coffee off the clock is a weekly column full of musings on life since i left my 9-5, and building a life around writing. join me for a coffee every week and follow my journey!

the best part of being a writer is writing. the worst part of being a writer is writing. flow state is blissful. fumbling for the right words is agonising. if you think this sounds like a woman who’s been trying to write her first novel, you’re right. and it’s the one i’ve been putting off for over 2 years, waiting for the perfect time that never seems to come.

i remember sitting in a little cosy corner of the kettledrum in rothesay after i just moved back with my parents. i’d been greatly humbled by my circumstances: leaving behind a job, a flat and an entire life i’d built in glasgow. i needed something to anchor me, and finding little cafés to write in and meet myself on the page, whoever i felt i was that day, was exactly what the doctor ordered. the doctor being me, of course 😌.

SPEAKING OF CAFÉS, i’m going to interrupt myself so you can be proud of me for stepping outside my comfort zone today and joining the savoury side of the brunch club today 💅. i got poached eggs on sourdough toast (first time having my eggs poached ever & i don’t know how i feel about it yet) and a little homemade potato scone, accompanied by an hazelnut iced latte. this was from coffee jam in renfrew, which had the most lovely interior and atmosphere. i’m also just going to leave my outfit here, too.

and back to the story…i was dressed in a very hippy looking 70s pringle jumper that was at least 3 sizes too big, with a flamboyant pink and orange gradient. a walking tequila sunrise. my platinum curls were tight against my head. i was starting to undo all that i had flattened, including my hair.

i pulled out my diary and began writing my morning pages. shortly after, a waitress pulled up a chair beside me, the only chair free to have her lunch. she said: “i find it amazing to see someone handwriting nowadays.” i explained to her what i was doing, writing three pages of free-flowing thoughts and she seemed intrigued. it was the first time that being back home hadn’t made me feel invisible again.

in honour of that time in my life, where i’d freshly left everything behind, the song of the week is i found a reason by the velvet underground. just as i was preparing to take the leap and never look back, this song was a saviour in a very dark time. oh, i do believe. if you don’t like things, you leave for some place you’ve never gone before. what comes is better than what came before.

i remember at that point in my life, it was a far harder task to keep the words inside me than to write them out. it was like vomit all over the page from the years and years of things long gone unsaid. of a voice that i had silenced. of experiences that i was trying to make sense out of.

i remember sitting in that café, flicking through the pages and thinking to myself: that’s it. i have to make this a book. that year of staying in kirky and working in corporate; the people i met, the ridiculous things i seen and done, was like a fever dream. time and space no longer existed in that field. i was somehow both above it and so deeply inside of it and that day, i knew i had to make it a book.

i spent many days during that period wandering through the graveyard behind my parents’ house, seeking something between the branches and the snowdrops. i’d write in my diary that i was waiting for the apple to fall out the tree, like isaac newton.

but one day, when i was wandering in silence, a grave caught my eye. it was engraved with an open book and a quill. by this point, the book felt inevitable. it had to be written and i could see its name in my mind’s eye. the name never made sense to me. it didn’t have to. all i knew is it needs to be written. nothing else.

but the worst part of receiving a book in this way, is that it begins to feel too precious and fragile. it’s intoxicating to visualise and terrifying to actualise. what if i write it wrong? what if i say things i never meant to say? what if the story is too abstract? that’s the thing reader, it’s over 2 years now and i’m ready to midwife my myth but i’m struck by the pangs of possibility.

so, i did what i knew i had to do. i spent hours at my desk, oscillating between bliss and agony. confidence and doubt. turning inward and typing out the tale. and when i’d pry myself from the keyboard, i’d return to the world a little irritated and grumpy. that’s what jumping off the edge feels like.

every time i stretch myself beyond the person i think i am, to the person i have the potential to be, my ego goes in a huff. like i’ve broken an established boundary. and in a way i have. but it’s necessary, or else i’d always be the woman who thinks about writing the novel rather than the woman who actually does it.

the thing is, this isn’t my first book. i self-published conversations with nature, a short book of poetry, at 25. but it’s my first novel and that has a totally different weight to it. and there’s a mantra i seem to keep returning to: do it and see what happens.

I remember in december, i’d gained back a lot of the weight i’d previously lost from a h. pylori infection from months before. i’d finally began to heal but i knew that my life was too sedentary as a writer and keeping a steady weight with fluctuating life circumstances had always been hard for me.

anyway, during this quiet, sedentary winter, i had this urge to begin walking again and i remember saying to myself: this isn’t going to work, you’ll be stuck oscillating between clothing sizes all your life. walking is too low in intensity. all of these doubts tormented me.

but that’s when the most liberating mantra first appeared inside of me: do it and see what happens. and i did. i went from a completely sedentary lifestyle, where even a couple of thousand steps was a strain, to walking the kiltwalk to then, in the slow progress in between, i lost the lbs that i had gained and finally arrived at a comfortable, sustainable weight that i’m happy with.

not only that, but i’ve developed a lifestyle. no longer the woman that thinks about moving, but a woman who moves. who loves walking. and i consider that another part of myself that i discovered along the way.

i realised i was in no rush. it didn’t matter if i lost those lbs in 6 months or a year. all that mattered was that i arrived. and i did so without swinging to extremes or pushing myself too hard. so, reader, i’ve realised that do it and see what happens has gotten me exactly where i’ve wanted to be because i’m not attached to an outcome. i’m playing. experimenting. seeing what happens.

and i think the same mantra is going to be what gets this book written. we’re 5,000 words in and though the doubts persist, i write my way through them. i’ve made the mistake of trying to lead the book, when the book wants to lead me. after all, it’s already written. so i’m trusting it. once upon a time i wrote in my diary: possibility is what i come alive for. who am i going to be on the other side of this book?

until next week reader, may all your coffees come with a little courage to see who you’ll be on the other side of the things you believe are impossible 😎. when you feel that quiet pull in a certain direction: do it and see what happens.



– ailsa x