I started writing this a week ago. It was 5:42 in the morning. I’d been up since 4:30 to change a pissy bedsheet — my daughter, my youngest, is going through the final boss of potty training, and we’re realizing it’s the boss for a reason.
There was a mess behind me — the remnants of a fort my son had built in my office the day before, while periodically demanding I Google various Pokémon and their mega evolutions in between trying to get work done.
And yet, I was happy. Smiling.
Why? It was the first day of school for my son, now a first grader. He was the last holdout; my daughter had started school earlier that week.
Was I excited for him to start a new year? To grow, to learn, and be with his little friends?
Yes, of course.
Was I more excited to finally get back to a predictable routine? To finally find some semblance of balance in my life after a summer full of nice moments and memories, but also a tragic disruption to the progress on my next novel?
You bet your ass I was.
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I have written in the past about the deadline setting I like to do. To keep it real with you, sometimes I feel bad about writing those sorts of posts.
Reason one: I often fall off the wagon, despite the fact that, from where you sit on the other side of a screen somewhere, it may seem like I’ve figured things out and unlocked some secret to consistency.
Reason two: When I inevitably fall off the wagon, I think back to those pieces and say, to myself, oh, fuck you, Andrew and your stupid fucking goal setting. What the fuck do you know?
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My goal, according to the big whiteboard near my desk, was to complete the next draft of my novel, my fifth draft, by July 24th.
I forget when I set that date or why. But sitting here in mid-August, I look at it and laugh.
In fact, I haven’t erased the date yet because I want to enshrine my hubris.
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When it comes to time, I feel like a magician. Like I have to create it from nowhere.
Often that means doing what I’m doing now. Waking up early. Literally stealing time from myself. And that theft comes with costs — as does all theft.
When I’m really going, when I’m in a good groove like I happen to be in now, it usually means I’m sleeping less.
So I have to balance both sets of results. I make more progress on my writing and generally feel more confident about what I’m doing. But I also feel more tired during the day, get snappier with my wife and kids, and, at times, feel like a zombie.
Actually no, I feel like an ouroboros. Taking and taking and taking.
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My wife asked me the other day, as we drove back from a lovely family trip to Orlando, what my favorite period of my life was. I told her it was, oddly enough, during the pandemic; those first few months after my son was born in the summer of 2020.
She laughed. That was her favorite time, too.
It feels odd only because we were in the throes of a plague on one hand, scared shitless for ourselves, our new baby, our elder relatives.
On the other hand, there was this peace that arrived as a result of the world grinding to a halt. I look back and I think about how simple it all was.
Me, her, the baby, my job, and my little window to write in the mornings. There wasn’t much else going on. Life slowed down. The goal each day seemed simple and attainable: get some words down, get my work done, play with my kid, enjoy our little growing family.
In many ways, I feel like I’m chasing that peace again. That state of mind. Trying to recreate it, even though things are different now.
There are two children now, for instance. Both of them can walk and run and talk. Both have strong personalities and endless demands. There are birthday parties on the weekends, and schools, and homework, and projects, and schools that end, and then summer camps, summer camps that start later than schools, and bedtime routines, and bedtime routines that go to shit when summer rolls around.
Recreating that peace is harder, in short. And yet in many ways, I’ve tried to force myself to do it. Or at least that has been my approach in the past.
Make magic. Create time out of nowhere. Deal with the consequences.
But I’m realizing, slowly, that perhaps there is a rhythm to all of this. There are stretches when the routine will hold, and stretches when life will crack it.
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When my self-imposed deadline of July 24th arrived, I received a calendar alert I’d set up because I’m annoying as fuck and a glutton for self-shame.
I went into a Trello board I had created (I know), where I had been tallying up all the words little by little to keep track of my progress. I did some rough math and calculated that in the month of July, the month I was allegedly supposed to finish the damn thing, I’d only written 2,000 of the 20,000 to 30,000 words I had been planning on writing.
I was upset with myself for a bit.
But then I had some time to think about what actually happened during that month — about all the things we’d been through and done. The ending of summer camp. Planning two different birthday parties. A two-week stretch freestyling child care. A couple of family trips out of town. Canceled flights. Family visiting the house. The death of someone who was important to me and influential in my life.
But also, fun! Moments we made, memories, photos we took, fights we had, makeups we had, laughs, cuddle sessions, time with family, grieving. Life, in other words!
And life, I sometimes forget, is necessary for the art. Life feeds it, and art feeds life. It is its own ouroboros.
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Objectively, I think we can all agree I have good reasons for making less progress on my novel last month than I wanted to.
I know that if a writer friend of mine laid it all out for me, I’d shrug it off and say something like, “Man, that sounds like a lot. Shit happens. You’ll get back to it.” And I’d mean that.
So why can’t I extend myself that grace?
Turns out it is easier said than done. Especially when you’re ambitious and you want to make great things, things you’re proud of, and you don’t want to take forever doing it — which probably describes a lot of us.
But I guess I’m realizing that as much as my ambition has motivated me and gotten me to where I am, I also can’t allow it to make me its slave. There will come times when it has to take a back seat.
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It’s been a whole week of school back in session now. The routines aren’t squeaky tight, but we’re getting there. My kids’ bedtime is returning to a normal hour. I have a bit more time to read, to get some sleep, and to get to the desk early without stealing from myself so much.
It’s nice to have my routines back. I feel more at peace.
Of course, they’ll all go to shit again soon. Hopefully, next time, I can be nicer to myself when they do.
But let’s be real. The odds are not in my favor.
Peace,
Andrew
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