With the end of the (online) school year, I transitioned out of my job teaching English and into writing full time. I’ve been doing that for about a month now, and I thought I’d reflect a little bit on how it’s going.

1. Making my copy edit deadline was a lot easier than it used to be. Edits, and especially copy edits, are a lot different for me than writing. More mechanical. I don’t need to feel super creative–it’s about putting in the time in the chair and getting them done. With extra time, I finished them quickly and turned them back in to my editor early. I’d never been able to do that before. This time, I shot for about 50 pages a day and wrapped it up in 8 or 9 days.

2. I had to get into a rhythm. After taking a couple days off post copy edit, I decided I needed to have a schedule. I decided that I’m going to write 5 days a week, and after two weeks, I think it was a good call. I’m writing on weekdays only, and I found myself on Thursday night thinking ‘Just one more day, then I get to take a break.’ Having a weekend to look forward to helps me get through the week.

And it’s not that I don’t love writing. I do. But it’s also a job, and like any job, I think you have to set boundaries.

3. I’m limiting my work on any given day. My goal is to write 10,000 words a week…2,000 words a day. It’s an arbitrary number that I chose because it’s a comfortable target for me. Could I write more? Sure. Monday of this week I had my words done by 1:30 PM. Tuesday I spent all day until 3 PM at the hospital with my wife (she had day surgery. She’s fine). And I still got my words done. On a good day if I’m avoiding distractions, I can draft 2,000 words in about 2 hours.

So why don’t I do more on those days? Well, I do…Over the last 10 days I’ve gone as high as 2400 when I was finishing a scene. But even if I feel like I can do more, I’m stopping. There are a few reasons:

a. I know my deadline, and I can make my deadline writing at that pace.

b. I know myself, and even if I finish this book before the deadline, without a new deadline, I’m unlikely to start a new book. Not for a while, anyway.

c. 2000 words a day leaves me time to do other things. I’ve done some critique for other people, I’ve worked around the house, I’ve read a good bit, and I’ve spent a bunch of time with my wife. Those things are all things I want to do–they’re part of the reason I quit my day job in the first place.

d. I don’t burn myself out. Could I knock out 5,000 words one day? Absolutely. Especially if I was at a part of the book where I knew what was supposed to happen. But how would I do coming back the next day? You might think, if you get 5,000, you don’t have to write at all the next day. And I probably wouldn’t. The problem comes on day three. The hardest thing for me is getting started again once I’ve stopped. It’s going to be harder for me to get going again, and, after all, why worry about it? I have all week.

Next thing you know, I wake up Friday morning needing another 5,000 words to make my goal for the week.

Will this schedule last? I don’t know. But I’m feeling pretty good about it so far. I feel productive, and I feel relaxed. To be able to get anything written at all with all the things going on in the world right now is a win in my book.

For those of you looking for an update specifically on my books: COLONYSIDE (Planetside 3) is already completed, edited, and copy edited. My last step is final page proofs, which is pretty routine. The release in print, e-book, and audio book is December 29th.

The book I’m working on now is not part of the Planetside series and will be my first published book outside that series. I expect it to come at the end of December of 2021 or the first couple months of 2022. It’s a little bit more of a military story than the Carl Butler books, and a little lighter in tone. RC Bray is scheduled to narrate, as he’s done with all the Planetside books, and I’m super excited about that.