I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently about my writing process so I thought I would bore you all with a blog post about that while procrastinating the writing of Chapter 16.
I probably shouldn’t call it a “writing process”.  It’s more  a cluster fuck of a mess that leaves me saying, “How the fuck did that book even get written???” when I’m all finished.
As much as I’d love to, I don’t write full time.  Okay, let me rephrase that.  I have a “real” full time day job that pays the bills and sucks the will to live right out of me.  The only good part about that is I work in an office, in a corner, where I maybe see one other person all day long.  And it’s usually my co-worker who Jenny is modeled after so that part isn’t so bad.  Our interactions provide me with hours of entertainment and enough material to fill 3 books (so far).  Whenever she says something, it is immediately followed up with, “Don’t you dare put that in your book”.
I’m sorry, I can’ t hear you.  You’re breaking up….bad reception!
So, to make this easy, I shall give you a day in the life of Tara.  Careful now, if you have a weak heart, it could be too much for you.  Take your meds and have a seat before reading.
***************************************************
4:30 am – Kick husbands leg for the eighth time to get him to stop snoring.  Reset alarm to go off at 6:20 instead of 6:10.  (shut up, those 10 minutes stop me from stabbing people all day)
5:15 am – Still trying to fall back to sleep and think of something funny Drew would say.  Grab cell phone off of night stand and type it into my notepad app.
6:20 am – Alarm goes off, get out of bed and wake kids up for school.
6:30 am – Wake kids up for school.  Again.
6:35 am – Argue with son about how his pants are NOT too big on him and the shirt he’s wearing is NOT lame and stupid.
6:45 am – Have son wake daughter up for school by turning on her light, yanking all of the covers off of her and screaming in her ear.  Son is suddenly in a much better mood about the outfit I picked out for him to wear.
6:50 am – Son tells husband to “suck off” and then calls him a “stupid head”, along with throwing down the hand gesture for ‘rock on’.
6:51 am – Pull out cell phone and make a note of ‘suck off’.
6:55 am – Briefly wonder if I should ground son for, in essence, telling husband to fuck off and calling him a dick head while flipping him off, in toddler speak.
7:00 am – Make daughter change out of the whore clothes she’s decided to wear that are 2 years past their date of fitting her and put on something that doesn’t make her look like a homeless street walker.
7:05 am – Argue with son about the fact that yes, he really does have to go to school and no, he shouldn’t tell his teacher that school is a piece of crap.
7:10 am – Finally get everyone in the car and out the door and try not to shove them out of the moving vehicle into oncoming traffic as they give each other wet willies and fart in the backseat.
7:35 am – Get on the train for work and look around at the passengers reading, wondering what I would do if I saw one of them reading my book.  Decide I would be completely inappropriate and my actions would most like get me arrested for indecent exposure and maybe rape.  Okay, totally rape.  Stop looking at passengers and pull out my phone to answer fan emails, Tweets, Goodreads emails/comments, Facebook emails/comments.
8:20 am – Get to work late as usual, try not to get hit by traffic as I cross the street while still Facebooking and Tweeting.
8:45 am – Swear that I am going to spend the next 3 hours working diligently and not get distracted by shiny things.
8:50 am – Play Words with Friends and reply to some Facebook comments.
9:30 am – Answer a few work emails, print reports, swear to focus on work and not touch phone.
9:31 am – Check Amazon sales/rankings.
10:00 am – Ignore 2 phone calls and let them go to voicemail because I just got a great idea for a chapter and need to write it before a meeting.
10:30 am – Meeting where I am solely focused on the topic at hand which is Trading and blah blah blah and, ooooh, my phone is vibrating.  Reply to fan email and comments on Facebook.
11:00 am – Get back to my desk and firmly resolve to finish up the reports I started earlier so I won’t have to worry about them later.
11:03 am – Play Words with Friends and go for a smoke break.
11:30 am – Pick up lunch, go back to desk and work, completely focused for the next hour.
11:32 am – Read a couple of chapters of a book on my Kindle.
12:00 pm – Return work voicemails and make a list of things I need to do in regards to the voicemails and get right on them.
12:02 pm – Check notepad app on my phone and write a chapter.
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Lather, rinse, repeat.
4:10 pm – 4:40 pm – Wonder again on the train ride home if someone is reading my book on their Kindle and I don’t even know it.  Causally ask the woman next to me what she’s reading and realize she’s asleep sitting up and I’ve just sat down next to the Narcoleptic Train Rider who slumps over and puts her head on my shoulder every time we go around a corner.
5:00 pm – Pick kids up from in-laws and argue with son about why he can’t drive the car home.
5:15 pm – Boot up laptop on kitchen counter while dinner is going.  Write chapter while yelling at the kids to stop having a sword fight with the vacuum cleaner parts and jump ropes.
5:20 pm – Eat dinner and argue with son about how he has to eat or he’ll die.  He tells me he loves me and wants to marry me and I let him have Lucky Charms and Pixie Stix for dinner.
5:45 pm – Write chapter at kitchen counter while kids are doing homework.  Get interrupted with questions I don’t know how to answer because 3rd grade math wasn’t even taught to me in college.  Google “3rd Grade Math for Dummies”.
6:00 pm – Kids ask if they can play in traffic, run with scissors and light shit on fire and I say “Sure, whatever” because I’m trying to find another word for ‘dick’ but Microsoft Word thesaurus keeps telling me ‘dick’ isn’t a word.
6:05 pm – Explain to kids why mommy was screaming “IF DICK ISN’T A WORD, WHY ARE YOU SUCH A DICK?!” to the computer.
6:07 pm – Apologize to the neighbors.
6:30 pm – Check Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Email and reply to as many things as I can before I’m interrupted with complaints about “He farted on me!”, “She won’t let me cut her hair!”.
7:00 pm – Take laptop out on the front porch and let husband handle the kids so I can write in peace.
7:05 pm – Smoke 2 cigarettes and play Words with Friends.
7:08 pm – Kids come outside to see what I’m doing and I tell them to go find something to play with because I’m really, really busy.
7:10 pm – Smoke another cigarette and stare at my computer screen trying to think of something funny.
7:30 pm – Pat myself on the back for writing another chapter and congratulate myself by Youtubing “Cat swings from ceiling fan”.
8:00 pm – Put kids to bed and go back on front porch with my lap top, telling husband I’m going to write.
8:05 pm – Husband comes outside and says “Wait till you see this picture on Facebook!”  Give husband dirty look and tell him I’m busy writing a fucking amazing piece of work and don’t have time.
8:06 pm – Ask husband to give me as many slang words for masturbating that he can think of.
8:09 pm – Google “Funny masturbation words” and after a few seconds of horror, realize I left off the word “words” and just typed in “funny masturbation”.   Realize there is nothing funny about that.
8:30 pm – Pack kid’s lunches, sign their homework planners & get out clothes for the next day.  Think of a funny idea for a chapter that involves masturbating and stuffed animals and realize this may be inappropriate while I’m holding my son’s stuffed bear.
9:00 pm – Make notes on notepad app about masturbation and stuffed animals while I’m watching the DVR’d episode of Dexter from the weekend.  If he can slice and dice people in the name of the law, I can hold a stuffed bear and think about diddling.
10:00 pm – Check Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Amazon Sales Rankings.  Fill out interview questions for a couple of blog interviews, write down on post-it-notes the winners of the latest contests so I don’t forget to send them what they won.
10:05 pm – Forget where I put the post-it-notes.
10:10 pm – Distracted by something shiny.  Play Words with Friends and reply to texts/emails.
10:30 pm – Get dressed for bed and find post-it-notes stuck to bottom of shoe.
10:40 pm – Scan through email of edits for another manuscript and contemplate pulling my laptop back out to work on them.  Oooooh, shiny object.  Win Words with Friends game and start a new one.
11:00 pm – Pull up notepad app on phone and make more notes about other manuscripts.
11:20 pm – Curl up in bed with Kindle.  Fall asleep after one chapter.