Curious about what it's like to be a debut author? LaurenThoman takes us through a day in the life ahead of the publication of her first book---and reveals how many times she reads her own reviews.
I don’t remember the first time it occurred to me that authors are people. As a kid growing up with shelves lined with Ann M. Martin and Beverly Cleary, the names on the spines felt like extensions of the title. Authors existed only as tiny headshots on the backs of paperback covers. To my mind, they didn’t even have bodies, much less entire lives outside of the books they created.
And yet somehow, entirely without my consent, I remain frustratingly ordinary. I know; I’m as upset about it as you are. 6:45: Second alarm. I begrudgingly open my eyes. The bigger dog notices I have awakened and promptly vaults onto my chest, demanding that we stay in bed to cuddle, even though she previously had zero interest in cuddling. I take this as a sign that I should stay in bed longer.
8:15: Kids are both at school, time to start my workday! I check in on my local writer friends group Slack–we’re meeting up to work together at 10, but I’ve got some time until then–and see that one friend has already written a whole new chapter this morning, and another has revised two chapters. I respond with fire, confetti, and arm muscle emojis, while thinking about how I have not yet brushed my teeth.
I check the group Slack. My friend who is in edits for her debut has printed out a detailed synopsis, cut it up into individual scenes, color coded them, and taped them all to the wall of her kitchen so she can visualize the entire arc of her book. She’s sent a picture. I respond with a “wow” emoji, because I am legitimately in awe. I stare at my own wall.
11:20: I finished a scene, and am on to the next! And I’m not the only one who made progress; everyone is in a better place than they started. We marvel at how simply working alongside other people can be such a boost to creativity. “One more?” a friend suggests, “And then tacos?” Tacos are our reward for being productive. Or our consolation prize for not being productive, depending on the day.
And she means it, even though she rejected all of our ideas, because the point of brainstorming isn’t really to come up with an ideathe author, but to stimulate their imagination so that they come up with a better idea on their own. It’s to open up those doors of possibility in their brain that they wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. Sometimes a brainstorming session ends with an author taking someone else’s brilliant idea, but most times, it’s simply about unlocking their own brilliance.
2:30: How did I just lose 45 minutes??? I return to my spreadsheet and begin plugging in numbers. That reminds me that I need to put today’s tacos intoyear’s spreadsheet, because it was a working lunch. I pull up the 2023 tax spreadsheet, and in so doing, also spot my “To-Do for ISTW” spreadsheet. I should give that a look, make sure I’m on schedule.
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