I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately—but I’ve been deep in the work.

That might sound like a contradiction, but it’s not. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a story is to step away from the sentence-level effort and focus on the structure holding it all up. That’s where I’ve been lately—not cranking out new pages, but shaping the bones beneath the pages that already exist.

I’ve been revisiting the foundation of Guardians of the Veil—the sequel to Secrets of the Veil. That means pulling out my outline and laying it back out on the table with a sharper lens. This time, I’m leaning harder into The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing, which gives me a stronger structural spine. It’s a detailed system, and it requires intentional pacing, balanced scene types, and clear turning points. The story I thought I had fully mapped out is now becoming crystal clear.

To support that work, I’ve been developing and updating what I call Character-Specific Writing Style Lawbooks. These documents help me stay consistent with each character’s voice and behavior. When I’m writing dialogue for Graducts or Trist or Brydly, I want to remain constant and precise. It’s a bit of upfront work, but it keeps characters from drifting into generic territory.

I’ve also polished my Global Writing Style Lawbook, which applies to tone, narration, sentence rhythm, and my hard rules on adverbs and filler words, and keeping internal thoughts grounded in character POV. These rules shape the kind of book I want to write.

And then there are the Character Fact Sheets, Interaction Briefs, and Story Profiles—tools that remind me not just what happens in the story, but why it matters to each person involved. These help me avoid lazy scenes and forced plot turns. They also keep me honest when characters grow in unexpected ways.

These tools are essential when I return to a work-in-progress after time away. Life doesn’t stop—there are meetings, book promotion efforts, website fixes, and the launch of my own bookstore. When I come back to the manuscript, these documents give me the trail markers I need to pick up where I left off without losing the thread.

So while the cursor hasn’t moved much, the novel has.

Sometimes the most important work happens when you stop to look at the architecture. Writing is more than pages. It’s the decisions behind them.

What unseen work goes into your projects or hobbies? Do you have systems or tools that keep your ideas organized when you’re not actively ‘doing the thing’?