It's Q2 Baby!

Are you thriving or surviving?

Apr 01, 2025

an image this cursed could only be found on Linkedin, and no I will not attribute it

Check out my first post here to read more about the namesake of this newsletter and make a copy of the input/output tracking sheet if you so desire. Sorry for typos.

Upcoming classes (recorded if you can’t attend live)

Write Like an Athlete 4/26
How to Write a Short Humor Piece 5/17
New niche (too niche?) class idea: I’ve had several people ask me how to construct engaging Zoom classes. If there’s enough interest, I could put together a class on how to build and teach an online class that keeps people engaged. Write back and let me know if you’re interested, it would be one session and I would run it myself outside of a larger organization. Would include a set of my class notes and a curriculum/timing breakdown.

Here is a generally agreed upon breakdown of the four yearly quarters:

Q1: New Year’s resolutions for six weeks, then doldrums/dissociation for another six
Q2: Struggling to get to Memorial Day, the perfect date
Q3: Summer, no one works
Q4: Oh shit gotta get stuff done

Personally, I love the Q system. Quarters have always felt natural to me as a former distance swimmer whose training was split into very disinct cycles througout the year.

We would condition, lift, and build our base in the fall (Q3), leading to our first short taper and competition in December. Over Christmas break we would do TRIPLES (my body clenched writing that word) to build on our fall conditioning base, then go super hard with high volume yardage for Q1 and Q2 until our big taper in July, to try tand swim our fastest to make cuts for larger meets in August. We had three weeks off after that meet, during which time we could get shockingly deconditioned. Then we began the cycle again.

You can apply training cycles to creative work as well. I made a little slide about it:

slide from my Write Like an Athlete class

I follow a similar plan now as a writer. At the top of the year, I’m motivated to make money, write classes, and consult and network with people.

In Q2, I move to volume—I write a lot of shorter pieces for submission throughout the rest of of the year and teach the most classes. I almost always write the most words in Q2, my highest ouput.

In Q3 I downshift. I rest. I don’t teach at all, since people are outside or on vacation. I use Q3 to work on longer projects and proposals and get organized for Q4. In terms of input/output, this is a big input block.

Q4 is my favorite. I still have tremendous back-to-school energy, and I use the end of the year to set the pieces in place for Q1 classes and work so the cycle can start again.

To structure your year like this, you need goalposts and deadlines for each quarter.

Deadline tip: I always have students take this Four Tendencies quiz from Gretchen Rubin’s book Better Than Before. It helps you see how to best construct a deadline and accountability. Most writers are upholders, though I recently retested and I’ve become a questioner! Knowing what motivates you to keep/meet deadlines can help you put up guardrails and seek support for your quarterly goals. Use fellowships and residency guidelines, submissions periods, easy periods at work, etc.

For Q1 this year I wanted to submit a piece to The New Yorker (I did, with a week to spare!). I wanted to teach a new class (I did, on March 2nd). I read through the entire draft of Inside Jokes, the comedy craft book I’m writing with Elissa Bassist (I did reorganization and line edits of first three sections, and a lighter read of the second two). I consulted and met new people and started making a publicity plan for the book for Jan 2026.

For Q2, here are my goals:

Finish and publish my 100 Days essay.
Co-write at least two pieces with other writers.
Submit two pieces to McSweeney’s, one is already drafted, and I have a few more ideas I’m playing with.
Flesh out at least 10 more ideas (titles and a few initial jokes) to work on throughout the year as I have time.
Finish the reorg of Inside Jokes, approve our cover and get our preorder link. Start preorder campaign work.
I have another finished gift book proposal I want to get out on submision prior to summer.
Finish another proposal for a card deck I’m working on (I took an excellent class on card decks from Tawny Lara, she’s teaching it again soon!). Gear for fall submission.

Then in Q3, I’m going back to my novel. I miss her. My agent told me to lean into violence and horror in the next draft, a blessed directive. I have a Scrivener doc full of deranged images and links.

In Q4, I’ll turn my focus to book promotion—preorder campaign classes, writing publicity pieces, setting up speaking gigs for the top of 2026.

What are your training cycles?

Q2 Delights:

Fran Hoepfner’s May book club pick is LONESOME DOVE! I mentioned in my last newsletter how this is one of the best Westerns you could start with (shamefully, I forgot THE best, True Grit by Charles Portis). Details here, I am definitely going for the 858-page reread..
If you live in Chicago and write comedy, The Onion is taking applications for their PAID ($35,000) six-month fellowship. Deadline is 4/11. Related: I’ve just start reading a book on their history, Funny Becayse It’s True: How The Onion Created Modern News Satire.
Writing Co-Lab is doing a series called “100 Days of Creative Resistance” for the first 100 days of this administration. I’m writing one that will go up within a week, and I really liked this entry from Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (you must read his satirical short story collection Friday Black).
Congratulations to my incredibly smart and funny friend Sasha Stewart, who wrote for the new Michelle Williams/Liz Meriwether show Dying for Sex! It premieres this week, and here’s an excellent article on the true story behind the show.
Here are humor pieces I laughed out loud reading in the past month:
- “A Day in the Life of a Nonbinary Person, as Imagined by MAGA Republicans” by Emily Knapp. “As Imagined by” is a great format to express an opposite POV in a piece of satire (aka embody the voice of the person/group you hate/oppose). Favorite joke: “4:45 p.m.: I have a small nonbinary snack (Annie’s Organic White Cheddar Bunnies).”
- “I’m Your Chiropractor, and Trust Me, Your Spine is Supposed to Sound Like That” by McKayley Gourley. This piece heightens way further than you would expect right into horse terrority: “All right, let’s get started on those ankles… Good god. Where the hell are your hooves? Only kidding. Humans have feet—I know that. But between you and me, I would feel way more at home if you had, like, a mane and tail and responded super well to sugar cubes. Sugar cube?”
- My favorite Houthi PC Small Group Chat joke from The Onion: “‘I Messed Up At Work Again,’ Crestfallen Michael Waltz Texts Wife, National Geographic Editorial Staff.”
My baby’s current favorite song is “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga, which has lyrics tailor-made for babies: "Abracadabra, amor-ooh-na-na
Abracadabra, morta-ooh-ga-ga
Abracadabra, abra-ooh-na-na"
In her tongue she said, "Death or love tonight"
he prefers the red queen, tho??
If you are a pervert (complimentary), you need to read Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube. It’s a 700-page romantasy book that has some of the most insane plot points I’ve ever read, starting on p.2. I read it at the same time as my sister and we could not stop laughing. I truly need to interview the author because she is a heightening genius who has much to teach us comedy writers. I might need to write a Book Report on this snake porn opus, similar to my craft essay on the “I’m Just Ken” Oscars performance.

Input/Output

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