write what you love.

Like most authors, I’ve always written. I can’t imagine not writing, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue with most who’ve read my books, and then peruse my bio.

The question inevitably raised is: “What’s a nice (retired) private investigator like you doing writing about wizards and starships?”

In essence, why don’t I write what I know? Why don’t I write about sleuthing, about surveillance, about sussing out someone’s deep dark secrets?

There are actually several answers to that question, but the primary one is that I write about starships, space stations, demons called mogras, and a furzel named Tank because I’m writing what I love.

Long before I donned my professional deerstalker, long before I lounged in ‘Criminology 101’ as an undergrad and ‘Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design’ as a grad student, I was fixated on Star Trek®; fascinated by Battlestar Galactica. Okay, I’ll give away my age and state I never missed an episode of Lost In Space -- the originalshow, from way back when there were only seven channels to choose from on television.

I went into private investigation (well, first I went into journalism) because it was a way to make a living. However, my heart belonged to the Starship Enterprise.

It never occurred to me to follow science as a career. Well, okay, astronaut training did occur to me but was quickly discounted after a glance in the mirror: five feet tall, thick glasses and (see report card dangling from left hand), never managed more than a ‘D’ in math… nope. Short, bad vision, can’t add. Definitely not astronaut material.

Not like Catherine Asaro or Susan Grant, two authors who write in the same genres I do. I greatly admire both, not only for their literary talents, but their career choices.     more >>