Monday: Grand Intentions

At 8:59 a.m. on Monday, I’m already late for the weekly Zoom meeting of my writing group, “Rough Drafts Anonymous.” The name is supposed to be a joke. Sometimes it feels like prophecy.

I log in just in time to see Marcie’s face filling the screen, makeup immaculate, coffee mug color-coordinated with her sweater. Shari, as always, is sitting at an angle that reveals the tornado behind her: piles of books, laundry, an actual violin case. Jasmine has that look like she’s about to say something profound or admit she hasn’t showered. I look at myself in the tiny corner box, hoping the ring light is enough to hide my four-day-old leggings and the way my hair seems to have given up.

Marcie claps her hands. “Okay, accountability. This week, we’re all submitting something. Anywhere. No excuses.”

Shari grins. “And if you don’t, you have to read your worst old draft out loud. I still have that story about the raccoon cult, Marcie. Don’t tempt me.”

Jasmine holds up her planner, densely color-coded. “Let’s all say where we’ll submit.”

I clear my throat. “The New Yorker.”

There’s a pause. Then Shari cackles. “Go big or go home, huh?”

“Or just—stay home,” I say. “That’s the plan, anyway.”

Ava, who has joined late and always seems to be in a different time zone, squints at her screen. “Are we taking this seriously?”

“I am,” I lie.

We spend the rest of the call talking about deadlines and intentions. When it’s my turn, I vow, “I’m in. This week, I’ll submit.” It sounds almost plausible when I say it out loud. If I don’t do it now, I might never. That’s the thing about unfinished stories—they pile up, and eventually, you start believing they’re all you have.

I end the call, stretch, and open a new document. I spend twenty minutes deciding on a title, another ten scrolling for inspiration. By noon, I have written a single sentence: “She meant to submit her story.” It mocks me from the top of the blank page. I close the laptop and go to make toast.

Tuesday: Domestic Chaos

I wake to the sound of my youngest banging on the bathroom door, demanding to know why toothpaste is always “so minty.” I ignore the existential inquiry and shuffle into the kitchen, where the fridge hums with the secret life of the oat milk carton—now entering its third week of questionable existence. The label says “Best By,” but it doesn’t say whose best.

My eldest slouches at the table, face glowing blue from his iPad. “What’s for breakfast?” he asks without looking up.

“Bread,” I say, rooting through the bag. “It’s artisanal. From the shelf.”

He stares. “Plain bread?”

“It’s a toast-adjacent experience.”

He shrugs. “You said you were going to write your story today.”

“I am. After breakfast. Or before lunch. Or during snack. It’s all about flexibility.”

He nods, wise beyond his years in the art of maternal procrastination.

At 10 a.m., I open my laptop, determined. I check my email instead. Two rejections—one from Obscure Literary Weekly (I barely remember submitting; was that the story with the haunted bagel?), the other so polite it feels like a dare.

“We regret to inform you, but your piece was not a fit for our needs at this time. We wish you well on your creative journey.”

It’s like getting dumped by someone you never dated, except they’re sending you off with a vegan muffin recipe.

I close the tab and open my group chat.

Marcie: “2 pages down! Shari, you in?”

Shari: “I’m writing through the crying. Theirs and mine.”

Me: “I am meditating on structure.”

Jasmine: (sends a meme of a cat typing with its forehead)

Outside, the world is sunny and oblivious. I consider going for a walk, but my leggings have developed a shiny patch on the left knee that looks like an invitation for public shame. Instead, I text my ex-husband.

Me: “Remind me why I do this?”

Ex: (photo of himself at a trailhead, shirtless, sunburned, grinning like a motivational poster for questionable life choices) “Because you’d lose your mind otherwise.”

He follows up with a GIF of a fox sunbathing.

Me: “Not helpful.”

He responds, “Go write something. Seriously.”

Wednesday: Accountability (Or Lack Thereof)

At noon, the group chat is on fire.

Ava: “My main character just ate a tarantula. Is that too much?”

Marcie: “If you can justify it emotionally, go for it.”

Shari: “Ten pages down. Who’s next?”

I panic. I’ve written two paragraphs, both describing bread. My protagonist has yet to acquire a personality.

I lie. “I have a draft. Just needs a little… marination.”

The door bursts open. My youngest enters, hair wild, clutching a single sock.

“Can you help me with my poem?” he asks.

“Is it about socks?” I ask.

He nods. “Listen: ‘My sock is lost. / So am I.’”

I stare at him. “You’re six.”

He shrugs. “You said to write what you know.”

I sigh. “It’s better than my bread story.”

He grins and disappears again, leaving the sock on the counter like a calling card.

Inspired, I return to my document. I type, “She meant to submit her story,” again, and again, until it fills half a page. It feels like performance art. I delete it all, open Instagram, and scroll until my thumb goes numb.

That night, my mother calls.

“Have you thought about getting a certificate in something practical?” she asks.

“I’m building my platform,” I say, hoping she doesn’t ask what that means.

She sighs. “Do you have health insurance?”

“I have… aspirations.”

She sighs louder.

The rest of the night, her question rattles in my head—something practical—like an annoying pop song I can’t shake. I fall asleep wondering if you can get certified in bread-related daydreaming.

Thursday: The Grocery Store Breakdown

The next day I find myself standing in the produce aisle at 6 p.m., paralyzed by choice, wondering if responsible adults instinctively know which lettuce to buy. Maybe they have certificates in spinach.

A woman ahead of me is buying six types of cheese, speaking Italian into her phone, hair impossibly shiny. I glance at my own cart: oat milk in the blue carton (because it was on sale), bread with an expiration date I can’t read, off-brand cheese puffs, and a half-wilted head of iceberg. I realize I am clutching it like a security blanket, thumb pressing a bruise deeper into the pale green.

I make myself put the iceberg back. I try to channel someone new—someone who chooses dark, leafy greens with intention. I reach for the arugula, but knock over a pyramid of cucumbers instead. One rolls under the potato bin. The Italian woman doesn’t notice; the teen stocker pretends not to. I pick up my arugula, triumphant and sweating, and realize it expired yesterday.

The lighting in produce is too honest. I catch my reflection in the freezer glass: hair escaping its bun, a streak of something unidentifiable on my shirt, leggings glinting. The image is unforgiving—a raccoon caught at the scene of the crime.

My phone buzzes.

Eldest: “Can we have cheese puffs for dinner?”

Me: “Sure. But don’t tell your brother.”

The group chat pings.

Marcie: “Prompt for the week: ‘Write about becoming someone new.’”

I stare at my cart: oat milk, bread, cheese puffs, rejected arugula, the wrong kind of lettuce, cucumber-shaped guilt. I cannot become someone new in the produce section. If I fail at this, it’s just another silent reason to stay who I am.

At checkout, I realize I’ve forgotten my reusable bags. The cashier gives me that look—somewhere between pity and concern. I pay extra for paper.

On the walk home, I see my neighbor’s toddler in the yard, finger in his nose.

He points at me. “Why are you crouching?”

I wave. “It’s called stretching.”

He scampers off, unimpressed.

Back home, my youngest is naked except for one sock and holding the TV remote hostage.

“Will you read my poem?” he asks.

“After dinner.”

“It’s cereal night, right?”

“Don’t tell your brother.”

He nods, solemn. “Secret cereal.”

I try to write while they eat. My mind is full of cheese puffs and existential dread.

Friday: The Push

The house is louder than usual. The kids are arguing over the remote, the cat is howling at the fridge, and I am fighting with my Wi-Fi. I open my laptop. The ‘A’ key refuses to work, so every sentence limps, half-vowel-less and sad.

Group Chat:

Shari: “Deadline tonight, chickens.”

Ava: “I’m editing my last paragraph!”

Marcie: “Who’s submitting?”

Jasmine: (sends confetti gif)

Me: “Almost done!”

(I am not.)

Desperation breeds productivity. I write about a woman who spends her days making lists she never follows and her nights eating slightly stale sourdough at the kitchen sink, pretending it’s Paris. The sentences pile up, messy and true: “She opened the fridge. There was only bread. She wondered if bread could fill the hole where ambition should be.” It’s not poetry, but it’s honest.

At 9 p.m., I hit send. The submission window closes at midnight. I exhale, waiting for relief. It doesn’t come.

Me (in group chat): “Submitted. I think.”

Marcie: “I’m proud of you!”

Shari: “You did it! Next round’s on you.”

Ava: “We’re all disasters together.”

Jasmine: (sends a raccoon meme)

I close the laptop and sit in the quiet. My heart is still racing. I feel the way you do after a dentist appointment: numb and vaguely ashamed.

Saturday: Rejection (and Continuation)

At dawn, my youngest crawls into bed beside me, cold feet pressing into my side.

“Did you win your story thing?” he asks, sleep-heavy.

“Not really,” I say. “But I sent it.”

He yawns, considers this. “So you tried.”

I nod, eyes on the ceiling.

He wraps his arms around my waist, his face pressing into the shiny patch on my leggings. “Can we have pancakes?”

“I thought you wanted cereal.”

“I want both.”

We go to the kitchen. The oat milk finally gives up the ghost and I pour it down the sink, watching the sludge spiral away. I make pancakes with real milk, for once. The kids chatter about cartoons and poems and whether raccoons could really run a cult. I tell them anything is possible if you believe in yourself—and have opposable thumbs.

After breakfast, I check my email.

There it is:

Thank you for your submission.

I click. It’s everything I expect. Polite, impersonal, a rejection wrapped in encouragement. I read it twice, just to be sure.

My phone buzzes. Marcie, checking in.

Marcie: “Any news?”

Me: “Nope. Rejected.”

Marcie: “That’s still something. Next?”

Me: “Maybe. Or maybe just coffee.”

I close the laptop, take a breath. The sun creeps in through the kitchen window, catching the dust and making everything look a little less tragic.

The kids are in the backyard, chasing each other in circles. I watch them, heart sore and oddly proud.

I pull out my notebook, still in those ridiculous leggings, and write a new sentence. Not for the group, not for The New Yorker, not for anyone but myself.

She meant to submit her story. And she did.

The page is still mostly blank, but it’s enough.

I glance at the group chat, at Jasmine’s raccoon meme—one last reminder of the worst old draft challenge, of all the things that never quite got finished, and all the strange, half-feral ideas that still stubbornly survive. Maybe I’ll read the raccoon cult story one day. Maybe not.

For now, I press on: unfinished, slightly wild, and moving anyway. Maybe writing, like life, is just scavenging—rummaging through the days for something half-shiny, half-ruined, and claiming it as your own.

Tomorrow, there will be more bread, more lists, more reasons not to start. But for today, the only thing that matters is that I’m still writing—still trying, in the most ordinary, unremarkable way.

The world does not change. The kitchen is still a mess. My inbox is full of polite rejections and coupons I’ll never use. But I am here, knees shining, heart stubborn, making excuses for the state of my unfinished life—and starting again anyway.