Breakfast

Last week I posted about the difficulty I was having writing a short biography for one of my classes, and I received a huge amount of advice and support for which I'm very grateful (but don't go on about that last part too much, because gratitude is a Dangerously Warm and Fuzzy Feeling). The advice helped a lot and I'm thrilled to report that I did actually manage to get it done without too much trouble.

I had also mentioned during that conversation that I didn't feel like introducing myself as a Horrible Woman who makes content for other Horrible Women was the best plan, professionally speaking. Maybe I've been listening to the more conservative people in my life a bit too much, because a lot of you thought otherwise and made a really compelling case for why I should embrace the personal brand I seem to have established here and flaunt it as much as possible.

So I decided to try doing that, and so far it's been incredibly helpful.

Yesterday I was given another writing task in class, requiring me to write a short blog post about what I had for breakfast that morning in the space of 15 minutes. The challenge was to find a way to make it interesting and engaging, and this kind of task would usually paralyze me and most likely lead to me spending the whole 15 minutes struggling to write the first sentence.

This time, however, I decided to tap into the brand voice I already know so well and write it from the perspective of my Horrible Woman persona, and suddenly it became the easiest thing to do. I bashed it out in 10 minutes, without agonizing even a little bit. No angst, zero panic. AND I even had fun doing it.

I've been studying for nearly 5 years altogether, so I've had to do plenty of academic writing and I get consistently high grades. But the process of producing the work is SO unnecessarily painful and stressful, it's like I'm doing it on hard mode. I'm proud of previous work I've done, but this silly little blog about eating breakfast as a Horrible Woman might be the first time in my adult life that I've been tasked with writing something and JUST DID IT.

That's genuinely exciting, and it's largely thanks to the advice and support of my followers that I gave it a go and came away with a positive experience.

So, for those dying of curiosity, here's the blog I wrote about having breakfast as a Horrible Woman:

"I'm a Horrible Woman and I make content for other Horrible Women, and I hope you aren't disappointed to learn that this morning I ate breakfast like a nice, inoffensive woman would.

Given my reputation for Sowing Discord and Undermining the Family, it might be difficult to imagine me doing something as prosaic as eating breakfast. However, no woman can truly tackle a full day of Being Difficult and Emasculating Men on an empty stomach, and while the blood of our enemies may sustain us for a time, we do also need to get some macros in now and then.

My nutritional strategy prioritizes protein intake, and as I unfurled my wings this morning, I looked forward to starting my day with my favorite high-protein meal: hummus and tomatoes on toast with a raspberry and pistachio seed bar.

I like to watch my sugar intake and I'm a busy woman, so these seed bars make a convenient and healthy snack to squeeze in between Acts of Wanton Cruelty.

If you're a Horrible Woman or someone curious about the lifestyle, but concerned that a commitment to Destroying the Foundations of Society and Being Generally Awful will leave little time for mundane concerns such as meals and laundry, I've got you.

As a Seasoned Crone with more than two decades of experience and a horrific reputation for Being Non-compliant and Ruining Everything, I can assure you that with a little practice and planning ahead, you'll be able to successfully juggle Unwomanly and Mean behaviours, AND stay well-fed.

The modern woman CAN have it all."

I'm definitely going to feel a little silly handing that over to my lecturer, but also genuinely quite accomplished.

I know that for those listening to me talk, I seem like someone who should have no trouble writing. But I think one of the things that paralyzes me is that I feel like I need to be confident that I understand exactly what's expected of me before I can start doing anything, and that's a little neurotic. When I'm given a brief for any kind of task or assignment that seems kind of vague, I panic. And this is definitely a problem with my brain because I watch other people just dive in while I fret, and even when I think I understand what I'm being asked to do, I worry that maybe I don't.

Then 15 minutes goes by and I haven't made any progress, perhaps haven't even started.

I think it was easy to write this once I'd committed to writing it as a Horrible Woman piece because I know my audience well enough to know what you'd expect to see me do with the task, and I've been doing this successfully for long enough to know that I could meet those expectations.

That's a nice kind of confidence to have!

When I started my Patreon I had vague plans to do some blogging here, but hadn't been able to nail down exactly what I'd use a blog for. Maybe the answer is that I use it for whatever actually gets me writing. Maybe sometimes it's Big Ideas, and other times it's inane silliness.

Maybe sometimes it's a tiny little triumph that means a lot to me :)