Hi guys! Today I have Tammara Webber (New York Times Bestselling Author of Easy and Between the Lines) here, explaining what she does on a daily basis. If you haven't read Easy yet, I'd highly recommend it! It's amazing, my review is HERE if you wish to take a look.
~
The I-wish Version of a Typical Morning: The day begins with a joyful bounce out of bed at dawn, followed by a rousing bit of exercise. I peruse the morning paper while sipping a cup of herbal tea and nibbling a croissant. I’m seated at my desk and tapping literary brilliance on my laptop by 7 a.m.
~
The I-wish Version of a Typical Morning: The day begins with a joyful bounce out of bed at dawn, followed by a rousing bit of exercise. I peruse the morning paper while sipping a cup of herbal tea and nibbling a croissant. I’m seated at my desk and tapping literary brilliance on my laptop by 7 a.m.
Reality: The snooze alarm button no longer says “snooze” because the
alarm has been struck so often that the lettering has vanished. I roll out of
bed when Moose, my cat, fwomps directly onto my stomach in a desperate plea for
breakfast before he starves to death. (Note: Moose is nowhere near starving to
death.) I can’t open my eyes fully before at least two cups of coffee (yes to
cream and sugar) and breakfast – usually a bowl of nearly-healthy cereal (no
milk) corrupted by a thorough sugar coating.
Once I’m more or less awake, I check my two email accounts, flag
everything that requires a reply, take a vague count of how much email is
piling up, and move on to answering questions and comments on Facebook and Twitter.
If I have a blog post to write, a book to review, a colleague’s manuscript to
critique, a Q&A due, or bills to pay, I do these first because I’ve
convinced myself that my imagination will trigger more easily and the words
will flow better once my daily to-do list is checked off.
Somewhere between noon and 3:00 p.m., I open my story notes and WIP
(work in progress). Often – especially at the beginning and always in the
middle of a novel – I force myself sit and stare at a cursor blinking on a
blank page for hours at a time (with breaks for whatever’s in the pantry and an
unreasonable amount of Diet Cokes). Sometimes I type and delete repeatedly
while wondering how I’m ever going to finish an 80,000 word novel when I can’t
manage to put a single sentence in my hero’s mouth.
When I’m lucky, though, I’m filled with ideas and able to dive right
in. On a good day, I may write in half hour spurts throughout the rest of the
day, or write until my fingers are numb, I’ve missed dinner, and it’s well past
time for bed. Falling asleep while writing has been known to occur, making
next-day pre-reads more interesting. (One writer friend, Laura Bradley Rede,
confessed to falling asleep at the keyboard. The last thing she remembered
doing before dragging herself off to bed was changing, ‘That would come back to
bite him in the ass’ to ‘That would come back to haunt him.’ The next day, she
found that she’d actually written, ‘That would come back to haunt him in the
ass.’)
On the day I finish the first solid draft of a novel, it’s like the
end of hibernation must feel for a bear. I emerge into a world that shifted
when I wasn’t looking, and now it seems unfamiliar to me, and I seem unfamiliar
to it. My family and friends are stunned to suddenly receive regular phone
calls or lunch invitations. My cats are baffled to receive regular meals. I
have time to read and socialize and shower consistently. Once the painful
revision/editing phase begins, and during the frenzied promotional phase (both
include a good deal of hair pulling – my own – and literal gnashing of teeth),
I may determine that I’m never, ever writing another thing again.
And then I wake up with a slightly muddled idea for a new story, and
the whole cycle begins again.
Sorry, Moose.
~
Haha I loved this! :D Thanks Tammara! You can contact Tammara in a number of ways, on her Twitter, her website and Facebook.
Sorry, Moose.
~
Haha I loved this! :D Thanks Tammara! You can contact Tammara in a number of ways, on her Twitter, her website and Facebook.
No comments :
Post a Comment