Behind the Scenes: A Writer’s Day
By: Victoria Hamilton
It’s a glamorous life, filled with champagne, strawberries, writer’s retreats, galas, and award ceremonies. Most authors have little time for the mundane details of life, between traveling to New York for meetings with their agent, top level talks with movie directors wanting to option their book, and hobnobbing with celebrity pals.
It’s exhausting, all that dining in fine restaurants and jetting around the world for research to far flung exotic locales.
That’s my daydream. The reality? I’ll tell you about it.
7 AM. Wake up. Cat barfed and I slipped in it and fell, so I have to clean that up even before coffee, limping from my twisted ankle… not a good sign of what the day will be like.
7:10 – Coffee made, head to computer. Cat whining for breakfast in kitchen. Okay… fill bowl, make it back to the computer and hear the unmistakable sounds of the cat barfing again. Let him out and clean up.
7:20 – Head back to computer. Coffee is cold. Go back and zap it in the microwave.
7:30 – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, newsletter, emails, etc. Get lost in the latest online controversy, madly typing pithy remarks, and just as quickly erasing them in case they get me in trouble. I’m a writer; if people don’t like my opinions I could easily end up in the hinterlands of publishing, boycotted for an unpopular stance.
9:00 – Work! Need to write. Start, then realize that there is nothing for supper and the laundry is waiting, so I put in a load, go on Instacart, order groceries, change laundry to dryer and put another load in the washer, receive Instacart order and put it all away.
12:00 – Lunch. Read articles while eating at the computer.
12:30 – Write, goldarnit. Gotta get down to it! Reread what I wrote yesterday and go back, editing that much. Try to plan ahead so I won’t end up in the plotting blackhole like the last book, when it took three bottles of wine and an intervention to get past the mid-plot slump. Realize that I hate plotting; writing is where it’s at. So… dive into writing. I’m headed for trouble and I know it, but have given up caring. I’ll muddle through somehow. So… write on. And… this is how I finally get my 1,500 word quota for the day done. Yes, I have a quota… it keeps me on task. Thank heavens for that or I’d never type ‘The End’.
3:45 – Squint out the window… it is daytime, right? Yes… there is light, so it’s day. And… dang it… there’s still laundry in the dryer and wet clothes in the washer. And what’s for dinner? Darn; I put everything away from the Instacart order but didn’t take anything out of the freezer. Maybe… frozen pizza?
3:47 – Oops… last minute query from editor. There’s a problem with the last manuscript, the one that is supposed to go to print in a week. A software issue has popped up and suddenly spaces are wandering off, going missing, and words are being smooshed together. This is not good, especially when the two words are ‘an’ and ‘ally’. (True story.) This is going to require a complete read through of the manuscript. It’s due three days from now if I have any hope of getting it published in time.
And my next book (the one I just started) is due in two months. I’m behind, and I’ll never ever catch up.
But… the very next morning I get a lovely letter from a reader that makes me cry. It’s the best job in the world, and I love it, and it’s a wonderful life.
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