A Day in the Life of.....
Lesley is a writer and actor living in Toronto, Canada. Captivated at a young age by stories of mythology and folk lore, past civilizations, and legendary heroes, she developed into a full-fledged Celtic Mythology Geek, steeped in stories of the Otherworld, Faeries and King Arthur. Lesley went on to earn a Master’s Degree in English from the University of Toronto specializing in Shakespeare and Arthurian literature.
For almost three years, Lesley hosted weekly late-night movie marathons on the nationally broadcast television show, SPACEBAR, as the Waitron-9000, a sparkly holographic waitress with an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure B-movie trivia. She is also a founding member and principal performer with Tempest Theatre Group.
A Day In The Life…
As the Beatles once sang,
“Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…”
Hurdled cats, had a shower, got dressed, hurdled cats (I think that verse is in the extended-mix), and was out the front door and in a cab on my way to Yorkdale Mall to catch a shuttle with a bunch of other fabulous authors on our way to the Telling Tales Festival in Rockton, Ontario—all before I had a chance to get coffee…
Okay. So maybe last Sunday wasn’t the most typical Day in the Life of Lesley Livingston, but I thought I’d tell you about it anyway, because I got to do one of the things that I love most about this job—meet my readers! It’s always so gratifying and encouraging when I get the opportunity to engage one-on-one with people who either have or maybe one day might read the words I write. I get very excited at the prospect. Which… is probably why the morning started off with me leaving my wallet—which held all of my credit and debit cards—in the cab that took me to Yorkdale.
Yah. I did that.
I blame the giddy anticipation. Or perhaps (definitely) the lack of caffeine. But when we stopped for a Timmies (that’d be a coffee from a Tim Horton’s—a Canadian tradition—for you non-Canucks), I realized I was… lacking something. Fortunately Vikki, my publicist extraordinaire (and also a kickin’ author!), with her calm, soothing presence and panic-defying logic sorted me out by buying me a coffee, lending me her cell phone (I had one of my own, just not the wherewithal to use it in that moment), dialling the cab company for me and having me explain the situation.
Funny. Just the night before, my boyfriend had jokingly referred to me as “scatterbrained”. I loudly and at great length protested! And then went ahead and proved him right! Yay me.
At any rate, having done what I could to rectify the wandering wallet situation, I turned my mind to the event at hand. Telling Tales is a fantastic family-oriented literary festival with reading stages scattered all over this adorable heritage village out in the country. There were girls in bonnets and guys making kettle corn (oh, the wafty goodness of that kettle corn breeze) and a wandering ‘Alice in Wonderland’ who was so delightfully in-character all day that I just grinned every time I saw her.
I read to a nice big crowd—two scenes from my newly-released STARLING, and a sneak-peek from EVERY NEVER AFTER (the second book in my NEVER series that will release next March)—and did a question and answer, and then I signed books for about an hour or so. I got to chat with some of the teens who’d actually started reading my books after the last time I’d been at the festival and who were keen to read the next ones. I might have even made one or two new fans (I hope!). Then I got to share a glass of wine and delicious cheese and these little meatballs on sticks with some of my amazing fellow authors and librarians and booksellers and festival people.
I even got to sit in the shade under a tree in-between readings with my laptop and got a whole bunch of work done on the revisions for the second STARLING book (my MacBook Air goes with me everywhere and I have even been known to pound out paragraphs on the subway when necessary/motivated, but under a tree is infinitely preferable). All of this in some of the most gorgeous weather we’ve had over the last few weeks. Sunny, warm, hint of kettle corn-scented breeze…
Which is why I’m telling you all about THIS day. And not one of the days when my word-count winds up at –1300 or I miss my subway stop and wind up somewhere in North York because I’m consumed with a deadline (it has the word ‘dead’ in it, okay?), or I don’t actually make it past the pyjamas and cat-hurdling stage. I wanted to tell you about the actual (occasional, sure, but actual) oh-the-glamorous-life-of-the-author day. And, to top it all off? The taxi driver had already dropped my wallet off back at my house by the time I got home. What a sweetheart. I couldn’t have written a better ending to the day.
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