I’ve been feeling really jealous of a lot of other writers lately. Great and talented people are getting published in America, not even people I know but people I respect, and I sit here feeling all sulky when I could be doing what would get me published and known, that is, writing so that one day all my writing practice will segue into writing great fiction. I write dribs and drabs and then get annoyed and watch Netflix.

Someone I know wrote a book and I would love to hate it, except it is a good book (a little too much slut-shaming in some parts). So I write positive reviews for it on librarything and goodreads and sulk some more. I eat stale gingersnaps and cross my arms and stare out the window.

I go back and forth on giving up. I say I’ll take a break and then think of a story idea and write a short story about Jersey cows. I think Maybe I should stick with short fiction then spend six hours on two pages of Come From Away, which is now fifty thousand words, because I simply can’t let that one go. I tell myself YA is the way to go as my YA faerie story veers further and further from YA and into adult territory. I decide that listening to myself is not what I should be doing.

I read books by amazing writers. You know how they got to be amazing writers? I ask myself. Not by watching Netflix all day. Not by planning a birthday party for a five year old for more time than it should take to plan a birthday party for a five year old. Not by sulking how the receptionist at the car dealership wasn’t as friendly to you this time as last time. Not by still being hurt that a family member forgot their birthday when it is October and the forgotten birthday was in July and it’s a bit too late now to bring up forgetting their birthday. Amazing writers actually write stuff down. Then they rewrite and reframe and move all the parts around and get a story. That is what writers do.

So I should write. But oh my goodness, I found an advent calendar tutorial and I’ll likely distract myself with that instead.

Me to Geoff: I am going to write a story about Jersey cows. Those are the brown ones.

Geoff: Sure. Whatever.

Two hours later.

Geoff: What are you doing?

Me: Writing my story about Jersey cows. See, here’s the word `Jersey’ and here’s the word `Jersey’ and here’s the word `Jersey’. I am showing you because you totally don’t believe me that I’m writing a story about Jersey cows.

Geoff: Well, seriously? Did you expect I would believe you? Who writes a grown-up story about cows?

The problem with your stories one of those kids who know everything told me in a writing workshop, is that they are hard sudokus. You really have to think to figure them out. But here’s the thing, she leaned forward on her elbows. No one actually does hard sudokus.

I do. I only do hard sudokus when I do sudukos, which, admittedly is not very often since with a background in math, sudukos aren’t so much a relaxation as work-lite. But a hard-suduko story writer, I liked that. The next best thing anyone has ever said about me is Meghan views getting wet as a personal insult, which is also true, but less applicable daily (unless it’s raining).

I got my first critique back for my course. I knew there were issues with Come From Away, but not this many. An entire red pen’s worth for the first twenty-five pages.

You broke the contract, Geoff says. The writer promises to reveal just enough and the reader promises to stick it out until all the pieces are in place. She doesn’t believe you’re going to reveal enough to make it worth her while.

But hard sudoku, I whine. You’ve got to stick with it.

The word hostile is thrown around in the critique. I am not puzzling. I am hostile.

I rewrite the first section.

Well, now you’re explaining too much, says Geoff.

I can’t win.

Tesfa wants to be a writer too, among other things (chef, penguin, mommy).

We can be writer friends! Her excitement is adorable. Did you write something today? she asks.

I told her yes. Less writing than rewriting, but let’s not get tied up in specifics.

Me too! Every non-question sentence Tesfa speaks is in exclamation marks. Mummy, she says, secretly, coming right up to my ear so that Geoff doesn’t hear, what letter did you practice writing today?

T I say. Might as well tell Tesfa her favourite letter. I did type a T today too.

I practiced my A’s! Tesfa shouts, still next to my ear. Writer friends!

At least my four year old is interested in my writing.

I steal from real life to put in stories.

We were supposed to make s’mores, but it rained and we never lit a fire and then we came back home from where we were, so we ended up with a bag of milk chocolate chips. We normally buy bittersweet, but we didn’t look at the bag that closely in the Co-op I suppose. A few days after being home, Geoff opened the bag just to eat a few milk chocolate chips. Then I ate a few milk chocolate chips.

I don’t like eating milk chocolate chips by themselves. Whenever I do, it reminds me of someone mocking my weight, mocking my personality, mocking my potential – the exact words “You’ll never have anyone love you if you keep eating junk like that.”

Except I wasn’t eating milk chocolate chips when this happened. I was eating a mint chocolate bar. I don’t know why milk overtook mint in my memory, but it has an even knowing that the memory trigger is wrong does nothing about it.

You remember things that never happened. I’m tired of it, someone says.

Maybe all I’m doing is stealing from my imagination then.