12 very valid reasons i didn't finish my novel draft this summer

shame! anxiety! shame! anxiety! shame!

Well, another summer is almost over, and as always, I overcommitted. Every May/June I’m convinced I can somehow magically travel everywhere, devote whole weekends to the beach, organize several large picnics even in the midst of oppressive heat, and achieve unobtainable goals like writing an entire novel manuscript by September 1st. Hilarious, I know.

There are loads of ways to write a whole book draft in a summer—NaNoWriMo, #1000wordsofsummer, etc.—but this was my summer of distractions. Distractions aren’t all bad, of course, and this summer was rife with distractions: personal and political, micro and macro.

I’ve only made it about 2/3 of the way through this manuscript, but hey, given all the unpredictable things that have co-opted my attention, I’d like to view that as a small victory instead of a shameful, guilt-inducing source of anxiety. After all, this year’s summer blockbusters were all about existential crises and dread, right? So what if, instead of making excuses, I just list out the things that distracted me and celebrate them? Like, look what I did in spite of the world around me?

do you guys ever think about the four trump indictments of the apocalypse

And in the name of transparency and accountability, here’s just a small selection of those distractions: the good, the bad, and the Cillian Murphy of it all:

1. I was learning how fucking terrifying wildfires truly are. This has been the hottest summer ever but the coldest one I’ll likely experience in this lifetime at the rate things are changing. And a bonus: I spent time wondering if my potential future children will have to one day wear gas masks outside during wildfire season. ~oh so fun~

2. I was busy staring into Cillian Murphy’s eyes during Oppenheimer and rewatching his older movies. Specifically why did no one tell me about The Delinquent Season?! Until six years after it premiered?!

   

   no one does a thousand-yard-stare like my guy Cillian.

3. I was reading. Specifically Yellowface by R.F. Kuang; Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica; Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby; Biography of X by Catherine Lacey; and more.

4. I was getting heavily invested in these little garden gremlins. How am I supposed to get any work done when these two cuties are out there ~cronching~ on little pea pods?

5. I was obsessed with cold brew mixed with horchata. Otherwise known as a “Dirty Horchata.”