Tag: Writing process

First Quarter Reckoning

So, I am still (loosely) following the Ines Johnson Page Turner Planner system. Part of that is to reflect after each quarter—a good practice. It’s so easy to think you haven’t accomplished anything at all. At least, it is for me.

But in tallying up the first quarter of 2026, I discovered I did quite a bit.

The biggest, obviously, is getting a solid draft of The Marigold Miracle, which is now spell-checked, formatted, and resting quietly.

Other things I did:

  • Started Booking Through Thursday.
  • Submitted two short stories, one of which is in the final round of consideration.
  • Got a BookBub Free Reads deal for Must Love Ghosts that was tremendous.
  • Added a funnel to The Pansy Paradox at the end of Coffee & Ghosts book four—a short excerpt with a link to the extended preview.
  • Updated my WordPress template.
  • Migrated my email newsletter list to a different provider. This was not fun, but I’m glad I did it.

Things I didn’t do or dropped:

  • I wanted to look at drafting short stories, but my entire attention was on The Marigold Miracle, so this didn’t happen. It may happen in the next weeks while the manuscript rests. I’m fine with this. My entire brain was in the world of King’s End, and that’s where it needed to be.
  • The Jane Eyre slow read. I don’t know if it was the audio version or what (and yes, I know I could switch to a print version). But Adele sounded like a fifty-year-old French woman, and I’m not even sure what Mr. Rochester sounded like, except for wrong. But since it felt like a relief to stop, I think I made the right decision here.

And that’s my first quarter. I hope you take time to reflect and discover that you also did so much more than you imagined—even if it wasn’t exactly what you planned on doing.

It’s done! (Well, mostly.)

This draft of The Marigold Miracle is done!

Well, mostly.

It’s not the final draft, but it is the draft that has all its moving parts—or, at least, most of them. If someone read this particular draft, they could follow the story. I filled in all the missing scenes, wrote a new beginning, and picked up where I left off with the epilogue.

In the previous draft, I stopped writing in the middle of that epilogue. Yes, really! It was in my head, the last line in particular, so it didn’t really matter if it was on the page.

What comes next? I’m going to run a spellcheck, since when I draft, I never use spelling or grammar checking or turn on anything that provides “helpful” hints. (And Copilot is even more annoying than Clippy.)

After that, I’ll put it in manuscript format and then let it rest.

For how long? I’m not sure. I’m thinking between four and eight weeks. Then I’ll print that monster and do a paper edit.

And it is a monster of a story: 160,000 words, y’all.

This is the longest book I’ve ever written, beating The Pansy Paradox by 20,000 words. I did add a point of view (Marigold’s) and wrote a new beginning, so this makes sense.

I will streamline things in the edit, but I know my writing process well enough to know that I won’t move the needle that much. I tend to streamline and cut in one place only to add in another.

But for now? It. Is. Done.

Well, mostly.

Reading in 2026

So, I read 91 books in 2025. This is a good number, great even. Generally, I read between 85 and 100 books a year. (Although one year I logged 118.)

This might sound strange, but in 2026, I want to read more. Or perhaps differently. Most of my reading this year was recreational—which is awesome—but I need more variety if I’m going to write.

Odd thing: when I was commuting to the day job, I was getting that. The fastest I ever got to work (door to parking garage) was 45 minutes. Heading home? Oh. Don’t get me started on that, but easily an hour and a half. (Some days? In winter? A three-hour drive home.)

I was a captive audience; I had to listen to whatever I’d checked out from the library. Either that or drive-time radio and … no, thank you.

This, I realize, really fed my writing. The reading wasn’t necessarily research-related. It was more like fueling my brain for writing, filling the gas tank, if you will. (In CliftonStrengths terms, I’m a #2 Input; I need input.)

Despite how busy I was, I could get several hours of reading in each day.

What’s my problem now?

I’ve confined my reading to (mostly) the evenings. I’ve always read in the evenings, so this isn’t a surprise. What I need to do is add afternoon sessions.

This feels decadent. I feel like I should be doing something. (I blame the hustle/grind culture and toxic productivity for this.)

But isn’t reading doing something? I think it is. And it’s something I need to do if I’m going to write. So, one thing I want to do in 2026 is practice those afternoon reading sessions. And I have one planned for today.

Rhythm and Flow

This week, I experimented with increasing my manuscript time blocks. I increased the number by one, so instead of three, I was doing four time blocks.

By Thursday, though? Full-on brain and body revolt. I did a single time block, and then everything in my being noped out. I was done. This wasn’t garden-variety resistance. This was me, having outrun the story in my head.

So I closed the manuscript and switched to some admin tasks that needed to be done.

On Friday, I did three time blocks and—to quote Goldilocks—it felt just right.

I know, from past experience, that I’ll write more the closer I am to the end of the book, and revision has its own sort of rhythm.

This is also why I’ve noped out of listening to writing process advice. I’m never going to write 5,000 words an hour. More to the point, I actually don’t want to. That’s not how my stories happen.

My stories are slow-and-steady tortoise things. I can embrace that and be happy. Or, I can fight that and be miserable.

I’m choosing to be happy.

In admin/business focus tasks, this was the week to examine our social media accounts. (That sound you hear is me laughing.) The principle behind this is that readers often look to social media first to find an author rather than a website.

Interestingly enough, this week, Cal Newport had a take on what might happen to these social media platforms in an age where “everything” is becoming short-form video content. It’s an interesting blog post, as was the corresponding podcast.

I do have a notion of what I might do with my social media accounts. It is not, however, going to be a huge part of my business. In seasonal news, it’s cold. Those of us with any sense are hibernating.

Seven months in: another reality check

A view from my thinking-walk route

January 3rd of this year was my last day of work. After my final check-in with my manager, she told me to go ahead and log off at noon. So I did, and had my work laptop boxed and at FedEx in less than thirty minutes.

Note: It helped that the closest FedEx Office is about two miles away.

I figured that August 3rd is a good day to do another reality check. So, how’s it going?

In retrospect, pretty good.

  • I completed two paper edits of The Pansy Paradox and one of the bonus novella, The Capstone Conundrum. Yes, I love me some alliteration.
  • I’ve sent both books to my proofreader.
  • I regularly have coffee dates with a friend from my former workplace who is also a writer. This has been wonderful.
  • I attended the Author Platform Growth Summit, which focused on mindset, resiliency, sustainability, and alignment in an author career, rather than tactics, toxic productivity, and the hustle and grind.
  • I finally bought my Mac Studio and have dived headfirst into Photoshop.
  • I completed a read-through of The Marigold Miracle, and now I’m musing and bread-machining my way to a second draft.
  • I planted my cottage garden.
  • I’ve been taking lots of long (thinking) walks.

One thing that really stands out: None of the above feels like work. That doesn’t mean it’s without effort, or that I don’t get tired, or overwhelmed by information.

What doesn’t exist anymore in my day-to-day working life is this:

No context switching (h/t Cal Newport). The first thing I do with technology in the day is either write or use Photoshop. No email and no social media. I may have a browser open to a stock image site or Adobe fonts, or whatever. But that’s it.

No hyper-active hive mind and no pseudo productivity (h/t also Cal Newport). I do not miss Microsoft Teams or VPs/senior directors sliding into Teams chat on the regular. I really don’t miss unending email threads where someone copies me on a discussion because it “might” be a documentation issue. (And to be clear, everyone involved would love to make it a documentation issue—well, except documentation.)

So work? Doesn’t feel like work. I do want to stress that I still get tired, still need weekends to give my brain a break. But I don’t get the Sunday scaries. In fact, I really love Monday mornings.

And I couldn’t be more grateful.

Rainbows, sunsets, and bread machines

So on Monday evening, the sky decided to present us with this:

A rainbow to the east and a sunset to the west!

Rainbow over our house
Sunset from the back deck

I’ve been decidedly in bread machine mode with book two (The Marigold Miracle). I’ve been reviewing the draft—slowly—making notes, and then letting everything simmer or churn or do whatever it is my brain does when I’m not paying attention.

It’s nice to really embrace and refine my bread-machine way of writing. I already have some (what I hope are) nifty ideas for draft two. When I wrote the original draft, I knew that the initial scenes would not be the first scenes of the book. But, at the time, I simply needed a way into the story and those scenes worked for that.

It’s not flashy, but I’m pleased with this progress. I’ve also made a dent in all those Photoshop tutorials as well this week. And since the air quality here is awful and I’m stuck inside, that’s what I’m going to do next.

Make way for admin days and ducklings

This week, I tried something a little bit different. I decided to take an admin day during the week, one where I didn’t write, but used that morning focus time for writing and publishing-related tasks instead.

Usually, I’d tackle one or two of those after my writing session. But you know what? After my writing session (about 3 – 4 hours of deep work), my brain is done. I don’t want to sit at the computer and do more stuff. It’s enough to clear out my email, comment on a blog post or two, and then head outside.

So, I thought, why not try an admin day during the week, use that focus time to knock out several publishing and personal admin tasks. Not only will I get things done (that need doing), but I can bring fresh energy to the tasks.

Additionally, if I schedule the day mid-week, I can also let my subconscious do some story simmering as well.

I think this might work. At any rate, I’m going to experiment with one admin day per week this month and evaluate the results once July arrives.

In other news? Well, ducklings!

Mama duck and all her ducklings, in a pond along the park/nature trail

The wisdom of weekends

I’ve been experimenting with time management and how I want my days to look like now that I can set my own schedule.

One thing is becoming clear:

There’s wisdom in taking weekends and time off.

Back in January and February, I was writing seven days a week. I was so darn excited to have the time and head space (especially the head space) to write. Book two was simply waiting for the cognitive overload from my corporate job to clear out so I could write.

Then, I needed a break. I know this about myself. I’m what Becca Syme calls a bread machine writer. In her article Why Isn’t This Easier, she writes about bread machines (the writers, not the appliance):

Your brain is wired like a bread machine, so the easier books to work on are the ones where you’ve had more time to put all the ingredients inside the machine and let it sit for a long time. But when you become a professional writer (even if you’re not writing full-time), you don’t get to spend years thinking about a book, unless you’re GRRM. So, when you take away part of the way your brain functions creatively best, it becomes more and more difficult to complete the process.

I need time to think, both long term—hey, I’ve been musing on The Pansy Paradox and the series for a decade, y’all—and short term.

So, maybe it’s an afternoon when I head to the garden center and look at all the plants (I know, I know; I’m running out of space.) Maybe it’s a trip to Half-Price Books to restock the Little Free Library.

In any case, I’m taking a conscious look at my schedule. I’m questioning why I do things when I do them and considering whether there’s a better way for me to do what I want and need to do.

Today? The siren song of the garden center is calling my name. (Can you hear it? I can definitely hear it.) Yesterday was the Guthrie Theater and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

All in all, not a bad weekend. (And would you look at the Mississippi. We got a lot of rain last week.)

One month in and what I’m working on

Hello February sunrise

Last week, Anno asked what I was working on and whether it was the series about Pansy (she of the sentient umbrella).

And yes, yes, it is. I’m writing the entire series. Or rather, I believe it’s the entire series, three books with a companion novella. I’m writing the whole series first before publishing any of it.

I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I simply want the joy of writing it without any external expectations. If I publish the first book and it’s nothing but crickets and tumbleweeds, that can make the subsequent books more difficult to write.

If the first lands and finds its readership? Well, that could make the subsequent books even harder to write.

Right now, I’m in my writing bubble and having an immense amount of fun, and I don’t want to give that up.

Second, I think the series will be better for it. I’ve already refined the world-building by writing book two. I’m keeping notes of what I want to change in book one. Small things, a sentence here or there, backstory that needs a slight rephrasing. I could probably get away with not doing this, but I really enjoy doing this sort of work. To borrow a word I used a few blog posts ago, it feels like a luxury.

Last but not least, I believe that, in the long run, it will take less time to publish the entire series. There was a three-year gap between Coffee and Ghosts books three and four. Part of that was circumstances (oh, hi, pandemic). Part of it was I had to figure out how to bring back (spoiler) the entity. The entity is Katy’s foil. The series doesn’t work without the entity sticking its nose into things—not that the entity has an actual nose.

I will start publishing once book three is drafted and I feel secure about the content. Not all at once, but readers will know the series is complete.

So, during this first month of full-time writing, I reached ~91,000 words in book two (yes, these are long fantasy books). I’ve written close to 20,000 words this month. Considering I’m still recovering from burnout, I feel that’s significant. It feels like a win.

Also, one month in?

No regrets.

Shenanigans and hibernation

We’ve been in hibernation mode this week. Kitty, of course, secured the coziest pet bed.

But it’s not like the dogs are suffering. We have more pet beds than pets and lots and lots of fleece blankets.

See? Plenty of blankets.

But it was definitely a week for hibernation.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been consistently writing every morning, and the story is in my head a lot more these days, but I had a book three brainstorming session this week as well. The sort that really does feel like a storm, where you’re typing notes as fast as you can because the ideas just keep coming.

Up until now, book three has been essentially a blank canvas. I know the (many) story threads I need to tie together, but the what and how and when could be summed up with one word:

Shenanigans

True, book three is all about shenanigans. But now I have an idea of what those shenanigans might be. This is a good thing since I’m getting close to the end of book two. I’m not only relieved, although I am that. But I’m excited as well. I’ve been trusting my intuition and subconscious to work things out while I’m busy elsewhere, and I’m pleased that’s happening.

This coming week is bringing us some warmer weather. However, I predict Kitty will still claim the best bed in the house.