Any potential success I may have for 2025 depends on the first ninety days. Starting today.

If you read last month’s Musings, you’ll have noticed it lacked my usual high-energy enthusiasm for work, home, and life. There, I explained as best I could what SAD (seasonal affective disorder) looks like for me each year. You can imagine my husband’s disappointment…and why he golfs so much.

But that’s all over now. It’s officially the start of the New Year!

Because my goal is to have my newest book – the true crime book I’ve been talking about for months – done and released in the second quarter of 2026, I need to finish it by the end of summer. My gosh, I hope I do. I still need my interviews, which are being fueled at this point by hope, prayer, and stubborn (see “desperate”) determination. I must face the possibility I won’t get them. Arguably, this might make for better reading. However problematic to write true crime without any interviews with the important witnesses and authorities, it’s par for the course in this case if that doesn’t happen. In fact, it downright illustrates some of the issues with the case itself. I guess we’ll see how that pans out.

In addition to the need to finish writing the book by late summer, I have other projects…two are notable, and one I can’t yet mention. The one I can is something most of us can relate to: taxes.

It takes me a good week to prepare the annual spreadsheet of expenses and write-offs we send to our tax guy. If you’re like me, you’ll agree it’s a daunting, boring, and necessary rite of each winter/spring. I should have done it during my down time in December. I’d wanted to. I’d vowed to. Alas, it didn’t happen.

Nonetheless, if I can get my taxes done before April 1^st, along with the other requisite project I need to complete by then, I’ll be cleared for the big writing push. I think I mentioned back in October’s Musings that I’d already outlined the thing. That’ll prove to be a huge advantage.

I started off my writing style as a pantser. Lockhardt Sound was pantsed. The second book in the Music is Murder saga, A Fate Worse than Fame, was likewise pantsed. However, book three, Ballad of Someday, became problematic for a proper pants. I had too many details from the first two books that needed a good wrap-up. Ultimately, I wrote out a whole bunch of 3×5 cards with one scene per card, then arranged them to keep the pace while alternating character scenes. Anyone who’s read the Music is Murder saga will attest that this saga is very “soapy.” And all soap operas go scene by scene, usually ending with the scene’s central character gazing off into the middle distance with that far-off dramatic gleam in their eyes. Yeah, well, that’s how I roll. At least for this saga.

By the time the fourth saga installment, Hit Makers, was up, it needed to be fully plotted. It was a prequel, but that meant more loose ends, not fewer. What I found in doing that (as with half of book three), was how much easier it was for me to plot the whole thing out in detail, scene by scene, and then go back and just plug in the words. Sounds simple, right? (Actually, it was. I finished a 135K-word novel in four months.) In the end, I emerged as a full-on plotter. Who knew?

My approach to the true crime book has netted the same rewards. As of this writing, I have thirty-five “scenes” in the upcoming book, which will each be its own chapter. This number may well increase because each suspect has their own chapter and I only have a handful identified at this time. The chapters will vary in length due to the individual subject matters covered. In theory, I can write a chapter a day. Best case scenario? I could have the book done in about a month and a half. We’ll see how that pans out. Either way, I’m hopeful that my end-of-summer deadline will hold. From there, I’ll send the book off for editing by September first, be done with that leg by the end of the year, and then start marketing materials and publication coordination for an April 2026 release!

So you can see why everything for 2025 hinges on my first 90 days. They’re critical. Time for me to keep the ol’ nose to the grindstone…an analogy I’ve never quite understood. Who wants their nose on a grindstone? Ouch!

I guess, in a way, these self-imposed first quarter deadlines could be construed as a New Year’s resolution. I dunno. I’m not much for the whole resolution thing. It seems like code for “wishful planning for a few post-New Year’s days until they’re pretty much abandoned.” Such things, in my rather jaded experience, rarely see the bloom of Spring. I mean, do I secretly have a goal to eat better in 2025? Lose weight? Exercise? Socialize? Be less of a hermit? Of course I do! But let’s be honest, folks. Until late summer, I’m all booked up. Literally.

Do you have any goals for 2025? I’m on many social media sites, but I’m probably on “X” more than anywhere else. It’s easy. It’s quick. If you want to share any thoughts on your own writing journey, or if you have any questions or comments for me regarding my work, I’d love to hear from you. Just go to the “Connect” tab at the top of this page, hover over the little carat for the drop-down list, and click the “YouTube & Social Media” option. That will take you to all the places I am. Go to the old “Twitter” icon (some habits die hard) and click on that bird to get in touch.

See you there! Or next month right here on the Musings. Whatevs.