A Week in the Life of An Aspiring Author
Christmas mug in one hand, pen in the other.
We’re fully and firmly into the Christmas season - my favorite time of year. I grew up in Wyoming where we always had the perfect white Christmas. It starts snowing at the end of October, white flakes hitting the ground and staying until the beginning of April. Or at least that’s what it was like when I was a kid. When I was a kid, by Thanksgiving we had two feet of snow on the ground and the piles at the end of the driveway from all the snow plowing were big enough to sled down. The last time I was in Wyoming for Thanksgiving, there wasn’t enough snow on the ground to cover the tall weeds.
The last Christmas I was in Wyoming for, a few years ago, there was barely enough snow to call it a proper white Christmas. Only a foot or so. The amount of snow Wyoming used to get would bury the three-foot posts for the barbed-wire fences for months. These days, the tops of those posts never fully disappear.
Adults around me as a kid used to talk about how we were in a drought. I’m sure the adults milling about the church foyer on Sundays, swapping church shoes for snow boots and pulling the heavy winter coats off the stuffed coat racks, still say that. I’m not so sure it was just a drought. But there is still snow in Wyoming at Christmas.
There just might be a few flakes in Ireland this Christmas. December started off cold, teasing us with the feeling of a classic Christmas. It’s warmed up some this week, just before Christmas. But the possibility is still hovering in the air. And we’re headed down to Donegal on Monday, which always gets more snow than Belfast. So the possibility…
Sunday
A usual Sunday filled with grocery shopping, meal prepping, and tidying the apartment.
I also made gingerbread. I was looking for a recipe to make gingerbread syrup a couple of weeks ago so I could make gingerbread lattes at home instead of splashing out £4 for the Tim Horton’s one (nice as it is). This is one I discovered that British gingerbread is different. Apparently molasses is more of an American thing. Which is information that sparked a need to try a British gingerbread recipe. I finally got around to making some on Sunday and turns out that the Brits are indeed, better at baking.
Monday
I love my writing group. It’s always worth getting out the door early on a Monday morning to make it into town for 10 am. This week, we were sitting around a table in a coffee shop, me armed with a nutcracker holiday latte, the rest of them with their tea, sharing thoughts on structure and outlining and how we all work through first drafts.
A friend came over in the afternoon and we watched terrible Christmas movies — the cheesier the better. I’ve gotta say, Hot Frosty on Netflix is actually a decent enough Christmas movie. Especially if you’re looking for a cheesy, terrible Christmas movie.
Tuesday
This was my last week of mornings spent by the Christmas with Christmas music playing. I don’t mind the dark morning quiet so much when I’m spending it in the soft twinkling lights of the Christmas tree with the music of my childhood playing in the background.
Wednesday
The only writing project I worked on this week was the new outline for my novel-in-progress. On Wednesday, I sat and worked next to the Christmas tree, drinking in as much of the Christmas season as possible.
Sometimes you need a change of “scenery.” Like putting your short story into comic sans to check for typos or break writer’s block. On a whim, I tried starting a new outline from scratch in the Notes app on my computer. I actually love the Apple notes app, especially on my Mac. There’s something very satisfying about the fonts and arrangement of the text. A lot of my writing projects start out in Notes.
And that’s not even getting into the folders and notes of story ideas. It syncs between devices so it’s perfect — I just need the colored text update to come to Mac.
Thursday
Spent more time picking away at the outline and had a realization: I don’t need every detail down here, just the gist. But the details are coming together.
Friday
I’m doing my last day of work before Christmas from the chair in the living room with the perfect view of the Christmas tree.
I love Christmas but I’ve been a little bit sad the last couple of days. I’m not going back to the US for Christmas this year. It’ll be the first Christmas I’ve spent with my partner and I’m excited about that. And I’m also sad about not seeing my family, the whole thing is a little bittersweet.
I’m wrapping this newsletter up and then going to go work on the outline some more. I’ve got a solid enough outline for about 3/4 of this book that I could get started on the first draft again in January — which is the plan.
It’s weird. I felt so stuck with this story for such a long time and suddenly everything is clicking into place. I have a sneaking suspicion that it just needed more time. More time and I re-telling it to myself. When I started a new outline on Monday in a new format, the ideas just started flowing.
Nailing the outline has been so important because it’s easier to work on “what happens next?” when you’re just rearranging bullet points in a list instead of massive chunks of text. It allows me to focus better on editing the outline for solid cause-and-effect and overall story structure.
The posts will probably be shorter the next couple of weeks but I am still planning on sending them out. So Merry Christmas! I’ll talk to you next week.