"What do those girls do over there all day?"

I suppose you, like I, assume that fellow authoresses must spend all day tucked away in a lovely little writing corner. You believe I am an authoress who has the leisure to scribble all day long. There would be a canary or two in a little gilt cage hanging near the half-open window of my eyrie. I would have a geranium potted in a delft pitcher--its homey scarlet and white banners fluttering in the fresh spring breeze. I would write with a pen and ink. My ink-pot would be blue glass, catching sparkles of sunlight and holding them in its deep cobalt depths.
I have reams of paper in your imagination--computers never figure there. All these blog posts are written to you, my friends, on cream colored stationary scented of lavender. I would have bits and pieces of clever drawings that inspire. I would have quotes scrawled on tattered bits of antique paper. My book friends would hold honored court with my "Genius Burns" sign, and my characters would find a quiet, brilliant corner of brain to mellow in while I worked on their brethren.
Plot bunnies would never disturb me--I have a leather-bound notebook where they reside. My chair would be of the Windsor style and painted Wedgewood blue. Outdoors it would always be invariably sunshine--the only variety being when a merry rain came to patter amongst the red roses growing below the window.

Yes...that would be ideal, would it not? But yours truly doesn't live such a life. I would even beg leave to say such a life would not be conducive to brilliancy. One cannot sit down to write if one hasn't stood up to live, you know. So what does an average day look like for Rachel Heffington, authoress? I shall endeavor to tell you.

It began with a younger sister getting ill during the night. Oy vay. I am not a Clara Barton. I woke up around 8:00 this morning---enjoying a brief respite from my routine of waking at 6:30 to write. It soon became apparent that I would get no writing done this morning. After breakfast I trotted around with bleach and a rag cleaning everything that would bear a wet face decently. That's the way to eradicate sickness, believe me! I am a great hand at doing it. :P
Then it was time for the authoress to go grubbing up in the room over the garage, gathering potato sets into a bushel basket on her hands and knees. She let her mind wander over the unfairness of the publishing world, Jan Karon, and other topics. She asked herself why she always wrote about British people and why she always wrote about boys--both things that are somewhat foreign to her nature.
She then went out to the garden where she poked holes and poked peas into the holes and poked more holes and poked more peas and stamped down a path to vary the routine before beginning again. She is very efficient in the garden.
Then, musing over a very intriguing dream she had had, yours truly wondered how to phrase it to catch the exact color and gleam of the thing...it seemed somehow rather Important. But, seeing that now was her only time for writing a blog post, (while eating lunch and feeding a baby beans and applesauce. :) this authoress, Rachel, decided she had better begin.
That is the way I usually live. :) Much of my writing is completed in my imagination--at least major workings out. And you know what? I'm more useful without the geraniums and inkpots and Windsor chairs. I can garden and cook and clean and diaper, all the while being the picture of Efficiency. It's a good life, albeit a prosaic one. :)