Looking back on 2025

Well, it’s that time again where I take stock of the passage of time over the last year. It’s been a lot, I’ve done a lot of things, and I haven’t got around to a lot of things.

Let’s look at the list of goals for 2025:

• Publish one book
• NaPoWriMo 2025 (April)
• Keep up the blog
• Craft projects, including crochet, painting, etc.
• Read 5 books
• Play music
• Focus on physical health/getting into nature

I have achieved some of them and not others.

I published two books, Carter and Carter Detective Agency, a branching style mystery novel, and A Wolf of his Own, a sequel to my San Destino book, Pillion for a Police Officer.

Carter and Carter was a particular challenge as it’s very difficult to write and keep track of all the sections in a branching narrative. I’ve had some positive feedback on it, and will look to write a follow up at some point at some point. A Wolf of his Own was a fun re-entry into the world of San Destino. I’m considering writing a third in the series at some point, so keep an eye out for that.

I did a few craft projects, including making a bath mat and place mats for my mum, and for arm rest covers for my couch (I’m still going on one of them but I may get it finished by the end of the year). I didn’t do much painting though.

I don’t think I’ve read five books. It didn’t seem like a big ask, but I haven’t made much time for reading this year. I listened to at least three audio books, so that was good, and I did do a fair amount of judging for the RWAus writing competitions, which counts as reading, but they’re not whole books. I’ll try again next year to do a bit more reading. I have the BorrowBox app, which taps into local library accounts for audiobooks and I find them quite overwhelming to try to choose something.

I have continued with my piano lessons for 2025, and plan to keep going in 2026. I did a couple of concerts with the other students, one in May and one in December. I didn’t play as fluently as I would have liked, but I’ve been learning some difficult stuff so I feel like it’s been a good learning journey anyway. Plus the other students are always a very positive audience.

I’ve tried to be consistent with my physical health, I’ve done my weights sessions, yoga and walking on a fairly regular schedule, though there were some weeks when I didn’t do as well. I had a few busy weeks at work where I was more tired than usual, and that meant I did less exercise.

I have been able to get out into nature a couple of times camping, two times for Autumn and Spring ConFests, and once on the ConFest site to do some prep work. I’ve always found camping a struggle, I don’t sleep as well as I do at home, and the weather is much more of a bother, however I’m finding it more enjoyable these days. It may have something to do with the set up that we have now–lots of creature comforts and some really excellent food set-ups. I’m involved in doing a lot of organising for the two festivals which was not on my goals list for the year, and is the reason I didn’t do NaPoWriMo.

Overall, I’ve done a lot this year. I don’t know if 2026 will be as productive, but I have lots of plans. I’m also planning an overseas holiday next year as I haven’t had any decent time off from my day job for a couple of years.

I’m quite tired at the end of the year. I have about a week off work to do some regenerating and then I’m back at it on 5 January. I’ve been asked to take on an extra responsibility at work, and go up to 4 days per week which is not ideal in terms of all my other activities, but I hope it will only be for a few months.

I’ll be posting my new years’ goals in a few days. I will try to keep them conservative so that I can try to exceed them, but I am also trying to learn to be gentle with myself when I don’t do as much as I plan.

How did you all go with your goals for the year? How did it treat you? The state of the world is moderately distressing, and if I’m honest I try not to think about it too much. I focus on the small parts where I can make a difference, and that helps.