"Anytime I got to a scene that I was just dragging my feet to write, I would just skip to the more fun and exciting part"

Thriller author Leah Konen on mastering dual POVs, writing during naptime, and her twisty new mystery, THE LAST ROOM ON THE LEFT

Check out the collection of past Words With (Author) Friends, wherein I g-chat with an author and you get to read over my shoulder, and order Leah’s dark new novel, available now.

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Me: Hi and congrats on THE LAST ROOM ON THE LEFT!!

Leah: thank you!!!

I LOVED this book, as you know (as did reviewers)! How are you feeling post launch?

I'm feeling like I put the best book I could into the world, which is all you can really do!

And THANK YOU (for the nice words about the book)

100%. I know this is your TENTH book, so you really know what you, the author, can and can't control.

We'll get into that more in a sec, but first, can you share what the book's about?

Yes, it's a snowed-in thriller, because we love a trapped-in-a-storm moment! It follows Kerry, a woman on the brink who has to finish her novel or basically face financial ruin. She takes a winter caretaker position at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills and plans on finishing it during her getaway. Problem is, the first day she's there, she finds the body of the last caretaker dead and frozen out in the snow ...

Needless to say, that was not factored into her word count goals for the month!

If anyone ever needed a reason to procrastinate ...

One of many things I love about this book is how it plays with all those fears we have as authors...I'll never produce, I'll never make it, I'll never be a "success." And that's without dealing with dead bodies! Can you share where the idea came from?

Well, I wanted to set something in the winter, as a departure from what I usually do, and I knew I wanted to go in a bit of a different direction thematically as well, as my past two novels had centered on parenthood. We joke about books being our "babies," but I really did want to look at the creative process kind of with that reverence and see how different women approach it.

So you have Kerry, who has a brilliant idea, but who can't finish the book. Then you have Siobhan, who is a filmmaker who takes loads of footage but can't focus on making just one thing. And then you have Allison, who is an actress who feels she may have missed her chance at making it as she ages out of the typical ingenue roles. And I honestly could really connect with each of the women in a different way.

I think as creative people, we've all felt all of those things at different points in our careers.

Absolutely! These are all very real concerns when you're putting your all into a creative pursuit.

How did you go about shaping a plot around those kinda existential (or at least not immediate or physical) fears?