Artistic Adventures with Victoria

A New Year, A New Project: Writing My First Cozy Crime Novel in 2026

There is something about the turning of the year that invites new beginnings. Fresh notebooks, blank pages, and the quiet promise that anything can happen next. This year, I’m taking that feeling quite literally: in 2026, I am going to write a book.

Not just any book, but a cozy crime novel.

Now, those who have been following me for a while might smile at this choice, and I can’t blame you. My earlier books are far from crime literature: children’s stories with unicorns and cheerful coloring books filled with nature and fairy themes. Those who know me would also agree. I’m not exactly a devoted reader of crime or horror stories. My reading habits lean toward other genres entirely, and my shelves reflect that. The only crime I have truly enjoyed is Agatha Christie, and that sits quite far from modern crime literature; it falls firmly into cozy crime. The tension is gentle, and the characters are likeable, even the culprit.

But I would like to try. And I do have a few aces up my sleeve. I enjoy murder mystery games, a genre I only recently discovered, and they have shown me how satisfying a well-constructed puzzle can be and how much I enjoy unravelling possible plots. That playful puzzle-thinking might actually help me as I step into writing crime fiction. My other ace is closer to home: my mother is a devoted crime reader, and she has kindly promised to comment on my plot and twists.

This is my plan for 2026. Maybe it will come to nothing, or it might become a book. And I will blog about this journey, from the very first ideas and character sketches, through the messy middle, all the way to the finish line where a complete story emerges. I’m giving this project twelve months, and by the end I hope to have the first draft. My plan is to write twelve blog posts along the way. They may turn out to be about planning, the inevitable challenges, and, I hope, the small victories.

If you have been following my coloring and art posts, don’t worry, those continue as well.

Let’s see whether this New Year’s resolution survives past February, or whether I’ll quietly delete the posts in the silence of the night. Just kidding. It’s not about discipline or perfection. It’s about curiosity, about learning something entirely new, about seeing what happens when I give myself permission to try.

Here’s to 2026! Let’s see where this story leads.