believe me, you don't want to know my writing process🌪️

confessions of a substack junkie fueled by chaos, caffeine, & questionable life choices

tl;dr: i’ve been a little busy lately, so i’ve ran out of essays and poems to share. so i decided to write about my writing process. and let me tell ya - it’s a hot mess express that would make marie kondo cry. it involves late-night inspiration binges, shameless self-plagiarism, and time on the toilet. you've been warned.

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Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

okay, mis amores.

i gotta be honest. august has snuck up on me like a cat burglar in the night, and here i am, scrambling to get my life in order. school's looming on the horizon, and i've recently been elected second vice-president of the kiwanis club of hillcrest all-inclusive! (something i’m very excited about.) oh, and channeling my inner fergie, i've been "workin' on my fitness" too. translation: i've been outside touching grass more than touching my keyboard.

now, i have a confession to make. it's not that the well of ideas has run dry, but rather, my stockpile of half-baked drafts looks as thin and wispy as donald trump’s hair. if you could peek into my substack drafts folder, you'd find a graveyard of posts in various states of existential crisis. some are forever doomed to lurk in the shadows (trust me, it's for the greater good), while others - the chosen few - emerge victorious and make me feel like maybe, just maybe, i'm not a complete fraud. but the thing is - none of them feel good, or done, or like i even want to post right now.

that probably means it’s a good time to show you how i come up with this shit.

so, against all better judgment and with no one asking, i'm about to pull back the curtain on my writing process. fair warning: you might not want to know. seriously, this is your last chance to preserve the illusion that writers are sophisticated creatures who sip earl grey and ponder the meaning of life while effortlessly producing literary gold.

still here? alright, don't say i didn't warn you.

first things first: if you're picturing me in a quaint office, surrounded by leather-bound books and the gentle ticking of an antique clock, let me shatter that dream like a clumsy waiter with a tray of champagne flutes. the reality? picture a sleep-deprived puerto rican, sprawled on the couch at 2 am, surrounded by a graveyard of empty diet coke bottles, coffee cups, and vegan protein bar wrappers. i'm furiously tapping away on a laptop that's held together by hope and a prayer, one crash away from becoming the world's most expensive paperweight.

my "process" (and i use that term loosely) begins with a deep dive into two years' worth of journals, notes, and scraps of scribbled paper. most of these sit inside a medium-sized cardboard box, a leftover quirk from my traumatically nomadic 2022-2023. during that time, i moved frequently and my housing was unstable. even though i'm now settled and safe, there's still a part of me that feels like i'll have to pack up and leave again at any moment. hence, the journals always stay packed.

if the journals don't yield inspiration, i turn to my iphone's notes app. it's a treasure trove of random lyrics, quotes, and thoughts from the last four to five years of my life. (thanks, tim apple.) failing that, i might draw from a particularly stirring feeling or realization in the moment. often, it's a combination of all these sources, condensing various stories into a single piece.

it's like a treasure hunt, if the treasure was half-formed thoughts and embarrassing confessions. i flip through pages like i'm auditioning for "fastest page-turner in the west", my adhd brain latching onto random sentences like a magpie attracted to shiny objects.

"ooh, that's good," i mutter, shamelessly copying and pasting my past self's words into a new document. is it plagiarism if you're stealing from yourself? asking for a friend. (the friend is me. i'm the friend.)

but here's where it gets really wild, folks. brace yourselves. i write all my pieces to be 10-minute reads or less. why? because that's about how long i spend on the toilet.

that's right, i said it. i read substack while on the porcelain throne sometimes, and i write mine with that in mind. it's a symbiotic relationship that i'm not proud of, but hey, inspiration strikes in mysterious ways. and yes, i wash my hands.

between the late-night writing frenzies, the journal robbery, and the, ahem, contemplative ceramic sessions, somehow something emerges. it's like if a tornado hit a library and accidentally arranged the books into a bestseller. a miracle? perhaps. the result of too much caffeine and a questionable sleep schedule? definitely.

so the next time you're reading one of my "carefully crafted pieces", perhaps while visiting the oval office (no judgment here, remember?), know that it came from a place of pure, unadulterated chaos.

it's a little bit puerto rican, a little bit queer, a whole lot san diego, and 100% pure, unfiltered edgard madness.

and there you have it, mis amores. the ugly truth behind the polished words you see on your screen.

still want to be a writer? still think it's all glamour and inspiration?

well, now you know. don't say i didn't warn you.

con amor,

edgard

p.s. if you happen to spot me at the diner in the lafayette hotel at 3 am, surrounded by empty coffee cups and muttering to myself as i scribble frantically in a journal, no you didn't. look away and let me have my moment of caffeinated insanity in peace. it's all part of the process! i swear.