A Writer's Day

The Dream

1. Wake up early and go to gym. Exercise contributes to the creative process.
   
2. Lovely little breakfast.
   
3. Spend morning on new writing. Three, four thousand words, possibly more.
   
4. Lunch, when you feel like it, what you want, and take a whole hour if you choose.
   
5. Spend afternoon editing, going over galleys, workshopping, doing writing-related business, (drafting synops, writing queries, answering your agent/editor/copyed's questions, etc).
   
6. Finish for the afternoon and go do what you want (Play with the kids, go out with friends, chill)
   
7. Enjoy a nice dinner.
   
8. Read.
   
9. Do whatever you want for the evening.
   
10. Get a good night's sleep. The subconscious does its best work when you're asleep.
    

The Reality

1. Wake up early (groan) and go to the gym. It's the only time you have for exercise. Listen to fiction podcasts on headset while pounding treadmill.
   
2. Sneak in 200 words.
   
3. Get kids ready for school. Forget breakfast, maybe.
   
4. Work the Day Job, wish you were writing.
   
5. Scrawl furiously during the half-hour lunch break. Don't forget to eat (assuming you remembered to pack a lunch.)
   
6. Work Day Job some more. Maybe dash off an idea or two on your blotter.
   
7. Pick kids up from school, run them about to sport, music lessons, etc. Snag 50 words here and there while in the car waiting for them.
   
8. Family dinner. Spend quality time with family, so they'll leave you alone later.
   
9. Spend time with spousal unit. Recognise the importance of a supportive spouse.
   
10. Put kids to bed, hand spouse TV remote, retreat to computer.
    
11. Work at writing, wish you were being paid. Send off some queries, sub some shorts, dream about the weekend when everyone will be off at sports and you can write in peace.
    
12. Get to bed way too late to read.
    

Thoughts of a professional writer

I took the first two weeks of November off from my Day Job to be a professional writer. I've never done anything like this before.

Yeah, I've had great swathes of time on my hands before, and dabbled a bit at my writing career, in between doing all sorts of other stuff, but I never approached it then as I am now.

For the past two weeks, I told everyone and especially myself that I was a professional writer.

And then I approached it as a professional would.

Every morning I'd get up, have breakfast, see Their Ladyships off to school, then I would sit down, fire up the laptop and get to work. I made goals, I set targets, I had a deadline imposed on me by someone else and I made myself accountable to them.

And you know what? I got some serious work done. With the exception of the Sabbath and one day I told a friend I'd help her with something, I've been pulling in about 4K words a day. That's serious mojo. I also had time left over to devote to editing other projects and sending out a few things to publishers.

And all done before Their Ladyships got home from school.

First few days was easy. Last few days was hard, as I found myself wanting to rebel against the structure I'd imposed. But yesterday, I gathered my courage, sat down, and did my wordage. Today, same thing.

Next week I go back to work, "full-time school" hours. I go back to squeezing in writing when I can, between the Day Job, the Extracurriculars and the Family. I'm going to miss being a professional writer. I don't know if I'm going to like the fly-by-night moonlighting style of being a writer, even though most of my published mates work that way.

Treating writing as a professional day job was eye-opening.

I've not done the like before, but after a week and a half of serious BIC, I'm thinking that yeah, maybe I can do this sort of thing on a more permanent basis.

I've just got to figure out how to get me some more of that.

The Benefit of Imaginary Friends

The other day I was thinking about Mr Peach and Mrs Outway. Mr Peach is my butler and Mrs Outway is my housekeeper. I've got a whole swathe of household staff, from Peach & Outway through kitchen maids, laundry maids, footmen, and scullions. (His Grace's valet is Jack and my lady's maid is Jessica.)

And not a single one of them is real.

Staid, boring mundane types might consider that a sign of a few screws loose, but what it really is is the opposite--it's a sign of mental stability.

The presence of "imaginary friends" or fictitious people is a human's way of creating the idea of another human being outside of oneself thay will fulfill a social need in a person. Many children invent an "imaginary friend" of some kind to serve a very real psychological need. Sometimes it can be as simple as a play companion, but in certain circumstances, the child may create a defender or protector to give them the sense that they may not be as powerless as they feel. This is often the case for children who have been abused or neglected somehow.

For me, I've invented a whole household of staff because I hate housework. Loathe the stuff, really. Can't stand it.

But it has to get done. Since my heart cringes at the thought, I have delegated the tasks to the household. Mr Peach makes sure the staff do what they have to do. Kim (from Southeast Asia) is in charge of the kitchen. Jack & Jessica make sure clothes and other bedchamber stuff is neat and tidy and Mrs Outway makes sure things run smoothly overall. The footmen are there for odd little tasks and the gardeners (of which there are two) keep the yards squared away. The laundry maids can be a handful, especially with their use of magic when it comes to washing clothes, but Mr Peach is more than sufficient to deal with them.

And so when I'm busy washing dishes or hanging out clothes, I deceive myself by withdrawing into my imagination and assume that it's not really me doing the work, but someone else.

And thus the housework gets done.