clearing the desk

literally and metaphorically

Happy New Year!

I love the start of the year, personally.

I am a list-maker, a goal-setter, a vision-boarder. And I love that at this time, a lot of people set their intentions for the year ahead, take stock of what has been, and look forward to what could be. I also love looking back - on old lists, old vision boards, old goal lists. What got achieved, what fell by the wayside.

So I’ve spent the last few days taking stock, and making goals, and setting intentions for the year ahead. It seems so far away now, but I had two (!) books come out in 2024. I have one book coming out in 2025 - Gradchanted, which will be out on March 4th, 2025. It’s essentially Groundhog Day set at Disney Grad Nite. It absolutely fried my brain while writing it (time loop books are complicated? who knew??) but I’m so thrilled with how it turned out and so very proud of it. I can’t wait for it to be out in the world in a few months.

it’s coming! so soon!!

I also had assumed by this point that I would have a draft of my next MG book, possibly even a second or third draft…but that just didn’t happen. I got about 100 pages into the writing of my second middle grade and I just realized…it wasn’t working. This has only happened to me one other time that deep into the writing. The book I was writing after Amy & Roger also REALLY wasn’t working, but I didn’t know enough to recognize the signs then and forced myself to haul it across the finish line. It was never published - I basically told my editor not to give me notes on it; that we needed to push the pub date a year and I’d write something else. I ended up writing Second Chance Summer, and the only thing I took from that other book was the very last line, which I used as the last line of Since You’ve Been Gone. Back then, I couldn’t tell the difference between not wanting to write and when something is fundamentally wrong with the story - a crack in the foundation that’s only going to spread.

I sometimes get asked questions about writer’s block, and I always say the same thing - that I think of it like a physical block, like a roadblock. For me, it’s my brain throwing down spikes in the road to stop me from going down a path I shouldn’t. It’s the unconscious part of my mind understanding there’s something off here, and that I should course correct.

So as I started getting that feeling with this MG, I realized what was happening and pulled the plug on this particular book. I have a new shiny idea now, one that I’m really excited about and one that I can’t wait to start writing in 2025. It means my next MG is going to be more delayed than I’d expected - but that sometimes, that’s just what happens.

In addition to the MG, there are a LOT of writing projects I’m so excited to tackle this year - I hope I’ll be able to share more about them at some point. And so to prepare for this year - and all I hope to achieve - I cleared my desk. Metaphorically - but also literally.

and then the wider shot, where you can see my disgruntled terrier

For me - there’s nothing better. It’s the promise of the new year, isn’t it? Everything organized and neat, and full of possibilities. In a week or so, it will be a mess of notes and mugs of tea and piles of paper. But for right now, it’s all possibility.

Here’s to a great year ahead - I hope you have a great one.

xoxo

mm