a week in the life of a writer

iced vanilla matcha, writing at a glacial pace, so much sunshine I had to buy more sunscreen

Summer is here. The highest temperatures of the year, days filled with sunshine. When it does rain, it’s in big, dramatic downbursts late in the evening that pelt the roof so hard you have to turn up the volume on the TV and disappear a couple of minutes later.

After our spontaneous mini-vacation last week, I came back ready to get a lot done and instead found myself writing at a glacial pace. All the threads that need to be woven into this story are demanding more attention as I’m crafting scenes. There’s a greater sense of pressure than the first, carefree half of this draft.

I don’t have some great secret to solving this, as with most things I’ve run into while writing a novel for the first time, the only thing to do is keep going. It sorts itself out, eventually.

Monday

We extend our little mini-vacation by an extra day so Monday is full of sipping coffees, a bit of shopping, and a lot of lounging around.

Tuesday

After a bad night of sleep, I’m struggling to get back into the flow of things. It almost feels like I’m coming down with some sort of a cold. I spend most of the day working in a notebook, trying to solve a plot problem. Some problems I can just set aside for draft two, this one feels like a gaping hole in the floor boards that needs something thrown across it before I can continue.

I do not write a full word count today, barely hitting one thousand words. But I (mostly) solve the plot problem.

Wednesday

An early morning walk, a Pilates videos on YouTube, then I’m packing up my stuff to head into town. I run a couple of errands, picking up more sunscreen but this nice weather has seen us finding the bottom of the sunscreen bottle that’s been sitting on a shelf for the last two years.

After, I settle down at the library for a writing session. It’s productive enough, most of the word count disappears quickly, and more importantly a couple of great ideas arrive. The ideas involve just moving a couple of scenes around but they could have a pretty big impact and solve a few problems I’ve been having. I I make a note, adding the ideas to the ground list of things I want to edit in the second draft. I’m leaving all that for a second draft and focusing on finishing this first draft first. Make it exist, then make it good later.

Thursday

I climb the usual hill to drink my coffee while admiring the view even though it’s cloudy today, the first time in weeks. It’s hard to describe to someone who doesn’t live on this island how rare and unsettling all this sunshine is. But today the clouds have drifted back in, turning the blue sky gray.

And I sit here thinking how lucky I am to start my morning like this.

Then I walk back down, gravel scattering under my dusty tennis shoes, and go home to make another caffeinated drink and sit down to write.