I’m Writing a 12-Book Cozy Mystery Series While Teaching Full Time
Week 1 * Mysteries & Manuscripts * Falisa Beffa
I’ve wanted to write a book my whole life. I’m 44, and I’m only starting now — and there’s a reason it took me this long.
There’s also the small matter of the full-time teaching job, and the fact that I’m not writing one book. I’m writing twelve.
I’m Falisa Beffa. I teach 7th grade ELA. And those twelve murder mysteries aren’t twelve someday — they’re planned, titled, and mapped, with the first one in draft right now. I know who dies in Book Nine. I know how Book Twelve ends. I also have no idea yet whether I can actually pull this off, and that’s exactly why I’m documenting it.
Why it took until 44
Writing has always been the thing. Not a hobby I picked up — the thing, the one that’s been on my list since before I had a list. So the obvious question is why it took until 44.
Here’s the honest answer: I spent years not writing a book because I thought it had to be important. I kept waiting until I had something deep and meaningful enough to deserve the effort — and meanwhile, the books I actually reached for at the end of a long teaching day were cozy mysteries. Small towns. Warm people. A puzzle that plays fair.
What finally unlocked it was realizing the deep meaningful book and the fun one about goats were never two different books. The themes I always wanted to write — empathy for people at their worst, a town that judges too fast and has to learn better, a family estrangement that takes years to mend — fit inside a cozy mystery perfectly. Actually, they fit better, because a cozy earns the right to sit with hard things by being a comfort first. Once I figured that out, I didn’t just want to write one book. I planned twelve.
The series
The Hollow Creek Farm Mysteries: two cousins — a burned-out yoga instructor and her cousin, a man who cannot stop trying to “elevate the brand” of literally everything — inherit their estranged aunt’s working goat farm, try to turn it into a wellness retreat, and stumble into a murder that half the town would rather not reopen.
Twelve books. Every title has an ampersand, because apparently I have a brand now:
Milk & Murder · Contests & Corpses · Bloggers & Baby Goats · Breeding & Betrayal · Judges & Jealousy · Vows & Vengeance · Red Tape & Ruin · Spotlights & Scandal · Gossip & Guilt · Curds & Culprits · Bylaws & Blackmail · Deeds & Deception
That list is the whole point of this post. The scale is the vulnerability. I’m showing you the entire roadmap before I’ve finished Book One, which means you get to watch whether I actually do it.
What my writing time actually looks like
People assume teachers have all this time — summers off, planning periods, a lunch break. My lunch is twenty-two minutes, two of those days are lunch duty, and the rest of it I’m eating and going to the restroom. Nobody is drafting a murder scene in there.
So the real answer to when I write is: an hour or two after school most days, sometimes in my car while waiting for my daughter to get out of practice. A real block on Saturday or Sunday (both if the week has been kind). And breaks — breaks are where the real work happens. Summer is the load-bearing wall of this entire plan. My son is leaving for college and my daughter’s a senior, so the house is quieter than it used to be, and I’ve decided the quiet is going to become chapters.
The three promises
If you’re going to spend a year (or twelve) watching this, you deserve to know the rules I’m holding myself to:
No spoilers. Ever. I’ll show you the craft, never the answers.
No invented milestones. If I haven’t done it, I won’t imply I have. When you hear a number from me, it’s real.
Full transparency. The costs, the sales, the view counts — including the numbers that don’t go my way. Especially those.
If you’re in your own messy middle of a thing you’ve wanted your whole life, this is your sign — and your invitation. Stick around and find out whether I actually do this.
Next week: the eight cozy niches I researched before choosing goats, including a cat café in a lighthouse I still think about.
Find me everywhere: https://linktr.ee/FalisaBeffa
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