2024 post-mortem
Winter heralds the death of the year, and it’s time for an autopsy…
Books and such
Brat summer gave way to Undead Complex autumn as the second instalment of The Undetectables Series made its way to shelves – it is a relief to be able to talk about the series as a SERIES and not me wildly trying to maintain the illusion that I didn’t know if there would be more books. I did! I am just a terrible liar! I imagined The Undetectables with a four-book arc from the beginning (I contemplated five, but four feels right) and it’s been a dream to get to do this, especially on my first go.
One thing I will say is that in retrospect I didn’t really think about what it would mean to get to write four books in the same series on my first go – it's the furthest into a story I’ve ever committed to paper. I had written books before where I intended to keep going with the story, but it never left my head. Here, I’ve been playing 4D chess against myself trying to keep all the moving parts going as the series progresses, the decisions becoming more permanent with every book published. While I was polishing up book 2 with Titan earlier in the year, I have been deep in writing book 3. Somehow I find myself moving into polishing mode again while my thoughts turn to book 4. It’s coming to an end in a way that felt very far off when I signed the first contract.
I can’t tell you what I’m doing with this next phase of the series, exactly, only this: I care about these characters like they are my friends, and I can promise I will make the ending worthy of our friendship. But until we get there… the next time we speak like this, everything will be different.
(This has been your one and only warning)
Other news: The Undetectables $1.99 kindle sale for the month of January. Get ‘em while they’re hot. Leave a little review somewhere if you do grab it. It all helps!
Writing
Every year I imagine I will be able to use my time not spent on my contracted work wisely and write lots, and every year I forget I’m human. I’m a chronically ill human (who is admittedly doing a great deal better these days, but still not quite at regular-people standards) with hard limits and I had to be reminded by my friends that taking a break was not only recommended, it was required. It’s helped – I’ve thrown myself into research for something that isn’t anything (yet). I’m enjoying doing it at my own pace with no pressure to imagine it as a book. It’s a story I’m piecing together bit by bit, similar to how I wrote The Undetectables back in 2019. I don’t know if you’ll ever get to see this story, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.
Events
There were fewer events this year but I had a lot of fun doing them – the first was a Trinity Lit Soc Path to Publishing panel with Sheena Wilkinson and Helen Corcoran back in March, which was excellent. My favourite part of any event is when the panel really finds sync, as the final question from a student was related to writing to market (specifically, if they should), and the three of us in unison said “no!!” (I have thoughts about this, but for another day)
The second event of the year was in celebration of The Undead Complex and Irish Book Week but was really a chance for me to assemble a room of extremely cool and talented people to talk about horror and hyperfixations for about an hour (my timekeeping skills are wanting at the best of times but I swear I could’ve sat there all night chatting)
Podcasts!
In October, Meg Grehan and I launched Four Seasons Writers Retreat, a cosy chatty fireside podcast where we discuss often-debated writing topics. The first 6 episodes are available here, and we’ll have some news on the next season very soon…
I also appeared on an episode of Crime World Book Club with Clodagh Meaney talking about my favourite nonfiction book, When the Dogs Don’t Bark by Professor Angela Gallop, and on an episode of Hyperfixations talking about Frances Glessner Lee. You can listen to them both here.
Personally Speaking
I’m still not one for sharing much publicly, but this year has overall been… not so great? Back in January I had imagined what this year would look like to the point of expectation that it would turn out that way, and those expectations were almost matched, then got ripped away in a manner that I haven’t quite recovered from. I am hoping 2025 will look a lot different. (And better. Better, universe. I said better!)
I struggle immensely with uncertainty, and with the absence of clarity. When you’re trying to make big life changes, they tend to all go hand in hand (I wish they didn’t), and when you’re someone who is is constantly trying to make things certain and clear, there’s always a sense that you should’ve known it wouldn’t work out, or that it wouldn’t happen. And for that, instead of trying to talk myself out of this deeply irrational way of making things I can’t control my fault (as strangely, that doesn’t work. Ask me how I know) I like to remember this line by poet Hannah Emerson:
It is ok to be the fool you are helping this great universe explode
Favourite reads
I managed to read 102 books this year (nobody is more surprised than me) and here are some of my favourite reads in no particular order. As is always the case when one reads lots of books, I have definitely missed ones I really enjoyed, but here is a list of 28 I really liked/loved:
Topographia Hibernica by Blindboy Boatclub
Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Now, Conjurers by Freddie Kölsch
Down the Drain by Julia Fox
Spirit Level by Richy Craven
I’m Glad my Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock
The Kissing of Kissing by Hannah Emerson
Who Watches This Place by Amy Clarkin
Trouble by Lex Croucher
The Hollow and the Haunted by Camilla Raines
Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes
The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
Bear Season by Gemma Fairclough
Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
Old Wounds by Logan-Ashley Kisner
Starling House by Alix E Harrow
Smothermoss by Alisa Alering
Idolfire by Grace Curtis*
Briefly, a Delicious Life by Nell Stevens
Under the Mistletoe with You by Lizzie Huxley-Jones
Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race*
One Night Only by Catherine Walsh
Private Rights by Julia Armfield
* = 2025 release
Here’s to a new year and new possibilities. My main resolution is to chase opportunities and be ready to welcome them with open arms. I’ve got some cool things in the works, and I promise TU3 is gonna blow your little gay socks off xx
