I thought some people might be interested to hear about what a full-time writer/author does all day, so I thought I’d share a little insight into my work.

It must be pointed out, however, that the following just applies to me, and that other writers can and will have different schedules. What I love about writing is the flexibility it has, and I’m really interested to find out about what other authors get up to (if you are an author and you’re reading this, please leave a comment to compare and contrast your experience).

But enough pre-amble, here are the basics: I work full time (which is to say, a minimum of thirty hours a week), I work from home (translation: my bed), and I write in a number of areas (fiction, non-fiction, fan fiction, poetry, etc.) and my daily tasks often don’t involve writing at all.

That last point might surprise you the most but, you see, I am currently my own agent, editor, publisher, and social media manager and this leads me to doing a range of tasks that a lot of other writers will never think about let alone encounter.

In this past month I have… organized a book launch, had to learn how to remove EXIF data from photos, created advanced segments in Google Analytics, and figured out the capital expenses bit of my tax return. I’ve posted tweets on behalf of clients, worked on my novel, emailed newspapers, made a poster, made a book cover, updated online bios of myself, joined Library Thing in a vain attempt to get my books a tiny bit more recognition, published a newsletter, went shopping for stationary and… well, you get the idea. I kinda do a lot, and I do it in bits and pieces. You won’t ever find me sitting down for an extended period of time, for a set period of time. I will check emails as I wake up in the morning, send replies as I wait for the toaster to pop, do research as I wait for a train; things like that, that make work not feel like work, and allow me to get the most out of my day.

One last note: I wouldn’t have it any other way (except maybe I’d earn more).