March 8 Writing Time: 30min

I worked on “Beyond the Walls” again, but it was one in the morning and the story’s at a point that I can’t improve it unless I’m wide-awake and focused. The changes are too subtle. Everything is fine, but nothing’s great. I can’t turn fine into great when I’m ready to go to sleep. So I stopped.

March 9 Writing Time: 4h

I woke up, walked to Wild Goose Café, ordered a coffee and a breakfast sandwich and started writing. After an hour, I turned off my alarm that was set for two hours. Three hours later, I found that I couldn’t come up with the analogy that I wanted — one that would have been within reach four hours earlier — and that’s when I decided to stop. I made a lot of progress on “Beyond the Walls” today. It’s close. It’s been close for a while, but it’s closer now.