I may be a romance writer by night (and mom, educator, do-it-all-er by day…and soon to be full-time multiple-genre writer by day) but writing is far from romantic. Yet, I do it. Why? Love, of course. And not just those happy-ever-after loves [although I do enjoy those]. Writers have their varying reasons for pursuing this tough career choice, but I will put my money on the fact that most do it because it has been a dream and a love of theirs for years or decades. Many folks already know my story and path to publication, so I won’t go all into that. Today, I’m going to talk about pie! Not pumpkin or pecan or apple (all three very good, in my opinion), but rather what a writer spends her time on. It may come as a surprise that writing is not the biggest piece of that pie.
Writing means:
Dreaming
Writing words
Revising and deleting entire scenes, chapters, or characters
Rewriting
Editing (not to be confused with revision)
Research. And more research – historical battles, flora and fauna, cultural habits, locations, language, tools, weapons…the list is long. Be it a magazine or novel, I always research something.
Querying and submitting to agents and editors (and writing the query and synopsis to go to said agents/editors, as well as researching the market)
Editing again (proofs, galleys, emails with agents or editors)
Networking and Twitter-ing
Promotion and Marketing
Honing Craft (books, workshops, entering short story contests to test your craft abilities)
Attending conferences
Engaging with peers/writer groups/critique partners
Whew! That is a long list.
So how does that all play out into an average day? Well, here’s yesterday’s play-by-play:
Non-writing work (while I am supposed to be writing): took car to mechanic, ran errands, mowed the lawn, watered gardens, exercised, and did the mommy gig before and after school (which for my kiddos also meant a run to Dunkins for calorie-rich drinks after a tough school week!)
Writing work: wrote website blog post, reached out to a library about a “meet and greet” for my recently released book, read some of a critique partner’s manuscript (into the late evening hours when words began to mitosis-ize), looked up scenes in my current book to submit for a potential audio recording narrator audition, worked on Amazon keywords, came up with an idea for my WIP (while exercising) so I jotted a few lines down but then found myself researching Old Norse words and Gaelic words (noting the websites for future searches), checked email no less than five times to see if any agents got back to me on my query for a manuscript [no – it’s a waiting game for sure], attended a webinar and online publisher chat in the evening, and surfed Twitter (agent posts, networking with other writers)…
And drank far too much coffee.
I dipped my fork into all parts of that pie yesterday.
I wrote a total of 90 words yesterday (and so far today, none, but they will come in a little while--do these words count?). 90 words for a manuscript that will likely be about 90,000 words in length. Yeah, not a great word day, but look at all that other work! Certainly there are days where I spend 3-5 hours writing and I can churn out over 2,000-3,000 words in a day.
It’s a juggling act. A balance. Some weeks I can power through and roll out a tremendous number of words (keeping in mind that it’s raw and will require twice or thrice as much time to revise and edit). Other weeks, my focus is on other aspects of writing. It’s all good. It’s all writing. It’s all bringing me one step closer to my dream [to be a multiple-work published author].
So what do I do? Well, a whole lot. Is it worth it? Yes. Many, many times yes. I am a daydream believer. I take my pie by the forkful...with whipped cream.
I’d love to hear from you if you are on this writing journey. How do you spend your days? What are your favorite parts of the writing process?
My own personal pie chart. An estimate of course.