The End

Love, Laodice's first draft is done! Done-ish. There may be a few [describe this later] bits and I am absolutely certain everyone is nodding and smiling and shaking their heads more than they need to, but the draft is off to my beloved editor, and I don't have to think about it for a week.

But hoo boy getting to that end was a trial. It turns out that when I write a mystery romance with a complicated murder and protagonists who think they don't like each other, I have to do a lot of plotting to make the emotional and story movement work.

And this means I spend roughly half my effort tricking my brain into sitting down and doing the damn work. I am frequently inspired and moved by what I work on (or cackling wildly as I do terrible things to my imaginary friends) but the truth about writing to deadline is that I cannot wait for inspiration. Inspired or not, the words have to get written.

I suspect many of us are familiar with Ursula K Le Guin's rightly famous writing schedule:

5:30: wake up and lie there and think. 6:15: get up and eat breakfast (lots). 7:15am: get to work writing, writing, writing. Noon: lunch. 1-3: reading, music. 3-5: correspondence, maybe house cleaning. 5-8: make dinner and eat it. After 8pm: I tend to be very stupid and we won't talk about this.

My schedule does not look like this, and not just because 5:30 a.m. is a godawful time to be conscious. I very much wish I could do 4 hours and 45 minutes of sustained writing first thing in the morning, and then get on with the rest of my day, but that is not physically or mentally possible for me. On writing days, I do tend to write for 4-5 hours, but it's spread out over 8-10 hours total.

Here's a vague approximation of my writing day:

  • OKAY let's DO IT. Set a timer for 20 minutes and you have to write for twenty minutes before you look at the group chat, I don't care if you write absolute trash but you have to write it.
  • NO do not research fork shapes of the 1960s put a square bracket
  • NO do not look up cloister garden herbal bed plans put a square bracket
  • NO do not watch videos of gun suppressors to see how silent they are– oh that's actually plot relevant. fine, but TEN MINUTES.
  • It's noon and you have a measly 341 words, so turn off the wifi
  • Okay your wrists are hurting, take painkillers now
  • You're not dying, you just haven't eaten lunch and it's 3pm
  • FINE you can watch episodes of Parks and Rec between writing sprints
  • Look there's a ton of fresh air out there and your wrists are killing you, go for a walk
  • It will make you feel refreshed GO FOR A WALK
  • GO! FOR! A! WALK!
  • wow. you feel better. what a shock.
  • Word count done! Eat dinner!
  • You could use the time before bed to get a headstart on tomorrow or do some of your admin or... okay, yeah, you could also play Baldur's Gate III until you pass out, that is also a choice.

(My inner voice isn't really mean, she's just very aware of my shenanigans).

Le Guin's schedule appeals a lot to productivity gurus (she writes every day! She does it first thing in the morning!) but the thing I appreciate about it most is "maybe house cleaning".

I have complex feelings about domestic labour and the way it is often devalued, especially against intellectual labour. But also! This is my house, and I'm the only one who lives here. I'm not going to get to the end of my life and think, "what I really regret is that I didn't wash my towels in a more timely manner." It doesn't hurt anyone if the laundry piles up while I finish a book.

And lo! I have finished a book! Pre-order Love, Laodice now!

They hate each other but oh no! There's only one bed.

That Healey Girl is the newsletter of Karen (or Kate) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river.