Writing.ie – The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia

Writing a thriller was not on my mind when I boarded the plane that January day in 2023. I was simply on my way to a work conference. As a news director at a local television station, I would occasionally be sent to conferences such as this one in San Diego.

It was an uneventful flight except for one thing: the idea of the novel came to me on the layover in Denver. I kept thinking of new details and couldn’t wait to get started. In fact, I dove into chapter one the very afternoon I got home.

Typically, I write at night and on weekends as I am too busy with my full-time job during weekdays. I wake up very early on Saturdays and Sundays and relish the quiet to think and work for hours. I have a few favorite spots in the house and time just whips by. Give me a pot of coffee and perhaps a snoozing cat or dog near me and I’m good to go. My family knows they will see me in this sort of dazed state when my mind is elsewhere.

For many years I was a journalist and a nonfiction author. I published two nonfiction books (a memoir and a book involving Olympic history) with a smaller, regional press but never thought I could write fiction. In fact, I used to say that I couldn’t even make up a single name, let alone an entire plot, but I decided to give fiction a whirl one day about six or seven years ago for a new challenge. I started with a prompt class where they would send you an image, a song lyric, a character or a scene and you would write 1,000 or so words and send it back. That sparked my creative juices and the books came tumbling out after that.

This was my third attempt at a thriller and fourth at a novel. My first three manuscripts I can now look back on as practice. Each one got stronger and sharper but none were up to the level of The Business Trip. It is the rare person who has their first work published. Like any craft, you need to keep working at it and learn from your mistakes, as well as reading masters in your genre.

After I completed the first draft of The Business Trip I knew exactly the agent I wanted to send it to: Meg Ruley of Jane Rotrosen Agency. That’s because Meg gave me the most feedback for my first two unpublished thrillers. I had blind-queried her and many other agents. Although those books were not polished enough for her to offer representation, Meg and I had multiple phone calls talking them over and she pointed out things she loved about my writing (mainly characters and scenes) and things she wanted me to improve upon (mainly plot and backstories). Most other agents would send you a form letter or not respond at all.

Note to agents: authors will alwaysappreciate it if you spend even a few minutes with them. It might pay off as their writing matures.

I sent this latest manuscript to Meg and said something along the lines of, “Remember me from a few years ago? I’ve been too busy at work to write a new novel until now but I think this one has some promise and I would love for you to be the first to take a look.” She liked it right away and brought in a fellow agent from the Rotrosen agency, Logan Harper, to help with editorial suggestions. The three of us got it as polished as we could and Meg and Logan hand-selected an esteemed editor who loves thrillers. Their instinct was spot-on. Jen Enderlin of St. Martin’s Press sprinkled magic dust on top with terrific suggestions to make it what it is now. 

They say to write what you know. I have been in television news for 30 years so I had a lot of fun weaving in things from the newsroom. I also tapped my memories from high school and I enjoyed creating the two very different female protagonists as well as the many supporting characters. There are ten POVs. Believe it or not there were even more in the first draft. We took some out and changed around some other things to get the story to be as strong as it could.

My favorite book as a child was a puzzle mystery called The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. I thought her plot and hidden clues along the way were so clever. I read that book at least a dozen times. I was blown away by how she stitched it all together and I always had the desire to create my own such work.

Thriller writers constantly look at every situation as potential material. I am grateful the idea popped into my head on that flight. If it hadn’t, I likely would have gone to the conference, come home and moved on with my life. Instead I have a debut manuscript to share with the world and I just completed the draft of my second thriller, with Meg, Logan, Jen and the team at St. Martin’s Press. I want to encourage people to write at any age. I am 54. I couldn’t have written The Business Trip at 24, 34 or even 44. I needed the wisdom and experience that comes with time to be able to add depth to the piece. Penning a debut at any age is an absolute dream and the whole process has been a blast. If you’re an author with ink in your blood like me, keep at it, and let inspiration hit you anywhere, even on a routine flight.

(c) Jessie Garcia

About The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia:

TWO STRANGERS. ONE FLIGHT. NO ONE IS WHO THEY SEEM . . .

Two women – strangers – board a plane. Different lives, different purposes for their trip.

Three days later, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man. They say they’ve fallen for handsome stranger Trent McCarthy and are running away with him.

And then the texts go cold, the red flags go up, and the woman are declared missing.

Who’s telling the truth? Who is this Trent, and what has he done with these women? Or, what have they done with him? . . .

Twist upon twist, where nothing is it as it seems, The Business Trip takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who? Perfect for fans of Freida McFadden and Alice Feeney.

Order your copy of The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia online here.