a day in the life of a writer: expectations vs reality

Writing isn't as easy and fun as it's cracked up to be. The post I linked to in the previous sentence sort of gives you and inside look at how miserable writing can be. You might have a vague idea on how our writing careers are, but what about a typical day as a writer?

Here is a schedule. Observe.

7:00 a.m.

Expectations: You're out of bed, ready for the day, and sipping a cup of coffee while you begin your writing for the day.

Reality: You realized that you can hit the "SNOOZE" button 900 times and it still works.

9:00 a.m.

Expectations: You've already written more than enough for the day, but because you're such an unrealistic overachiever you decide to go for another 5,000 words.

Reality: You finally get out of bed and sit down to watch a viral cat video.

12:00 p.m.

Expectations: You make an artistic looking lunch, take a short break, and hop right back to the computer because you stand to be away from your writing for so long.

Reality: You scarf down a hot pocket and grudgingly decide you should maybe, possibly, perhaps begin writing. But your cat is laying on the keyboard, so you realize you shouldn't bother her beauty sleep.

3:00 p.m.

Expectations: You haven't taken your eyes off the computer since lunch, besides when you decided to go for a quick walk for writing inspiration. It was beautiful.

Reality: No cats haunt your keyboard, and you're free to write. You pull up your project and place your fingers on the keys. You do a little bit of writing and then you came to a conclusion: why do something productive in your writing career when you can browse Pinterest? MIND. BLOWN.

5:00 p.m.

Expectations: You switch between writing, calling all of your weird writer friends and telling them how accomplished you are, and petting the cat at your feet who certainly does not claw at your pant legs for attention.

Reality: You're actually beginning to enjoy writing today. Your fingers are flying across the keyboard, and all of the sudden...your brain is dead. You didn't even get a low battery warning beforehand. Now you can't write anything else worth reading, so you decide to look back at what you just written (which you aren't supposed to do). You know all that writing that you enjoyed doing that was so perfect and angelic? It turns out all you wrote is utter trash.

10:00 p.m.

Expectations: Your fingers are sore. You don't care. You've written a mind-boggling amount of words, and every paragraph is written perfectly. (Not that you'd know, because perfect you doesn't look back at your writing!) You feel a little tired, but that doesn't stop you. On and on you write until you can't keep your tired eyes open.

Reality: You write here and there, but then you remember you haven't binge watched anything on TV for the day so you go do that while eating a bowl of ice cream. Perfectly productive. You go to bed, forgetting about the major plot hole you just created for your novel characters.

......

Writers are very committed and this is somewhat a joke, but none of us are perfect...we're especially not the flawlessly working writers you might think we are!