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In January 2018, months before I actually started writing my own Artistic Handbook, I started a list of things that I wanted to work on. Creating a code of conduct — something I could reference whenever I’m feeling conflicted or eerie or just plain gross during an interaction with a fellow theatre professional — was pretty high up there. But right underneath that super corporate phrase “Code of Conduct,” I wrote “Code of Conduct Toward Myself.”

When I set out to write my own Artistic Handbook last April, I had no idea where to start. I knew what I wanted to include in my handbook — I had a list as long as my arm that featured everything from the phrase “standard operating hours” to “play ideas” to “working out of town.” I had a ton of rules for how I’d operate in the American theatre landscape, all of which I’d broken at some point or another. And I had an overwhelming task ahead of me: a 70+ page artistic handbook that was fully searchable, fully functional, and fully me.

On Friday, March 22, I started keeping a journal.

I think most people already picture me as someone who journals — a journaler? — but the reality is I used to check in with myself very little. I check in with my characters constantly. I check in with my sources all the time. (It’s probably annoying how much I check in with them.) And I check in with the people around me so much that I sometimes forget to share what’s going on in my life.

Last week, I spent a couple hours going through a decade of notebooks.

Okay, so I knew that there would be a decade of notebooks. I’ve been writing plays for ten years and I am pretty much the ultimate nerd. Of course I carry a notebook with me everywhere I go. Of course I got down lines of dialogue and scenes and notes on a script and pitches and outlines and and and. I can’t remember a single original thought until I’ve written it down. My brain’s just funny that way.

I’m currently in a reading slump. Okay, it’s probably not actually a reading slump. It’s probably that I’m not particularly excited about the book I’ve been reading this week — or I haven’t had enough time to read or I haven’t been able to read more than a chapter at a time because there’s too much good TV or or or. But then I look back on what I’ve read this month alone and I’m genuinely impressed with myself. Every single one of these four books was not only completely different from the last, they were also all books that I genuinely loved. (I read a couple of duds too. But I’m not here to talk about those books.

The mountain is out today.

In Seattle, the mountain hides behind grey skies that we’ve come to think of as normal. The mountain stands in for the sun, because we’re complaining about the sun. It’s too bright or in the wrong place or angled in a weird way or we just don’t have sunglasses yet — we weren’t prepared. And you can always be prepared for a mountain.

I talk about Frankenstein a lot. If you know me IRL, this isn’t news. I’ve been talking non-stop about Mary Shelley, The Creature, and her mother since November. I followed a rigorous “can I adapt a novel in two months and still work at my other jobs?” schedule, turning down anything that wasn’t work or Frankenstein (which, in itself, was also work) for the rest of 2018. I clocked 500 words a day on that project alone, not because I was inspired, but because I couldn’t afford not to. I wrote my ten thousandth word on a flight home from Christmas. I was absolutely no fun to be around.

Have you heard? I love to read.

When I was a kid, I thought I was getting away with something huge, reading by flashlight under the covers well past my bedtime — passing out from literary exhaustion at a time I would call “early” today. Over the summer, I’d read books in an entire day, prompting frequent trips to the library to get the next Animorphs book or the latest in The Baby-Sitters Club series.

I’ve been on a bit of a food kick lately. I mean, who isn’t, right? Food sustains us, it keeps us going. And, when it’s done well, it surprises us, delights us, makes us want to eat way more than our bodies want us to. Really good food is exciting.

A few weeks ago, I took a cooking class with my husband.