A Typical Day in My Writing World

My wife and I enjoying the Amana Colonies.

One year after leaving the comforts of Southern California, I'm settling into a writing routine that brings me overwhelming joy.  I'm no longer dreaming about being a writer... I am one.  And I can confidently say this blog will be clicked on over 1,000,000 times within five years, based on conservative predictions.

There are a handful of you out there who believed in me since day one over 1,300 days ago.  Your support really helped me on days when I thought I was losing my mind.  Thank you.  I've never been happier.  My family has never been happier.  They prefer anonymity, so I don't mention them much, however, each one of our children inherited the writing gene prevalent in our family for generations.

For those of you who are thinking about taking a crack at writing, today's blog is especially for you.  Feel free to try any of these ideas and let me know if they help.  Here is a typical day in my writing world:

5:30 AM -- Wake up, say a prayer to offer my day to my Creator, read a Bible verse, compliments of K-Love, a Christian radio station I discovered while living in Southern California.  My Bible verses arrive in my inbox in the middle of the night.

With my eyes closed, I let my mind drift until a writing topic pops into my head.  Sometimes, the stories come to me in the middle of the night.  Once I have a story, I open up my Blog and begin typing.  It looks and functions like a Word program.  All my work is saved online and I can access it from any computer.

After I'm done with the blog story, I peruse the internet for a catchy photo to match.  Many readers find my blog because they like the pictures.  Next, I program the blog story to publish at 8:08 AM, Pacific Time and head off to my day job in the marketing department of a company that, like my family, prefers anonymity.  They don't even know I'm a writer.

When my day job is over for the day, I head home, answer emails and post my blog to Twitter via Hootsuite.com.   I use Hootsuite because they allow me to compress my story title so it fits better on Twitter, which only allows 140 characters per tweet.  I also share the story on Google+.

I spend about thirty minutes a day studying online material that can help me get better at writing and publishing.

I have two days off every week.  One is set aside as a day of rest, although I still write a blog story on that day because I don't consider it work.  On the other day off from my day job I work on my long-term writing projects and update my blog layout.  I average two to three hours on my day off developing my novel, The Caveman in the Mirror.  At the end of the day, I make sure to go to bed early enough to get eight full hours of sleep.

I'm a big believer about participating in projects that maximize my personal strengths.  I also love to coach others.  It makes sense to share everything I learn about writing with you so that you may have an opportunity to learn from my own mistakes.

Due to the time constraints I have with my family and my day job, it's not always easy for me to respond to your emails or your comments.  I do my best to respond within a 24 hour period.  If you have any questions, please add your comments below or email me and I will be happy to reply.  Have a great day.