Diary of a Novelist?

Recording a week in my life as an editor and waitress

In my last post, I spoke about how I haven’t worked on my novel in over a month, during the relaunch and merge of my magazine Write or Die with Chill Subs. Now that things have settled (a little), I want to start writing again.

Last week, I recorded what I did each day as I looked for writing time and tried to balance my creative space with my work life as an editor and a waitress at a country club.

Can she do it?!

Let’s find out.

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Monday, May 8th

6:20 am – alarm goes off.  

7:00 am- I actually get out of bed. Coffee and some reading.

8:00 – 9:15 am- Monday meeting with Ben. We are figuring out content scheduling and some potential marketing strategies to get the word out. These meetings are fun because we both love content and I really love getting organized for the week ahead.  

9:30 – 11:00 am – Answering emails, pitches, and inquiries.

11:00 – 12:40 pm – Workshop scheduling, media kit creation. Took a break on the porch because it’s finally nice out. Need to exit the work cave from time to time.  

Sent a Monday update to my writing partner, Tamar, via Marco Polo. She knows I never write on Monday, but we like to update either other throughout the week no matter what. It’s become such a habit, I feel strange if I haven’t checked in with her.

12:40- 1:00 pm- Lunch break.

1:00 – 2:30 pm – Back to work but feeling tired. By the end of the hour, I’m having trouble concentrating and I know that I need to step away or I’ll make some error or get sloppy.

2:30 – 3:30 pm – Head to the grocery store. On Mondays, I visit my dad and meal prep a few dinners for him for the week. My teenage brother lives with him as well and my dad can use the help. I fly through Stop & Shop to grab supplies. On the drive to his house, I listen to my novel curated playlist on Spotify to try and get into the headspace I need to tackle tomorrow. I love to daydream about my novel while in the car. I’m able to really go there. Music is so pivotal to my process. I have songs for specific scenes, for my main character. I think I would have been really good at writing the scripts for music videos.

6:00 pm- Back from Dad’s feeling grumpy and hungry. I love my family, but they are exhausting. I also slept like shit the night before. I want to say it was because of stress or anxiety, something normal like that but really it was because I ate half a tray of nachos, and I was too full to sleep.

7:00 – 8:00 pm- Cooked and ate with my husband, Marty.

8:00– 8:30 pm – Took a long shower and put on my giant Blink 182 t-shirt which makes me feel the way a toddler does after a warm bath and terrycloth footies pajamas- safe and soothed. Organized my desk and hid my to do list so that it’s not the first thing I see during my writing session in the morning.

9:00 pm - Reading and early bedtime

Tuesday, May 9th

6:00 am- Okay, I did it. I actually got up.

6:40 - 7:40 pm - At my desk. Since it’s been weeks since I’ve touched the novel, I reread the last two chapters I wrote. Luckily, they are chapters I’m happy with, so I feel encouraged. The reread took longer than I thought, but I ended up writing 200 new words. Not nearly as much as I hoped but I’m easing back into this. The chapter I’m on now has changed significantly since my last draft and I’m still working out exactly what will happen. I wrote the word tension in big letters the last time I had this draft open. I hate when I yell at myself.   

8:00 – 9:00 am – work stuff

9:00 -10:00 am – social media meeting with Shelby

10:00- 10:45 am- More magazine work

11:00 -12:00 pm – gym break. Glutes and hammies. Needed motivation, so I blasted Bleach by Nirvana, waiting for my ears to bleed.

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – Shower, emails while lunch is cooking, lunch break

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Hosted our first Hit Submit Party with The Sub Club! Had a great conversation with a few fellow writers who are submitting their work. I was encouraged to submit again to a publication that recently sent me a very thorough and encouraging rejection for one of my short stories. They said they would like to see more of my work so after we hung up, I sent them another story I had ready to go.

2:15 – 5:00 pm – Lots of work stuff to be done. Outreach, scheduling emails, all the stuff that keeps me busy (but I love doing)

5:00 -6:00 pm – feeling mentally tired from the workday but also guilty I haven’t written more. It’s hard for me to relax after a workday because I always feel like I should be doing more. But I’m hungry, and my brain is fried, so Marty and I decided to have an early dinner.

7:00-9:00 pm- Our house was annoyingly snackless so we took a drive to Walmart to grab some popcorn. We hang out on the couch, watched a little TV. Read before bed.

Wednesday, May 10th

6:15 am – wake up

7:00 am – after reading a little, I reluctantly went to the desk. I really wanted to sit there and keep reading. Since I didn’t do as much as I’d hoped yesterday, I felt like I needed to “make progress” which in my sleepy state put more pressure on me than I needed to. I wrote a few lines, but they came out clunky. I jotted down some notes on the key things that need to happen in this chapter, hoping it would refocus me. I stared at the wall for a while. I felt very far away from my main character. The hour is up, and I’m pretty discouraged. I was hoping for more words, more clarity today.

8:00 – 9:30 am- Time for work. Answered emails.  

10 -10:45 am – Not feeling the gym today but went anyways. Did a quick cardio sesh on the treadmill and the stairs machine. Listened to my novel playlist and the one that Spotify makes for you when your playlist ends. It was hard to daydream there, with so many things to look at and the news flickering above me. I felt irritated when I left the gym but by the time I got home, my endorphins must have kicked in because I felt a lot better.

11:00 am – Made a grilled cheese for this week’s Sub Club post.

12:00 – 12:30pm - Meeting with Sean (or business daddy as he is referred to around Chill Subs) about WOD workshops and, well, business stuff.

12:30 – 1:00 pm – Lunch break

1:00 – 3:00 pm – more work

3:15 pm- Pacing the house. I’m done with my to do list which means I should make some time for writing. It’s also nice out, so maybe I should go for a walk? Marty comes home from work.

“I’m disappointed in myself,” I say to him as I put my plate in the dishwasher.

“Because you ate two grilled cheese sandwiches in one day?” he asked.

“No! Because I should write and I feel like I can’t!”

Decide to clean up the house instead.

4:00 pm – Still contemplating that walk. Thinking about how much I love the book I’m reading, The Girls by Emma Cline. This morning I read a scene in which the young protagonist’s parents throw a party. So much was revealed about how she viewed her parents, about being a thirteen old girl surrounded by adults. I loved reading it. I’m thinking about maybe writing a random scene of my main character’s past similar to Cline’s to get me back in the writing mode. Just something to play around with, find some joy in the work after such a frustrating morning.

Thursday, May 11th

6:00 am – Marty and I both slam the snooze button and drift off a little longer. He usually has to be out of the house for work earlier but he has a later start today. When we finally get up, I just want hang out with him while we drink our coffee. While he packs his lunch and showers, I sit in my orange chair and stare out the window for a little while. I have an idea for a scene I can play with.

7:37 am – at the desk. Made the pivotal mistake of looking at a Slack message and then responding to it. Now I’m in work mode and I decided to just roll with it because I was late to the desk anyway.

10:00 am – Took a break to move, pace apartment, check the temp outside (gorgeous) and contemplate more coffee.

11:00-1:00 pm – Did not drink the coffee. My sister came over and we took a long walk around town, stopping to grab a juice which was much better for my nervous system.  The weather has been beautiful and I feel myself coming alive. Things feel possible! I feel motivated!

1:10- 2:15 pm – Meeting with Shelby, WOD’s associate editor. We go over magazine things and scheduling, but the conversation switches to novel writing. Shelby is writing her second novel and is taking a summer long social media break to help create the focus she needs to get her draft done. I’m so happy she is able to do this for herself.

I tell her my frustrations of this week, and how I’m trying to figure out when I can write during this new schedule. She gives me great advice. Maybe the mornings, when my mind is buzzing with magazine to dos, when most of the meetings with the Chill Subs are (who are in time zones 6 or 8 hours ahead of me) is not the best time for me to write. It was for a time, maybe not anymore. What about finishing all the pressing tasks, and then writing, she suggests? Have lunch, take a walk, write, even just for 20 minutes. We spoke about being honest with ourselves. How often times the stories we tell ourselves about writing are not true. I’m always telling myself I can only write in the morning. But have I actually tried to write any other time? Not really.

Starting out with this 20 minute time frame feels doable to me and I leave the call with Shelby inspired. Excited about what’s to come.

2:15- 3:30 pm – more magazine work!

4:00 pm- my shift at the country club starts. It’s the first “Thirsty Thursday” of the month which means we have a themed menu and live music.  The theme is Italian. The singer is the son of one of the members, who sits at the table closest to him and sings every song along with him while chugging gin and tonics.

5:15 pm – slow start. I pick at the bar mix which is just off brand M&Ms, peanuts and dried pineapple. I only eat the peanut butter chips.

5:30 – 7:30 pm- It randomly starts to rain, which means everyone on the golf course comes inside. The dining room and bar go from empty to almost completely full in 3 minutes.

I lose track of time and space.

9:45 pm – finally finished cleaning and on the way home. Made some good money. My table of 10 loved the singer and by the end of the night were scream-singing with him after their 5^th round of drinks.

10:00 pm- In the shower, before bed, I think about how much I rush from one thing to the next. I cleaned the bar as fast as I could, and I noticed I was treating this shower as if it were a race. I’m always anticipating the next thing. I think that is why my writing life can feel so frustrating. Why am I rushing? Who am I rushing for? I need to slow down.

Friday, May 12th

7:30 am – start work and feel good because I don’t feel any writing guilt. After my talk with Shelby, I’m going to try writing in the afternoon today.

7:58 am- Post the Friday Mood Board on Write or Die’s Instagram. I love making these things.

8:00 am – meeting with WOD instructor. She pitches an amazing workshop idea and I can’t wait to announce it.

8:30 – 11:30 am - workshop scheduling, emails, slack messages to and from Ben, Karina and Nikita. Finish up edits on the Sub Club Saturday newsletter.

12:00 -2:00 pm – Had a bunch of errands to run and it felt so good to leave my cave and be out in the sunshine for a little while. I’ve been playing around with a film camera for the last year on and off, and I had some developed film that was ready so I was excited to see how the pictures turned out.

Also, listened to the latest Slow Stories podcast episode with Allie Rowbottom. I love the way she talks about her writing life and how she had to slow down when she wrote her novel, Aesthetica. It feels fitting for me to listen this week.

2:00 – 3:45 pm – Eat lunch, finish up some work, and shocker! I do not write. But I don’t feel guilty because I really needed to get out of my house and move my body. I polo Tamar and tell her about some of the things I had been thinking about while driving. I remind myself that thinking about my story, planning and note taking is just as important as the actual writing. I’m working to remove guilt from my practice entirely, but that’s much easier said than done.

4:00 pm – Shift starts at the Country Club. I can’t stop picking at the damn bar mix in between setting up the dining room and rolling silverware.

6:00 pm – The Ladies’ golf group’s Spring Fling dinner is happening during regular dinner service, and I am blessed not to be the waitress asked to work it. While some of the ladies are lovely, most are grumpy or needy, and they wanted 26 separate checks.  

7:00- 10:30 pm – It was a busy night but doable. Don’t have much to report.

I ended up writing a little bit on Saturday and Sunday mornings before starting the day. I didn’t plan to record the weekend, but it’s worth noting that I wrote 600 new words!

I really enjoyed tracking my week like this and reflecting on each day. If anything, this week taught me that I’m still learning how to adjust my creative life to my new work schedule. I think it’s a tough balance for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge working from home. I wrote a little bit about this in my last post- about that ever present feeling of Am I doing enough? And balancing that with actually having a life and fostering my relationships.

This novel has been so consuming for the past three years, and some days, I can’t believe it’s not done yet. What have I been doing all this time? I wonder.

But the reality is that novels take a lot of time. I know this, but yet there is so much impatience when I’m stuck or haven’t been able to touch the work in a while.  

I don’t really have a conclusion to this post, only that I’m going to keep working on finding the time. I’ll keep writing and writing until it’s done.