There’s a song lyric I think of a lot. From the musical Follies by Stephen Sondheim—it’s called “I’m Still Here.”

In the lyrics, a character reviews the hills and valleys of her life. With equal parts humor, bravado, triumph and bittersweet, she declares that she made it through all of last year.

That’s what I feel like on this New Year’s Day. Particularly since 2023 has been one for the books. The year was far more dramatic and eventful for me than I would have liked. Lots of hills and valleys. One of the ups was the publication of The Things We Keep in March. The 14^th Jeri Howard novel was my 20^th book and that’s quite a milestone. Hey, call it a mountain.

As the year progressed, I had my share of downs—a computer crash and the loss of a book I was working on, followed by my mother’s passing, then the condo flood. But another up—I finally took that trip to Greece I’d been contemplating for several years, after taking an art history course. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Climbed all the way to the top of the Acropolis, marveled at the remnants of ancient civilizations in Delphi, Corinth, Mycenae, Crete and Akrotiri on Santorini. I ate delicious food. Olives, especially Greek olives. And the scenery! Lots of hills and valleys there.

A year of ups and downs may hold true for you as well.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Haven’t for years. I prefer to think of the new year as a new page in the journal, where I can write dreams, aspirations, and list the things I’m grateful for.

It’s also a time when I make year-end donations to various charities, my way of making the world a better place in the new year. For the most part I keep it local—the food bank, Meals on Wheels, the animal shelter, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Season of Sharing Fund.

Things that happened in 2023 will affect what happens in 2024, and that can be good as well as bad. The past is always an influence. For me, this is a time to let go of the bad things that happened last year, the things that can clutter up my life and impede my progress. It’s time to consider the possibilities of what comes next.

So here comes a year of possibilities. New Year’s Eve will be a quiet evening at home with a favorite movie, surrounded by my feline foursome. New Year’s Day will bring a celebratory brunch with friends of long standing. After that, I’ll take down the Christmas decorations and work on my book.

Happy New Year to all of you and all the best for 2024.

I’ve been scurrying around preparing for the January 15 launch of A Confluence of Enemies, the second book in my Wanee series. The fact that I’m scrambling doesn’t bode well for 2024.

And that’s not good since 2023 was a stinker. I think the earth has tilted too far, it seems darker at night than it used to and warmer outside, and oh, heck, what a mess. Resolutions for 2024, hardly. Instead, here are five things I confess need my attention:

Too Many People: I have a very crowded brain. I live in Wanee in my head and know all the preachers, teachers, and shopkeepers. And their children and grandchildren. I want my readers to know them, too. They’re great people, with their own foibles and dreams. But I need to be firm with them. You can’t be in this book! Maybe the next one — as the dead body — if you keep pestering me for your fifteen pages of fame. On the other hand, if you’re building a world for your readers, shouldn’t you populate it with characters readers want to watch grow? Sheesh.

Everyone’s name does not start with E. Note to self, just stop it. I carefully curate the names of my main characters, villains included, culturing their names like pearls. It is the rest of the folks that present problems. While reading the first draft of Of Waterworks and Sin, the future fourth book in the Wanee Mysteries, I discovered that all the female second banana’s names started with E. This makes some sense, since a century and a half ago the prairie was full of Ellies, Emmas, Ellas, Eleanors, and Elizabeths. As this is not the first time a letter has inhabited my mind, I need an alphabetical list of common first names for the era by my side as I write. Need, being the operative word.

The rhythm of the written word: I make sure the words used in my historical mysteries were in common usage when the books take place. And I attempt to follow the language constructs of the period, which were more formal and precise, leading to a deleterious effect on the simplest of descriptions. My first drafts are a hell of: the hat on the head of the lawman. Instead of the lawman’s hat, or better a black Stetson. The handle on the door. The roof over the porch. On a positive note, tending to these oddities results in more fulsome, precise descriptions. Or, so, I choose to believe.

Giant chapters. We’re talking humongous – up to twenty-two pages. I plot in days, not events. Days. Midnight to midnight. And since I’m writing historical mysteries, communication are slow … everyone is walking, talking, gossiping, visiting, leaving notes, clanking pots, making signs. None of this driving over in the car, dialing up the cellphone or texting the news. Wanee has a paper boy who delivers the daily paper. A telegraph office for news of the world. The local gossips at the dry goods store. Everything happens in person. That’s my excuse, dialog, getting to and from, moving through the labor of the day. In truth, I need to break my days up if for no other reason than to give my readers time to text someone about how much they are enjoying the book.