Happy 2025 Dear Readers!
This is not a 'new year's resolutions' post - I know myself and my long ingrained traits well enough to know I rebel against any prescribed changes - even from myself!
I also am accepting, slowly, but surely, the ways that living with chronic illness changes the horizons of what types of 'new year, new me' changes are possible.
That said; I am going into 2025 with renewed resolve.
This is my publication year - my first cozy mystery in my 'Nova Naismith Mystery' series has a set deadline in August.
I'm aware of the hard work ahead - there is still a lot to do - but I am very excited.
Not my first rodeo: but now I'm a different kind of author writing for a different purpose
I have published my writing many times before; I wrote a PhD thesis and I published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters based on my research while I was working as an academic.
These were huge achievements at the time - and still are - but the long time line from submit to publish alongside the working cultures and pressures of academic life mostly made these publication dates feel like fairly muted occasions - it was always on to the new and the 'next'.
Publishing my first fiction book - and crucially publishing it as an independent author - feels altogether more thrilling. This is not only because I'm writing for completely different reasons and audience, but because I am actually making an ambition I've held for many decades, finally happen.
I've figured out how to craft a cozy (I hope!), how to produce a book, and how to self-publish. I'm learning how to put myself as an author 'out there' and promote my stories. I've learned that I will almost always want to write books that are part of a series and I'm excited for the next books as well as this first.
Will this be the best book I've ever written? Probably not; but that is ok. It is completely standard practice and part of the beauty of the craft of writing - we can always learn and improve.
And, if it flops? I'll be disappointed and sad, of course. But, soon enough, I know I will get over it and carry on to try again. I am in this for the long-haul and hopeful that this will be my 'second act' career taking me through the rest of my lifetime.
This renewed resolve is exciting in and of itself; it shows me how much I have changed as an author than the always anxious academic writer I was.
I am now absolutely fine in appreciating the time and effort it will take to find my readers - and I'm actually not worrying about the readers who might 'hate' my genre, or my book/s, or, well me!
We can only write what we want to read more of; what we think is important to share.
That is something that remains central in my writing - from my academic research to the characters in my fiction - I'm always interested in telling stories about women's experiences.
Writing women's journeys in fiction too is an important way of making sure more of us are seen, heard, resonant.
I hope that reading my character's journeys will offer something valuable; be that informative, or as entertaining.
More progress updates coming soon - and over on Instagram where you can hang out with me while I'm at my desk!
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