A Day in the Life of THIS Writer

By Jeanne St. James

Ha ha ha. Ok, that’s me laughing. A day in the life of a writer… If it was only that simple. Or for me, typical. I guess for some writers and authors it is. For example, she gets up at 5 AM, writes for a couple hours, makes breakfast, sends the kids off to school then goes back to writing. The kids come home, she helps them with their homework, makes dinner, then after they go to bed she writes a couple more hours. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Yeah, right. Well, I work full-time (as do most writers). And I work second shift as an emergency dispatcher. I only get one weekend off a month and I work almost all holidays. (I know, it sucks, doesn’t it? Ok, everyone boo at once. Thanks, I feel better!)

So, I work in the evenings and when am I most creative? In the evenings. I know, I know, I am trying to get another job (or convince my fiancé to let me stay home and write full-time – ha!).

My point is that there is no typical day in the life of this writer. Some days I write, some days I don’t. If I’m off, I can sit and write for hours and on other days I can screw around on the Internet doing promotion and networking (psssst… that’s a form of “socializing”).

I sometimes come home from work around 11:30 PM and can be up to 1 AM writing. Some days I’m too tired. Some days I don’t have a creative thought in my brain.

The one up side to my job is that when I have “down” time later in the evening, I can work on things like this blog post (shhhhh!) or do edits on my latest work-in-progress or do revisions for my editor. Or even do online socializing (I mean networking!) at my online-based RWA chapters, the Yahoo groups I belong to, or the writing forums I belong to (here’s a shout-out to my fellow Romance Divas).

And then there is always life, which seems to get in the way of writing. Too tired, too busy, too cranky, too (fill in the blank). You get the picture.

But even so, even with my whacked out work schedule and my non-existent writing schedule, I do get things done. I have to be flexible and I think that is the key. I can’t beat myself up when there is a day, or a week, or even a month where I haven’t written anything new.

Here’s the proof that you can get things done when you life is atypical: last September, my first novel, Banged Up, was released with Liquid Silver Books. And my second, my bestseller m/m novella, Rip Cord, came out in November with Phaze Books. My third, Double Dare, an interracial m/m/f ménage a trios, was released in January at Loose Id.
A day in the life of THIS writer is far from typical.

You can find out more about me and my books on my website and my blog.