When I first started writing, I wrote what I read: fantasy, for the most part, and romance. (I was 20-something, so the latter was probably a given.) I came very close to publishing a romance novel with Del Rey. An editor read the manuscript I sent and liked it. If I was willing to do some revisions, they’d like to see it again. After I got over the excitement, I thought long and hard about those revisions. They weren’t daunting at all but…if I did them, Del Rey might just buy the book and then, well, I’d have to keep writing romances for the rest of my life, wouldn’t I? I had outgrown the kind of romances I’d been reading and the thought did not appeal. I shelved the book, literally. It was printed out on actual paper and placed on a wooden shelf.

When I shelved my romance, I moved on to children’s literature. I was a young mom who read book after book to my littles. I read many books I loved and found authors to admire and try to emulate: Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown, Ezra Jack Keats, James Stevenson, Nancy Willard, Judi Barrett, Tomie dePaola, Patricia Polacco, Jane Yolen…the list goes on and on. I also read books that didn’t meet the high bar those authors set and I thought (as many do) that I could write better books than those. For decades, I concentrated on children’s literature, studying the genre as part of my bachelor’s program. I taught children’s literature during my master’s program. Once I graduated, I took editorial jobs with educational and children’s publishers, and I wrote book after book after book. I sold some, including my series about Rufus Leroy Williams III, the little pig who loves books as much as I do (Rufus Goes to School, Rufus Goes to Sea, Rufus Blasts Off!)

The kids grew up but I stayed firmly grounded in books for and about kids until…the world shifted around me. Publishers, teachers, and readers wanted diverse books. They wanted books featuring people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people from countries and cultures whose stories had been ignored for too long. Those were not my stories to tell. What to do when the genre you’ve focused on and loved for your whole career closes its doors to you? I suppose it’s the same thing the categories of writers named above did before the doors opened. They found other doors.

As a writer, when the world shifts, you can either shift with it or stop writing. I can’t stop writing. I don’t want to. So I genre-shifted again. I read, researched, studied, wrote, read more, researched more, and wrote more until I had drafted and revised my very first cozy mystery. Exploring a new genre reinvigorated my writing. It pulled me out of despondency into excitement. And that was before an editor read it and loved it. Before I got a contract for a series based on that cozy. The excitement came from the energy of doing what I love but pushing beyond the niche I’d felt comfortable in for decades.

If, at any time in your writing life, you find yourself maturing past a genre you once loved or unable to break through in a genre you still love, consider genre-shifting. What other genres make your heart sing? What books do you buy and read beyond your “main” writing genre? What genres do you think would be fun to explore? If you’re ready to shift, be willing to go back to beginner’s mind. You may know the genre you’ve been writing inside and out, but the new genre will have different rules, different requirements, different tropes, different expectations, different authors whose work must be read. Read widely, research the genre, study it, write, read more, research more, and write more. Take workshops. Go to conferences. Join the genre’s professional organizations. Learn what readers expect, what they’ll perceive as old hat and what they might find fresh. And for goodness sakes, have fun. Because if writing isn’t fun (despite the fact that it’s also agonizing)…go for a walk on the beach or do whatever IS fun.