Whew, guys? I’m freakin’ overwhelmed.

I’m not great at the whole “taking care of myself” thing. Part of that comes from being socialized female, which twists the “taking care of oneself” bit until it seems like it can only come on the heels of “taking care of everyone else (even when they haven’t asked for your help and don’t want it)”. Partly because I’ve got this bone-deep sensation that I should have been left on the side of the road as an infant and not cursed the world with my presence.

(Oh, sure, I know that’s not actually true. Mostly. Ish. But knowing and feeling are two different things.)

But man, I’ve mired myself neck-deep in administrative stuff, and it shows no signs of letting up, so I’ve decided to do a thing. A strange thing. A think that sounds simultaneously like a great idea and a big fuckin’ failure waiting to happen.

I’ve got a few books in the bag, at the moment. I’m the guy in Bag of Bones with my manuscripts tucked away in boxes for a lean year. Only these are really just tucked away to pull me through the summer. I’m on the final polish read of Extremes, at least unless I find something dreadful that needs to be fixed, and I just finished inputting the final edits on my side for Red and Bad 2, which really needs a better title. The only real thing I’ve got to do in April is finish the DRitC story and revise it, which is manageable.

So the progress tracker’s gonna come down for a stretch. I’ll be writing, but I’ll be giving myself a break on the big projects and poking around in vanity projects, things that may never see the light of day, or maybe some of those plot bunnies that pop up from  time to time that I never have time to write.

Otherwise? It’s admin o’clock ’round here, y’all.

I’ve got eight covers to make to finish out this year. (And get a jump on next year.) All of those books need descriptions, and title pages and About the Authors and Acknowledgements. All of those books need templates set up in Scrivener. And I’d love–love–to have outlines fleshed out for all of them. I have yet to build outlining/pre-production/beats into my schedule in a meaningful manner, and I love the idea of devoting a whole month to learning how to outline effectively. (I’m open to book suggestions, my writer friends. I just bought Take off your Pants by Libbie Hawker and enjoyed it a great deal.)

Essentially, I can write at this rate forever. Like really, I don’t ever need a “break” from writing. In fact, I wouldn’t take one; I stop writing, I start seeing creepy shit out of the corners of my eyes and I get paranoid. (True story. No. I’m not gonna tell those stories. They creep me out too much.) I started writing daily before I started drinking coffee. That’s how much I depend on it to get me through the day.

I can’t reasonably stop publishing at this rate unless I want to take my goals slower, but that feels risky. When I started publishing my income didn’t match my expenses. Right now? Month five of my income exceeding (y’know, barely) my expenses. I like living in the black, people. And Amazon rewards those who kick their own asses. (Also: nonprofits are fickle jobs, and mine could literally disappear tomorrow; I definitely do not make enough publishing to live without the day job, but the faster that happens, the sooner I can breathe.)

So I gotta find a way to make this work. I need systems. Better systems.

No idea how much I’ll chat on the blog about this, but do feel free to email me/comment if you have ideas or questions or anything. Most of the readers hanging around here aren’t writers, but publishing is a business–specifically it’s a sole proprietorship–so I’m always open to ideas.

So we’ll check in later about this experiment, and I’ll let you know how it goes!

Featured image is Going Bonkers by Linda on Flickr.