A View of An Author's Real Life

While signing at Palmyra a few weeks ago, I had the extreme good fortune and delight to be in the company of two other of Covenant's authors--Sariah Wilson, author of Secrets of Zarahemla and the recently released, Servant to a King; and Matthew Brown, author of eleven aclaimed doctrinal works including Symbols in Stone. Though we each write in a different genre, and despite the fact that I'm old enough to be each of my colleagues' mother, we found we each had more similarities than differences.

We each work with the same editor, we each spend more time researching than writing, we all feel really nervous about signings and meeting readers, (though we absolutely thrill every time someone approaches us to ask about our books or to offer a kind word), and we each admit that writing is more a passion than a vocation since vocations should actually make you some money as opposed to being the big black hole that really eats up all your money!

We also discovered that we were all a little surprised to discover how normal one another's lives are. We each knew that being published hadn't changed our own individual lives, but we somehow thought we had been so busy scraping the toothpaste from the bathroom faucet that we were the only one who had missed the Greyhound bus to Gravytown. Not so.

So I'm sitting here with the washer and dryer working furiously with an additional five loads backed up due to complete household neglect during deadline week. The sidewalk concrete scraped the pink polish off my toes while I was pulling weeds yesterday, which, by the way, has left my fingers green and my cuticles black. I have a box of reduced-fat Cheezit's by the computer and my desk looks like a archaelogical dig. I think my carpet can again become white, but I'm not absolutely certain of that fact, and I've discovered that on days like this, the best way to make the bed is to simply close the door.

The Achievement Day girls are due here any time to swim for their camp activity, and the elders who live with us are downstairs planning.

Please tell me this sounds like a normal day, or have I really regressed beyond all possible hope? Sorry, can't wait for the answer. My dryer is dinging!