Luxury prose, espresso deadlines

A writer’s ego wants legacy. Her impatience wants validation by Friday. Somewhere between both, I found a method I never planned.

I write like I’m building a cathedral. I submit like I’m chasing a bus.

That’s not a metaphor. It’s just my daily contradiction as a writer.

There’s a part of me — well-fed, literary, slightly pretentious — that dreams of being published in a slow, prestigious, high-ceilinged journal. A journal that takes months to respond, preferably in full sentences, and ideally with an editor who uses words like elliptical or liminal.

But there’s another part of me. This one drinks coffee in three gulps and sends flash fiction to five magazines before 10 a.m., hoping for a reply by Friday. She doesn’t want a legacy. She wants dopamine.

Some days, I write like I’m carving marble. Sentences get drafted, dismantled, redressed. I move commas like they’re chess pieces. I read Proust to remind myself that slowness can be a virtue, that digression is an art. This is my luxe mode: disciplined, ambitious, deeply self-important.

And then — I click submit like I’m throwing darts blindfolded.

That’s espresso mode. In this mode, I don’t wait for the muses. I cut 4000 words down to 900, slap on a title, and send it to a flash fiction magazine that promises to reply before I’ve even rehydrated my basil plant.

It’s not that I don’t care. I care obsessively. But I’ve learned something over time: My most “unexpected” words are often the most right. The phrases I doubted most end up saying exactly what I meant — only I didn’t know I meant it until I saw it on the page.

So I live in both places: the cathedral and the café. The slow burn and the fast click. The ego and the impulse.

For a while, I thought I had to choose.

Either be the serious, meticulous writer who takes three years to craft one perfect story — or the fast-moving, modern voice who thrives on flash fiction and instant replies.

But it turns out, I need both. The espresso sharpens my instincts. The luxe refines my voice. One keeps me writing. The other keeps me rewriting.

I’ve stopped trying to resolve the contradiction. Now, I use it.

This paradox — this messy, glorious tension between wanting legacy and craving immediacy — it’s not a flaw in my writing process.

It is my writing process.

So no, I’m not inconsistent.

I just make it look like I don’t try too hard. I let the sentence sound sudden — even when it’s the fifth version. I keep the effort backstage, where it won’t ruin the effect.

And whether the story lands in a revered journal or a flash mag found via insomnia… if the words feel right, I don’t care how long they took.

Some cathedrals are built in minutes. Some espressos take years to cool.