How I (Try to) Write Fiction on a Sunday Morning.

Eggs, Vyvanse, and Fiction.

Welcome to another day in the life of an author. I enjoy writing these so much, I hope you will indulge me.

James wakes up at 5 am’ish, poor baby. I see him potter out of our room to start his quiet, unasked for early mornings. I fall asleep again and have the weirdest dream about trying to make Aga toast whilst I am also driving.

I wake up at 740ish, I am not setting an alarm at the moment, but I seem to wake up around this time naturally. 9 hours 30 of sleep. This is what I require to function.

I potter downstairs, collect my phone from James’s study (my phone sleeps there), check my texts, just one, which is unusual for an Australian who lives in the UK. It’s from Claire, one of the founders of A Writing Room and the fastest friend I’ve ever made. I believe in love at first sight because of how quickly we decided we needed each other in our lives. Platonic chemistry is cool.

I wee, stare at my feet. Think about how I only have one Vyvanse left (my adhd meds). I’m going to take it today, because I really want to do some work. I wonder how much Vyvanse I would need to be able to remember to order my new Vyvanse prescription before the other has run out. There are not enough meds in the world, apparently. I will navigate the next few days without pharmaceutical support, and I am worried about it. Then I worry about worrying about it. I should be able to be okay without them?

I go down more stairs (we sleep in the attic, terrible in summer, wonderful in winter). Our friends Tash and Sion are still with us, and Tash has made pankcakes. She shows her love and her magic through cooking. Everyone is sitting in the lounge chatting.

I grunt at them in greeting. I am not a morning person.

I take my meds, get a cup of coffee, sit down with them.

I now do my “one minute routine”. If you have an iphone, you know that you can set restrictions on apps. James and I have very strict rules about our phones, and we have each other’s codes, meaning you can’t access certain apps unless you convince the other there’s a good reason, then they will put in the code. However, the iphone will always allow you “one minute more” on each app no matter what restrictions you have. So baby, you betcha I’m about to enjoy 6 minutes of stupid dopamine bliss.

1 minute of emails: a quick glance through. An email to myself that I sent last night with an idea. My dad who’s sent me a document asking “is this yours?” they’re essay notes, really interesting, not mine, almost certain Dad wrote it? I almost certainly will forget to reply. My Mum. She’s printed off the speech I wrote for my sister’s bday and given it to her. Nothing else. Don’t get huge amount of dopamine from my inbox on a sunday.

1 minute of instagram: it was my sister’s birthday, I go straight to her stories and watch her day. I wish I could’ve been there. But also know it would’ve exhausted me. When two or more McNee’s gather in one place, it is fucking madness. In a really really good, really really tiring way.

1 minute substack: quick check of notifications and the briefest scroll on notes. Cannot recall anything.

1 minute tiktok: let me see if I can remember what I scrolled past… no. Can you remember the tiktoks you watched today? Did something change you? Move you?

1 minute threads: Threads gives me this sick, bottom of my stomach feeling of grossness and revulsion.

1 minute youtube: I do this one last and it’s an act of dopamine desperation because nothing on there entertains me.

In conclusion: I do not want one more minute.

James angel baby that he is, makes me eggs. I eat them. They are, of course, delicious.

815ish I move into my study.

My meds are kicking in / I am waking up.

Fiction first. I say to myself. It is my usual practice that fiction writing happens first in my day, but I have been slacking. I struggle at navigating a project switch. James and I handed in our Sci fi novel to our agent about 6 weeks ago (I have no sense of time. Is this true? I just checked, we handed it on July 2nd. 7 weeks four days ago. Not bad,Amie). Since then, I have been battling to re-transition back to my detective novel (The sequal to To Kill A Queen). I always have a lot of projects on, but figuring out what is my top priority is hard. For the last seven weeks four days, every creative project has gotten a tiny bit of my attention. Progress has been slow and a frustrating, to the point of making me stressed. Like wtf have I been doing? Have I been doing anything? I am able to do a lot of projects, but only if I know that one needs my main focus.

I sit down. I fuck around.

I jump from emails, to substack, to texts, to facebook on my desktop.

James comes in and asks for 15 minutes on youtube. His reason: he needs to poop. Valid answer. I type in the code.

I go and get my journal.

I write an entry.

It is about tiredness. About how I don’t feel like I have the energy of a normal person. I think, I’m decide I am going to write a substack about tiredness today.

But not right now, fiction right now.

8:54ish: I open my writing program, scrivener.

8:55ish: I have a sudden thought about my speaking career. This is one of the many projects I’ve been working on since coming home from We Need Your Art tour. I have been thinking about pitching myself to corporate spaces as a possible new revenue stream. But in the past few days, I’ve come to the realisation that I don’t want to put energy into that right now. Because Sion is my business coach, and he is currently in the living room - I call him in.

He sits down opposite me. This isn’t fiction.

I tell him what I am thinking.

He listens. He is an incredible listener.

He asks me several incredibly poignant questions about why I don’t want to. Asking me what exactly it is that is putting me off.

“is it the corporate environment you don’t want?”

I don’t want to fit my message into a corporate agenda.

“Do you not want to speak to people in corporate at all?”

I want to free these people from corporate.

The conversation is fruitful. He is brilliant. I have been working a lot on making money in my business lately. But it is basically impossible for me to make money doing something I do not want to do. I work hard only on things I am interested in. Only. Sion reminds me there are so many other levers to pull in terms of making money with my creations. Conversation to be continued.

James walks into the study, I texted him fifteen minutes ago and asked when he was done with his “youtube time”, to visit my study and ideate with me for my fiction.

I tell Sion, “Thank you for your time but I’m afraid my next meeting is here.”

Sion gets up, looks James in the eye and says “Good luck.”

James replies: “Is she in a good mood today?”

Sion says “Oh yeah, you’ve got nothing to worry about. She’s switched on.”

They nod at each other.

In case this doesn’t read: they are fucking around. (sort of).

910ish: James sits down.

NOW fiction.

I write better books because of James. He gets my neurons firing. He is himself a brilliant writer and he makes me a better one. I update him about the shape my book is currently in. Walk him back through the first 10 chapters. Explain that the first four I have re-written sporadically over the last 7 weeks four days because I changed a major plot point and wanted to see if it worked. It has. I am ready to move forward, but I want to do a vague outline before I write.

I’ve called this book: Everyone in London is Going to Hell and I am fucking obsessed with the title, and if the publishers decide they want to take a sequel, I really, really want them to take this title.

The premise: In 1579, a man claiming to be Christ floats down the Thames, declaring that London has seven days to repent before the rapture. My two fabulously queer and unlikely detectives, Jack and Jenny, must unmask the “Messiah” before the city tears itself apart.

James suggests many brilliant things, the big one being, that I plan the rest of the book out in 7 acts for the 7 days. He excuses himself.

I start planning. The planning leads to researching, which leads to more ideas and I fucking love it. I find a delicious primary source. A document written a little after the book in 1592 by Robert Greene. It’s a pamphlet about how to catch tricksters in Elizbathan London. It’s fucking gold.

11:ish

I am winding down. My experience with these meds is that after they kick in, I will have the energy and capacity to really fucking focus for about 3 hours. That is not really how they are meant to work. I need to see my psychiatrist but it’s so expensive and I can’t make myself book it. I think I’ll wait until I am back in Australia.

I want to start my substack before my focus starts waining. I start writing the essay about exhaustion. I do not enjoy it. I feel unsure of what I am trying to say in a way that feels itchy. (won’t elaborate). What I really want to do is another “Day in the life” susbtack - but I did one last week, and I feel like I should switch it up, eh fuckit.

I begin THIS essay. I enjoy it so much.

Midday:

James asks if I can help him in the kitchen, he is making a Sunday roast. I help him with the olive oil and salt and tell him about my discoveries with the Robert Greene character. He delights with me. We are such fucking nerdy historians. We both contemplate getting our doctorates.

12:07: I am hot. I go get changed. I decide to get into my running gear and as I do, I look out the open window; how many innocent villagers have seen me naked? I wonder. I am not careful, or discreet. Yes. I will run today. I am feeling called to go outside and be in the sun. I am meant to be doing back and chest today in the gym. But, I don’t want to get in the car, plus I am the boss, I decide.

12:54: I continue to write about my day on substack, this is getting very meta. I am going to take a break. I am going to go fuck around for a bit (task switching…) and then I will run… maybe… who knows now. We are no longer documenting history, we are have entered into the murky realm of divination.

12:55: I realise that whilst we are only at one o’clock, I have written nearly 2000 words. I will leave it here. For your benefit, only. I could do this for fucking ever.

I love you, thank you for witnessing me.

NEWS.

Important news actually.

The Inspired Collective is opening its doors again very soon. Enrollment will be open to the waitlist first from Sept 15–18 (only 200 new spots this round), and then — if there are any places left — to the public from Sept 25–27. If you’ve been circling the idea of joining us, this is the round to get yourself on the waitlist. You can join the waitlist here.