It's 9AM
10 Year Vision, 5 Year Plan, Busy is the Enemy
GRIT CHECK
A monthly letter for people who refuse to quit.
Most motivation disappears five minutes after you close the tab.
Grit Check is different.
Once a month, you’ll get something real in your mailbox.
Not another email.
Not another notification.
A handwritten letter from me.
Inside you’ll find:
• A personal letter — stories about grit, gratitude, and the quiet victories that keep us moving when things get hard.
• Small surprises — motivational stickers, a bookmark with a grit quote, a journal prompt card, sometimes even a packet of tea to enjoy while you read.
• A moment to pause — a reminder that progress isn’t loud… it’s built day by day.
And when you join, you’ll also get an instant bonus:
📚 A free ebook box set packed with stories about resilience, gratitude, and pushing through the hard seasons of life.
Members also get:
• Early access to new projects
• Member-only Q&As
• Random surprise perks during the year
Think of it as a monthly reset for your mindset.
Something you can hold in your hands when the week gets heavy.
Join Grit Check
Monthly: $12/month (cancel anytime)
Annual: $99/year (almost 4 months free)
Spots are intentionally limited so every letter stays personal.
If you want something real showing up in your mailbox each month…
Join Grit Check today and get your first letter next month.
Let’s build a little more grit together.
I looked at the list today.
The massive, scrolling, never-ending To-Do list.
It can feel overwhelming.
Like a sentinel on the horizon.
If you’re like me, you have notebooks packed with big ideas.
Five-year plans and ten-year visions.
Ways to completely change your life.
But here is a hard truth I had to swallow this week.
Being busy is not the same as being productive.
Busy is the enemy.
It is incredibly easy to mistake the planning for the doing.
To feel a sense of accomplishment just because you wrote something down.
Or because you spent three hours picking up someone else’s mess.
That’s just taking a draw.
And a start that equals a draw is a loss.
My mornings run like a race car pit crew.
Coffee brewing.
That magic dirt water that weaves a spell over each day.
I clear the clutter and try to zero in on the one thing that is important.
But even then, the distractions call.
The laundry and the yard work.
The urge to completely overhaul my entire business model because I saw some guy on YouTube making fifty grand a month.
We want to fix the whole year in a single day.
We want it “Mo-Bettah-Fastah!”.
But we forget that Coca-Cola only made one soda before they were known for Coke.
They focused.
They built their Blue Duck.
Something so remarkable that people can’t help but talk about it.
You don’t build a Blue Duck by trying to do fifty things at once.
You build it by focusing on the 1%.
It’s the cumulative effect of little things done daily.
I remember being eighty-three miles into a hundred-mile race.
The walls come down after that many steps.
The heat was brutal, the humidity was 100%, and my body was wiped.
My brain was screaming at me to stop.
To just accept a DNF.
It would have been so easy to justify it.
To make an excuse.
Because “because” is the greatest excuse ever written.
But nobody can steal your grit faster than yourself.
So I didn’t stop.
I didn’t focus on the twenty miles left.
I just focused on the next step.
Then the next.
Because the secret to success in running, in business, and in life is just ass in the seat, or boots on the ground.
You don’t need a grand overnight success story.
You don’t need a hockey stick growth chart today.
You just need to be one percent better than the person you were yesterday.
Fix one small system.
Write five hundred words.
Publish the video.
Optimize your workspace so you can actually focus.
Because focus leads to consistency, and consistency leads to success.
We live in a world that wants to distract you.
Politicians who want you angry.
Algorithms designed to keep you scrolling.
Energy vampires in your own home.
Cut the noise.
Turn off the radio in your truck and just think for a minute.
Ask yourself what you actually want.
Not what you need.
Needs are simple like food, water, and shelter.
What do you want?
The world?
Then you have to act like it.
2026 is all about Opportunity.
It’s about taking the ideas out of the word docs and putting them into the world.
I’ll be spending the rest of the day looking for my 1%.
Formatting the paperbacks.
Getting the next audiobooks ready for Spotify and Apple.
Making the next piece of content just a little bit smoother.
Because slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Do me a favor today.
Audit your last 30 days.
If you’ve been taking draws, stop.
If you’ve been letting the world spin you into chaos, take back your control.
You are 100% of what you focus on.
Don’t wait for the first of the month.
Find your 1% today.
GET AFTER IT.
The Florida Mystery Problem
If you grabbed Red Tide Retired or A Pint of Problems from BookFunnel, then you already know something about my stories.
They tend to involve:
Questionable life decisions
Sunburned criminals
Retirees behaving badly
And the occasional body floating somewhere it shouldn’t be
In other words… Florida mysteries.
So here’s the deal.
You told me you like mysteries.
That means Tuesdays are now Mystery Day.
No westerns.
No sci-fi.
No spy thrillers.
Just crime, clues, and the kind of trouble that only happens in humid places.
Mystery Tuesday
Every Tuesday you’ll get:
• New mystery releases
• Updates from the mysteries-only YouTube audiobook channel
• Forgotten gems from my backlist
• Free books, giveaways, and Kindle Unlimited reads
Think of it as a weekly crime delivery service.
The Big Mystery Bundle
(This deal is honestly ridiculous)
I just built a GIANT Mystery Boxset with everything below.
Brace yourself.
A Pint of Problems
A Fifth of Trouble
A Shot of Revenge
A Double Shot of Revenge
Red Tide Retired
ILL Intent
A1A
High Tide Homicide
Good and Gone
Booty Shake
Boomer Bust
Widow Washout
Mermaid Mayhem
Wet Suit Pursuit
Pirate Investigator
Lemon Drop
Lemon Squeeze
Pushing Luck
LA Gumbo
Mr. Goodtime
PI Problems
Mr. Lonely
Subsequent Guilt
Fateful Obsession
Lucid
Louche
Crash Corpse
Obstacle Corpse
Lucky Stiff
Foible
That’s a suspicious amount of reading.
Let’s Do the Math
Buy them one at a time?
$75+
Grab the BIG MYSTERY BUNDLE?
$20 total
Same price I ran for the sci-fi mega bundle.
No tricks.
No weird funnel wizardry.
Just a huge pile of mysteries for the price of two paperbacks.
Why I’m Doing This
A few months ago I lost a chunk of files.
Not fun.
But it forced me to dig through old backups, clean up the catalog, and line up a new wave of mysteries that are almost ready.
This bundle is basically the “catch up on everything before the next crime spree begins” deal.
What Happens Next
If you stick around for Mystery Tuesday, you’ll start seeing:
• Free audiobook drops on the mystery YouTube channel
• Reader giveaways
• A lost short story I found while rescuing files
And more strange Florida trouble.
Ready for a Weekend of Murder, Mayhem, and Poor Life Choices?
Grab the BIG MYSTERY BUNDLE here:
👉 Get the entire mystery library for $20
Then clear your weekend.
Florida’s about to get weird.
— Chris
Historical Fiction - March group promo
Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense Freebies ~ March Edition group promo
NL - Mystery/Thriller/Suspense (MARCH) group promo
ACE Thrillers action thriller newsletter builder
Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Giveaway group promo
Giveaway with crime, thrillers, mystery and suspense. group promo
Go get it, Mr Grit! I hope your Grit Check works out. Unfortunately, as a senior with fixed income who is happily enjoying her grit-less retirement, I will not be joining. I love your writing, and am constantly impressed by your drive to improve. So I will continue to read and subscribe to Its 9am. I will frequently grab some of your mystery, thriller or sci-fi books, even as my TBR list stretches out the door (and down the hill). And I will wish you the best with each new thing you try.
Keep going - you know that you can do it!