Today, fellow dream chaser and New York Times Bestselling author, Allison Winn Scotch, did a “Day in the Life of” post on her blog, detailing how she spends a typical day. I was fascinated by this glimpse into her life because I often beat myself up for not devoting more time to my writing each and every day. I always imagined that authors like Allison must slave over their manuscripts for 8-10 hours a day, which has left me wondering how the heck I’m ever supposed to get anywhere doing this in 1-2 hour chunks?
But according to Allison’s post, she’s not glued to her computer for the 8-10 hours that I’d imagined. Not to downplay her effort by any means, but some days she spends as little as 2 hours on her manuscript (of course, many days she spends much more). I say this with a sigh of relief because it helps put my own effort into perspective, which is to say that 1-2 hour chunks of time do matter and can amount to something.
All this got me thinking that if I’ve been feeling insecure about the time I’m dedicating to my dream, other people may be feeling the same way. So I thought I’d create my own “Day in the Life of” post, to share how I squeeze my writing dream into the daily madness…
6AM – 7:30AM – Wake up, make a cup of coffee and work on my manuscript. (My morning sessions used to begin at 5AM, but let’s face it: that’s torture.)
7:30AM – 8:20AM – Get dressed, watch 5 minutes of HLN while I eat breakfast with my hubby, drive to the office (luckily I only work 10 minutes away from home!)
8:30AM – 5PM – Work as an Account Executive at an advertising agency. (Sometimes I’ll work on one of my travel or lifestyle pieces – or blog posts – over my lunch hour.)
5PM – 6:30PM – Head over to the gym and squeeze in a workout.
6:30PM – 8:00PM – Drive home from the gym and shower up.
8:00PM – Cook dinner for me and my hubby, eat, veg out on the couch and try to stave off my nightly chocolate attack.
10PM – If I make it 10PM without falling asleep on the couch first, then I crawl into bed and fall asleep nanoseconds after my head hits the pillow.
That’s my typical day in a nutshell. As you can see, there’s not a ton of time for pursuing my writing dream. But the fact is, even ten minutes a day is better than nothing.
How do you squeeze your dream into the daily madness?
