How to Write a Substack Post When Your 3-Year Old is Crying in Her Sleep in the Room Next Door

and how it relates to pastry...

As I sit down to write to you this evening my chest feels tight, my breathing is shallow and I’m under pressure. This is not my preferred mode of writing but life doesn’t always deliver in our preferred packages, does it? 

I’m on the clock; planning, writing and publishing this post within an hour and it’s already 30 minutes past my bedtime. To top it all off, my 3-year old keeps crying from the room next door. Maybe it’s a nightmare, or maybe she needs a wee. 

So, how does one write a Substack post under these conditions? 

Step one is to begin. At least, that is what I’m attempting here. I’m just having a go. To not even try would lead to certain failure. 

Having begun, I choose to see how it feels in my body. The shallow breath, the tight chest. I notice them. They are there, and I am here, and I have begun and I’m trying. 

Something is happening here. There are words on a page. It seemed impossible a few minutes ago and yet, here they are. I have put words down. I have moved something, and something has moved in me.  I can breathe easier.

There’s a tightness now though, on either side of my neck. Did I stick it out too far?

I can’t hear anything now, except the clacking of my keyboard. The crying has stopped so whether wee, or nightmare, or neither, sleep must have overtaken. I’m supposed to be telling you how to write a Substack post and the title says how to write when the 3-year-old is crying next door but she’s not crying anymore so does this even make sense?

I have a dream that I haven’t told many people because it sounds so simple and easily within reach. It is a dream to be confident in making my own pastry. Whenever my mum comes to stay I ask her to make quiche. Her buttery shortcrust pasty is to die for and to live for at the same time and I could probably learn how to do it but there’s that part of me that thinks I can leave it for the grown-ups.

The problem now is, mostly, when I look around, the grown-up is me, and if I want to make pastry that is to die for and to live for I have to start somewhere, most likely with pastry that won’t kill you. It’s the same with writing around the kids.

I gave it a try a few weeks ago - the pastry, I mean. I read this recipe for a galette by Fliss Freeborn. She was so encouraging and it sounded so easy so I tried. Unfortunately, I tried during a 33-degree summer afternoon. The flour and butter came together nicely and chilled beautifully in the fridge but once the pastry was out on the table there was no sprinkling of flour generous enough to stop it sticking to the table. I rolled it once. It was a disaster. I squished it again, I sprinkled more flour and repeated. It was a decent shape. I tried to get it onto the tray, only half made it. I called for help from the only other grown-up around. He was too busy. He didn’t come. My eyes prickled. I thought of my 3-year old when she tries, and fails, and wails. 

The wail rose in my throat but I caught it there. My eyes prickled. I blinked quickly. There was nothing else for lunch and I was the only grown-up and I’m a brave one so I carried on. I tried rolling it onto some baking paper and lifted it on the oven tray that way. It worked. I mean, it wasn’t pretty but at least I could get it into the oven.

Shooting for buttery and crumbly, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind

It was not pastry to die for, or to live for, but actually, once cooked, it was buttery and crumbly enough. In fact, it brought me satisfaction and delight beyond what I’d expected and a sense that I was a step closer to my pastry dreams.

Thank God for the zhuzh that in season Italian tomatoes can add to a plate

I wasn’t remotely offended by all the pieces of it that were left by the side of my husband’s plate or by his remark that the filling was delicious. I simply sat quietly, with a small, unshakeable smile on my face. I’m proud to say, I can make stop you starving pastry. The life-altering stuff is sure to follow.

Which is all to say, to write a Substack post under pressure, approach it as if you were trying to make buttery, crumbly pastry on a very warm afternoon.

Give it a try.

If it doesn’t go completely to plan (it won’t), re-centre, notice your body and what it tells you.

Change track, try something new, learn along the way.