My Typical Work Day
It's fluid, to say the least
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I am returned with both The Executioners Three and Witchlight off my desk and someone else’s problem for a while. It was a busy holiday trying to get both books done while my kid was home, but! I did it, and now I can focus on other things.
Which is very much the subject of today’s post: where my daily focus goes.
This question comes from my AMA for paid subscribers, and if you’ve got a question of your own, then just pop over and ask it!
(Also, I celebrated turning in Witchlight over here with some official art!)
My Typical Work Day
From Lisa:
Honestly, I have always dreamed of becoming a writer. Can you talk about your typical day of work?
Because the answer to this will look so different for every author, I can only share what my typical day looks like. And of course, what that looks like has transformed a lot over the years. First, it changed a ton when I became a mom.
I spent the first two years of her life without any help or childcare, and I could only write during her nap times.
Then she finally got into a daycare, and it was glorious. Ha! Full workdays! Then she got deathly ill, and we learned she had asthma. So that meant a lot of lost work days, tending her needs. (Totally worth it. Kid always comes first.)
She’s now old enough to be in “proper” school, meaning I no longer get a full work day. (Who knew picking her up at 3:30 and losing an hour would be such a challenge!) And with the asthma, I never quite know when she’ll need to stay home.
Fortunately, I’m a pretty adaptable soul who makes do with the “containers” I have. As you’ll see below.
STEP ONE: Morning Focus
Depending on the time of year, I wake up quite early. Or…kind of early. I have accepted my circadian rhythm is linked to daylight, and while waking up at 5AM to work in the summer is no problem…
Winter is a challenge, and why fight it? Waking up at 6:15 is fine too.1
Either way, I am at my desk before the rest of my house is awake. Which is my favorite time to write! My brain is fresh. It’s quiet outside and in my inbox, and I find it easy to slip into flow.
As I’m writing this, it’s 7:12AM. I can see on the baby monitor that my kiddo is just now stirring, so I’ll shortly abandon this desk to get her ready for school. I don’t want to, ha. But I will.
STEP TWO: The Coffee
Once my offspring is ready and loaded in the car, my husband will take her to school, and my full day will begin.
It starts with a pot of coffee.
I have a very complex coffee ritual. It’s kind of The Key to starting my day. A transition from Mom Mode into Writer Mode, where the steps trigger something in my brain. Now we work, Sooz. (The steps? First, I grind the beans fresh. Then I do a Chemex pour-over, complete with a “blooming” step. Then I pour, pour, pour with great care and steadiness. 😅 )
Once the pot is ready, I pour a cup, sit at my desk, and ah.
STEP THREE: The Work
This is the most fluid part of my day.
As I’ve discussed pretty extensively in the past, I shift projects constantly, letting my intuition guide me. And it’s not just a “dabble here, dabble there” sort of shifting. I throw myself completely into a book for a week and then throw myself completely into a different one the week after that.
I think of my projects as rivers, and when one river runs dry, I hop over to another that’s still full. And while I’m in that one, the dry riverbed and can fill up again.
I love this rhythm so much, and accepting that I’m not a “hammer it out to the end” kind of writer has not only brought me to new creative heights and productivity, but it has just made me happy.
Of course, now it’s a real challenge for me to step outside “my creative rivers” and do more left-brained work—such as write newsletters or answer emails or make graphics or update websites, etc. The inertia of leaving creative flow is such a challenge for me. (Why yes, I do always put off my taxes until the last minute.)
Today, I’m trying to be “left-brained” and knock out a number of necessary tasks. It’s a good day for it, since I have a work call about marketing at noon. I might as well not interrupt creative flow and instead handle the many things that have accumulated on my to-do list.
(I cannot overstate how much I let “small tasks: accumulate. When I am in flow or under deadline, I will ignore emails or dirty laundry for weeks. Weeks. I am not the kind of person who can just chip away at something little by little. I toggle ALL IN or ALL OUT for everything.)
(This does not, of course, apply to life stuff. My kid is always #1 priority. She was home for the holidays, and that made work a challenge for a full two weeks.)
Once I’m in the zone, I don’t move much. I go into a state of such hyper focus that even bodily functions escape my notice. (Hey, lady, all that coffee you drank needs to come out again! Helloooo! GET UP.) 😅
Because I move so very little, I actually bought a Desk Ellipsis a year ago. And I love it. I won’t pretend I churn away at it constantly (right now my legs are crossed up under me—oops), but I do slowly spin away at it throughout the day.
The only real “break” I take is for lunch. Or to make more coffee.
Then at 3:00 PM, an alarm goes off and tells me to get my child! I need the alarm because, despite the many months on this schedule, I always get a second wind of Super Flow in the afternoon. Which means I almost always lose track of time. (Yes, it totally sucks cutting right into that second wind. I miss the days of working until 4!)
If I am not under a deadline, then I’ll let the kid have my focus once we’re home.
If I am under deadline…or I’m just really creatively obsessed with a project (which is honestly, is most of the time), then I use the TV as a babysitter. She curls up on a couch in my office and watches Bluey or Curious George while I finish whatever river I was in for the day. (She does at least have to earn her TV time with stickers, but…do I cheat and let her watch without stickers sometimes? Yes. I definitely do. 😬)
I can already hear some of you asking: wait, what about revisions? Or copyedits? You do leave the flow for those, right?
Of course. Anything with an actual deadline gets prioritized!
That said, I adore revising, and a huge part of my drafting process is rewriting and rearranging and getting every word where I want it to be before I power on.2 So revisions—be they self-imposed or external from an editor—are part of the river naturally for me.
With the more tedious work like copyedits or pass pages, I do them. But much like how administrative work requires me to fight inertia and make myself leave a river, these more left-brained pieces of publishing also require a bit more effort to dive into.
But, of course, once I’m in the flow, I’m in it!
STEP FOUR: The Thinking
Whether I stop working at 3PM or later, my brain does not turn off. I am constantly chewing, brainstorming, “hearing” my characters speaking, and as such, I keep my phone nearby at all times to record thoughts. So typically, my evenings are when I:
1) realize something I wrote earlier that days is wrong and I find a solution to apply tomorrow,
2) feel out what I’m going to write the next day and jot down a “scene screenplay.”
Here’s an example from what I put in my notes last night, with some spots marked out to avoid spoilers!
STEP FIVE: Life “Balance”
I do engage in things other than work. Like cooking. Or exercising (though, truth be told, I have a desk on my treadmill and I do tend to dabble at my work while I walk). Or traveling. Or seeing friends. And of course, with an asthmatic child, I never know when she’ll be home and need my care.
Plus, I do fully binge games or books a few times a year. (I just replayed Baldur’s Gate 3 with an embarrassing amount of commitment and focus.)
But as I’ve discussed before, I am someone who refills her well by doing more work. I love what I do. It brings me deep, fulfilling joy. When I’m immersed in a story, I am at my happiest. I don’t want to leave the creative river—I want to hear everyone chattering in my head. I want to feel all their emotions and channel them onto the page.
So work-life balance is only a struggle for me because my life can’t feel balanced unless the creative work is at its max. If I don’t work enough, I feel drained and miserable. I get snippy with people around me. It just feels all wrong up in my body, and I know that “symptom” means I have to squeeze in more creative time.
Hilariously, this post is as fluid and intuitive as my actual work day.
For the record, it’s now 8:53 AM. It took me an hour to get the kid fed, dressed, and out the door, and then I immediately sat back down at my computer to finish writing this. I’m still in my PJs. I haven’t washed my face or brushed my teeth. 😂 Nor have I completed my coffee ritual…
But that’s because I’ve already decided to change the flow of the day! Posting that screenshot of The Winter Fool has left me hungry to dive back in. So I decided the rest of the admin that I had planned for the day is now off the menu.
YOLO! Maybe after my marketing meeting at noon I’ll return to it………….maybe.3
But this is what I mean about being a person who “follows the flow of the river.” My river for The Winter Fool is a raging torrent! It just sucked me right back in, and I’m going to go with that flow for as long as it will carry me.
So there you have it, Lisa! As mentioned, my way of creating and working isn’t necessarily like other authors. I go hard and I go long, but with zero rigid structure. I absolutely love it this way, but it won’t work for everyone. Which is fine! Their ways won’t work for me.
Until next time!
💚 - Sooz
P.S. It is now 9:29AM, and I’m finally finishing this. I read through the piece a few times to edit for clarity. And then copied it out of Scrivener (where I work) and into Substack for mailing. I added links and the images, and I will hit send momentarily.
I have not gotten up or moved since I sat down at my desk over an hour ago. My feet remained curled under me, so no ellipsis turns. I really need to pee. 😂 But I got in the flow, so I couldn’t leave it until the task was done.
NOW I will finally move so I can get dressed for the day, and so that yes: I can make my glorious, glorious coffee and dive into The Winter Fool until my meeting. ☕️
P.P.S. It is now 9:40 when I am really, really done and hitting send. (Oh my god, I have to pee.)
If I’m under intense deadline, though, then 5AM it is!
This is contrary to a lot of Bad Advice on the internet that you should just finish something. Yes, that is sometimes true. But many of us literally cannot write ahead if what came before isn’t in the write place. I am one of those people. The story that’s ahead will change based on what came before. I waste words if I write ahead without getting things locked in earlier!
Lol, I know myself. The only way I will shift gears is if something comes out from the marketing call than applies “more pressure” to me than The Winter Fool.
This is awesome and very helpful, Sooz. Can you share what brand of under-desk treadmill you have? I’m saving up for one
I love how you get into an intense workflow. Once I get to work, I get focused. Sometimes, it just takes a while to get to work.🫣