What is a day like for me?
Now that the book is finished and it’s with Brittany (my editor), it could be easy to assume that the hard part is over. I certainly thought it would be!
It turns out, however, that the really hard work is just beginning. Yes, writing is hard. Creating an entire world is hard. But to be totally honest, I think marketing myself and trying to find organic ways to talk about my book is the hardest of all of the tasks before me. I’m such a terribly awkward person. I can make small talk, sure, but it takes a lot out of me. Co-workers, past and present, have expressed surprise at my claimed introverted nature. But I do claim it. I am introverted. I will come out of my hidey hold once upon a blue moon, so to speak, and chat and socialize, but it takes me days to recover.
Anyway, that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Not today, anyway.
What an Average Day is Like For Me Now
Teaching
It’s important to note that many writers, myself included, have full-time gigs that keep them just as busy, if not more, than the writing. My full-time job of teaching gives me a bit of flexibility in my schedule that makes existing as a writer a bit easier, but it also comes with a whole host of responsibilities.
This semester, which ends in just a couple of weeks, I am teaching 5 classes. That’s the minimum requirement for where I teach. I have a few composition/writing courses, but I also teach literature. Basically, this means I’m pretty consistently reading, finding potential textbooks or readings for future courses, creating lessons plans, assessing student work, attending committee meetings, doing some committee work, collaborating with colleagues on new curriculum and assessment ideas, and meeting with learners to talk about their futures, their submitted work, their attendance, etc. Busy, busy days!
Plotting/Outlining
For a bit after the writing of the book, I needed a break. Creatively, I was tapped out. But the ideas are starting to flow again for a potential sequel to Fury’s Fate, but I’m also working on a general outline for a completely separate project that I don’t really want to say too much about at this time. I tend to embrace characters and storylines that require research. For Fury’s Fate, this meant examining numerous texts on the Greek pantheon, mythology, various iterations of origin stories of the Furies, and anything else that made me curious. The next project has me focusing on the Georgian and Victorian eras—general lifestyles of peasants, landowners, and titled members of society; clothing; popular locations; food. I’ve also been doing a lot of research into witchcraft, herbalism, and magic, since many of my ideas involve the mystical in some way.
Reading
I absolutely inhaled book after book once I submitted Fury’s Fate. I often average a book a day if I’m not actively writing. I’m very thankful (and so is my wallet) for our library. Mostly, I read a lot of historical romance novels. I wanted happy stories—perhaps as a way to move on? I think there was a bit of a strange grieving period for the end of my book. I had given so much of myself to the pages that I needed to sort of fill the tank back up. It was hard saying goodbye to those characters, even if it’s only until the next story involving (some of) them.
Recently finished titles: The Second Mrs. Astor, The Diamond Eye, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Gideon the Ninth, The Heiress Gets a Duke, The Hating Game, Mansfield Park, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, How to Survive a Scandal, It Happened One Summer, Morgan is My Name.
Writing
I can’t stay away from writing for long! I’ve been working on some short stories as a way to sort of ease back into things. There have been a few calls for submissions that have been far too perfect for me to pass up, so I may have pushed myself a bit to get back into writing. I’m not sure that I wasn’t ready for it, though. The story came out.
I think that each story might just happen in its own way. I’m not going to be able to write the next one the exact way that Fury’s Fate happened. I don’t know that I’ll complete deviate from the process—my goal of writing 1,500 words a day really worked out, in the long run—but my life has changed so much since I wrote that book that I don’t know if I can replicate what I did then.
I’m not even sure if I should. More on this to come, I’m sure. I’m still thinking about it all.
Waiting
So. Much. Waiting. I’m pretty bad at this. I’m not a patient person. Writing, unfortunately, requires patience. What has made the waiting easier is having a job that I love, a never-ending list of books I want to read, and knowing that everything’s going to come together at some point.
