A Writers Workday

Many of you out there in the world dream of being able to work and earn a living for your writing, so would I, but what does it really mean to work as a writer? Is it really as glamorous as it seems to write when you feel like it an then hang out with your friends? No, if you are in the writing world you know what it takes to finish a book. It takes time, effort and hard work.

To get a glimpse of what a normal day looks like for a real life author I have translated a post from Kim M. Kimselius blog http://kim-m-kimselius.blogspot.se/2014/03/en-helt-vanlig-forfattardag.html

Here she writes how an ordinary day looks like for her:

“A typical day for me starts at some point around 4-5 in the morning. That is when I get the first kisses from my dogs.

At this time a year it’s still dark outside so the first walk with my dogs are a short one around our two acres of fenced land. Outside those fences sneaks boars and grubs in the soil. Therefore we carefully stay inside the fences.

When the sun rises it’s time for the second walk with my three dogs, Ticki, Pluto and Tudor.

Between the two walks I have worked with my book. The second dog walk gives me renewed energy. When I get home again it’s time for breakfast and a cup of gingertea.

Sometimes I’ll get the surprise that the newspaper Sydöstran has appointed me to today’s twitter person and sometimes I’ve been appointed the twitter person of the week (see picture above)!

After breakfast it is time to deal with e-mail, visit my Facebook friends, Twitter and Goggle+, and write my daily blog post. It usually takes me two hours. Sometimes I get around 200-250 e-mails in a day.

After all that is done I continued writing on my book again, often inspired after I’ve read all the e-mails from readers who tell me what they think of my books, or after reading the positive posts from my writer colleagues.

Soon it’s time for lunch, that we make at home, then it’s time for another walk. If the weather is nice we spend the lunch hour in the garden, it’s like I’ve mentioned very big and requires a lot of work. Tudor is always happy to help by pulling branches.

While Pluto, the older male, prefers to sit by the branch pile and wait, because he knows that we are going to come back there.

Tickie tends to go on by her own in search of food, there is plenty to eat: cat poop, a forgotten bone, a dead bird and moles. At other times of the year there is much more to eat: snatch potatoes from the potato patch, stealing raspberries, strawberries, currants, pick plums, apples and pears. In addition she usually sits outside the greenhouse when I’m in there because she loves cucumber!

After lunch the dogs usually sleep sweetly and snore loudly. At that time it’s perfect to disappear away in to the fantasy world of mine for a while. Since Tudor is not yet an adult it soon time for another pee break at around half past three in the afternoon. At that point I also take the opportunity to make myself a cup of tea. After that I write until five pm. Then it’s time for a new dog walk and dinner.

It tends to get dark before we’re back home and we get to hurry up, because I do not want to meet wild boars who loves to go just outside the meadow next to our house. Do the dogs would like it, at least until the boars goes to attack.

Well, and then that day was over… No, not quite yet. At this time I usually take a ride on the exercise bike or walk on the band. After that I crawl up in my comfy armchair and read a good book, or proofread some of my own. That is if it’s not so that my imagination has taken over my head during the walk, because if it has I sit down and write for a few more hours. After that it’s bedtime where I dream wonderful, imaginative dreams that fill my head with words that I can put into writing when I wake up the next morning.”

So, that was a post from Kim’s own blog that is written in Swedish. Please visit it even if you don’t read Swedish for there are many nice pictures to look at! The address is: http://kim-m-kimselius.blogspot.se/2014/03/en-helt-vanlig-forfattardag.html

Wow! What a day, or do you not think that? Here we see that it takes a lot of work if we want to be able to live on our writing. Are you willing to spend the time it requires? Leave a comment below and tell us about your day or if you think that it shows in Kim’s book the effort she puts in them!

/ / Sharon Elbaz