Day in the Life - a juggle day
What's it like being a professional writer? It's like this.
Hello hello and welcome to the last of the taster letters! Next week will be free for everyone, then content like this is going behind a paywall. Today I’m sharing a random day in my life - yesterday - to show a little bit more about what being a working writer entails. There’s a lot of paid work in this one - there are seasons where I get a lot more writing time but we’re not currently in one. As always, do send me any questions or comments <3
5:45am - Woken by my toddler, who is “NOT sleepy, Mummy”. Try to fob her off with cuddles and The Gruffalo on audiobook as I doze, but no dice. Give up, pull on some jeans and take her downstairs to watch tv. She is not technically allowed this before breakfast but it’s SO early and also it’s our first day back at work/nursery so I decide we’re still on holiday. Again, attempt to steer her towards more educational/wholesome programming (nature programme, alphablocks) but after 20 mins get over-ruled and give in to her favourite, Spidey and His Amazing Friends. Scroll mindlessly on phone and panic about the various competing forms of work I have on today.
7:30am - Husband comes downstairs and we all eat toast, then start the flurry of getting-readyness. Do my hair like Elsa. No, not that dress. I don’t NEED a jumper. Etc. Manage to grab a few minutes to clean my teeth and find an appropriate top - I have to look respectable from the shoulders up today because there are a lot of zoom meetings. Husband and toddler are nearly out of the door when she has a huge meltdown about going to nursery, which we expected - she doesn’t like her routine being messed with and says she misses me. Heartbreaking. I promise that I’ll be the one to pick her up from nursery today, which calms her down enough to get her into the bike trailer. Wave her off.
8:30am - Two hours until my first teaching slot and I land at my desk. I embark on a scrappy admin catch up - we’ve just been away for a week, and while I’ve been doing emails on my phone, it’s not satisfactory. I find emails from my Dad from last week with the address of the local bookshop in my hometown to send a proof to, and my publisher’s head of marketing, Emily, with some information about my next book’s cover reveal. This prompts me to put together a bumper email to Emily. I round up all the addresses of any friends I have who are booksellers. This kind of task comes around a few times in the lead up to publication - personal contacts among writers, personal contacts among press, personal contacts in sales. For me, this involves scouring my messages across various platforms, because I’ve inevitably asked people if I can send them a copy while in the pub, six months ago. If I was a more organised person, I would keep a little digital notebook of all my contacts and not have to repeatedly beg for addresses over whatsapp, but here we are. I feel briefly guilty about the state of my accounts (another thing I should be more on top of) but shrug it off - let’s just worry about one thing at a time. I consolidate this into a list and send it off, with a confirmation that doing the cover reveal next week would be great. I also send a big chasing email to my contact at the university - I’m supervising tutorials across four different types of students, all with different deadlines, and it’s complicated. I set up a zoom meeting for a tutorial this afternoon.
Up until recently, I worked in charity comms, and I really am grateful that I can just crack through admin like this. As an aspiring writer, I really felt I should work in a bookshop for a day job and get to know the market, and there’s a huge argument for that, but also, putting the hours in timetabling, planning, answering emails, budgeting etc REALLY helps with being self employed.
9:30am - One hour to go to teaching and I have time to squeeze in the first writing slot of the day - realistically, about 40 mins worth. I’m currently writing my book 4 - book 1 is out, book 2 is out in November and book 3 is currently with my editor. This 40 mins is enough to get me to nearly my 500 words daily target. I normally write faster than this (I rely on 500 words per 25 minutes generally) but I’ve just come back from holiday and, while I did take my ipad and write a few days, I feel disconnected from the work so the going’s slow and I have to read my way into it and stare into space for a while.
10:15am - Fifteen minutes to go to tutoring. I open up all the programmes and documents I need for both students and read through their feedback notes from last time. I do a few hours per week tutoring English as both a first and second language - a lot of my clients are studying GCSE English language and Literature at the moment. I try to keep these hours to Wednesday and Thursday so I have uninterrupted time to write on other days.
10:30am - Two zoom tutoring sessions both to secondary school students based in Hong Kong. I’ve known both students for a while, so the sessions are pretty easy. One of them has just started the GCSE syllabus so we spend the session talking about Remains by Simon Armitage, who I’ve loved since I studied him at GCSE myself. Cracker of a poem.
12:30pm - A flurry of activity! Both the students need feedback forms filling in, so I do this, and check my emails. The animation for the cover reveal’s come through!! Watch it smugly a few times, then shake myself out of it. I’m on camera again soon. Luckily I have leftover curry from last night. Serve it with noodles - no time for rice. Blissful 15 minutes of watching Below Deck Adventures while I eat it.
1:15pm - Back on camera for a tutorial for one of my students from Oxford University. This is a final portfolio supervision - my very favourite type of tutorial. The student has worked on a longer piece for a while, getting feedback from both me and another tutor, and now it’s been marked so we’re doing a final debrief. It’s fantastic to see work developing like this. Being an editor must be awesome.
2pm - I promised the toddler I’d pick her up from nursery, and nursery is 4 miles away, so I cycle into town to do some more work from there. I get a coffee on the way into the library and do about another hour of writing. At the start of this hour I delete so many words I take my daily total down to zero, but I get it over the line to 500 again before I have to stop. Today I’m in the Old Bod - a splendid building. It always makes me feel smug to flounce past the tour groups and tap myself in.
3:45pm - I have one last tutoring session today, so I head down to the library common room where it’s okay to talk/teach GCSE English on Zoom and find myself a table.
4pm - This student’s new, so the session’s a little harder - I don’t know them or their level quite yet, so we try some things out and talk about what they’ve done so far. I really prefer teaching at home so I can talk with my hands and also pick up props from my desk to illustrate concepts more clearly.
5pm - fill out feedback form. Check emails. More marking’s come in from the last set of portfolios. Brief stab of panic about how much of my work I haven’t touched today, how I’ve only done 500 words, etc, etc, etc. Whatever. It’s time to stop. Head off to nursery.
5:30pm - Arrive at nursery to be told that the toddler has been very emotional and seems unsettled. Bite back a brief urge to cry myself. I used to do two childcare days per week with her, and now it’s only one, and this month I’ve skipped two because of work and for a third one we’ve been on holiday so it wasn’t one on one time. This really is exceptional for us, but it still makes me feel like a complete dick. Meekly accept a children’s book on dealing with sadness and load her into the trailer. Give her a pack of raisins. She doesn’t seem sad.
6pm - Just before The Big Hill at the end of the cycle home, the toddler pipes up that she’s “lost her shoes”. I know that to mean that she has posted them out of the front of her trailer. Plod back, pushing the bike, to retrieve two tiny shoes from the bike path, smiling cheerfully at a confused man as I go. Give the toddler my phone to watch cbeebies on as i complete the journey. Can’t face The Big Hill. Just push the bike up.
6:30pm - Get home. While husband cooks dinner (NOT oven chips! Okinomiyaki! Vegetables and everything!) I read the toddler the book on sadness and, at her insistence, try to french plait her hair even though it is only two inches long. Instead we devise our own hairstyle that is just four different bobbles on her little ponytail. She looks like a polo pony.
7pm - Eat dinner. Toddler initially says she doesn’t want it, but is persuaded by the fact that it comes with mayonnaise, and ultimately says that she loves dinner and thanks husband for making it. I give her a little pot of custard in gratitude.
7:30pm - It’s my turn to do bedtime. Ever since I stopped breastfeeding (AGES ago) my bedtimes have been a massive struggle and take forever. This makes me feel like a rubbish mum. Maybe I breastfed her for too long, or for not long enough, or maybe I am either too strict, or not strict enough? Who can say? I supervise a bath, and briefly consider climbing in - I haven’t had a chance to have a shower today, and with the bike ride, I’m feeling decidedly grubby. I decide not to though - the toddler is currently very into shoving herself along the bath like she’s on a bobsleigh and I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Do teeth, getting changed, playing, milk, stories. SO Much messing around. But also at one point she says “I have an idea!” and the idea is to give me a kiss on the cheek and tell me she loves me. I melt.
9pm - The toddler and I agree that it’s Daddy’s turn to help her sleep after negotiations break down over the appropriateness of her “night time exercises” (handstand walking from one end of the cot to the other). Tap out and sit downstairs, moodily staring at my phone. Should read really. Haven’t read today. Too tired.
9:30pm - Watch episode of Taskmaster and split a bar of chocolate with husband. Rob Beckett recorded his bits of Taskmaster when his first child was 10 days old. I went back to work at 12 weeks, but that’s a lot better than 10 days.
10:20pm - Scrape self off sofa. Finally have longed-for shower. go to bed and consider reading a comparison title for my WIP. Actually just play a stupid game on my phone for 20 minutes and fall asleep.
Have a great bank holiday weekend my loves. I will of course not be observing it, but maybe you have a normal job and get a break x