Monday, seven am. The sweet screech of my phone alarm announces that I, once again, have a date with the slow-burning panic of the day.
Right – it’s Monday, which means the pitch meeting is at five o’clock. I need an article, which I do not have. Which is… profoundly suboptimal. Shit. Bloody dissertation sucked up all my time.
Shower? Sure, but a speed shower. I figure the scalding water might steam some bright idea out of my brain. Ten minutes pass. No luck. My best thought so far? “The Art of Befriending One’s Left Sock.” This is not Pulitzer material.
I dash out the door, deodorant in one hand and my notebook in the other, convinced that stepping into fresh air will spark something. The outside world: surprisingly sunny, occasionally terrifying. I scurry to class, half-listening to a lecture on something no doubt academically vital but overshadowed by the inner monologue shouting YOU STILL HAVE NO ARTICLE.
Lunchtime. I nurse a coffee the way a medieval knight might cradle his sword: with trembling reverence, as though it alone can defend me from this ruinous day. Write something. Anything. Surely this is doable – I am, after all, a Good Student™. And yet, all I have are random bullet points:
- The bus smells weird – no, too easily spun as classist
- My bag was heavier than usual. Why? – boring!
- The library lighting is aggressively fluorescent at times – could I blame this on Mathieson?
- Is it possible to procrastinate professionally? – will have to investigate this later
By mid-afternoon, I’m perched in a corner of the library, face scrunched in concentration as I fling random words at a blank document. But everything sounds forced, silly, not even fit for the Instagram caption of a lonely houseplant. Another coffee. Perhaps I could write about coffee – caffeine addiction is relatable. No, what am I thinking, that’s abysmal trite. A sense of doom continues its creep across my mind.
Time: 4:52 pm. Tick tock. You have less than thirty minutes, and you can’t possibly walk into the pitch meeting with an empty Word doc. What would I do, take an editor’s pitch? On the last week? An unacceptable capitulation. But the only coherent notion drifting through my head is basically a blow-by-blow account of this disaster.
That’s it! That’s the article. I’ll just turn this frantic day – this swirl of existential dread – into the piece itself. A meta masterstroke! Or an act of desperation. Possibly both – but also possibly slightly amusing.
I type furiously, describing the moment I realized I had no article to my present flash of inspiration and how I battled the onslaught of internal shrieks about my impending doom. My fingers fly across the keyboard. 5:15 p.m. Time to go. Let’s hope the editors are willing to indulge an article literally just about myself. They are, at least, prominent side characters.
I race across campus to Pleasance. A gaggle of chipper student “journalists” is already there, gathered around the editors in a near-impenetrable shield wall. I, for one, shall certainly not attempt to pierce this phalanx.
A minute goes by. How are they all still talking? Take an article or don’t, it can’t possibly be this hard. I am shuffling my feet. This probably looks very silly, standing here in the middle of the room. I look around, and lock eyes with someone I vaguely know. An awkward smile is quickly deployed, and I snap my head back around – ah! An opening has appeared. I must seize upon this opportunity before another student is generated by the void to block my path. I step forward.
The awkward smile returns.
“Hello Opinion! I’ve had an opinion. Sort of.”
“write” by followtheseinstructions is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.