Ok, so I have once again adjusted my writing plans taking me through 2039. I’m thinking of this as the current cycle of my life, which really started in 2019 when I started making my writing the focus of what I was doing.
This schedule is based on how long it actually takes me to work, so feel confident that I can meet these dates. But if life attacks and I have to adjust them, no big deal. This is a scaffold not a prison.
The publishing starting this current cycle began in April of 2021. 18 years. 35 books. I’m currently drafting number 14. When this cycle is done, will I want to continue? I definitely have enough story ideas but who knows how I will change between now and then?
For much of my life, I resented plans because they were never really mine—they were expectations imposed by others or obligations shaped by survival. I thought I hated structure, but what I truly hated was obedience. The difference now is that my plans grow from who I am and what I actually want. Planning has become an act of freedom, not control.
Since ending my marriage in 2019, my life has become something I couldn’t have predicted. I’ve made choices—like going to design school—that surprised even me, and each one opened a door I didn’t know existed. I’ve learned that change isn’t failure; it’s evolution. Every shift brings me closer to authenticity.
By the time I finish this creative cycle in 2039, I’ll be sixty-six, with plenty of life left and no idea who that version of me will be. But I trust him. My job now is to give him options, not obligations—to build something strong enough for him to stand on when it’s time to decide what comes next. Maybe I’ll keep writing; maybe I’ll turn my focus elsewhere. I don’t need to know yet.
I’m leaving space for the future, for my parents and my children and my grandchildren, if they need me, for whatever life brings. I’ve learned that openness isn’t uncertainty—it’s grace.