YA author Medeia Sharif, with a bazillion (or maybe it’s six) books to her credit, does a fun summary of her weekly writing activities on her blog. I love reading it. It’s a peek inside the daily workings of a published author. In a nutshell:
- she’s always working on multiple books
- she’s always thinking of how to market one or the other–or all of them
- she’s always involved in some sort of marketing (by this I mean, past the planning)
- AND–she constantly reads and reviews books to share with her blog readers
Amazing, innit? Medeia inspired me to keep track of what it is I do on a daily/weekly basis. Here’s one day:
- read and review books in my genre. I track completed tomes using Goodreads’ 2014 Reading Challenge. I’d add the interactive widget here, but WordPress doesn’t support it. Click the image below–it’ll take you to the Goodreads page:
- research for my much-delayed techno-thriller WIP.
- draft between nine-twelve posts for my three primary blogs (Ask a Tech Teacher, WordDreams, USNA or Bust!). I do this when inspiration strikes. If I don’t memorialize them in draft form, I won’t have sufficient material for my commitments.
- work on my non-fiction Technology-in-Education series. There’s a deadline here so I have to keep this project moving forward. Here are some examples:
- draft/edit/format articles I contribute to several online ezines (like TeachHUB). These, too, have deadlines. I like to wait for inspiration to strike because I write more quickly then, but my muse doesn’t always accommodate me. Then, it’s research-write-edit: Get ‘er done!
- visit my efriends on social media to support them, check in, and learn something new. I use this as breaks in my writing activities. It rejuvenates me to see what the rest of the world is doing.
- spend ‘some’ time every week marketing, be it an email campaign, a brochure, or images for my books. There’s more than I can keep on top of, so I chip away at it. When I reach a deadline, I put everything else down to complete the project. I end up with a lot of posters like these:
- about once a week, read and write a review for my Amazon Vine gig. Since I pick these books from an offer list, I am usually inspired and they go quickly.
- at least once a week, I attend webinars and/or Tweetups in my areas of interest. This keeps me up to date on topics I write about.
It doesn’t seem like that much when I list it out. Where DOES all my time go? What do you do with your day?
If you’re curious what other writers do all day, here’s Lynne Hackles post. And here’s Lucy Santos from the Crime Readers’ Association.
More on a writer’s day:
8 Things Writers Can Do No One Else Can
15 Traits Critical to a Successful Writer
Jacqui Murray is the author of dozens of books (on technology in education) as well as the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
Today's Author 
Doesn’t seem like much?! Yikes, it’s an awful lot more than I do! My week runs like this:
– make notes on at least one blog post for path: ethic and then write the post (I like to have at least one or two draft posts on the go so I don’t get worried about not having something to write)
– search out four or five links to write about for my weekly link roundup (I find Twitter is an excellent source for this) and write the post
– add at least one or two anecdotes to my draft for the new blog I’m planning to launch in January
– work on a poem for the anthology, at least one a week
– comment on friends’ blogs and catch up with my other social media friends (I do this three or four times a day, and could possibly cut that back a bit!)
– email my writing buddy for updates (OK, also for general gossip and catching up with each other. We also skype once a month or so and spend at least ten minutes of our time talking about writing! Honest!)
– submit at least one piece to online publications or competitions
And even that, I sometimes struggle to do. But I’m getting better at being a bit more disciplined, and also in less than three months, the third Offspring will start kindergarten, so hopefully that will give me a little more time to devote to writing. We’ll see!
There you are–that’s busy.I look at your list and wonder how you get it done! I’m going over to check out your blog.
That’s one day’s work? Doesn’t seem like much? And you always say you don’t write humor.
I’ve heard your week, Shari. I don’t even want to go there. Yikes!
How do you read so many books? Do you speed read? Do you read while you do other things?
I don’t consciously speed reed,just love reading. It’s what I do while I eat, wait, even brush my teeth. There’s rarely a day I don’t spend 2-3 hours reading.
Incredible. I’m going to read more this year!!