A Day in the Life of a Writer: Breaking Down the Myths
Being a writer, particularly a creative writer, is a wonderful lifestyle choice. I’m calling it a lifestyle choice because it’s not the easiest of careers. In fact, it is well known that if you want to be a writer, you have to have side jobs and struggle with rejection letters before you finally see the light and have a breakthrough in your writing career. Still, this lifestyle choice is a fulfilling one; it might be a difficult road to walk down, but in the long run, it can give the few people patient and hard-working enough to take it a long-lasting happiness. Today, I’m going to walk you through a typical day of mine as a writer and hopefully break down the myths and stereotypes us writers face, such as the myth that we are less logical and more creative.
9:00 a.m.
Some days—very rare days—I wake up around this hour. Usually,
I procrastinate from all possible work by spending the next
hour on my phone or in the shower. But, if I have work (I 
work at a marketing agency called TCDG Studios), then I usually force myself out of bed much earlier and start working on some business blogs for the office. So as you can see, I still have a separate job from my career as a novelist.
12:00 p.m.
At this point, I usually have at least one business blog written and revised, so I try to take a ten-minute break just to catch up on social media, learn about upcoming books, and even read the news. In fact, as a writer, I enjoy social media a lot because I get to see what my diverse group of friends are talking about, sharing, and feeling passionate about.
Their posts oftentimes inspire my work and give me great topics to
research. For instance, Facebook helped me gain more facts about the Syrian crisis, and since Syria is my home country, I became just as passionate about the subject as any of my Syrian friends, and I’ve even used some of what I learned about the crisis as an inspiration for my current work.
3:00 p.m.
Around this time, I am almost always either done with my business blogs or writing the very last one. As a result, I start getting myself hyped for my own novel. I put some light music in the background, stretch to get the blood flowing, and just mentally tell myself that I will be writing my book soon.
When I was much younger, before I became a professional writer, I used to have this idea that being a writer was about waiting for the inspiration to hit you. Now I know better than to think this way. The truth is, inspiration will only come if you welcome it. So it’s not good enough to wait for an idea to spark in your mind before you actually sit down and write; if you want to be inspired, you have to sit down in front of the page first, and then inspiration will come, maybe not right away, but it will come. And that’s the reason I mentally tell myself that I’m going to sit down and write. It is a way to awaken the creative thoughts.
6:00 p.m.
I have dinner early around 5:00 p.m., which makes 6:00 p.m. the perfect time for my creativity to come out. All my work is finished by then and I’ve eaten and freed my schedule from any distractions. So I sit and write. I even do some writing research to make sure that I have all the facts straight. After all, I don’t want to write about something like leukemia without knowing what its symptoms are, how it is treated, and the chance of survival. Being a writer makes me liable to know everything my story is centered around; and if I don’t do my job right, I could ruin the reading experience for my loyal readers. There has to be a balance between creativity and logic, because if creativity is lacking logic, it can shatter the entire concept of what you’re working to achieve, and your reader is going to be disappointed in the unrealistic world/fantasy you’ve created. And yes, even a fantasy has to be believable.
Creativity at its finest10:00 p.m.
This is when I take my writing break for the day, usually till the next day, unless I feel up to writing some more. Sometimes you need to rest in order to recharge your creative thoughts.
And that’s pretty much my typical day as a writer. I’m sure other writers have different schedules, but for the most part, it’s the same process.
Are you an aspiring writer? I would love to hear about how your writing day looks like! Leave me a comment below.
You can also read a free preview of my book Dance with the Devil right here:
