A Day in My Writing Life
I had wanted to save this post for around this time of year, because I knew I would have a newborn (he's actually almost a month old now) and my schedule would be even more hectic than it was - on top of having one course in a Master's program and looking down the throat of a second (course starts Oct. 1). And I wondered what my schedule by this point would actually look like.
See, I like to be the guy that thwarts everyone's excuse. When you say: "I can't, because..." I want to be able to say: "I still do." Not to rub it in your face or make me seem better than you, but because I think we are each far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. Part of this blog is not to only tell the story of my year, but hopefully to inspire you to your best year - this year, and every year after. But to have our best year, sometimes we need to stare straight into the face of our adversity or our circumstances and say: "we still can."
So I present to you not my everyday, but my ideal day, the day I go to bed the night before assuming will come to fruition. So far, it has never done. But each night I go to bed saying "in the morning..." And then I wake up and make the best I can. It sometimes goes something like this...
Wake up. Anytime between 6am and 7am. Cup of coffee, and read my Bible (6 chapters). From that reading hopefully I pull a verse or several to post on social media (Twitter and Facebook, for now).
Schedule posts. Typically this is only two hashtag games - one post goes to both outlets, the second only to Twitter. Some days I'm able to follow up throughout the day, most times I'm out in the world where there's little cell reception.
Writing time. This is what has been lacking lately. Final revisions to Book Two are starting soon, and it's usually easier to dive into that than writing brand new stuff so this may pick back up again. But this is when I can fit it in, weekdays, just before...
Day job. I leave the house anytime between 7:30 and 8 usually, after packing a lunch. I'll be gone until anytime between 4:30 and 5:30, often out "in the field" inspection pipeline ROWs for environmental issues (lack of vegetation, erosion, slips, impacts to streams/wetlands).
Dinner/Evening. My wife and I usually watch TV on DVD - lately episodes of "The Mentalist" - and occasionally a movie while we eat dinner. Then it's on to whatever schoolwork I have to do - mostly reading, writing a post for online discussion twice a week. As I've mentioned, this will get even busier in the next week when the next course starts up.
Weekends. These days are reserved for one-off projects. I'm finishing up collaboration on a map for Andelen (Book Two) and starting on a world map with a cartographer I found through Twitter (more on this later). There are a couple others upcoming, including:
See, I like to be the guy that thwarts everyone's excuse. When you say: "I can't, because..." I want to be able to say: "I still do." Not to rub it in your face or make me seem better than you, but because I think we are each far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. Part of this blog is not to only tell the story of my year, but hopefully to inspire you to your best year - this year, and every year after. But to have our best year, sometimes we need to stare straight into the face of our adversity or our circumstances and say: "we still can."
So I present to you not my everyday, but my ideal day, the day I go to bed the night before assuming will come to fruition. So far, it has never done. But each night I go to bed saying "in the morning..." And then I wake up and make the best I can. It sometimes goes something like this...
Wake up. Anytime between 6am and 7am. Cup of coffee, and read my Bible (6 chapters). From that reading hopefully I pull a verse or several to post on social media (Twitter and Facebook, for now).
Schedule posts. Typically this is only two hashtag games - one post goes to both outlets, the second only to Twitter. Some days I'm able to follow up throughout the day, most times I'm out in the world where there's little cell reception.
Writing time. This is what has been lacking lately. Final revisions to Book Two are starting soon, and it's usually easier to dive into that than writing brand new stuff so this may pick back up again. But this is when I can fit it in, weekdays, just before...
Day job. I leave the house anytime between 7:30 and 8 usually, after packing a lunch. I'll be gone until anytime between 4:30 and 5:30, often out "in the field" inspection pipeline ROWs for environmental issues (lack of vegetation, erosion, slips, impacts to streams/wetlands).
Dinner/Evening. My wife and I usually watch TV on DVD - lately episodes of "The Mentalist" - and occasionally a movie while we eat dinner. Then it's on to whatever schoolwork I have to do - mostly reading, writing a post for online discussion twice a week. As I've mentioned, this will get even busier in the next week when the next course starts up.
Weekends. These days are reserved for one-off projects. I'm finishing up collaboration on a map for Andelen (Book Two) and starting on a world map with a cartographer I found through Twitter (more on this later). There are a couple others upcoming, including:
- Book Cover - Book Two is releasing early 2019, so I'm starting to work with the cover artist from By Ways Unseen on the next cover, as well as updating the cover for By Ways Unseen
- Edits to By Ways Unseen - these will be very minor, nothing plot-altering, but a few changes based off the early reviews I got
- Burieng Map - I'll also be working with a cartographer to redo the map for By Ways Unseen ahead of its 2019 re-release
Each day is pretty busy, but it helps me feel accomplished by the end. It's been a great ride, pushing through my fears of self-publishing By Ways Unseen and continuing toward publishing Book Two, and continuing to write Book Three. There's lots more to come in the days ahead, and though sometimes it seems impossible, it really does come down to doing in the next moments the best you can.
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