Day of the 100% Plant-Based Horror Writer

A day in the life of a witch and her catdemon

I do have a job, but it’s mostly an exhausting, soul crushing, Kafkaesque affair… so it’s probably best to skip forward to when I get home.

When I open the door to my apartment my catdemon, Aphelion, will howl from some hiding spot or another and so I call in that general direction, “Hello bébé? Oú est mon homme?” He prefers French or Russian. Catdemons, you know, such polymaths. So demanding. I don’t really know French, just some remnant words from college. I ADHD impulse bought a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone about a year ago so I’ve been casually learning Russian, periodically popping back into French, and last week decided to start Spanish.

And catdemon will be demanding food of course, right when I get home. Before I even get into comfy clothes.

I usually read while I eat dinner and for the purposes of this missive, I took count, I’m in the middle of about ten different books right now. I might need to focus on one at a time until I whittle that down a bit, but I do like the rubbing together of ideas that happens when you’re reading several things at once. You get strange friction.

Then we water plants. I usually listen to podcasts while I water plants. I follow a few different history, true crime, folklore, and science podcasts, so there is always something interesting on tap. More idea friction. Sometimes, in addition to watering, I’ll do some repotting, seed planting, or pest control, always we talk to the plants, ask them what they’re up to. Plants are crafty, you know? Catdemons are terrible with plants, in case you were wondering. If you leave catdemons in charge of your nursery, your plants will stage an insurrection, you’ll get poisoned, stabbed, strangled, and smothered all in one night… and catdemon will be forced to eat your corpse. Not ideal.

Then, finally, it’s time to settle down at the coffee table and write. Between 7:30 - 10:30 to 11:30 I work on various writing projects, with lots of breaks for playing with catdemon. Two days a week I do beadwork instead of writing.

Then sleep if I can get it. Usually with nightmares… I don’t sleep with catdemon (he’s nocturnal) so I sleep with my teddy bear instead (he’s not alive).