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It is week two of 2024. How did the writing go this week? Based on my inbox, I know that some folks are off and running while others are still hibernating or just warming up. Listen to your body and brain tell you what they need and act accordingly rather than trying to force them into a path. Here at the garret, I’m trying to heed these words even as I type them! I’d pictured this as a quiet week in which I enjoyed the satisfaction of working in the house we thoroughly refreshed over the break, with plenty of time to ease back into my kid’s school schedule and lots of peaceful hours working on my book. On Wednesday, our first day back on schedule, the wake-up alarm was just as brutal as I’d expected, but our kitchen was cozy and clean and stocked with lots of good food and a new toaster oven and my kid was resigned to going back to school, if not excited about it. But when I entered my office after the school run, feeling ready to get to work, I remembered that I’d used it as a dumping ground during the cleanup. No matter, I told myself. My desk was tidy, and I could just ignore the boxes of random crap behind me. I reminded myself that I am wildly lucky to have a dedicated office here in space-starved San Francisco. I pulled out the stack of printed manuscript pages and my notebook and started again from the top, expecting to sink into the work and start swimming, just as I had when I last touched it in December. I did my first work session on the book at the Ruby, my beloved local coworking and creative space, and it was one of those sessions we all dream of, when I resurfaced from the pages and hours had passed and my brain felt pleasantly exercised but not exhausted—just like your body feels after a hike in the woods that is a perfect match for your strength. Instead, I sputtered and stalled, finding resistance with every decision I had to make. I pushed myself through sixty pages over the course of the day and even got myself onto the bike for a quick workout before making dinner, but I had to admit to myself that none of it was enjoyable. After dinner, when I got an invitation to meet a college friend for dim sum the next day, I jumped at the chance to have a different kind of day that I hoped would refresh me for my next work session—which is right now. And right now I’m fighting off some kind of cold that doesn’t seem to be Covid and thinking mostly about how I’m going to write this newsletter, attempt another working session on the book, and then surrender to the couch in the cozy living room with a giant mug of tea and Molly McGhee’s Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, which just appeared from my Libby wish list a couple hours ago like a message from the rest gods. This morning, while waiting for the reading on my Covid test, I was remembering the first week of January 2021 when we were also attempting to step back into the usual routine—which at that point still meant two kids doing Zoom school from home and two adults working from this same home office—when my mother texted me to turn on the TV and suddenly we were watching an insurrection. (I just looked up my work diary from that day and it reads 8am – yoga, 9am – email, 10am – blog post draft, 12pm – watching attempted coup.) Later that month or maybe it was the next, I admitted to myself that I was deep into burnout and started prioritizing rest. I’m glad to be in this timeline and not that one, but I’m also mindful of the lessons it taught me. It’s also true that most of the work of writing isn’t the vivid absorption I got in that very first session. More often it’s a slow slog through the piles of words, and part of our job is to keep our brains engaged enough to pour new energy into the pages. I don’t know how the next few days and weeks will go, but I promise I’ll be an honest reporter, even when things aren’t going easily. I’m going to be experimenting with ways of showing you the details of what I do each week on the book, but before I get to that, I want to remind you of Be a Bestseller 5.0, a free, online masterclass featuring 20+ speakers—including yours truly—that runs from January 15 to 19. You can learn more and register right here.
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