Welcome to Stitch Read Cook's weekly feature!!
A Day in the Life of.....
Romance and non-fiction author Michelle McLean is a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl who is addicted to chocolate and Goldfish crackers and spent most of her formative years with her nose in a book. She has a B.S. in History, a M.A. in English, and loves her romance with a hearty side of suspenseful mystery.
When Michelle's not editing, reading or chasing her kids around, she can usually be found in a quiet corner working on her next book. She resides in PA with her husband and two children, an insanely hyper dog, and three very spoiled cats.
You can find her on her blog (http://michellemclean.blogspot.com), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/authormichellemclean), and on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/michellemclean).
Michelle is the author of Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers (Career Press, Jan 2011), To Trust a Thief (Entangled Scandalous, Jan 2013), The Blood Blade Sisters series (Entangled Scandalous, 2013/2014), Wish Upon a Star (Entangled Ever After, Sept 2013), Romancing the Rumrunner (Entangled Scandalous, June 2014), and the upcoming So You Have to Write a Poem: A Guide for the Non-Poetic (Sept 2014).
Thanks for having me here today! :)
I was talking with another author buddy once and we were joking about all the reality shows out there and how someone should make one that followed an author around all day. And then we decided that might not be a good idea after all since you’d pretty much be seeing this all day…
Well, that’s always the hope anyway…stuff always seem to pop up to prevent uber productivity though :D Summer days are pretty atypical for me, so here is a typical day in my Sept - May life, with a little help from the fabulous Mr. Nathan Fillion (and a Jim Carrey or Brendan Fraser or two) ;)
6:00 – I wake up. I don’t need to be up yet, but my body seems to think it does. I ponder the pros and cons of a bathroom trip while I try and trick myself into going to back to sleep. This rarely works. So…I greet the day…
6:15 – 7:15ish – While I wait until I need to start waking up the rest of the crew, I shower and get dressed, scroll through my email, Facebook, my other email, my blogs, Twitter, stalk a few book stats, check email again, avoid Pinterest at all costs because I have no time yet to get sucked in, check email again, remember to go let the dog back in, check my calendar and see what's on schedule for the day, realize it’s now 10 minutes past the time I should have woken up my little ones and rush upstairs.
7:20 – Wake up anyone who needs to be up and about. My reaction to their complaints about having to be up so early…
7:30 – 7:50
- Everyone is hopefully dressed, fed, and beginning the "but I can't find...!" panic that occurs 5 minutes before the bus pulls up.8:03 - Bus is late...kids beg me to drive them to school. I refuse, not wanting to traumatize the poor children who aren't used to seeing me in all my morning glory.
8:07 - The bus has finally arrived and my little cherubs are off to school. (The hubs is on call, so he's either on a job, sleeping after returning from a job, or is off to do whatever it is he needs to get done). And now...it's time to write!!
8:20
– I realize I haven’t eaten breakfast yet and head off to find a little something…8:45 – Now it’s time to write! I log into yahoo chat hoping a few of my writer buddies are awake and up for a few sprint sessions. Ooo I found one!
9:00 – 11:30ish – We spend 20 or 30 minutes a sprint and try and best each other’s word counts, and then chat for 15 minutes, and then go a few more rounds. We're being all productive and stuff ;)
1:00 - 2:30ish - theoretically, this is when I get the house all pretty and shiny
Some days I am better at actually accomplishing this than others :D If I'm on deadline, the house is ignored while I madly try and squeeze in a few more hours of work before the after school rush hits. This is also about the time I realize I've been sitting at my desk for the better part of the day and try to squeeze in a little exercise of some sort...
If I DO manage to clean something, I totally count that as excercise
2:45 - head to the school to pick up the kids (they can't ride the bus because it won't drop them off until 4 which would just be
yeah, so nice lol But too late for the after school activities. So! Off I go :)
3:15 – time to get my daughter ready for gymnastics. Must pack her dinner, get her dressed (of course the one leo she really wants to wear isn’t clean and NOTHING else will do), fend off son who thinks his sister’s meal looks better than whatever I’m going to make for dinner and then realize that I forgot to take something out for dinner and start going through the list of fast food restaurants close to the house that will offer something semi-healthy enough I won’t feel too guilty.
3:50 – leave to take daughter to the car pool (unless it’s my night to drive. If it is, then I spend the rest of the night at the gym watching stuff like this…)
4:15 – 5:00 – back from car pool drop off – I have 45 minutes to squeeze in some work/housework/ and/or homework help until my son starts demanding to be fed…again…
5:20 – son is starving. Sometimes I am actually on the ball and I’ve got something scrumptious all ready to go. More often it’s a last minute “ummm well, we can do spaghetti again” or my fabulous husband (who is an AMAZING cook) comes to the rescue and feeds everyone. Or we hit Dominos for the third time this week :D
5:30 – 8:00 – eat, hang with the family, find out who needs to wear what for the next day and probably start a load of laundry, get dinner cleaned up, take son to and from soccer/boy scouts/archery (depending on the day), come home and wrestle the boy into the shower, maybe watch a Castle rerun with the hubs (because I LOVE that show. Ahhh Mr. Fillion...you're so fun ;) )...
...while my son pretends he can’t hear me telling him to go bathe, and start watching the clock for bedtime because I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open.
8:30 – bribe son to go to bed (and confiscate all electronics because if I don't he'll be up ALL night).
9:00 – 9:45ish – pick up daughter from car pool, get her home and fed, brush the chalk off her and put her to bed.
10:00 – everyone is in bed! It’s so lovely and quiet I decide to stay up for just a few minutes and read.
Midnight – I realize it’s now the next day and I really should go to bed…and I will…just one more chapter….
(If I’m on a deadline, all this goes out the window and I spend every spare second trying to squeeze some wordage in. But for the most part, this is a pretty typical day) :)
(Nathan Fillion gifs found on Tumblr #NathanFillion and #NathanFilliongif - Jim Carrey typing gif, Brendan Fraser sun gif, Jim Carrey Oh Come On, Baby reading gif)
Prohibition Era Chicago
She's worked too hard to be run out of town...
Jessica Harlan spends her nights as The Phoenix, the owner of the most popular speakeasy in town. Her days are spent running her respectable butcher shop and dodging prohibition agents and rival club owners who all want to put her out of business.
He's worked too hard to let his heart get in the way...
When the opportunity arises to go undercover for the Feds to catch The Phoenix, Gumshoe Anthony Solomon jumps on it. But he never suspected the notorious rumrunner would be a dame - or that he'd be so drawn to the feisty little minx.
They play a dangerous game of cat and mouse, knowing they can't trust the other, but unable to walk away. While their hearts dodge the crossfire, the mobsters raise the stakes, and even The Phoenix may not rise again.
Buy Links and First chapter can be found on the Entangled Publishing Page
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