Mile Marker #6: Don’tcha Love People Watching Over Your Shoulder?

In which: Maggie gets anxious about strangers (because who doesn’t?) and apparently turns into a Viking for two hours.

Checking in from my favorite local coffee shop, which always smells like onions (in a good, albeit somewhat anachronous way). When I first got here there were no vertical tables available, and I hate having my laptop screen visible to the entire café while I write about demon hermit crabs.

But a four-top opened up and a kind soul let me separate it into two tables, so I got a spot in semi-privacy. We can keep going like this!

I’m not sure if it’s a writer thing or a normal person thing to hate having someone glancing over your shoulder while you work. Writing, at least in the infancy of a project, is such a personal and private (and sometimes vulnerable) experience. I don’t want someone to see my elegant first draft prose (aka: “bleep blorp the bucket was red”).

Dag, now a corner table opened up, but I don’t want to be That Guy who up and moves again.

ANYWAY

It’s now officially halfway through the month, so I am putting on my big kid pants (new shorts from Old Navy’s men’s section, who knew?) and getting in those words. I do enjoy starting here just to get my brain jumble in order before I hit the page.

My original goal for today was 2,500 words, but I decided to treat myself to a massage (it’s been so long and also it’s a good treatment for a dip like the one I’m still in), so I’m running on a little less time than I was before. My solution is that I just want to write for one whole goldarn hour.

My friend Cy introduced me to “Immersive Writing Sessions,” these totally invigorating instrumental YouTube videos created by Abbie Emmons. Each video is two hours’ worth of Pomodoro work (four 25-minute work sessions with a 5-minute break between each one) plotted around a central theme. They’re usually spooky and vaguely fantasy, with a soundtrack that gets progressively more intense as time goes on.

Today’s flavor: Viking ship on a journey to a snowy wilderness!

This is running long so I’ll stop here for today — let’s see how many words I can grind out in an hour!

Til next time,
Mags