I made a plan. It was a nice plan. It was a pretty plan. I had an accountability partner and everything. I had goals and objectives. There was a timeline. Everyone* was impressed. (*In my polling sample, which pointedly did not include God.)

And then I had a bit of a realization.

And I realized that my very pretty plan was one made out of desperation and anxiety. (It was still pretty, though.) And when the moment of anxiety had well and truly passed and my situation had changed, I could see more clearly that the plan did not have my best interests at the center; it had my anxiety at the center.

I have discarded the old plan. I have a new plan now. And while this new plan may suffer from the same problem as the old plan, I do believe I have included God in my polling sample this time, and this time the guiding question has been: what is at the center? All of these other things I do, or am considering doing, or no longer wish to do, how do they support the center? If they don’t support the center, why am I doing them?

At my center is: Writing & Publishing Novels. This is the thing that brings me the most joy. It’s the fulfillment of my priestly vocation. It’s what gets me up at four in the morning, typically with joy (though not every morning and honestly, not this morning).

And everything else I do either supports the center directly or indirectly, or it’s a side gig that I do to add my portion of support for my family’s budget, that I will continue to do so long as I continue to need a side gig to do it.

And the rest are deadlines, honestly. Just accountability measures so that I continue to write something like on schedule, so that I don’t go multiple years between the first and second books of a trilogy again.

So… yes. I now have a schedule for finishing the rough drafts of Debts of Honor and The Meddler (which you will begin to see on my account on Ao3.org, after I finish all the posting in the Venus In Effigy stories – and if you want to see them quicker, you can go become a patron, because I always post new chapters there first), and I do have a schedule for publishing the Crown Prince (Loki 2) on Amazon… which I’m not going to release yet, because I want a few months on the new plan to make sure God was actually in my polling sample this time around.

But, it’s happening. And this time it’s Writing & Publishing Novels which is at the center of this plan, not Sare’s Anxiety. Which is, you know, awesome.