Pens, coffee, paper, steno and two surges of brilliance. Day 1 of "The Big Edit"

Ai instruction: woman with pixie-cut white hair and thick black glasses lying on her front, surrounded by notes and piles of paper, a mug of coffee and four different coloured pens

12. Monday 12 January 2026

I thoroughly enjoyed reading a novel called There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura and translated by Polly Barton, mainly for one section, where the main character’s job is to watch covert footage of a writer. The narrator is amazed how much time he spends sitting at his desk and/or not writing. I would have been horrified to think of someone watching my attempts at writing today. I first sat at my desk at around 08:30. I turned my desktop PC, monitor, keyboard and mouse on and I sat. For quite a while. Then I remembered that my monitor was still attached to my laptop.

                I felt tired and somehow not ready to write, so tried to think of additional useful things to do to progress my big edit. I drank coffee, fretted over my sourdough starter (I’m now convinced I’ve killed off the original starter), made boiled egg and toast, fretted over my sourdough starter even more and then lost myself in a flurry of activity as I realised it would be useful to clarify the content of each of the six Crime Writing for Beginners classes. I then lay on my stomach on the floor and surrounded myself with paper and four different coloured pens and formed a brilliant plan. This was peak one of two for the day. I wrote out what information I wanted in each of the five chapters associated with class #1. This activity helped a lot.

I would happily write all notes lying on the floor surrounded by paper, pens and coffee

                Before lunch, I was stuck on one particular chapter so decided to go for a walk to talk myself through it. I made three voice notes on my walk and concluded that the best course of action would be to omit that chapter in my rewrite, though with a view to re-inserting a version of it at a later date if I couldn’t find somewhere else to add some of the key information in that chapter as it is currently.

                By mid-afternoon, I’d thrown out one batch of sourdough starter, started a loaf with another, had a failed attempt at a nap and sat at my steno to start on the rework of chapter 1. My stenoing frenzy was my second and final peak. My first and second peaks would have looked impressive to anyone watching. The rest of my working day would not. In theory, having gone through the new outlines for the five (now to be four) chapters for class #1, I should be able to steno at least two more chapters tomorrow. I’d love to be able to impress myself and actually finish rewriting all the class #1 chapters but I don’t want to disappoint myself by expecting a surge of productivity and then falling short.