a week in the life of an aspiring author

baking, writing, showing up to do the work

We made huge, puffy disasters of cinnamon rolls this week. Neither of us have ever made cinnamon rolls before and we did not realize just how much they would expand in the oven so we sliced them way too thick. But they taste great and we each have them with coffee every morning this week, me at home and my partner carting his into work to go with the filter coffee from the communal coffee pot.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about just showing up. About the absolute pushing-a-boulder-up-a-hill that is getting started but how the work gets easier and easier every time I show up to do it. So many days this week I didn’t want to sit down at any desk or table and do anything. I’ve grown enough self-discipline to make myself sit down but my expectations for getting anything done were on the floor. But the magic came through so many times this week. So many times the words just came when I showed up and forced the boulder up the hill. At some point, about five-fifteen minutes in, I find that the boulder is gone and I’m holding a pebble I can slip in my pocket and carry on up the hill. And I’m sure I’m going to be in for days soon when it isn’t easy and nothing flows and nothing works and the words don’t come. For now, showing up is working its magic.

I had a productive enough writing week. I hit my target word count for the first draft of my sci-fi novel and took a nice big bite out of the short story that I’m writing this month.

Sunday

Every Sunday, I chop a huge pile of Brussel sprouts, roast them with chickpeas, and boil pasta for meal-prepped lunches. While I do that I hot girl habit stack and contemplate my life choices. And my current writing projects, specifically what I need to accomplish this week. This week, the focus is on actually hitting that goal of writing 5k words on the first draft of my novel.

Monday

A typical Monday looks like this - I wake up at the same time I always do and try to get out of the house by 9.00 which is a full half an hour before I normally am ambling into the office to sit down at my desk. This Monday morning, I fail and turn up for writing group around 10.40 instead of 10. I get distracted by the dishes, by the dirty countertops, by little things that I feel like I need to do before I leave the house and then suddenly it’s 9.30 instead of 9.00.