Pascale Potvin My Small Press Writing Day

My routine depends on whether I’ll be working from home, on the day in question, or whether I’ll on-set as an extra on one Disney show or another. If I’m on set, I usually have wake quite early (2 AM’s the record!), and get there with time to spare if I’d like to be near an outlet or heater.

My hair and makeup done, I write on my phone or I read until I have to move to set, wherein I continue my work in-between takes.

The quality of my writing goes down over the workday, which can go for as long as 17 hours.

The days that I’m home, I wake at 5:30 when the cat feeder rotates (to stop the kitten from stealing food from her brother), and then go back to bed, unless I’m too jittery (I often am).

Regardless, I’m up by 7:30. After my coffee I log the newest submissions to CHEAP POP, then jot down my opinions about them. If it’s early in the week, I finish the same type of work for Walled Women Magazine.

I feel that reading—first submissions, then a work of choice—preps my brain for creation. Any editing has to be done right afterward, whether it’s for myself or for another person, at the time that my mind is most alert.

And, of course, I write. If it’s the summer, or if I’m lucky (as I was very much this past week), I go to the park and I sit under a tree. Nature is a precursor for emotion, of course, and the latter precursory for everything else.

During the start of quarantine I’d built a sort of one-person workshop for myself, working on one scene of my novel per day—but now that that’s all finished, my current focus is small-scale projects and filmmaker grant applications. I’m currently in the pre-production stage of a feature, based on my first published story.

Unfortunately, because I have OCD, I’ll often struggle with either keeping my focus on my work or breaking from it at all. Either I’m consumed by whatever tricks my brain is playing on me, or I’m so into my task that I forget to eat, drink, and pee. It’s not the most ideal setup.

Once I get home I always intend to take time out of the day to clean, but at that point I’m usually still too obsessed with my writing to do so.

Still, I probably succumb to an afternoon nap.

I dedicate the end of the day to tasks requiring less concentration, such finalizing as any submissions that need to be sent out, or completing non-editing tasks for my virtual clients (I do have to have another paying job, after all!)

I have to admit that I’m a borderline workaholic and that I feel guilt if I’m not being productive at all hours. I don’t think that I’ve properly watched TV in years; I work until I’m too tired, and then I go to bed.

 

 

 

Pascale Potvin is Prose Editor for Walled Women Magazine, Assistant Editor for CHEAP POP, and Assistant at One Lit Place. She’s placed her own work in Eclectica Magazine, Maudlin House, BlazeVOX, Quail Bell Magazine, and many others. She has a BAH from Queen’s University, and she is working on a budding book series. You can read more about her at pascalepotvin.com or @pascalepalaces on Twitter.