A Day in the Life of an Author

Welcome back to the blog, everyone. In case you missed the announcement, Seven Hexes will be out May 27th, 2025, so we are getting close to the release! Needless to say, I was buried in edits the last couple of weeks of February. But now that things have calmed down, I can catch up on everything else in my life, including the blog here.

I thought it might be fun to do a “Day in the Life” as a working writer. I’m going to use a day when I was still editing, because if I chose a more recent day, it would basically be “Did a million loads of laundry while binging reruns of Grey’s Anatomy” all day. (Laundry is one of those things I fell behind on while finishing edits.)

So if you’re curious what a day in the life of a writer looks like, let’s dive in!

10:30 A.M. – Wake up  Yes, I really do get up at 10:30. I have never been able to adjust to getting up earlier than 10 o’ clock or so, even when I was a teacher and had to be at work by 7:45. Being able to get up at a time that feels natural to me is one of the things I love most about my writerly life.

11:00 A.M. – Walk Blue  I have to be honest, I don’t walk my dog every day. I know that might sound crazy, but there are a few things to consider. (1) I have a huge backyard, so Blue gets exercise all day running around back there. (2) Blue is leash reactive, so walks can be a bit tricky. We’ve worked extensively with a trainer and have good management techniques for our walks, including a few locales that are good for us because there isn’t a lot of foot traffic there. But we are also very limited in the time of day we can walk. Evenings and early mornings are pretty much a no-go, because anywhere we go, there are a lot of people out and about. And (3) I live in a place where the weather gets extremely hot five months out of the year, which also limits when we can walk. This time of year is nice, because the weather is mostly pretty mild.

12:00 P.M. – Edit Seven Hexes  This particular day was the day before I finished these edits. I spent a little over an hour editing a couple of chapters near the end of the book. These were short chapters and only required a clean-up/copyediting, so they didn’t take too long. I also ate a very light breakfast of tea and shortbread while working. Typically, I take time to enjoy breakfast before working, but this day was a bit different because I was meeting my mother for an early lunch. And, yes! I do eat breakfast around noon. People often ask me, “If you get up so late, why not just eat lunch?” And my answer is, “Because I like breakfast!”

1:30 P.M. – Lunch with my mom  My mom and I usually do brunch once a week. This week, it was “lunch” instead. We tried out a new place and it was really good; I had a shrimp burger with fries. I’m trying to eat more seafood and less red meat these days, so the shrimp burger was perfect.

2:30 P.M. – Light edits/relax  Yeah, so, I was supposed to be editing during this time, but I ended up watching TV (Criminal Minds) more than editing. In my defense, I was dogsitting for my mom while she ran some errands, so I was a little distracted. In a typical day for me, though, it’s not unusual that I relax in the afternoon, maybe doing some very light work, like research or creating marketing materials. The bulk of my “workday” actually comes in the evening/night hours. I did get some light edits done during this time, such as addressing some notes I’d left earlier in the manuscript about consistency types of things. (Like, Character A was wounded in Ch 3, make sure to note he’s still recovering in subsequent chapters, or, mention that these two characters are friend, so that doesn’t come out of nowhere later.)

6:00 P.M. – Clean/tidy the kitchen, living room  This is something I would usually do earlier in the day, around breakfast, but since I went out today, it didn’t get done until Blue and I got home. How much cleaning I do will depend on the day/workload; since I had a lot of edits to get done (and had slacked off a bit earlier), I just did the bare minimum. This is also the time I would usually eat dinner, but because of the big lunch, I skipped dinner.

7:30 P.M. – Write short chapter  Although I was mostly editing Seven Hexes, I did have one last chapter to write. It was a short, action-based chapter in the climactic part of the novel, and I had skipped it earlier for a few reasons – it took me a while to figure out what needed to happen in that chapter, for one thing. But I had left it as late as I could; now, it needed to be written. Thankfully, I got it done and it wasn’t too difficult. In general, this is my preferred time to write; I seem to feel most creative after the sun goes down.

10:30 P.M. – Work on small edits / crutch phrases  I spent my last working hour addressing more notes I had left in the manuscript, as well as getting rid of “crutch phrases.” I picked up this term from Marissa Meyer, the author of the Lunar Chronicles. Essentially, crutch phrases are phrases that are used too often, usually in blocking. Often, I use them in a first draft just to keep the writing flowing. These are phrases like “He raised his eyebrows” or “She swallowed” or even “He nodded.” There’s nothing wrong with using these phrases, but I tend to way overuse them in a first draft. The best way to cut down their usage in edits is to search the document for them. Then I go through and either just delete them, or replace them with something less cliched.

12:00 A.M. (Midnight) – Watch an episode of Leverage  After working late, it’s imperative I have at least 1 hour of down time before going to bed. I’m usually pretty wired after working. My brain needs time to come down from that work “high” and just relax. So I usually have a tv show (one I’ve seen before) that I watch before bed and only before bed; right now it’s Leverage. I believe the episode I watched on this particular night was Season 1’s “The Two-Horse Job,” if any Leverage fans out there are curious. A show like this is perfect as my nightly show, because it’s a low-stakes, lighthearted show that will help me relax before bed.

1:00 A.M. – Go to bed  And yes, I really do go to bed at 1 a.m. I am a chronic insomniac and have been since I was a child. There was a time when my insomnia was really bad; it was a very anxious time in my life. These days, I have it under control, so long as I stick to my nighttime routines and rules. I typically listen to an audiobook as I fall asleep (usually an old favorite like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter). It’s like listening to a bedtime story.

So that’s a day in my life as an author! This is a pretty typical day for me right now, or at least, as typical as it gets. One of the biggest adjustments for me, when I started working full-time as an author, was coming to terms with the fact that my routine/schedule is always changing, depending on where I am with a project. If I’m drafting, it looks a bit different; if I’m marketing and preparing for a book launch, that’s different too. Maybe I’ll do some more “days in the life” in the future to show the contrast. But that’s it for now!   

Until next time,

Elizabeth