Many of you
out there in the world dream of being able to work and earn a living for your
writing, so would I, but what does it really mean to work as a writer? Is it
really as glamorous as it seems to write when you feel like it an then hang out
with your friends? No, if you are in the writing world you know what it takes
to finish a book. It takes time, effort and hard work.
Here she
writes how an ordinary day looks like for her:
“A typical
day for me starts at some point around 4-5 in the morning. That is when I get
the first kisses from my dogs.
At this
time a year it’s still dark outside so the first walk with my dogs are a short
one around our two acres of fenced land. Outside those fences sneaks boars and
grubs in the soil. Therefore we carefully stay inside the fences.
When the
sun rises it’s time for the second walk with my three dogs, Ticki, Pluto and
Tudor.
Between the
two walks I have worked with my book. The second dog walk gives me renewed
energy. When I get home again it’s time for breakfast and a cup of gingertea.
Sometimes I’ll
get the surprise that the newspaper Sydöstran has appointed me to today’s
twitter person and sometimes I’ve been appointed the twitter person of the week
(see picture above)!
After
breakfast it is time to deal with e-mail, visit my Facebook friends, Twitter
and Goggle+, and write my daily blog post. It usually takes me two hours.
Sometimes I get around 200-250 e-mails in a day.
After all
that is done I continued writing on my book again, often inspired after I’ve
read all the e-mails from readers who tell me what they think of my books, or
after reading the positive posts from my writer colleagues.
Soon it’s
time for lunch, that we make at home, then it’s time for another walk. If the weather
is nice we spend the lunch hour in the garden, it’s like I’ve mentioned very
big and requires a lot of work. Tudor is always happy to help by pulling
branches.
While Pluto,
the older male, prefers to sit by the branch pile and wait, because he knows
that we are going to come back there.
Tickie
tends to go on by her own in search of food, there is plenty to eat: cat poop,
a forgotten bone, a dead bird and moles. At other times of the year there is
much more to eat: snatch potatoes from the potato patch, stealing raspberries,
strawberries, currants, pick plums, apples and pears. In addition she usually
sits outside the greenhouse when I’m in there because she loves cucumber!
After lunch
the dogs usually sleep sweetly and snore loudly. At that time it’s perfect to disappear
away in to the fantasy world of mine for a while. Since Tudor is not yet an
adult it soon time for another pee break at around half past three in the
afternoon. At that point I also take the opportunity to make myself a cup of tea.
After that I write until five pm. Then it’s time for a new dog walk and dinner.
It tends to
get dark before we’re back home and we get to hurry up, because I do not want
to meet wild boars who loves to go just outside the meadow next to our house.
Do the dogs would like it, at least until the boars goes to attack.
Well, and then
that day was over… No, not quite yet. At this time I usually take a ride on the
exercise bike or walk on the band. After that I crawl up in my comfy armchair and read
a good book, or proofread some of my own. That is if it’s not so that my imagination
has taken over my head during the walk, because if it has I sit down and write
for a few more hours. After that it’s bedtime where I dream wonderful,
imaginative dreams that fill my head with words that I can put into writing
when I wake up the next morning.”
Wow! What a
day, or do you not think that? Here we see that it takes a lot of work if we
want to be able to live on our writing. Are you willing to spend the time it
requires? Leave a comment below and tell us about your day or if you think that
it shows in Kim’s book the effort she puts in them!
/ / Sharon Elbaz