A Day in the Life of a Writer
First move of the morning — hit snooze on the alarm. And again. And probably again. What’s the point in setting your alarm early if you don’t take advantage of the extra time? But most mornings, you over do it, and the first 15 minutes are a haze of quick diaper changes, throwing clothes on the baby and saying a quick goodbye before shoving your husband and child out the door.
Silence descends, and your heartbeat slows. You take a moment for yourself. You break the quiet with the click, click, click of the gas stove, the plop of butter, the sizzle of eggs as they slide in the skillet. Three eggs every day.
You sit down with your breakfast, devotional and chai tea. You tell yourself you couldn’t appreciate this moment of calm without the juxtaposition of the chaotic morning.
Time for some inspiration. You crack open a book about writing or the collection of short stories. The craft writer makes it seem so easy. Just dedicate yourself to it. Don’t write about stupid things. Read a lot. Write more. OK, you can do that. The short story writer invokes envy — the turn of phrase or the ease in which they immediately slip into the story. How hard can it be to write 10 to 20 pages. You can definitely do that.
Your juices are flowing, so you pull out your latest story for some editing. You read through it, meandering over each word. Why do you use “seem” so many times? Why is she even with him? What does this even mean? Definitely need more flashback. You feel a little deflated until you reach the end. Ahh, the ending is perfect. You realize that means you have to actual fix the story instead just scraping it. Tomorrow. You’ll do that tomorrow.
You check your watch. Is it really already after 10? You really need to work on something you actually get paid for doing. Gmail, please be empty. Click, click, click. Archive. You now have a clean space to work. You pull out your interview notes, skim through them, and open a blank document. You stare at it for a minute. You click on a new tab, click on Facebook, and scroll down. Nope, you don’t have time for this. Exit back to the blank screen. Where’s your iPad? You prop it against the computer, open Netflix, and start an episode of Charmed. The screen remains blank. You hit pause on the iPad. You just need to get started. That’s always the worst part. You type out a sentence, backspace, and repeat. The fourth type sticks. It’s not your favorite, but you can fix it later. You hunt for that one quote, and you’re off. You forget about the Charmed episode. It may have taken an hour, but you easily could have knocked it out in 20 minutes if you had just focused. Maybe next time.
Lunch, and then you’ll edit it. OK, but obviously you’re going to watch the new episode of Scandal first. At a regular job, you’d have an hour lunch, right? But you’ll make it productive. You’ll make a to-do list, and check off all the things you did this morning. Check. Check. Check. Oh, you only have an hour left before you have to get ready for your part-time job. But maybe you can get some of this done, while you finish Scandal. Hold on, Shonda, you’re gonna have to move to the bedroom TV. Perfect, now, you can get dressed while it’s on. Wait, what happened? You sit on the bed and squint to piece it together. Nuh uh, did she really? You check the time, and your chest feels a little tighter. You hit pause, and there’s only five minutes left. Oh, you can go ahead and type up that invoice. Perfect timing.
You read over your article. There’s not as many mistakes in this as your short story. Maybe when you’ve written as many short stories as articles, it’ll be this easy to edit. Or at least that’s your hope. OK, send. Forward pictures. Send invoice. Done, done, and done.
Oh, it’s time to go. You grab your purse. As you slide, your key into the front door to lock it, you can’t help but think you managed to do a whole lot of nothing today. Compound — that’s your mantra. You moved a little forward, and that little will add up. Eventually. You hope.
