A Day in the Life of A Wanna-Be Author

People often imagine that authors spend their days tucked away in cozy writing corners, sipping tea and letting the words pour out effortlessly.

I won't lie, that is the dream I have for my retirement, after my books break record sales and I don't need to be a corporate slave anymore! I picture myself living in a remote village somewhere in Italy, tap-tap-tapping away at my keyboard by some body of water and in the shade of a large tree - preferably a weeping willow. Naturally, in this daydream, I am dressed in soft, flowing pastels and I weigh exactly what I should!

My reality, however, is very different. The truth is, as a single working mother of two grown-up kids (and two shockingly large rescue cats), my days are full of work, home, and the countless little things that keep life spinning. Writing, however, still manages to sneak in - sometimes in stolen minutes, sometimes in the quiet hours when my world finally slows down.

My mornings begin with the chaos of my cats insisting that breakfast must happen immediately. Once they are satisfied, I am allowed a quick coffee and a very rushed getting ready for work. The next nine to ten hours vanish in a blur of meetings, tasks, hundreds of emails, and a lot of problem-solving.

But you cannot hush words, no matter how chaotic it is around you. More often than not, I use my lunchtime to read the chapters I have already written, and sometimes, to write a few hundred words. It may not sound like much, but those snippets add up. Yesterday I realized that I am at 10,000+ words and I gave myself a pat on the back.

Evenings have their own separate chaos. They are for phone calls with my father and siblings in different parts of the world, cooking, chores waiting patiently (and sometimes not so patiently), and carving out moments of me-time. And in between it all, I return to the page. Sometimes it is only editing a stubborn paragraph. Other times it is recording an idea while stirring a pot on the stove. You see, writing is not a neat, set schedule for me. It is more like the task of knitting a very long scarf, threading words carefully through the narrow seams of my hours.

At the moment, I am not just writing children’s books. I am also working on a much larger project, one that has been slowly taking shape over the past year. It started with a sentence and grew into thousands of words written in lunch breaks, coffee sips, and midnight musings and it has grown into something bigger than I ever imagined.

So yes, I may call myself a “wanna-be author,” but the truth is, every sentence I carve out of a busy day brings me closer to being one. The glamour may be missing - and the weeping willow by my little villa in Italy - but the joy is there, in every stolen word.