Posted on Instagram December 23, 2023
Coffee shops have a bit of writing magic woven into the walls, I’m convinced of it. I don’t know what it is about changing up the space or drinking coffee that someone else has prepared instead of me, but nine times out of ten, no matter how long I’ve been stuck in a writer’s block rut, I can go to one of these and the words will just start flowing.
Lately this been particularly useful, because I’m currently rewriting the opening chapters to the WIP for what feels like the hundredth time. (Okay fine, it’s been fewer.) And y’all? Honesty hour: I hate writing openings. 🫠 Trying to find the perfect place to bring readers into the story, the right balance between present action and background/surrounding context — it’s the hardest part of a book for me to write, bar none. Often it makes me feel like the living embodiment of the melting emoji.
Still. I’m making progress, I think. Getting close. Each time I start again, I come that much closer to figuring out who the protagonist truly is and what this story is meant to be, and not to jinx things, but I have a pretty good feeling about the sequence I’ve landed on now. Let’s see if it holds.
So, this is how I’ll be spending the last few days of 2022. Thinking. Writing. Sipping on red wine. Burying myself in reams of wool at all times, because even though I haven’t lived in the south since I left at seventeen, my southern blood still wilts in the cold. Bring on the summer heat.
Happy new year, all. Next year is gearing up to be a year of change for me, and I’m curious to see what it has in store. I hope it brings you all good things! ✨