So here I am, five books into my auctorial career, and I find myself at an interesting crossroads. My first two books, both YA tragic fantasies, took a lot out of me with very little extrinsic reward. Which is fine. That's the nature of turning one's artistic hobby into gainful (or gain-less) employment. As a result, when lockdown descended upon us in 2020, I found myself wanting to write something lighter and funnier. (Only Megan Bannen could say to herself, "I want to write something light and funny ... so I'm going to write about a fantasy-world version of the funeral industry and related death rituals.") Hence, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy.
Three books later, "light and funny" has panned out blessedly well for my writing career. But here I am, no longer on contract, coming off the least cozy year of my life, and I find myself fiddling with something ambitious and gritty and a little sad and maybe even a bit scary. And it has me thinking about things like personal branding and longterm career goals. And all that thinking has led me to the conclusion that I kind of suck at personal branding.
Maybe that's not a bad thing.
I recently listened to Naomi Klein's new book, Doppelgänger, in which Klein explores the concept of doppelgängers from many thought-provoking angles. (I am not smart enough to summarize this book with competence. Definitely read it for yourself. It's excellent.) Klein delves into this notion of personal branding, the way we are encouraged to create our own online (and at times pernicious) doppelgängers, like Mr. Hydes to our Dr. Jeckylls.
It made me feel a bit shallow for updating the look and feel of my website and whittling down my Instagram grid in a feeble attempt to expand my brand beyond the words most commonly used to describe my adult books: "cute" and "sweet" and "little." I would be lying, though, if I said that my readers' expectations don't weight heavily upon me as I draft this new, distinctly un-cozy book. People have found something that resonates with them in the Tanrian Marshals universe. What will they think if I write a novel that is not funny, not romantic, not cute or sweet or little?
Yet I can't stomach the idea of writing something similar over and over for what remains of my one wild and precious life. Not that I'm abandoning the genre; I certainly have cozy-adjacent ideas percolating at the back of my mind. But a cozy book is not what I feel called to write at the moment, and if I'm going to spend a year or two or five working on a book, it seems to me that I ought to write whatever the spirit moves me to write. Otherwise, I don't know how I can sustain the momentum to get to "the end" of anything. I just have to hope that my generous, big-hearted readers will come along for the ride, wherever the road takes me.
And maybe "expect the unexpected" is a brand, in and of itself.
