A Day in the Life of…Elise Edmonds!

    It’s Monday again! That means it’s time for another guest! Yay! Today’s guest is *drumroll* Elise Edmonds!

Hi everyone, and thanks, Allie, for inviting me over to Hypergraphia! I’m Elise, and I’m normally found over on my blog, Magic Writer.

I’ve been writing seriously for about two years now, although it’s always been part of my life, on and off. I decided I needed some outside help, because I didn’t like the way my writing came out and didn’t know how to improve it. I came across the online community Scribophile and haven’t looked back since! Now, I try and write every day. However, I have to fit it around my day job.

In real life, I’m an accountant. I work for a small private practice and deal with local businesses. Most of the time I’m office based with a constant routine. Every now and again I go out to clients or on a course, but I deal with that as and when it pops up.

On a normal weekday I drag myself out of bed by 7am. My least favourite five minutes of the day is that moment when I get out of bed. I don’t think I’m naturally a morning person, although office life has forced me into it.

I’m out of the house by 7.45am and I catch the train to work. By 8.30am, I’m sitting at my desk. I love the convenience of catching the train, and I tend to use that time to catch up on my email and social media and see what happened on Scribophile overnight, on my smartphone. I’m in the UK, so my US friends often stay up chatting after I’ve gone to bed!

I eat breakfast at my desk, and I start work around 9am, unless I’ve got an urgent job on. I use that time to do a little writing or start a critique on Scribophile.

I work 9am-5pm with a one hour break for lunch. Most days I’m able to take lunch, so I use it to get some fresh air, pop to the shops, and then do a bit of writing. If I get a bit of downtime during the day, which happens every now and again, I can do some writing. I write on my phone during the working day, and I’ve become quite proficient at typing on it.

I leave work after 5pm and get the train home. I arrive home at 6pm. Often, on the way home, I read books on the Kindle on my phone. I’m trying to read more in the genre I’m writing—YA fantasy.

My evenings depend on what other activities I have going on. Mondays and Wednesdays is Zumba class, and Thursday there is a church study class which I sometimes go to. I have to do the usual chores, home admin, and other stuff in my evenings as well. My husband works 10am-6pm in a bicycle shop, so I’m the one who gets home first and deals with dinner. If there’s any time left, then I do some writing. If I don’t feel like it, I watch TV!

I also have two beautiful cats, Anushka and Rafferty, who harass me for dinner the minute I walk through the door at 6pm and then promptly fall asleep for the rest of the evening.

When I’m at home, I write in a chair, with my feet up, on a laptop. This is my spot:

You’re lucky, I just tidied up for visitors … it doesn’t normally look that neat!

Saturdays is often a good day for me to get some writing done. I go to Zumba first thing, then do some chores till lunch. The afternoons are for writing and chilling. Sundays I spend the morning at church, then get a late lunch, and that normally wears me out so sometimes I don’t get much else done. I need time to recharge after I’ve been around a crowd of people #introvertlife.

I don’t really have many quirks as a writer. I’m someone who squishes writing in between everything else I do, wherever and whenever. I can write anywhere as long as I have my smartphone. I can write for ten minutes, or an hour, whatever time I have available. There is no particular set up I need because I have to make the most of my opportunities. In fact, sometimes I get more done on busy days than I do on relaxed days!

The reason I can do this is because I have spent a good few years studying for professional exams whilst working full time, and I did these in much the same way. Carry some study notes around with me and whenever I get a spare ten minutes, read a chunk or do the next exercise.

If I can, I have music on in the background when I write. I have a Spotify subscription and that’s always going quietly at work—I have an office to myself so it doesn’t cause any problems. At home I tend to stick on one of the music channels on the TV.

I do procrastinate—the above spiel makes me sound quite organised, but I get days where I don’t feel like doing stuff so I don’t bother. I try and use them to do some social media interaction or read some blog posts.

If all goes well, I hope to get my first novel out this year—a YA fantasy about a girl who is learning magic. Her father wants her to work in the family flying carpet shop, but she has other ideas…

If you want to say hi, you can find me at Magic Writer, and on Twitter @WriterEdmonds.