New Year, Same Old Me, by Catriona

 What are your Literary Resolutions for 2025…as a Writer, as a Reader?

I'm quite big on New Year's resolutions. Making them, that is. Not so much keeping them. But that doesn't stop me.

I don't have any reading resolutions, beyond carrying on reading exactly what I want. And giving up on page 50, if I'm still checking page numbers at 49. Right now, I'm reading this:

It's a 1920 domestic novel about middle-class Scottish life written by John Buchan's sister. (He wrote The Thirty Nine Steps.) Imagine the sweetest, tamest cozy ever written and take the crime out. Thrill a minute. 

When it comes to writing, though, I've got resolutions coming out the front door. And the best thing about them is I can't even start breaking them till March. January and February are set aside to edit the eighth Last Ditch Motel mystery - Scots Egg's. Right now I'm on the shovel edit, where I clear up the ordure of the headlong first-draft production from before Christmas. Peee-eew. However, I got a boost of enthusiasm on Monday, finding out that Book 7 is shortlisted for the 2025 Lefty for best humorous novel. Yay! 

By the time I get to Left Coast Crime in Denver, though, I'll be deep in the new thing I've resolved to do. Which is . . .

. . . under wraps. I've been trying to think of a way to use this particular theme/setting/trope/hook for years. I've seen other writers find a way into it and been so happy for them sick with envy, but I still couldn't bring it into focus for myself. 

Meanwhile in another part of the forest, I'd had three quarters of a story knocking about my head. Only, where did it take place? Who is that woman? Why's she there at the start of the plot? What's she doing when she's not doing the plotty bits?

It was late last year that these two live ends touched each other and frrritzzzzed themselves to life as an actual novel. I dashed off a one-page proposal and sent it to my agent immediately, knowing she had to shut it down quick if it was a stinking pile of rubbish, because I was already so committed that it was only going to get worse if I kept the dream alive a day longer.

Reader, it wasn't a stinking pile of rubbish, according to Lisa. And I've decided it's a series. So starting in March, I've got a wet ton of background research to do. Ah, who'm I kidding? I'm going to blat out a first draft and make up everything I don't know. Then I'll have a wet ton of research to do, but at least if it's a series I only need to do it once and it'll last for books and books on end.

Just as well my New Year's resolution isn't "get more into research", eh?

Cx