Bed. Time.

plus book update #7

I have found a new favorite thing - writing in bed. After nearly 15ish years of being a writer I can’t believe this is a new discovery. For years I would write in coffee shops (read this ode to one of my favorites) or at a desk or at the kitchen table. While I wasn’t ritualistic about my writing time, I was certainly locked into the whole flat and sturdy surface thing. Over the last few weeks that has changed. Cover me in blankets and pillows. Let Birdie come nuzzle up to me. Put a hot cup of tea on my bedside table. And I’m ready to settle into writing.

I’m not entirely sure where this came from. It might have been spurred on by the bedroom makeover I gifted myself a few months ago. While I’ve always loved my bedroom and have tried to make it a respite, it was never 100% perfect. That was until I found myself deathly sick for a few days. In a feverish fury I bought a new bed frame, mattress, sheets, bedding, and pillows. I threw that shit on a credit card and told Jeff Bezos to drop it at the house. Once I was well enough, I finally painted the wall behind my bed. A forest green stencil of nondescript foliage. I hung up some art and assembled the new bed. Then I scrubbed everything within an inch of its life. The room was now the perfect respite I’d envisioned.

Writing in bed feels more…relaxed? Romantic? Easy? I’m not quite articulating it exactly but it’s somewhere in that direction. If nothing else it’s been an enjoyable change of scenery. And maybe that’s the lesson, simple as it is. Change up the environment from time to time. It does the body good.

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Current Word Count: 21,630

By my own benchmarks, I’m behind schedule. I went through a bit of a lull with book writing the week before last but now my newly rediscovered bed is kicking me into gear. While the flurry of words has slowed down, the quality has improved. I went back to the very beginning of the manuscript and am doing some deep writing. It’s the kind of juicy writing that takes longer but feels better. It’s more satisfying. Instead of pushing out words like a drill sergeant, I’m giving them a little hug before ushering them out onto the page. The result is something much more readable. I might even call it goodish for a first draft.

This was decidedly not the plan going into this project. As you may recall I promised myself to move forward, full steam ahead, with no looking back until a first draft had been shat out. But that wasn’t sustainable apparently. Any which way it’s sliced, the slow hugging-words type of work was going to have to get done at some point. I’m just choosing to do it now rather than later. I call this a strategy pivot.

I have made an arrangement to give my first reader, a dear friend and writer, everything I have for the manuscript on May 5th. I warned her it’ll be quite bad and spotty and she doesn’t have to read it. The pressure of knowing I’m turning something in does motivate me. In theory I’ll hand over the better part of the first 1/3 of the book. And that is a prospect that makes me smile and scream and gives me tiny heart palpitations.

Onward.

My view