A Day in a Life of Pretending to Write

What a normal day looks like for an author. Well, for me at least.

1. Wake up

Wake up wishing you could recall every vivid detail of the dream you just had because it would make an awesome book. But then realized that you dreamed of Sarah Maas nudging you with her head and you telling another author in your dream its how penguins greet each other.

W.T.F.

Which just confirms I will never be the author who writes a blockbuster based on my dreams.

2. Get out of bed.

This is hard, because you’re lying there thinking about all the cool stuff you’re going to add to your work in progress, which inevitably you will forget all about by the time you actually crack open your book.

3. Caffeine IV drip

Time to get energized. Coffee. Tea. Coke. Meth. 5 Hour Energy Drink. Whatever your drug of choice is, you consume a lot of it before you even get on the computer, because if you don’t, you end up sending something like this out on social media

4. Where in the hell is the little thing I’m responsible for?

For me, it’s my dog. Sometimes she stays under the covers. For you, it might be a human being you’ve lost. Anyway, at this point in the day I have to walk my dog around the yard a million times to get her to do her business. This image is the only thing that keeps me going when it’s raining, snowing, freezing or sweltering out.

Ok. That image pretty much just keeps me going.

5. Open up your work in progress.

Cry a little inside, because you re-read what you wrote yesterday and you have no fucking clue what you were trying to say.

6. Answer emails, comments, tweets.

You decide writing is too hard at that moment, so you do the other half of your business. Answering emails, tweets, what not. At some point someone will ask you when a book is coming out and you’re going to want to respond this way.

But you will end up sending this to the one person who has never heard of Supernatural and thus results in a lot of awkwardness.

6. More procrastination.

Procrastination is the name of the game. After chilling online for three hours, you’re still not in the right zone. And hey, remember it’s quality versus quantity or whatever we tell ourselves to justify the fact you just created a book cover out of a brown paper bag. So, it’s time to call friends. FRIENDS.

7. Type a sentence

By noon, you’ve written an entire sentence. You be all like this:

8. Curse at the people you follow on Facebook or Twitter

Because after you write the first sentence, one of the people you follow is going to post a link to Buzzfeed, and you get sucked in looking at 99 pictures of cats or watching the video the kid dancing like Michael Jackson or or the video of Morgan Freeman sucking on helium. It’s HERE. You’re welcome.  I blame this person for the vast majority of random websites I end up on throughout any given day.

And this person.

Also this person, because she truly finds some of the most bizarre things on the Internet.

And finally, this person.

Me. Because I have no self-control.

9. Finally write.

At some point during the day, you are actually writing.

10. Repeat certain above steps.

At some point, the above steps: caffeine drip, social media, playing Mario Brothers online, calling friends–all of that will be repeated throughout the day.

And that’s pretty much what an average day looks like for me.