A Day in the Life of One Writer

Originally posted on Bookhi

I write about five young adult novels each year. A lot of people have asked how I’ve managed to write and publish so many books (14 books in less than 3 years) in such a short time, while juggling all the other challenges that life has to offer. The quick answer: a strict routine. Each writer is different, and therefore, each writer has a different routine that works for them (or no routine at all!) Here’s an example of a typical day in the life of me, David Estes!

Because I’m a fulltime writer, my day revolves around books. Wake up, not too early, not too late. Perhaps eight in the morning. Have breakfast with my lovely Australian wife, Adele (like the singer). Try to withstand the temptation to check my overnight book sales, reviews, and reader messages. When breakfast is finished, I check my e-mail and social networking sites. I spend no more than a half hour usually, because it’s time to start writing!

Because of my OCD, I operate under a word count goal each day. Depending on my schedule for the rest of the day, my goal is usually between 3,000 and 5,000 words. At about 1,250 words per hour (my average), I’m usually finished in three to five hours, right up until lunch time. (Side note: I usually drink a lot of coffee during my writing time!) This time is where the real magic happens. Having a solid three to five hours of writing time is crucial to let my creativity run free, focusing my brain power on developing my characters and plotlines, and building my dystopian worlds.

Lunch time! Whew! A break, sort of. Although I try to focus all my attention on lunch time conversation with Adele, after a long writing session my mind is buzzing with creativity and ideas don’t stop coming just because I close my laptop lid. So I jot them down between mouthfuls so I can come back to them the next day.

For those of you who don’t know, Adele and I are in the middle of a two-year trip around the world while I write, so on any given day we could be in Central America, Africa, Europe, or Asia. Regardless of where we are, we try to spend the sunny afternoon (it’s almost always sunny wherever we are as we’re chasing summer around the globe) outside, sightseeing or going to the beach. If we’re at the beach, I fit in as much reading time as possible, as I love reading YA books even more than writing them. For me, reading books by authors I love helps to inspire me to be a better writer and to learn from their prose and sentence structure. I read about two books a week on average.

After spending time with Adele, we have dinner together. Again, we both avoid our iPhones so we can just enjoy the food and conversation. Only after the dishes are done and dry do I get back to work. The early evening is spent online, doing EVERYTHING ELSE that comes with being a published author. If only being an author was just about writing books, it would be easy! There’s so much more to it, from answering reader mail (which I love doing), to connecting with readers (who I also consider my friends) in my Goodreads fan group (David Estes Fans and YA Book Lovers Unite!), to writing guest posts, doing interviews, managing giveaways, working with my agent, formatting my novels that are nearly ready for publication….the list goes on and on and on. The interesting thing: I spend equal time doing EVERYTHING ELSE as I do writing. So if I put in four hours of writing, I’ll put in four hours of all the other stuff. It makes for a full day of work. Luckily, I LOVE what I do!

But the day’s not over yet! Not with Adele and me being such TV addicts. We almost always watch at least an episode or two (or three or four!) of whichever TV show we’re currently obsessed with. We call it Entertainment. Here are a few we’re all up to date on: Prison Break, 24, Game of Thrones, Homeland, The Mentalist, American Idol, Revenge, and many more. And we’re all caught up on The Good Wife. I’m currently up to date on The Walking Dead, which I have to watch alone as it’s a little too gory for Adele!

When Entertainment is over, Adele gets to bed and I usually sneak in another few chapters of whatever book I’m reading. I just finished the sequel to Susan Ee’s Angelfall, called World After. When I can no longer keep my eyes open, I check my e-mail once more for anything important, and then drift off to sleep and dream about waking up to do the whole routine all over again! Nineteen to twenty-one days later, a new book is born! A month of two after that, a new book is released. And so the cycle continues!

That’s it! That’s a day in the life of David Estes. It’s a nice, relaxing, peaceful life, but a busy one too. But I love everything about it and I wouldn’t give it up for anything! Thanks for listening, and the next time you read one of my books, picture me typing the words all morning, drinking coffee and creating my stories J