The day
starts with coffee, then a few “quick” emails, scanning social media and
reading some articles and poems that come up (LitHub, Poem a Day, Tuesday’s Poem
of course). This week a moderate crisis – the cappuccino machine is not
functioning, so we do a workaround with stovetop espresso machine and
semi-frothed milk. The post-coffee morning components vary – a pilates class or
gym visit, writers’ group meetings on Tuesdays, journaling when I can squeeze
it in, nearly always an hour or so walk with my standard poodle -- all of which
often means its almost lunchtime before I sit down to intentional writing.
Computer
work – revisions, some writing, and most emails – takes place at my desk in my office,
with chachkas on every surface and books overflowing the shelves. The office is
in temporary chaos while some arcane adjustment of the radiators is ongoing,
bookcases, file cabinet and desk pulled into the middle of the room. When
journaling or otherwise handwriting and reading, I am at my comfy armchair in
the living room. My daughter claims that any place where I work, with books
piled around it, and pens in jars is also an office, so my photo shows the
chair and its surround.
Journalling
is a regular component of many days but it often feels anything but creative
and is certainly not directed or otherwise intentional. When I’m not mulling in
my journal over what I’ve got on my to-do list, or complaining to myself about
lack of productivity, I might talk myself through a character’s back story, or
freewrite from a prompt or a memory. A recent ramble had me remember curlers –
not the bonspiel kind but the ones we used to put in our hair, pink foam or
hard plastic cylinders – and old-school
home hair dryers. Will these memories make their way into a story or poem at
some point? Maybe yes, likely no, but I hope the process help me tap into some
manner of flow, lets me access some trapdoor of my brain. Or maybe it’s just a
stall.
Not long
ago, I stepped down from a fairly demanding volunteer role (chair of the board
of Arc Poetry Magazine) but retain a less-demanding editorial board position,
so some time most days is taken up with emails about the magazine and our
programming, reading poems on submittable and the occasional meeting. In
addition to my regular writing group, I try to arrange occasional visits to
keep in touch with other writer friends over coffee/tea/lunch. The business
side of the writing life take time too – keeping track of when magazines are
open for submissions, choosing work to send, formatting to meet the particular
requirements of each magazine (they all differ in small ways – number of poems,
cover letter info, even acceptable font). I’ve long extolled the idea of aiming
for 100 rejections a year (because of this: [ http://lithub.com/why-you-should-aim-for-100-rejections-a-year/
]. Yet, lately I’ve been wondering if
time taken up by all this submitting is yet another stall (as, likely, is
writing this piece and the fidget-revising I know I’ll do).
Stalling.
Which brings me to the writing part of my writing day. I’m currently in
revision mode on a novella which will be published later this year. I am thrilled
to have had it accepted yet I am working ever-so-slowly through the comments
from my generous editor/publishers. Their editing suggestions are bang-on, and
by and large not terribly daunting. Still, I’ll read over a scene and their
comments for the umpteenth time, decide I need to go to YouTube to research
some film scene I want a character to think about, scribble a bit, stall a bit
more (reaching for the phone to scroll social media for a few minutes is now a
stall the way reaching for a cigarette once was), and end up settling for some
small progress--a paragraph or two, a few lines of dialogue, maybe a scene
revised.
I don’t have
a typical writing day. Even though I have the luxury and privilege of no longer
having to report to a day job, I’m still shoe-horning my actual writing among
all the detritus of my life. It’s a fluid process for me, and I try to
acknowledge that I am also working at least on a subconscious level, laying
down my mental compost, as I walk the dog or look at movie clips of people
crashing through glass (yes, for a legitimate purpose).
Evenings are
short. I’m usually at the computer till dinnertime. My partner is the cook in
the family and I’m on cleanup. We eat late, so it’s often nine or later by the
time I’m finished with dishes (my sister claims I’m the slowest cleaner in the
world, which I have little doubt of). After that, I generally read – usually
fiction, sometimes poetry – and occasionally watch something on Netflix. All
the while percolating, letting things settle. My writing day is my life, I
guess.
Frances Boyle writes poetry and fiction when she is
not stalling. Her writing appears in literary magazines and anthologies
throughout Canada and in the U.S., most recently in The New Quarterly and The
Fiddlehead. She is the author of the poetry collection Light-carved Passages (BuschekBooks) and a novella, Tower, (forthcoming, Fish Gotta Swim Editions).
She has called the prairies and Vancouver home, but is now firmly rooted in
Ottawa.
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