A Day In the Life: Aspiring Writer and Stay-at-Home Mom (Part 2)

In honour of my book review of Water Cooler Diaries: Women Across America Share Their Day at Work, I am sharing my day at work from January 6th, 2009. Part 1 can be found here.

Enjoy!

12:10 p.m. We’re running out of time. My daughter is going to need a burst of speed.

12:21 p.m. We get to school at the same time as five of my daughter’s classmates. Everyone looks relieved that they aren’t the last ones to arrive. Daughter manages to tie her shoes in record time and isn’t late.

12:35 p.m. Home again. Shovel walk of inch of snow that fell as well as the neighbour’s walk. Still hungry despite our ‘leftover’ lunch. Grab a snack. Discover new plates get REALLY hot in the microwave.

12:45 p.m. Work on query. Look at comments. Look at Query. Repeat. Can’t make myself change much. I feel good about this version and don’t want to standardize my hook. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t. I email it off to a published writer who gives great advice in hopes that she has time to look at this latest version. I trust her more than most when it comes to this sort of thing. The fact that most of the comments are in regards to standardizing the letter and the removal of the last paragraph of details, I know I am getting close to a query that makes sense. Either that or everyone is too scared to rip it shreds. That’s one problem with everyone knowing me, I’m afraid they won’t be brutal and honest. I want you to rip it shreds! How else am I going to improve? Bring it on!

1:08 p.m. I check my email, most of it are email versions of the things I’ve posted or already read on AQ. I’ve learned I get more comments and feedback if I reply to the comments on things I’ve posted for critiques. Time to get off the couch and go outside for a cross-country ski. Hopefully yesterday’s trail that I made through the park beside the house which stretches over to a field out back will be useable.

Brr. Arms cold through sweater—quickly remedied by some movement. Across the fields and highway, it looks like one of two tall blue silos is on fire. I can see flames and smoke from this distance. Silos can’t burn can they? They are made of cement and metal. Hmmm. I make my way around the circle I’ve made in the field. In some places I can glide nicely. Mostly I plod through the extra snow that’s landed on my trail. I try to meditate and clear my mind but today it won’t clear. I keep thinking. By the time I’ve made my circuit in the gorgeous lightly falling snow, I can’t see flames at the silos, but the plume of dark grey smoke goes straight up in the windless air. Dark grey against pale greyish white sky, a slight question mark shape where the smoke met a wind current hundreds of feet above ground.

1:43 p.m. Check email. There is a reply already from my hero. She likes it, she likes it!! Too much detail, but she likes my tone and the beginning. I’m keeping it. Yes! See me pump my fist in the air and dance around the living room. Jack Johnson is the hero of my story’s main character. Whenever I feel as though I am losing hope, he comes on the radio. Is that cool, or what? It tells me this can happen. Yes! There’s a lot of new agent info in the Publishers Lunch email which I’ll post on AQ. It’s helpful for everyone and is a nice place to put all that updated info—which will come in handy in the weeks ahead as I research agents to query with my fabulous letter. ? Send off a thank you to the writer who sent me good words.

1:56 p.m. Make a cup of tea and sit down with manuscript to make some minor edits on paper. Then into the computer in the next few days so it is spit and polished and as perfect as I can make it before querying. Maybe put on someone like Frank Sinatra (Franks ‘n’ Nachos as my daughter calls him) or Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong. Or maybe Jack Johnson. They are nice to listen to while editing as they don’t interrupt. A little different than P!nk. She’s an interrupter!

1:58 p.m. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard back from Nelson on that book PDF they were going to send. I made other comments in my email request and confused them and never got my PDF. I love being a blog book reviewer for them. Free books! (I’m such a sucker!)

1:59 p.m. This time, I’m really off to edit. Really. Not procrastinating. Noooo. Not me. Better check email once first. Okay, must push off and edit. Where’s my pen?

2:09 p.m. I have less than an hour left and I’ve only gotten through one page. I need to speed things up. I get up off the carpet that needs vacuuming and move to the big table where I can spread out as well as drink my tea.

3:00 p.m. Got through 16 pages. Slow, but I found lots of ‘my’s that could be removed or altered. The story is first person, present tense. I found myself laughing at my main character a few times. I hope I make others laugh too. Now it’s time to go pick up my daughter. She could take the school bus home, but that’ll wait until next year. Usually I stay downtown and work in the library while she’s at school. Or when it’s not winter, I pull her there in the bike trailer to save gas. It feels wasteful to drive out to the school two times a day, four days a week. It’s not far, but it is wear and tear and gas. After I pick her up, we’ll return movies to the library and go to Sobey’s. It’s their discount day today and we’ll stock up on fresh vegetables and meat. Yesterday we hit Extra Foods for their discount day, but their meat and vegetables aren’t so great. It’s stopped snowing again. Now I have a thin layer of ‘slippery’ on the sidewalk where I shovelled. Tomorrow is supposed to be REALLY nice, so I think it’ll be okay. The weather has been all over the map lately.

3: 04 p.m. 11 emails came in while I was editing. Might do a quick scan of them before heading out. I like to be early enough I can chat with other moms and make sure my daughter doesn’t feel that I’ve forgotten her. It’s also easier to find parking if I come a bit early.

3:08 p.m. Dad called to talk about skiing. But must get out the door! She’s dismissed just before 3:20.

To be continued….