I’m going to be frank. I’ve been struggling to write lately. Specifically, I’ve been struggling to get myself to work on a new draft of my first Jamie and Pip Halloran Mystery, which I wanted to think of as a complete re-imagining of my old first book, Harsh Prey. It felt a little too much like cheating, like changing names, adding a few scenes, changing a few scenes, and claiming it was a whole new book. But I have to be honest with myself–it just doesn’t feel like it is. Have the re-writes I’ve made so far made the original book much better? I honestly think so. Is it a whole new book? No more than draft three of a book is a whole new book compared to draft two.

That leaves me with two questions. First, what do I do with the Shalan Adventures? I love Harry and Dee. Harry is me, only better. And I think changing Harry and Dee into Jamie and Pip just feels like fraud. I like the idea of re-publishing new and improved versions of all the Shalan books and then debuting the sixth and final book, for which I already have the rough draft complete. So, I think I have my answer.

But that leaves me with question two, which is, what do I do with Jamie and Pip Halloran? I’m excited about the possibility of creating a whole new set of characters and whole new story arc. But if it’s just another hard-boiled detective series, I feel like I run the risk of just writing the same struff I’ve been writing, only with new names. That would still feel like fraud. What to do?

I think I’ve figured out my answer. The more I think about it, the more excited I get about making the Halloran Mysteries into cozies. I’ll set them in a small fictional town in the Mid-Ohio Valley and turn Jamie into a current teacher who solves murders, along with his wife Pip, who has some, probably food-related, job I haven’t figured out yet. They have a silly little dog with huge ears and a big schozz, whose breed no one can seem to place, and a cat with a cute name but who is mainly identified as Kitty. Who knows–maybe they’ll have met and married later in life, having found their true loves after both had gone through soul-crushing first marriages. Maybe they even have a sassy adult daughter who helps them solve the crime sometimes.

What do you think? Would you enjoy cozy mysteries? What job should Pip have? What shall we name the cat and dog? I’m open to suggestions, and I’d love to hear from you.