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A Day in the Life of.....
Erin was born in Houston, TX. but spent the majority of her life in the Bay Area. She married her high school sweetheart and began her writing career while being a stay-at-home mom to her daughter.
Her first book, Looking for Trouble, was on the Amazon top 100 for four months, and on the indiereads.com top ten for four weeks.
The second book in the Trouble series, Here Comes Trouble, was also a top seller on Amazon. Erin currently lives in North Texas with her husband and two children.Find her online at www.erinkern.com
A Day in the Life of.. Erin Kern
There are a lot of writers out there who have very strict schedules they stick to. They get up at five a.m. and pour out twenty-five pages before they get their day started.
I wish I was one of those writers. There are so many variables in my day that sometimes I do good just to open my computer. Here’s an example of a typical day for me:
The alarm goes off at six-fifteen. NOTE: This does not mean I get up at six-fifteen. I usually lay there for about twenty minutes listening to whatever Christian rock song is playing. Then I roll out of bed with just enough time to drag my nine year old up and feed her. This is usually followed by copious amounts of grumbling and cursing the very existence of school.
At around seven-thirty, after many failed attempts at getting out the door by seven-twenty, I drop my daughter off at school. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I take my four year old to preschool at nine a.m.. These are the days I get my most productive writing done. Because I can pound out more than two paragraphs before I hear, “Mommy, I need…(insert snack, juice, game, cartoons HERE)”
After kids are in school, my house is quiet, except for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I try to get in front of my computer by ten or ten-thirty. And I have to do this after I scramble to get any household chores done, i.e., laundry, cleaning, ironing, dog walking, etc. Normally I can write until around twelve or twelve-thirty, because then I have to stop and run errands before kids get out of school. If no errands are necessary, which is rare, I can write until after two p.m.
I have until two-fifteenish to run around the DFW metroplex for grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, pharmacy runs, and buying dog food. Then I cart my car full of whatever I’ve picked up that day to grab kids from school.
At around three p.m. kids are home, and with it the circus and cacophony of noises/homework/after school activities/complaining about homework, etc. From three o’clock until bedtime, or until mommy’s head explodes, whichever comes first, this is what my focus is. Note there is no mention of my computer or writing of any kind.
I normally start dinner around six and stay in my kitchen for the next hour and a half (I’m a make-from-scratch kind of cook. I guess because I feel I don’t have enough challenges to my day as it is).
It’s eight o’clock by the time we finish eating, and have cleaned the kitchen (which usually takes me about thirty minutes. Not only do I make from scratch, but I use just about every dish/pan/utensil I own. And this goes back to needing another challenge in my day).
Then it’s bath time.
Insert dramatic pause HERE.
I could write a whole other article on the tribulations of getting my kids in and out of the bath in less than two hours’ time. But I won’t, for the sake of saving space.
I bathe my four year old first. Because he’s still at that age where baths are awesome and fun and full of make believe time. My nine year old doesn’t share this enthusiasm. We’ll just leave it at that.
I try, and try is the key word here, to have my kids in bed by nine o’clock. This hinges on when bath time is over, which hinges on when dinner is over, which hinges on how much of a mess I made during said dinner. On some nights the lights aren’t out until nine-thirty, depending on story time. But you can pretty much guarantee the house is quiet by nine-forty five.
I will sometimes walk my dogs after the kids are in bed, depending on if I didn’t have time to walk them that morning.
By ten p.m. I’m either picking up toys, or I’ve plopped myself down on the couch to watch something on my DVR. However, on most nights I just go to bed, because my eyes are crossing from exhaustion, and if I’m lucky, I’ll snag six good hours of deep sleep.
Then I get up and do it all again the next day.
So you can see why it would take me a week to write what most authors can get done in one day. But, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Elisa Cardoso longs for passion in her life. Though she'd much rather spend her days photographing the stunning Wyoming landscape, food photography is a lucrative, if uninspiring, way to pay her bills. But when her next assignment brings her face to face with sexy restaurant owner Brody McDermott, Elisa can't deny the delicious effect he has on her.
From the minute Brody sees Elisa, he's dying to unleash her inner bad girl. He knows there's more to the sophisticated photographer than meets the eye. Now getting the sexy shutterbug into his bed is on his menu, but when she starts making her way into his heart-big problem. Love has been tricky for Brody, and he's not too eager to try his luck again. But when a golden opportunity means Elisa may be leaving Trouble for good, can Brody find the courage to grab on to love . . . before it slips away?
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