Behaving Badly: Out of the Drawer

Dear Stiletto Gang Readers: I am so proud to know today’s guest. Read on; I have no doubt you’ll understand why. ~ Donnell Ann Bell  

Out of the Drawer

By: Rochelle Staab

Author Rochelle Staab

Most every writer keeps one or more unwritten novels somewhere in a drawer/file/box, waiting, hoping for the enthusiasm to finish. Most drawer stories wait forever. Some resurface then fizzle again. My new novel, Behaving Badly, spent ten years in the drawer before the escape. Inspiration didn’t reappear overnight. Unwittingly, my personal journey away from writing, fed into the story and setting and made me a better writer.

After a series cancellation and my frustration in trying to please an editorial team who liked me but not the ideas I pitched, I decided to write what I really wanted to write: noir set in depression/prohibition-era Los Angeles. Using a working title of Above the Fold, I created a gritty, recently widowed female crime reporter who chased front-page headline stories about crime and corruption in 1930s Los Angeles without the convenience of a cell phone or a computer.

I loved the idea. Like so many women who found and claimed their power through the 1920s into the 1930s, my heroine had guts. Tess—my protag’s name has always been Tess—had a character profile, a supporting cast, solid research, and a complicated abduction plot involving a silent screen star lookalike.

Seventeen chapters in, Tess claimed her ground. I deflated. My agent gave me a mediocre response when I pitched a historical noir mystery featuring a female reporter. I feared the same reaction from my editor. I needed to shake off rejection and self-doubt and do something to make me feel good about myself.

Rochelle Staab and hiking buddy Barbara Beck at Escondido Falls, Malibu, California

I had always felt less than because I didn’t have a college degree, something I knew I had the power to fix. I enrolled in the local community college to see if I had what it took to erase my insecurity. My major would be English, because, you know, writer? But a required history class seduced me. One more, and I became a history major. I graduated and moved on to Cal State Northridge to complete my credits. I read primary sources; I wrote essays about world history. I formed opinions. Despite being the oldest history major at CSUN, I did a summer internship at the Autry Museum. I built a blog on the history of chocolate and co-wrote a video about the history of Los Angeles State Historic Park. Without planning, the classes I took, like the history of Weimar Germany, added context to the world surrounding Tess. My Sunday hikes around L.A. gave me a sidewalk-up familiarity (setting!) with Los Angeles infrastructure during the city’s growing years, the city Tess lived and worked in.

During my last semester at CSUN, I had a casual conversation with an acquaintance at my gym, a man who read hard cover novels on his daily stationary bike routine. I told him I wrote three books. A week later I spotted him reading my first book, Who Do Voodoo? on the bike. Seeing him turn the pages of my book fired a spark. I wondered if I would ever have the courage and creativity to write another novel.

Two weeks before I graduated with Honors, the gym guy and I had dinner. He asked what I would be writing after I graduated.  Just so I could call myself a writer and still believe it, I told him about Tess, my 30s reporter. That night I opened the “drawer” in my computer and figuratively pulled out Tess and what soon became Behaving Badly.

I started editing the seventeen chapters I wrote ten years ago and fell in love with the story all over again. Worried about failing Tess one more time, I logged my daily word count but without specific goals. From then on, each day when my gym friend asked how the writing was going, I had an answer. I found my pattern. Editing the seventeen chapters gave me courage. From there, I tried to write a new chapter each week, building the rest of the story without pressure or deadline. My friends smiled at me with that patient “will she ever finish the damned thing?” look. Twenty-eight chapters later, and a much richer story, Tess tied up some loose plot ends, and I typed THE END.

I had promised myself that if my agent still didn’t like historical noir ten years later, I would take charge of my writing future, self-publish Behaving Badly, and reclaim my agency. When he told me that the historical fiction genre had no audience, and perhaps I should write about hiking instead, our gracious parting made me a publisher.

A chance meeting with another author while on a basement tour of speakeasys in downtown L.A.—where else would authors bond?—led to a self-publishing conversation. He offered to school me. I took him up on it, followed the process, commissioned a cover, formatted the document, and within weeks uploaded Behaving Badly to Amazon. The feeling of publishing my own book exhilarated me.

On April 30, Tess and Behaving Badly debuted at #14 on Amazon’s Depression History of the U.S. chart and hit #10 the next morning. Today Amazon named Behaving Badly the “Top New Release” in Depression History of the U.S. Tiny category, but fitting, I think, for a historian, noir mystery author and publisher with her 1930s drawer novel.

Never give up, fellow writers. Never give up.

About the Book:

About the Author: Rochelle Staab is a Los Angeles mystery writer, avid hiker, trail blogger, and historian with a deep background in the radio and music industry. She returned to the writing community in 2026 after a seven-year hiatus to earn a BA in history with an emphasis on America and Los Angeles. Using Mother Nature as a tour guide, Rochelle has blogged about over 300 different hikes in the mountains, urbs, and burbs of Los Angeles, exploring L.A. from the ground up. Rochelle’s fourth novel, BEHAVING BADLY, the first Tess Hammond historical noir mystery novel set in 1932 Los Angeles, released in May 2026.  ~ https://rochellestaab.com/