3 weeks until kickoff! A day in my life, and a poll

Dear Reader,

I'm definitely getting excited—and anxious—about the way I've chosen to usher Drusilla into the world. Of course you know I mean my Kickstarter campaign.

I've explained over the last few newsletters why I've decided to do this for this particular series. It's still a big experiment, and I have no idea whether it will be successful. But either way, I'll learn a ton.

If you haven't already, I'd be immensely grateful if you'd sign up to be notified when the campaign launches:

Get Notified about the Kickstarter

The life of an author isn't all write, write, write.

Wouldn't that be lovely? But being an author (plus in my case an editor and book coach) means being the CEO of your own business. The myth of the struggling artist in a garret pounding away on her manual typewriter hoping to produce the magnum opus that will astound the world is just that: a myth.

Why? Because, well, authors have to live in the world. So here's how I get through my days:

⏰ 6:00 a.m.: Wake up! I never set an alarm, it's really 6-ish. Sometimes, if I'm feeling energetic, I go down to the gym and get on the elliptical for half an hour.

✍🏻 7:00 a.m.: Be dressed and have a mug of tea in my hands and sit down to write in my journal for half an hour or so. This is just brain dumping. But after that, I take my trusty Remarkable tablet and do a little brainstorming. This is sometimes my most creative moment of the day. I figure out a tricky scene, have ideas for scenes to come, stumble on an epiphany about a character.

🥣 8:00 a.m.: Breakfast

📰 8:15 a.m.: Word games. Yes, I have to do my NYT Wordle, Connections, Crossword, etc. This usually only takes me between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on what day of the week it is (i.e. how difficult the crossword is, and sometimes I don't finish but go back to it later). This is also the time when I check social media and email.

💪🏻 9:00 a.m.: Work starts in earnest. I usually begin with administrative business stuff. That includes checking data, planning social media, writing content (including this newsletter). After that I get started on my coaching and editing reviewing, which generally takes me the rest of the morning.

On Thursdays and Fridays I have my Zoom meetings with coaching clients at around this time.

🥗 Noon: Lunch

📖 12:30 p.m.: Walk—and listen to a book or a podcast

✅ 1:15 p.m.: Continue any unfinished work from the morning or do research about business topics—Amazon ads, Meta's latest misbehaviors, Kickstarter work, book promotions etc. Sometimes I attend webinars and coaching sessions. Often I'm creating a presentation for an upcoming workshop.

📝 4:00 p.m.: If I have time, I write. Try to make a little progress on my manuscript. Some days I play the piano for an hour instead. But I'm usually toast by 5:00 p.m.

😌 5:00 p.m.: Rest a bit by listening to a book while I fix my dinner.

🍽️ 6:00 p.m.: Dinner. And yes, I often watch TV while I eat.

🧶 7:00 p.m.: Knitting and watching TV. I learn a lot about storytelling from seeing how stories unfold in movies and TV series.

🛌 💻 9:00 p.m.: I try to actually get in bed by 9. But I'm a bad girl and I don't unplug. Don't follow my example! Often this is the only time I have in a day to do some writing. I write for an hour or so, or use the time to do research on the web.

So when do I get all those words written?

Okay, I'll own up to being a pretty fast writer. And I edit as I go, so my first drafts are rarely very rough.

My big writing time is over the weekend. On a quiet weekend, I can get anywhere from 2k to 10k words written. Of course, there's always pauses for research—which I'm doing constantly. I often don't know what I need to know until I bump up against a gap in knowledge while I'm writing a scene.

The important thing for me is that I approach every day as a work day. I block out time in my calendar, dress like I mean it, and show up.