gently mad with power

Ran a oneshot game today in which I simultaneously kept the party zipping along on the rails of the plot and gave them the big decisions to make about how the story ended. (I mean, from my perspective. They seemed to have fun but I shouldn't speak for their experience.) Most excitingly for my growing DM skills, the train RAN ON TIME, in that things like "the end of Act I" and "the mid-game combat" happened by the times they needed to happen, and we got to play out the more open-ended final acts without feeling rushed and wrap up only ten minutes or so late. This is a big improvement for me over some previous games where I've had to abbreviate or skip big chunks of the later game - maybe I am finally getting a handle on how much game takes how much time? Maybe I am ready to run something multi-session and write episodes that are both satisfying in themselves but also tell a story all together? (GMing is SO ADDICTIVE. I WROTE A STORY AND THEN MADE PEOPLE SPEND ALL AFTERNOON IN IT MUAHAHAHA.)