A Day in the Life of a Book Blogger
Trish at Love, Laughter, and Insanity is hosting a fun event today — she asked book bloggers to record a day’s activities and share them.
I chose Tuesday — which wasn’t really a typical day because it was Bloggiesta, but it was very oriented toward my book blog so I thought it would be a fun one to examine.
6:30. Early rise because we had a plumber coming to install shut-offs. We’re doing a powder room renovation, right now, but the plumber was here to fix things in a way that our next renovation will go more smoothly.
Drew water in the bath for the toilet, cleaned the kitchen while I had water to do it, filled the electric tea kettle, and filled a couple of pots in case we needed to do a bit of washing while the water was off.
7:00. Updated the exercise, weight loss, and Beck book threads at the 3 Fat Chicks forum — my major support network for maintaining a healthy lifestyle as a recovering overeater.
Read email and checked Facebook.
8:15. Oops! It’s trash day. Took out the trash.
8:30. Ate breakfast while reading Royal Airs by Sharon Shinn on my phone. Usually, I have three books going — print ones at the table and in the bath, plus one on my phone for wherever. But, this renovation project is kind of stressful so I keep going back to Sharon Shinn, an author I find incredibly calming.
9:00. Promoted the Readers’ Workout post by tweeting to participants. While I was there I tweeted for #Bloggiesta the links of two bloggers who are looking for input on their new meme ideas:
- A Monthly Review Meme at The Book Date
- A Monthly Fairytale Meme at An Armchair By The Sea
9:30. Added a new member to the ever-growing mailing list for the Community for Understanding and Hope (CFUH) Book Group — I usually call it the Diversity Book Club on this blog for clarity.
10:00 – 3:00. Writing Bee! Writing Bee is the name that a friend and I have given to a twice-weekly virtual writing date that we’ve been doing for several years now. Most of the time I write, natch, during the Writing Bee. But, for Bloggiesta, I spent the time doing blog and social media chores. Since a platform is a vital component of a modern writing career, we consider those tasks fair game for our Writing Bees.
10:00. Commented on ten more Bloggiesta sign-up posts, including Florinda’s at the 3 R’s Blog where I learned about the Day in the Life project. Visited bloggers who commented on my blog in the first 24 hours or so of Bloggiesta.
11:30. Found the three e-books lurking in my email and downloaded them to the appropriate devices where they might actually get read. Made note of them on a Trello board to prompt the reading and help me schedule deadlines. (I’ve been using Trello since the beginning of the year, so I’m really looking forward to the mini-challenge on Trello put together by Kassiah at Pretty Sassy Cool.) This was all messy and awkward because I don’t deal with e-books enough to be very comfortable with my devices or the apps. But I got there!
12:07. The water’s back on! Fixed and ate lunch.
12:45. Found the four review requests lurking in my email. Most review requests get deleted immediately. Any request that remains held some interest for me. I decided to remove two, request the third, and sign up for a tour of the fourth.
2:00. Distracted by a long conversation with Rick, a friend of ours who came by to look at the plumbing and powder room, and the contractor working on the powder room. But, we decided how we wanted the tile laid out so it wasn’t a wasted distraction.
2:30. Archived and deleted old emails related to the blog and tracked down the winner of my most recent giveaway who hadn’t responded to the original email.
3:00. Writing Bee was over, but I wanted to make up for the time I spent chatting, so I completed Suey’s mini-challenge on Twitter by trying out Twubs. To test it, fully, of course, I had to chat a bit with other people who were hanging out on the #Bloggiesta hashtag.
3:30. Took a break, ate a snack, and cleaned the kitchen with more than the normal amount of appreciation for running water.
3:50. Revised the CFUH schedule to accommodate two leaders who wanted to swap months. Sent the updated schedule to the mailing list. Requested the next book for myself from the library.
4:00. Updated my Bloggiesta list. Completed the Pin Your Author Interviews mini-challenge hosted by Lindsay from Nighttime Reading Center. Here’s my new Author Interview Pinterest board.
4:30. Commented on 10 more Bloggiesta sign-up posts.
4:50. Fixed supper so that it would be ready in time for the Bloggiesta Twitter chat.
6:00. Ate supper while watching the Twitter chat fly by and participating a little.
7:00. Cleared out all the tweet notifications in email and handled the few true emails immersed among them.
7:20-8:00. Did strength-training and stretching while watching Once Upon a Time via Netflix on my computer.
8:00. Snack and reading break.
8:30. Wrote a plan for Wednesday, for tasks and food.
9:00. Commented on the remaining Bloggiesta sign-up posts.
10:00. Read a bit and went to bed.
That was my day! How was yours?
