Not a Write Off vol: 4
The one where I add another plate to all the other ones spinning and settle down to write again.
I am writing this from the kitchen table of my parent’s house, having just eaten a chip butty that was somehow exactly what I needed to put in my belly, despite not having thought about the notion of a chip butty for perhaps years. For those of you not familiar, it’s essentially a heavily buttered sandwich filled with hot chips. It’s soul food. It’s hangover food. It’s ‘I’m getting over norovirus’ food. It’s ‘there’s nothing in the cupboard’ food.
This month, I have been catching thoughts and ideas like a toddler swatting at the sky with a net. Some are pinned down, some have slipped through the gaps. I am, as they say, figuring my shit out.
This is the season of building small habits. Call me old-fashioned, but the new year starts on September 1st and no one can tell me otherwise. I guess that’s what happens when you spent the majority of your life in the school system, whether as a student or a teacher. Perhaps it’s because this year, September aligns with when my maternity leave was supposed to end. If you’re new here, I’ll give you the abridged synopsis: I was made redundant from the part-time job that had me clinging at the hemline of my old line of work. I always wanted to fly solo in the freelance world, but it felt—and still does feel—risky. No pension! No sick leave! No cheekily watching YouTube on someone else’s time! In short, I made the choice to just bloody well go for it and so started a very baby stepped re-entry into working, from just an hour a week to what is now a roster of mentoring, group coaching, workshop writing, editing, and novel-ing.
In order to do this, I needed to introduce some new habits and an unbelievable amount of discipline to make sure that I’m giving 100% to one thing at a time. Parenting with both hands, writing with my whole head, relaxing with my whole body. I have learnt that you can’t ‘do a bit of work and watch TV’ because you end up being rubbish at both. It’s either one thing or the other. Thus, I needed to quite dramatically form habits that helped this happen without my head popping like the end of a confetti canon. Little changes is what I needed, that’s all!
This looked like:
Journalling every night, at the minimum, listing three things I am grateful for
Preparing the evening meal earlier in the day
Planning my week on my Google Calendar
Meticulously planning each remaining chapter so I can crack on with the novel immediately
Tidying or cleaning a little bit of the flat every day
Easy peasy! They say that making new habits ‘micro’ in scale is the way to build them into your life without noticing. But what happens when you make lots of tiny, new promises to yourself? Well, I can tell you. It feels like one big shift; one that makes you feel like you’re on an episode of Taskmaster.
Alex Horne: ‘Your task is to prepare a roast chicken and mashed potato. You must use one hand to baste the meat. The other hand must perform a five-act puppet show for an infant. Your time starts now.’
I joke, but this is what my Tuesday looked like last week.
5am: Baby woke up. Fed baby. Baby slept for another ten minutes. Baby vomited.
5:15am: Put a wash on.
5:30am: Attempts to shush and pat her to sleep failed, we play with a pull-along duck for half an hour (her) amidst yawning (me)
6:00am: Made tea. Fed the baby again.
7:15am: Packed the baby up for nursery.
8:00am: Back from nursery drop off, smeared butter on a chicken, boiled potatoes, roasted butternut squash. We had word that upstairs were demolishing internal walls, so I need to be out of the house so baby can sleep this afternoon. Thus, the morning roast dinner.
8:45am - 10:30: Novel writing
10:30 - 11:30am: Writing on Substack
11:30am: Forgot to pump milk. Boobs ready to explode. Hang out washing.
11:45am: Pack a random selection of lunch items for the baby. Put soggy noodles in a lunchbox for me. Pack the sling, my laptop, overdue library books.
12:00pm: Pick baby up, take her to the library, feed her, nurse her, nap her, type some more, let her roll around on the sofa, and back in the house for 3:30pm.
I am trying to be as organised as possible so I can steal myself an hour later on to work or write. It is making a difference, but it also comes with this noisy ticker in my head that constantly ‘works backwards’ to make sure my plans line up. Inevitably, they often don’t. The baby gets tetchy towards the end of the day and there’s a narrow window where she’ll happily eat dinner, but only if she’s not too hungry (make it make sense), too tired, too milk-hungry, or bored.
In a weird way, I thrive on the frantic energy of it all, because it reminds me of being a teacher. I would slip into my Miss Honey/Dead Poet’s Society persona as I heaved a set of exercise books from the boot of my car. I’d be guillotining worksheets whilst talking with a twelve-year-old about their dance recital. Once, I thought I’d given myself some kind of injury because I tried to pee too quickly in the thirty seconds I had between classes. My days don’t feel that different now, except my work, parenting, and home life is tightly bound together, like those bouncy balls made of a hundred elastic bands.
A wonderfully strange thing has happened since I’ve been building up my working hours. The hats I put on don’t feel that different anymore. I don’t daydream through meetings about KPIs. I don’t clock watch until home time.
In fact, whilst coaching writers, I often find myself giving advice that I need to hear. Planning a career workshop on becoming an author made me revisit some of my own plans with renewed attention. Reading and discussing plot has given me a new idea for a book - one that I’m desperate to start on. Alas, the allure of the shiny new thing. When my partner gets back from work, we pass the baby between us like a relay baton. As I was warned, freelancing exists in a ‘feast or famine’ mindset. I’m still figuring it out. The image of a python eating a whole antelope and spending the next five weeks trying to digest it springs to mind. Am I the python? Am I the antelope? Who knows!
I have a new deadline for my fourth novel, a whole year later than planned. Can you believe that I genuinely thought it was possible to complete the manuscript a week before the baby was born? Like I could hit ‘send’ whilst in the backseat of an Uber to the hospital? Hahaha, oh, it didn’t work like that. Pernille Hughes (a stupidly lovely author herself) told me that ‘babies have all the answers’ and this is true. The answer has been her: my wonderful, vibrant, challenging, joyful little person. The epicentre of my world. By the 31st of December, I will have finished and roughly edited my fourth novel. She will have just turned one year old. Without her, I would still be pushing out books on timelines that I was honestly deranged to think I could sustain. She has tipped me out of the boat and balanced me again. Sure, it’s a pretty drastic way of figuring out your priorities, but there we go.
I’m joining in with the London Writer’s Salon 100 Days of Writing (where I’m also a coach) to work on my novel every day between now and my deadline at the end of the year. It’s a community. It’s kind. It’s down-to-earth. It’s keeping me grounded and accountable, which is what I love.
Amidst everything I’ve written about above—the meticulous calendar boxing and scooting around the place—I had a day when the plan was swept under the sofa, along with the dust bunnies I haven’t got round to hoovering. The baby was a little poorly last week, as she seems to be on a three week rotation since starting nursery. I was feeling word-slurring tired. Usually, I put her down for her nap and busy about, but man oh man, I needed some sleep too. I tried. I made myself a pillow fort. I did my hypnobirthing breathing. Alas, nada.
I got annoyed with myself, initially. When else is an hour gifted like that? Basically never! So, I did what any normal person would do and asked Instagram: how do you relax? Like, actually, properly relax? Honestly, the responses were actually so insightful and it really made me chill the ‘eff out about it all, you know? No one wins a medal for how well they relax. No one is asking for a report on it. The more you stress about it, the less likely it is that you’ll not feel even a tickle of calm.
Relaxation suggestions:
Watch a film that feels like research and let yourself fall asleep in front of it
Tell yourself that every minute of resting counts, even if it’s laying there thinking about dinner
Move slowly. Pack the buggy down slowly. Walk to the shop slowly. Basically, slow down
Make pesto pasta for dinner
Speaking of Instagram, I have a little question for you. How are you feeling about the platform? I know a lot of people are leaving (a lot are shifting here, to the Notes section of Substack). Personally, I find the ads are getting A Lot. What are your thoughts?
My Not A Write Off win this week:
It was the mother of all mornings. The night before, the baby had vommed two bottles and all her dinner. Everything went in the wash and we ran out of sleeping bags, which meant she spent the night zipped into one that she has long outgrown with her feet dangling out of the bottom. The next morning, she slept in, which meant she was late getting to nursery, which meant I was late getting to work. On this day, work looked like recording a workshop on ‘getting ready to submit to an agent’ and I only had time to do it in one take before next door’s construction noise started. I felt like I was on an episode of The Crystal Maze. I put on eyeshadow. I put concealer over my wee lil’ panda eyes. I dusted off my microphone. I did it! After five rusty minutes, I was in the flow and it felt gooooooood. I haven’t spoken for an hour straight since October of last year and to say I had a Marlboro throat by the end was an understatement.
NEW EVENT: Journalling Motherhood
In 2020, I heard Kate Okello before I met her. I had been sent the audio sample for my first novel, The Lonely Fajita, and Kate was hired to voice it. Since then, we’ve met, become a little bit obsessed with each other, and now we’re teaming up to run an event together for mums who want to write.
It’s a two hour journalling workshop at The Hearth in Queens Wood, NW London, which is a beautiful venue with sofas you can sink into and all the cosiness your autumnal soul could desire. There will be a grazing table and wine. Be still my beating heart.
I have gained so much from journalling, even if it’s a forty-five second list before my head hits the pillow, so I’m really looking forward to sharing how it can be used as a tool for gathering gentle power in the midst of loud days. Here’s the event description:
Motherhood is an outpouring, but so often we need time and space to fill our own (ink) well. At the end of this workshop, everyone will leave a writer. Putting pen to paper is a powerful act that comes from an urge to make sense of our experiences, especially as new mothers. We are constantly writing a new, challenging, and wondrous chapter of our lives. Through reflection, journal writing, and creative prompts, we will explore the complexities and wonders of motherhood whilst honouring it with the time and space to reflect on the self.
Early bird tickets are £29 (I’ve just checked and there are still a few left), which is so good for an event like this.
Come, bring your mum, bring your mate, bring a pen.
Do you actually hate rom-coms or are you just a snob?
Do I choose my book titles? (PAID)
What it’s really like to be a writing coach
Profiling readers who love (and hate) each of my novels
THREAD: Creative Cloudbusting: answering your writing and publishing questions! (PAID)
Share your Not A Write Off win in the comments below, or drop me a note if you want to chat about anything mentioned. Thank you for being here!
The juggle is SO REAL. You are doing great 👍🏼