These days where I do all the things. Man. It is FULL. ON. Up at the buhcrack. Nonstop including doing yoga with lunch from 6:30 to essentially 6…and then a collapse onto the couch for some potato time.

Right now, it’s exhausting. I’m out of shape, mentally. The short daylight hours really don’t help. But, you know what? I feels soooooo gooooooood to have a day like I did today, even through the exhaustion. Just need to keep going. And I don’t do this every day. Just the work days.

I finally found the mental space to sit down and map out what my year of writing could look like. I say “could” because life happens. This is a best-case scenario. Stuff WILL happen, and that’s okay. I know how fast I can do things. I’ll adapt. Make sure I’m not actually committed to this schedule beyond what I can adjust to should other concerns take away my attention. But, damn, it felt good to do that. It’s exciting. Super motivating, and I’m really hoping that it will help me take full advantage of the time that I have right now to work on things. It helped this afternoon, at least; a writing session in which I was able to sketch out the entire story of these next two books for the first time. VERY rough sketch, but a complete one nonetheless, with all the points of a proper story.

It feels like a superpower to be able to see that rough structure so easily, now, of what a story looks like. These are the markers. Hit these, and the story will be satisfying, at the very least. We’ll empathize with the character, and feel like they went on a complete journey. It won’t feel like something is missing. “The rules.” I’m not quite to the point in my powers where I feel like I’m really able to fuck with the rules, yet, but I’m looking forward to that as well. Right now, I’m happy learning how to live within them, make them fresh each time—which is honestly not hard at ALL—and deliver a satisfying experience.

Anyway…time for bed. Key to the whole operation is Ira getting enough sleep, and lately I’ve been doing really good at that, so. Here we go again!