It was just another day. First of the week, mind you. And nothing happened. I woke up at 2:30 am, sat in the dark living room for a while, thought up a few plots for my just-before-I-fall-asleep story, gave up and ended up just sitting in the dark, not thinking about anything. At all.

When the time came, I got my son ready for school, dropped him off, came home and took a two-hour nap. The rest of the day seemed to float by. I didn’t do laundry, I didn’t change the bedding, I didn’t do the dishes, I didn’t read, and I didn’t write. I didn’t do anything.

Hopefully this is not an indication of how the rest of my week will go. I have a shitload to do without considering the domestic issues that plague my life. I am ghost-writing a book, I must reimagine the marketing for my business, and then actually do something about whatever was reimagined. Most of all, though, I need to write. Anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s shit, I must write something. For me. Not about me, for me.

Ironically, here I am writing about my Nothing. If it’s not really ironic, I don’t care. I have a bottle of beautiful South African Pinotage, and everything from Joan Baez to Linkin Park literally drowning out everything around me.

I need something. Inspiration? A wake-up call? Someone to tell me to get my shit together? I tell myself that so many times a day. My husband won’t because he is just too happy to spend time with me before he jets off to some foreign shore again. My son won’t because he thinks it’s weird that I don’t have a real job. Granted, he is only nine and mildly dyslexic; the thought of having this love affair with words and language is as hard to understand as South African politics.

Help! How many aspiring writers (or even writing writers) struggle to get their shit together? Is there a lamppost where you all congregate and discuss the lack of ideas and inspo? Perhaps a backroom where masked strangers gather and whisper sweet somethings to one another? Please do not direct me to some dude who looks like Carl Jung but talks like Reverend Beeswax. (I don’t know a reverend named Beeswax; I’m just saying.) I need something real. Not LinkedIn-inspired lessons or the usual 10 Steps-to-become-a-better-writer shite one finds on Medium.

I am done with trying to organise. I am done with trying to schedule. I am so fucking done with a to-do list. Is there anyone else who just wings it? Every day. And I mean wing every part of their lives, and writes? And how do you cope?

I have been winging every aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. Seriously. My semi-fucked-up childhood was great because my imagination winged it. Winged everything throughout adulthood, got married at 40 and became a mom at 41, and I am still winging it. But surely, some time you have to get (kind of) grounded?

The beautiful bottle of South African Pinotage just reminded me that I have to get to the point or risk becoming a writer who cannot write about anything without a beautiful bottle of Pinotage (I do not get a commission for mentioning our beautiful Pinotage).

The point is: I need help in getting my writing shit together. If there is anyone with the same struggle when it comes to sitting your arse down to write (read: ADHD is a bitch when you are a writer), please let me know.

I wish you all well. Summer is looming behind a cold spell here in the Southern Hemisphere. My husband is still pottering in the garden (at 8 pm), tomorrow is a new day with new Nothings to wade through. Or just maybe a Something will appear…