I can’t believe it’s August already. I say that every month but the beginning of August means I’m less than a month away from my birthday. This year marks 36 years on the planet; 3 full Chinese zodiacs. It feels… momentous.

…Mind you, I say that every year too.

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I sold a short story recently to Theme of Absence and they ask each author to pick five questions out of a list of 20 and turn it into a little mix-and-match interview. I had just finished Embers/Ignition and I was feeling optimistic and sentimental. So I picked as one of my five: “What are your writing goals for the next five years?”

And I realized, for the first time in my life, I actually have a five-year plan. Not just a vague direction (“I’d like to be employed and saving up for…something”) but actual goals, with timelines and intermediate steps and agendas. It’s a weird feeling. I spent most of my 20s and the first half of my 30s in a cycle of “find work, pay rent, repeat” which, coupled with depression, made me disinclined to look at the future in anything more than the haziest terms.

But the haze is–if not clearing, exactly–at least parting enough to see the immediate path. I’ve got short-term, mid-term, and even, yes, long-term goals, and it’s pretty scary for me. It’s new ground. It’s uncertain.

But at least the steps are visible now.