Welcome to Stitch Read Cook's weekly feature!!
A Day in the Life of.....
Heather Hildenbrand was born and raised in a small town in northern Virginia where she was homeschooled through high school. She now lives in coastal VA, a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with her two adorable children. She works from home, part time, as a property manager and when she's not furiously pounding at the keyboard, or staring off into space whilst plotting a new story, she's lying on the beach, soaking in those delicious, pre-cancerous rays.
Heather loves Mexican food, hates socks with sandals, and if her house was on fire, the one thing she'd grab is her DVR player.
Heather is a co-founder of Accendo Press, a publishing group she operates with fellow authors: Angeline Kace and Jennifer Sommersby. Accendo (a-CH-endo), A Latin word, means “to kindle, illuminate, inflame, or set fire.” This is something Accendo strives to do inside a reader’s imagination with every title released. For a complete list of titles and author bios, visit www.accendopress.com.
Website: www.heatherhildenbrand.blogspot.com
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A day in the life of…. ME
Well, I don’t exactly have a day in anyone else’s life to compare it to, but it seems pretty great. I get to make my own hours, pick what I work on and when, and I am here for my kids when they get off the bus every day. Yeah, my life pretty much rocks.
So it’s like this:
I wake up REAAALLLY reluctantly—this is the hardest part of my day. Alarms are the devil. An ugly beast. With horns. And no coffee.
I get my kids up and sprint to the coffeepot.
After I do the “let’s make it to the bus, dear God, so I don’t have to drive you. I really don’t want to have to put a bra on yet” shuffle, I am alone. It is quiet. Time to work.
I usually do marketing first, while I drink my coffee—Facebook, emails, Facebook, check sales, Facebook, write a blog post, Facebook. Yeah. No pattern here.
Around 9:30 or so I kick my own butt into gear and FORCE CLOSE Facebook and get to work. This is writing time and it’s all about word count. I give myself a minimum word count goal every day. No less than 2000. Sometimes 3-5000 if I’m in need of finishing something faster and schedule allows.
LUNCH! Woohoo! (Food excites me.)
After lunch, it’s more work. Or, at least that’s what my calendar says, but somehow I usually end up off track. Either errands or a motorcycle ride ß my favorite way to play hooky from “the boss.” Hehe. And then my kids are home and the next couple of hours are theirs. Either for homework or hanging out or chores. And a brain break is good for the writer in me.
After dinner and the minions are corralled, we indulge in “Family time” which consists of sitting in front of my big TV screen and watching Once Upon A Time. (Yes, my 7 and 10 year old are hooked! My 7 year-old son can imitate Rumple’s evil laugh-giggle perfectly!)
After bedtime for the minions, it’s quiet again, and I usually beta read or some other “fun” thing. Right now, I’m beta reading a YA horror/thriller and I am SUCH a scaredy-cat so I have to sleep with the lights on or adjust my schedule to read during the day. It’s SOooooo good though, so I’m not stopping. Just not letting my feet dangle over the edge of the bed while I sleep. #thatshouldprotectmeright?
Wow, now that I wrote it all out, this sounds kinda quiet and uneventful. Adriane Boyd, an author friend of mine, is always making me realize what a hermit I am. My goal for 2014 is to get out more. To that end, I am scheduled for my first signing in my home city of Virginia Beach, VA in February. Woohoo! If you live close enough to come, I better see you there. If I can get out into the world, so can you!
To balance all this quiet, you should know that the weekends are my playtime. I don’t work Sat or Sun if I can help it. And I’m never home. I’m either off riding motorcycles or fixing them or tearing up the dirt in a backyard on a four-wheeler or eating burritos with French fries in them or travelling. Or, on the best weekends, all of the above.
When 22-year-old Summer Stafford’s parents split halfway through her senior year at college, Summer’s world is rocked. Everything she thought she knew—heck, everything she thought she wanted for her own life—feels like a lie. The truth is love is a risk. And the true kind, the kind that lasts, might even be a fairy tale.
Reeling from the divorce, Summer derails her own future by breaking up with her parent-approved boyfriend and giving up her lifelong plans for a big-city career. She moves back home, business degree in hand. Dad needs her to fill the gaps her mother left behind; Summer needs to find who she is outside of the cookie-cutter life that failed so miserably for her parents.
Ford O’Neal’s future involves one person: himself. He doesn’t have a permanent address and he definitely doesn’t commit. To a place or a person. Raised by hippies, he plans just far enough ahead to secure his next stop, this one landing him at a work-study program at Heritage Plantation where he can grow his own herbal and medicinal creations.
Summer is gorgeous and smart and fun to be with, the perfect way to pass five months. It won’t be love—Ford’s got too many things to accomplish, too many places to go, before he settles down. Yet Summer pulls him in, challenging him to rethink his own philosophy.
When Ford’s five months are up, each of them must decide if love is really worth the risk.
*hehe* Minions! I think when I have kids I'll call them that too. So cute.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have some great weekends to balance your work week. And yay for your first book signing in the new year!