2024 Writing Round-Up
Dec. 26th, 2024 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archer’Tis the season for writing round-ups! Mine is very short this year: I published a short m/m Christmas romance, Deck the Halls with Secret Agents, about an American and a Soviet spy whose twenty year rivalry culminates in 1991 when they get snowed in at a chateau for Christmas.
There are a number of reasons for this, not least my aforementioned very busy year. But in 2025, I’d like to reprioritize my writing. Still working on the logistics thereof. When I first took this new job, my plan was to get up early before work to have some writing time, which works well when I have an exciting project in hand, but not so well when I don’t.
Other possibilities: I could write over my lunch hour, but currently I almost always take a walk, and the walk is a great solace to me. And of course there’s after work, but I do often have plans which makes it a bit difficult…
(There is of course the always popular writing during work option, which is eminently possible during the slow seasons but not, perhaps, ideal.)
In any case! Here’s a list of I am working on in 2025.
1. I would like to publish Diary of a Cranky Bookworm. This is literally all ready to go except for the cover. Would like to get this out sometime in spring.
2. I’ve procrastinated too much to complete Valentine Spies in time for Valentine’s Day, but I’ve come up with an idea I like even better! What if I write THREE Christmas spy romances, all set at the same chateau over the same snowed-in Christmas 1991??? Two and three to be released Christmas 2025 and 2026, then released as an omnibus paperback called Christmas Spies.
3. The original Valentine Spies plot adapts super well to this. Now that the Cold War is winding down, the Circus (is the Circus copywrited? Do I need to call it the Carnival?) reassigns Stephens the butler, who is of course semi-secretly a British spy. (Biffy his “employer” knows, but the staff and guests generally don’t.) But Stephens insists he must see out one last Christmas party, and after the Christmas party Biffy confesses his love by means of Bing Crosby’s “You’re All I Want for Christmas,” which he plays in Stephens room which he has filled with lighted candles and mistletoe.
4. Have not decided on the pairing yet for Christmas Spies #3, but I believe one of the star players will be Anatole the cranky French pastry chef (currently employed making a gingerbread carousel with reindeer instead of horses) who was a member of the Resistance in his early teens.
5.skygiants and genarti have suggested Carol of the Spies and God Rest You Spying Gentlemen as possible titles. (Also Spylent Night, which I like best of all, but littlerhymes thinks it’s visually juuuust a bit too close to Soylent Green so alas, I must let it go.)
6. This would free up Halloween for an unrelated story, so I might still do a short Halloween book? We’ll see if inspiration strikes.
7. I’m also working in a low-key kind of way on a book about artists in Paris in the 1920s (working title Water Lilies), but I’m not quite sure where that’s going, so right now I’m just tinkering away at it in odd moments.
8. AND FINALLY I have been contemplating maybe revising the Coffee Shop Romances as f/f novellas. I think this would be fun, but I’m not sure about the logistics of it. Would I need to take down the original Coffee Shop Romances so Amazon doesn’t mark the new versions as plagiarism?
There are a number of reasons for this, not least my aforementioned very busy year. But in 2025, I’d like to reprioritize my writing. Still working on the logistics thereof. When I first took this new job, my plan was to get up early before work to have some writing time, which works well when I have an exciting project in hand, but not so well when I don’t.
Other possibilities: I could write over my lunch hour, but currently I almost always take a walk, and the walk is a great solace to me. And of course there’s after work, but I do often have plans which makes it a bit difficult…
(There is of course the always popular writing during work option, which is eminently possible during the slow seasons but not, perhaps, ideal.)
In any case! Here’s a list of I am working on in 2025.
1. I would like to publish Diary of a Cranky Bookworm. This is literally all ready to go except for the cover. Would like to get this out sometime in spring.
2. I’ve procrastinated too much to complete Valentine Spies in time for Valentine’s Day, but I’ve come up with an idea I like even better! What if I write THREE Christmas spy romances, all set at the same chateau over the same snowed-in Christmas 1991??? Two and three to be released Christmas 2025 and 2026, then released as an omnibus paperback called Christmas Spies.
3. The original Valentine Spies plot adapts super well to this. Now that the Cold War is winding down, the Circus (is the Circus copywrited? Do I need to call it the Carnival?) reassigns Stephens the butler, who is of course semi-secretly a British spy. (Biffy his “employer” knows, but the staff and guests generally don’t.) But Stephens insists he must see out one last Christmas party, and after the Christmas party Biffy confesses his love by means of Bing Crosby’s “You’re All I Want for Christmas,” which he plays in Stephens room which he has filled with lighted candles and mistletoe.
4. Have not decided on the pairing yet for Christmas Spies #3, but I believe one of the star players will be Anatole the cranky French pastry chef (currently employed making a gingerbread carousel with reindeer instead of horses) who was a member of the Resistance in his early teens.
5.
skygiants and genarti have suggested Carol of the Spies and God Rest You Spying Gentlemen as possible titles. (Also Spylent Night, which I like best of all, but littlerhymes thinks it’s visually juuuust a bit too close to Soylent Green so alas, I must let it go.)6. This would free up Halloween for an unrelated story, so I might still do a short Halloween book? We’ll see if inspiration strikes.
7. I’m also working in a low-key kind of way on a book about artists in Paris in the 1920s (working title Water Lilies), but I’m not quite sure where that’s going, so right now I’m just tinkering away at it in odd moments.
8. AND FINALLY I have been contemplating maybe revising the Coffee Shop Romances as f/f novellas. I think this would be fun, but I’m not sure about the logistics of it. Would I need to take down the original Coffee Shop Romances so Amazon doesn’t mark the new versions as plagiarism?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-26 07:33 pm (UTC)The titles you guys have come up with are great!
no subject
Date: 2024-12-26 07:37 pm (UTC)It would also be a good in-between project so that when I'm stuck on writing something new, I can still be working on something.
If I go through with the project, I'll also need to come up with some new coffee-themed titles!
no subject
Date: 2024-12-26 08:12 pm (UTC)Oooh!
(Also, for your Halloween story— is there anything stand-alone short story-shaped with your one vampire m/m idea?)
no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 12:57 am (UTC)TBH the vampire m/m idea never had what you might call a coherent story of any kind, just vibes, which may be why it never quite gelled into anything coherent. TBH I think the basic problem is that modern vampire romance readers want a romance where at least one of the characters is in fact a vampire, which originally neither of them were... maybe I could make Josh into a vampire... maybe the problem is that I just don't love vampires enough?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-28 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 10:42 pm (UTC)Love the icon of the cat reading btw.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 12:05 pm (UTC)You'd have to take them down and when you publish the new versions, mention in the book descriptions that they're reworked versions of 'title of old book' (say the folks over at the indie author discord I'm part of)
no subject
Date: 2024-12-27 10:41 pm (UTC)