Per a request and subsequent suggestion of the other two authors on this blog, I am conducting an experiment. Namely, if I track my writing days…aka, write down everything I do…will it make me more productive because I am, essentially, making sure I look good? The answer is almost certainly going to be yes and therefore, in an attempt to make sure I am as productive as possible in the next couple of weeks, I am going to do seven days in my life as a writer. Yup. Seven. Business days, of course. So below, find Day One.

8:45 AM: I finally dragged myself out of bed after once again staying up too late the night before, making my way to a shower. It constantly amazes me how much just some warm water improves ones’ outlook on life.

9:17 AM: Having thrown on jeans and a green shirt that was technically purchased for my winter wardrobe, telling myself for the third week in a row that it is time to bring out and sort through my summer clothing, I go downstairs, delighted to hear Mr. Darcy (our most frequent cardinal visitor) chippering away outside at the bird feeder, despite the constant drizzle of rain. My mind will not stop reminding me that we are out of cabbage soup and need it for lunch, so I make myself some coffee and get to work chopping vegetables even as I berate myself for not doing it the night before, which would have allowed me to sit down and get right to work on this, my first of seven days of journaling my day.

10:20 AM: Two big pots of cabbage soup are simmering on the stove, which ought to get us through the next two weeks (part of our weight-loss strategy). I ignore the mess in the kitchen, do my first set of pushups for the day, and then settle in at my computer in the breakfast nook so I can keep an eye on the soup, while sipping the smoothie Daniel made us for breakfast.

Ignoring my email, I dive straight into my social media posts for June’s trip. I am currently (and have been for weeks) writing rough drafts of each day’s blog post for June so they will be easy to fill in with details while we are traveling, thereby hopefully taking less time of our trip. I am about halfway through, and think maybe I can finish them today.

11:40 AM: I took a stretch break to check on the soup, which is finished and admirably spicy, if I do say so myself. So, I turn off the burners, push the pots to the back of the stove to cool, and do a set of tricep extensions before getting distracted on Facebook for just a few minutes…in my defense, I was tagged in the writing group I am in, and that usually means the author who runs it needs me to answer a question about schedules.

11:50 AM: Back to blog posts! Now that I am at the California portion of the trip, I have high hopes the rest will go quickly since I no longer have to research the historical aspects of each wagon train stop to write the posts.

1:10 PM: It’s done!! I can hardly believe it. I have reached a milestone. After weeks and hours upon hours of work, I have the rough draft of 26 blog posts finished for our June trip. Now I am going to go see if Daniel is at a good stopping point for lunch.

One to three minutes later: He is finishing up a project, so I run upstairs to change into workout clothes and clean up for a few minutes while I wait for him. We have discovered that if we work out before lunch, we actually do the work outs pretty consistently, so that will have to come before we eat.

2:00 PM: We finished our workout -today’s being our least favorite as a 30-minute strenuous strength workout with cardio woven between the strength sets, and includes another set of pushups, and after catching my breath, I went ahead and reheated a couple bowls of the newly made soup for lunch. Or rather, I start to heat them up and then my sister called, so I picked that up and Daniel finished reheating them.

2:50 PM: I spent the last 45 minutes eating while working with my sister to look at and offer feedback on the children’s book she is self-publishing, and then paid a bill that has been staring at me all day. And now, I am headed up to my writing room to do my Bible reading for the day, trying to remind myself that the most important part of my life as a writer is to consistently spend time with the One who instructed me to write in the first place.

3:30 PM: I finished doing my daily Bible reading, did my creative journal entry, and was halfway through my devotions for the day when Daniel appeared to ask if I wanted coffee and to do our [almost] daily walk around the yard to admire our flowers and plants routine. Which, of course, I did. I also took advantage of the break to empty the dishwasher and do another set of tricep extensions.

4:00 PM: Back to my devotions!

4:40 PM: Completed devotions, prayer, and meditation and am now going to do my writing exercise before I forget.

4:45 PM: I plan to spend the remainder of my writing day working on editing my book.

5:15 PM: After making very minimal progress on editing that scene, and racking my brain for social events for the wealthy in the 1850s other than balls (apparently my mind really gets stuck on balls), I did a quick French lesson on Duolingo, and put rice on for dinner.

And that was my day of writing! And yes, in case you were wondering, having to write down precisely what I was doing at each moment DID keep me actually working. I am not sure if my evening activities were supposed to be a part of this daily journal, but I am assuming not since they aren’t really related to my life as a writer. Well. Most of the time. In summary, in case you were counting on finishing the day out, the rest of my evening consisted of:

• Making and eating dinner
• Doing our canoe exercise workout and the rest of my pushups and tricep extensions
• Doing some yard work
• Deep cleaning the bathrooms and hallway
• Talking to my mother
• and collapsing on the couch at 10:00 PM to play on my phone and type this up

I apologize for the insanely boring nature of this, but it really did help keep me on track. Maybe I will reconsider doing this on instagram…pictures have to be more exciting than this, right?