The Care And Snacking Of Writers

We’ve reached a point in time where Neil and Isla are cleaning the fish tank for fun, she randomly announces ‘Look, Mum, I’m galloping,’ and bids me goodnight with, ‘G’night, old woman.’

What stage of lockdown is that?

Neil also gave himself a buzzcut, but that’s possibly another post.

In news possibly related to the ‘old woman’ thing, I’m working on a new writing project. And no, blogging is not procrastinating.

A few weeks ago, I started a blog post listing things to do to get the project done. While that post will remain in Drafts (along with 102 other drafts), it’s enough to say that it exists.

I like lists. But I tend not to make them until the stuff I want to do is done.

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with doing things differently.

For instance. My book (that’s what it is) has an OUTLINE. Regular readers will know that I don’t outline, but perhaps that has been my problem. For 20 years.

We shall see.

The book is sometimes not-so-lovingly called THE THING, and there’s 14 pages of it. Some pages handwritten in sepia ink, or at least that’s what I think it looks like, in a marble composition book, before I type them out.

The existence of this project is an update to my 40 before 40 goals over here.

And in writing this post, I’ve read two ideas about goals in general. One is that you tell all the people for accountability and then do THE THING. Or you shut up about THE THING and go do it.

I am somewhere in the middle. Hi.

I like to set myself up, do some work, check in with myself and others, and then do some more work.

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Only this time, I seem to be doing more work than checking in, and that feels good. I don’t want to jinx it, so I’ll shut up about THE THING, and talk about the stuff I’m doing to work on it.

Writing in notebooks. This is not new. But I currently have one notebook left from the six current ones I have going, so this time feels different.

My handwriting gets shitty if I’m writing for a long time, so that’s when I know to switch to typing.

And, I’m actually getting up earlier, before the kid wakes up.

But I read before I write then type, do morning pages at whatever time. Since lockdown began, I’ve been reading a lot. Lost my mojo for a bit, but it’s back.

I’m reading a book a week, but Grammarly tells me my weekly writing word-count is 8,000 words. Obviously that’s not all THE THING, or even blog posts, but I’m working on both.

Sometimes I’m writing with Christmas movies in the background, because Isla likes them, and why the hell not?

She’s also dictating her own stories to me, which we’re going to print out and send to the grandparents. The kid’s creativity loosens up something in me. (If you don’t have a kid, think like one.)

Another thing that gets me going is audiobooks. It starts up a part of my brain that gets my own words out and is another way to feel less lonely in lockdown. If audiobooks are your thing too, check out this list of long audiobooks from Modern Mrs. Darcy.

On the subject of soundscapes and sprucing up life in lockdown, when we first moved back to Edinburgh, I thought I’d get a lot of coffee shop writing done. But not so much. In somewhat related news, I feel like a hypocrite because I miss my quiet house in the country. But we haven’t travelled back, because we’re not politicians.

Anyway. I get more words out with background noise, like a coffee shop on a rainy day. It’s a whole thing.

Last week, I actually had a deadline for a piece of writing. I wrote in a notebook in the morning, helped Isla with an art project until she asked for a laminator, and then typed some of my own project. Isla and I worked together until Isla gave me her flattened juice box as a notebook bookmark.

When Neil finished working, I tried to work in the bedroom with the laptop actually on my lap. That didn’t work, so I went into our (smaller) home office, blasted some country music, and I wrote til two in the morning.

With hug breaks and pretzels thrown at me from the kid. And that is how I wrote to my deadline 8 hours before the deadline. Better than last time.

And since it seems to be going well, I’ll stop talking about it. For now.

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Today’s snacks are sour sweets, Isla’s putting butterfly wings on her Legos, and I’m about to start page 15 of my book. The one I’m writing. Please don’t congratulate me til it’s done.

What are you working on?

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