Photography by RM Barricate from Canva
0600
Wake, and coffee. And then whatever else I want because it is six in the morning. Often this entails reading the day’s articles and scrolling the socials. This is also outdoors time. In a couple of hours it will feel like an oven out there: it is now, or it is not. So, I take care to prevent the crisping of my plants, and my pets: my sweet pups who love the lettuces I feed my tortoise (named Dear Prudence), she often only roams the mornings. Same Pru, same.
0800Sit at my desk and decide what to work on. If I have the capacity for it, I will work on my book. Right now that means the devising of a detailed outline. I am deep into the drawing a blueprint for what I need to build. I have the story marked down in a plain and brutal language. The perimeters are set. I am noting where the walls will go, how the roof should sit. Which windows go where to let the light in? The ‘this is this and that is that’ of the tale is laid out. From that I have been crafting a tight and orderly to-do list of what needs to happen in each act, and then I am grouping that into chapters of non-linear timelines that spiral and revisit the moments that catapulted me to where I stand now. Sometimes the prose falls out of my fingers and I might write parts of the “actual book”. You know, do the thing, but right now I also try to quell that a bit. I want to see the full shape of what I am creating before I start to lay down anything that I may undo. I mentioned capacity— and that is the word. This work is real— it is hard to do, memoir further impacts my life. I want to finish it but I need to know exactly where I am going in order to do so. Sometimes I need to come at it sideways and that’s when a post for the Mast is written. Like this week— I am home after being away and I can’t seem to get back to it, so I come here instead. I shuffle my thoughts about. I sit beside the world of making up words. I can keep my head in the game and also give myself a moment. But… sometimes, not even that. If I am having an off day, I may dump out something I controversially call poetry. My last poem was about Virginia Woolf not killing herself because she saw a sign for a community yard sale. This is where things get weird and I have basically one person who I allow to read this shit. Poor them. If I have quit writing that day I will vanish into a book, if I quit everything I will vanish into my phone. Another word for it is disassociating. It happens more than I will admit to here. I like to think the state of the world contributes to the disassociating, but I can’t tell anymore. It might just be me.
1000
If I am off work that day, my husband whose day starts with the east coast sunrise despite us being on a western front, is usually on break now, he eats his lunch; I might eat a breakfast. If I work this day, then I have just arrived to open the posh boutique where I can write during down time, so little is different. Slightly harder to focus because I don’t get to decide when the interruptions come, but I muddle through. I am lucky: I love my job.
1300
Now I want to eat. I like to read while lunching. If I am consumed by a book then I will read that, but usually it is one book at lunch, another at bed. Sometimes I alternate lunch books, because those are my learning books, and I treat them like classes. These are the books on writing, which lately has meant structure. Sometimes the books circle the themes or styles I wish to emulate, which lately has been magical realism. The afternoon is also when I work on my various side projects, like my proper language studies. I am a special kind of idiot, studying three languages at once, having decided it is imperative I speak Spanish, I live in the southwest States, this land was once Mexico. The people and their words are still here. The Italian is leftovers from college but I refuse to put it down. The Icelandic is a pipe dream, but the only language I still have a teacher for. After ‘classes’, next up are the daydream ventures to be brought to inquiry, maybe life. Dare we start that business? Do we move? Then back to earth for all the mundane that needs tending; those odd household tasks that must be dealt with— hopefully none of which requires phone calls. When my chores are done I go back to my desk. I write. Probably on what I was working on earlier, but maybe not. Maybe I have capacity now. Maybe I lost it.
Photography by Sashy from Canva
1700
Close up the shop. Or— if already home, sort how to feed the family. If not, go home and then feed the family. This is the time when it all just depends… often my husband and I go out to eat together or meet with friends. We are also basic and stay home and watch TV. But, we are both writers. Both trying to build a thing outside of ourselves. So some nights we disappear to our desks even after days of being exactly there, and we tap away. Reaching out to others, out past ourselves, out beyond this house. Some days I feel utterly drained, and others I can stay up writing. It depends on how into the words I am. How into my head I am. Both of these descriptors can go either way. Being in my head can be both good and bad. Same with the words too, even if I am clacking away, that doesn't mean this is gold— it may be shit. But, if I can see the whole shape of something before me I will let the letters blur and think my glasses have failed me before I realize I am just physically tired and yet I will just pull the laptop closer and keep going. Perhaps this moment can tell me something. I want to notice what it is that is keeping me going. What makes me excited for the story, what keeps me up writing? It may just keep someone reading…
1900 to 2400
Truly, this is normal. I will go to bed this early, or late, any day. If I am out for the night, clocks don’t matter. If I am traveling, time was and is always meaningless. If I am home, my sweet and silent bed is just up those stairs. Right after I get in bed I will do my language apps. One of which, up til a week ago, included the important and mysterious work of maintaining my 1380 day streak. The loss of this meaningless achievement has left me unmoored. What have I become? Who even am I? Am I still a writer? Sinner? Saint? The green owl1 shames me. I shame myself. Then, I read my nightstand book, which I try to make just be for the joy of stories and tales. I have a giant to-be-read stack that I add to at an addicts pace. Very often I have some thought, a sentence, a perfect word comes to me off the page while I am reading, not writing and I have to note it. Lately, it has been title ideas and I reach again for my phone. I am grateful for the cloud where I can access my documents from anywhere, where I can add to it from bed. When my eyes grow heavy and I begin to think the lamp is failing along with my glasses I will mark my page with one of the ephemerals I have turned into a memento and reach for the small beaded chain of the lamp.
The mourning doves will start with the first light, and I will join them when I wake from the yesterday.
Photography by Nouk from Canva
Duolingo is evil and will snatch your soul. I have to get at least 1390 days now to win Italian (they don’t have Icelandic: that is on Drops which I hate, and TVÍK which is expensive but has its charms. Spanish is all around me, that’s the most charming of all).
But that stupid green owl. Vaffanculo.
Feeling inferior with just the 588 day streak… Welsh, Spanish and French. The stack of to be reads and the learning done at lunchtime.. I read fiction at night to slip into someone else’s shoes so I can rest.. xxx
1791 day streak. Certainly not improving my actual skills but it feels good to learn something new, whether or not I retain it.