#malahide

Malahide Gardens 🦋

06:00 ☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・° Wake Up

Up at six. Bus at seven. No thinking yet.

07:45 ☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・° Café Ritual

I always read before I write. An hour minimum, no exceptions. My usual spot is Malahide Village, a quiet seaside town with a castle nearby. My order is always the same: dark roast mocha. Reading first gets me into the right headspace before I even breathe near my manuscript.

09:45–13:40 ☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・° Library Session

The main event! I always write in the same secluded corner of the library. Today I wrote for just under four hours straight. One solid block, ripped in half.

The first half was editing to warm up. Once I was firing on all cylinders, I moved on to drafting new material. I should have stopped to eat but I have to drop the ball somewhere.

My OneNote decided to act haunted. That’s convenient when I’ve only just crawled out of writer’s block, yeah? It crashed every time I opened it. After fighting with my laptop, I said “fuck it” and used the browser version.

Today’s material leaned heavily into the sea as a motif. Drowning, seals, and the worst of nature. I have a long-standing fascination with seals, particularly leopard seals, which are genuinely terrifying. Ireland, fortunately, only offers the fat and friendly variety.

I fell down a research rabbit hole and learned that seal meat is traditionally processed by turning the animal’s own skin into a drawstring bag to hang the meat in. Horrifying. Perfectly on theme.

Despite all that, I got far more done than I expected. I always end my sessions by spending about twenty minutes preparing notes and setting myself up so the next session starts smoothly.

14:00 ☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・° Fuck off Home.

Pack up and left the library. Thirty minutes to vape, decompress, and come back to the real world before taking the scenic route home. I will be making seafood pasta.

medieval castles of ireland