2025 wrapped

what i wrote/ read/ watched this year

Happy New Year!!

from last night’s NYE party

I love January first. I love looking at the year that passed, and making resolutions, and cleaning off my white board and starting fresh. I love taking stock of what came before, and charting a course for the year to come.

Do you read Steven Soderbergh’s culture diary? I look forward to it every year - his summation of all the books and movies and TV and theater he consumed. For years I’d try and do what he did, keeping a log every day, but it just never worked for me and I always abandoned it a few days into January.

Which I never understood, because I love a list - I love TRACKING things. I love data!! I love getting info and seeing patterns and adjusting accordingly (or not). For every book I’ve written, I keep a daily log of the date, how many words I wrote, and if I finished a chapter or not. It’s as low-tech as you can get, but it’s always worked for me - I love keeping track of my writing that way.

two books, two scripts, and a sleeping terrier in the bg

This is what I wrote this year - two books and two scripts. Not pictured are the many treatments and drafts and pitches of things that never ended up materializing - but such is a writer’s life. I have really big goals for my productivity this year - maybe 4 books, 8 scripts? I concede this might be wildly ambitious. (But if you’re not going to be wildly ambitious on January 1st, then when?) Maybe putting it here will mean that next year, this picture will be of a towering pile. I hope so!

I also published a book this year - Gradchanted came out in March! But since most of the work on that was done in 2024, I didn’t feel like it counted.

It’s only recently that I’ve started keeping track of what I’m reading and watching. I’ve found it really helpful, though - I like seeing my progress, and it helps me to remember, when someone asks me for a rec, what I’ve recently loved. What I’ve found has worked for me is keeping a notes app list of the books I’ve read, another of the TV/ theater I’ve watched, and letting my letterboxd take care of keeping track of my movies.

It was one of my intentions to read more this year, and I’m thrilled to report I did! I didn’t get where I wanted to be - I’d aimed for 150 books, then reduced it to 100, then 75, and ended up at 71. But more than double what I read in 2024 - next year I’m aiming for 119.

Books 25

1. Everyone this Christmas has a secret (1/1)

2. Heartbreak is the national Anthem (1/4)

3. How to solve your own murder (1/7)

4. The Jaws Log (2/15)

5. Love Song (2/19)

6. Penderwicks on Gardam St. (2/24)

7. The running grave (2/27)

8. The ink black heart (3/5)

9. Last night was fun (3/15)

10. Lethal White (3/18)

11. Troubled blood (3/22)

12. The friend (4/8)

13. We solve murders (4/12)

14. The authors’ guide to murder (4/16)

15. Verity (4/21)

16. Great big beautiful life (4/26)

17. Princess daisy (5/14)

18. Love and theft (5/24)

19. It’s a love story (5/30)

20. Marble Hall Murders (5/31)

21. Fair Play (6/8)

22. All His Lies (6/9)

23. Worth Fighting For (6/10)

24. Vera Wong 2 (6/30)

25. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (7/4)

26. Atmosphere (7/6) (11:58 pm under the wire baybee!)

27. Deep Cuts (7/15)

28. The Love Haters (7/26)

29. Margo’s Got Money Troubles (8/5)

30. Matrix (8/15)

31. Catching the Big Fish (8/15)

32. Sunrise on the reaping (8/23)

33. The Wedding People (8/25)

34. These Summer Storms (8/28)

35. The Hallmarked Man (9/9)

36. Hamnet (9/11)

37. Bad Actors (9/14)

38. We Solve Murders (9/18)

39. Clown Town (9/23)

40. The Impossible Fortune (10/1)

41. Lin-Manuel Miranda: Education of an Artist (10/6)

42. Dolly all the time (10/11)

43. The Impossible Fortune (10/19)

44. Down Cemetery Road (10/19)

45. John & Paul (10/21)

46. Consider Yourself Kissed (10/22)

47. The Trouble With Heroes (10/23)

48. Library of Unruly Treasures (10/24)

49. What We Can Know (10/29)

50. Dreaming the Beatles (10/30)

51. Murder Takes a Vacation (10/31)

52. Once & Again (11/5)

53. Forever (11/9)

54. Curtain (11/15)

55. Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club (11/16)

56. Murder in Retrospect (11/20)

57. Twenties Girl (11/21)

58. The Correspondent (11/26)

59. See You Next Tuesday (12/1)

60. The Body in the Library (12/4)

61. The Summer Book (12/5)

62. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year (12/7)

63. The Boomerang Clue (12/13)

64. Project Hail Mary (12/17)

65. This American Woman (12/18)

66. Murders in the Rue Morgue (12/21)

67. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit (12/28)

68. A Marriage at Sea (12/29)

69. I Remember Nothing (12/30)

70. If The Fates Allow (12/30)

    71. When Harry Met Sally… (12/31)

A solid 1/4 of these are mysteries, which makes sense considering how much of my next year will be taken up with writing my YA mystery WHO DUNNE IT. (And also…I love mysteries. I feel like they’re one of the best things to bust you out of a reading slump. If you haven’t read Richard Osman, please please go make yourself happy and check him out). Next year I want to crack 100 - we’ll see.

My faves of this year were The Correspondent, The Wedding People, Margot’s Got Money Troubles, John & Paul, Atmosphere, The Impossible Fortune, Dolly All the Time, and The Trouble With Heroes.

I also watched 120 movies this year, which I definitely want to increase next year - I’d like to aim for 300 but would be happy with 200 for sure. Here’s my movie diary. And yes, I DID watch all of the Knives Out movies way too much! (See above, mystery writing & loving.) I also watched K-Pop Demon Hunters a whole bunch, and have no regrets.

I hope that you’re having a great first day of the year - and that 2026 is already off to a good start.

xoxo

MM