Writing Day

Turbulent. Overwhelming. That’s what this year has been, on the grand scale and in my own day-to-day life. With little time to write in 2017, I chose to concentrate on  query packages for my memoir manuscript. Submissions-wise, I sent out one flash fiction contest entry. Someone else won the prize and I went back to researching publishing houses. For the first time in nearly a decade, a year was about to close out without a single new publication credit for me. And then…writer-editor-publisher rob mclennan to the rescue…though he didn’t know about the rescue aspect when he invited me to contribute an essay for his my (small press) writing day blog project. My little essay went live a few days ago. Yay! A guest blog post does count as a publication, right?

Modelled after The Guardian’s occasional feature “My Writing Day,” rob’s project offers an opportunity for “those of us who might never appear in The Guardian”. What amazed me, on reading through over a dozen essays on the blog (there are over 40 and counting), was how varied people’s writing days are. Some writers simply park their butts just about anywhere and start writing; others have rituals to get them into the zone. Some write for hours at a time; others write in brief bursts shoehorned in between making breakfast for little ones, getting them off to school, picking them up again for lunch, baking banana bread with them . . . much like rob mclennan himself. His description of what his writing days looks like is longish, and in the form of a one-day snapshot, but the form and detail are perfect for illustrating how one can fit writing and writing-related work into a busy, busy life.

Happy reading and writing in 2018, everyone!