Crime fiction. Comedy.
There's no contradiction.
My mother was a special-education teacher specializing in reading. My father was an airline pilot who loved crime novels. I was set on my career path before I even entered kindergarten. Mom had me reading by age two. I started picking up my father’s books by the time I was in second grade. There are people who resent being ‘bred’ from an early age to do a particular thing. I’m not one of them. I never felt forced into anything. I love my late parents for the gift they gave me.
The thing about being launched into a life of working with words, language and story is that it doesn’t have narrow parameters. It has many applications. Just after college, I worked as a copy editor on a newspaper, which is where I was when sold my first novel. Today, I edit mystery and thriller e-books to fill in the gaps in my income (writing is a feast-or-famine business).
Editing was an obvious choice. It took me a lot longer to figure out another of those writing applications.
For a long time, I’d watched stand-up comedians with an itch of envy, thinking, ‘If only … when I was younger …’ et cetera. Then, by chance, I walked into an open mic and shared a table with a comedian, who asked, “Are you going up?” To my surprise, I said, “Maybe next week.” That was late 2018. By March 2019, I had my first paid booking. In December 2022, I headlined my first show.
I’m re-designing my site, so the pages about my novels and my comedy are coming soon. Meanwhile, please feel free to get in touch at jodicomptonwriter@proton.me.