Maggie Stiefvater and me

By Christy

Recently I read Shiver and very, very shortly after scrambled to Barnes and Noble, bought and devoured Linger. So naturally, I now follow Maggie Stiefvater's Online Journal. You should too. Only if you follow mine you might not need to because in the course of two days I am posting two of her journal posts here. You're welcome.

After reading her (Partial) Day in the Life of an Author (click on link), I was inspired to write my very own (Partial) Day in the Life of an unpublished Author. (See below. Compare for yourself how very similar our lives are! I'm amazed too. Scary, isn't it?)http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/177030.html

My Very Own
(Partial) Day in the Life of an unpublished Author

One day in my life is pretty much like any other so once I tell you about this day, well, you can apply it to all days before and after and get a pretty good glimpse at my life.

Tomorrow I should get a haircut, but probably won’t schedule an appointment and therefore won’t get one . Saturday I’ll go downtown to my hometown city’s annual Octoberfest celebration and eat myself plump. (I currently live 20 minutes outside of my hometown.)

My day starts before my alarm goes off (always does, but I still set it, forever hopeful that one night I’ll sleep so well my slumber will actually last until the 5 AM buzzing begins) when Lovely #1 who coughed throughout the entire night comes to my bedside to tell me he has to go potty. After he does this independently, he asks me to walk him back to bed to tuck him in. Since it is 4:53, I switch off the alarm before it can sound and wake up Lovely #2 who slept by me and hogged my pillow all night.

Hubby is asleep in Lovely #2’s bed because he got tired of me kicking him in the shin every time he snored above the acceptable snoring decibel (is there one?), so I ask him to return to our bed to feel assured that #2 doesn’t fall out while I am at the gym.

I attend gym class where tendonitis causes much discomfort, but finish the class regardless. I am proud that I am such a trooper and excited for my abs to hurt since I haven’t done crunches since, hmm. It was that long ago.

I return home, kiss the Lovelies, but not Hubby who is grumpy from lack of sleep, shower and dress. I make 1) toast for me 2) toast, cheerios, apple slices, and oj for Lovely #1, 3) mini pancakes, apple slices, and milk for Lovely #2. I put a second piece of whole wheat bread in the toaster, for me, pull out the coffee pot (which I faithfully put on Delay Brew for 6 AM nearly every night, and realize that last night I forgot the water and that is the cause of the steam, odd noise and absence of alluring coffee aroma. I add water and move to check email and blog for more followers while munching my toast coffeeless. (Note to faithful readers: Erica slept through all of this. And her abs hurt just thinking about it.)

There is one email from a member of The Voice who commented on my first 5 pages of Solstice, and five emails notifying me that people commented on someone else’s facebook post that I previously commented on. There are no new followers on our blog, but I received a comment from TH Mafi thanking me for a comment I left on her blog yesterday. I am deliriously happy about this.

I pour a cup of coffee, gulp it, deprived of caffeine for x number of minutes longer than usual, and burn my tongue. Lovely #2 announces that he “actually would like a waffle instead for breakfast” which is what I offered him before he told me he was “too sick to eat a waffle today” and would prefer “an apple” and the toast and cheerios I offered. A glance at the clock reminds me there is no time for a second meal preparation and that I’d better finish my hair and make up. I gaze longingly at my dining room table, wishing it were still summer and I could spend the better part of the morning writing and cursing at the beginning of Solstice.

I don a semi-wrinkled black sweatshirt once remembering I’m taking my second graders on a field trip and swap Capri jeans for full length ones. I wince putting on a tennis shoe over my sore foot and ankle and herd the boys into the back hall. Hubby reminds us that it’s "A" day in preschool and I sprint down the hall to the “people bin” to find the ankylosaurus Lovely #1 chose to bring to represent the letter. Hubby doubts it’s the right dinosaur, but #1 and I assure him we know our dinosaurs even if we classify them as people while organizing toys.

And we’re off.

I drop the kids off. Back in the car Hubby calls to let me know #1 and I were right: It was an anklyosaurus. He looked it up. I listen to the radio people discuss the number of calories in pizza pretty much the whole way to work until I switch the station and find Taylor Swift halfway through “Mine”. I sing along.

***

Had I gotten to work on Solstice I would probably have contemplated starting my novel from the my main male character’s point of view because I like the three chapters he takes over better. I haven’t written 1,400 words in two weeks, except for my query letter drafts, one of which is 200 words too long. Maybe this is why Maggie Stiefvater is published while I am not.

It took me several attempts and multiple sittings to write this baby of a blog. I started it hours before I posted it, took hours off in between, and now it’s bedtime. The Lovelies’ feet haven’t carried their little bodies down the hall in at least 13 minutes now so they might actually have gone to sleep. Each one got up at least four times for one reason or another. Twice each to tell me they loved me. (awww… “Back to bed!”) and once to say, “Mom, look at how I’m walking! Don’t I look like a penguin?”

I’ll end my recount of a (partial) day in my life here. In case you read through it this far. And yes, I realize I snuck in some past tense for the last two paragraphs. I may be unpublished but I know the difference between passed and prescente.

Credit, please. Remember, I know an ankylosaurus when I see one.