Clad in gray from head to toe (gray yoga pants with a hole in the thigh, gray tank top, and gray sweatshirt with yes, gray socks), my hair falls limp around my face. Just a couple days ago, my hair was shiny and bouncy and definitely not this dirty.
This is my new, totally improved, and uber-fabulous writer look.
My artist look was more glam (see picture on left). High heels and retro dresses. Cat-eyed glasses. Cropped bangs. Cherry red cell phone. Of course, I did wear Dansko’s and jeans like everyone else. Sometimes.
Today when I looked at myself in the mirror, I kinda gasped. These days I slink to my writing office (aka table stacked with books in my bedroom) in the same things I wear to the gym. And to make dinner in. And to pick up my kids in from school.
Oh, no.
I’ve slid so far down the fashion pole that I even sheepishly missed Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner’s YOU ARE WHAT YOU WEAR: dress the inner you. I didn’t even need to show up in person. I could have hidden behind my computer, where I’ve been parked for a year and seven months.
But I have a first draft!
575 days after my NaNoWriMo writing blitz, I wrote the last scene of my YA novel. Soon I’ll be facing that deep, cavernous, special place called revisions (with the unflagging help of my writing interventionist and a whole lot of patience).
To celebrate limp hair and first drafts, I’m going to buy a dozen writing books on editing, and window shop with a writer friend who wears mommy jeans and chases after a toddler, too. We made a vow to look, try on stuff, and get our rusty style sense back into gear. I’m going to predict we’ll end up skipping the racks of clothes, find a cute little cafe filled with people more stylish than we are, and talk about books. Or success. Or diapers.