I’m not going to lie: 2023 was a rough year. Though 2023 started off on an optimistic note, and the first half went really well, the second half took a major nosedive as my productivity, organization, and overall mood went WAY down. So what happened? How did the year spiral downward, how did I handle it, and where does that leave me in 2024? Let the 2023 reflections begin.   In 2023, I Made Clear, Simple Resolutions I started off the year with two simple goals: to finish Carcrash Parker and the Haven of Larpers (my novel-in-progress) and clean up my long-term To-Do list, which consists mo ..read more

June was a busy month for me: I got back into working on my Secret New Novel draft (which won’t be Secret for much longer!), I had a few editing jobs that needed finishing, and I’m *still* unpacking and organizing after my move back in April. As a result, I realized that I needed a blogging break, and took the last two weeks of June off.  For several years now, I’ve been blogging regularly every week with very few weeks missed, but during June, blogging felt less important than the other, more urgent matters demanding my attention. Of course, the world didn’t come to an end because I didn ..read more

It’s been a while since I updated you on my Secret New Novel progress, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been hard at work. Back in December I reached a crucial point with my novel: I finished the Second Draft that I started back in August.  The Second Draft solved a LOT of the problems that were plaguing the First Draft, which was really rough and full of holes.  The Second Draft, in contrast, eliminated some unnecessary scenes, fleshed out a lot of vague ideas, and ironed out some major issues that made the rough First Draft, well, rough. After finishing the Second Draft I took a two ..read more

When I was in middle school, every once in a while I found myself home on a weekend with too many things to do: I had homework to finish, a school project to start, chores to do, my own projects to organize, and probably a phone call or two to make and a letter to mail.  I used to worry about getting all of these things done and would tackle them haphazardly, doing whichever one seemed most urgent, or that I felt like doing at a given moment. Then I discovered To-Do lists, and everything changed. Instead of dashing around throughout the day, I’d take a scrap of paper about 5½ inches by 4 ..read more

One of the best perks about working in Japan was the incredible number of paid national holidays I had: 16 per year to be exact, and they were pretty evenly spaced so that almost every month had one.  Combine that with school vacations and slow periods when classes were out of session, and I had a pretty sweet yearly calendar with a lot of paid time off. Now fast forward a year: I’m back in the States, where I divide my time between finishing my Secret New Novel and doing freelance editing work to keep the bills paid.  Much of my editing is flexible (as in, I can work on it when I wa ..read more

A few weeks ago I shared my Awesome Work-From-Home Freelance Writer/Editor schedule and talked about how I structure my workdays in a way that makes sense to me.  Writing in the morning, handling email and admin around midday, and working on editing and marketing in the afternoon has helped me create a really useful workflow that makes me feel comfortable during my workday and get more done. There are a ton of other advantages to being self-employed, of course: not having to deal with horrible bosses, navigate toxic coworker relationships, deal with pointless Day Job shit, or fight the pr ..read more

Over the years I’ve held a lot of different Day Jobs, all of which required me to be there during set hours.  As a result, I’ve had to schedule my writing and creative work for whatever time I had left over. This led to some interesting workarounds over the years: for example, I went from working mostly after dinner when I worked in an office to working mostly in the afternoons when I taught in Japan, as well as sneaking in whatever creative work I could during my free periods. You might remember, though, that before I moved to Japan I spent about three months without working any Day Job ..read more

Some days are better than others.  Others, though, straight-up suck. Since May I’ve been on a spurt of working on my Secret New Novel four mornings a week. That’s four days when I get up, eat breakfast, and then dive into the novel until around lunchtime.  On the one hand, this has helped me get a LOT of words down on the page, but it also causes issues on days when I’m Just. Not. Feeling. It. I wrote about this a few years back in a post about what I do when I don’t feel like working, but I want to reflect on this problem again because I’ve been spending far more hours a week in the ..read more

In my trusty Schedule Book, I not only keep a column of To-Do list items I plan to finish in the next 1-3 weeks, I also keep a list of tasks that aren’t quite as high priority.  These tend to be things like miscellaneous writing projects, plans to add to my website or organize my writing life, and things I’d like to research for the future.  I also tend to keep personal projects on there: organize these folders, paint that room, email this person I haven’t talked to in far too long, etc. Sorting out long-term tasks in separate lists is similar to the Bullet Journal system, where peop ..read more

It’s been a really good month for novel drafting.  But first, a quick rewind…. Since January 2021 I’ve been working on a Secret New Novel Draft that I’ve wanted to start for literally years.  I knew this novel was going to be big—and for a while, I thought it might be too big.  As in, I wasn’t sure if I could do it. As such, I tried taking time to research and plan the novel first…which didn’t go well, since my research wasn’t focused and much of the story seemed to exist in a murky haze.  I needed to write the story so I’d know what to research, but I also needed to resear ..read more