Blog Tour: A Day in the Life of Claire Merle

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Glimpse by Claire Merle! Sorry it's a bit late but better late than never, right? Anyway, I have a guest post from Claire herself to share with you, I hope you enjoy it!

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A Day in the Life of an Author and Mum.

Hi! It’s great to be here at Cheezyfeet Books as part of my blog tour for The Glimpse. Thanks for having me, Bella. As an author and a mum my schedule varies greatly, but no matter what I’m doing or where I am, I like to find time to write every day, (and not just emails!) I thought I’d share a ‘typical’ day with you – or at least as typical as it gets. This is what my yesterday looked like (19th June) …

7:30 a.m. The kids wake me. I take them downstairs and sort out breakfast. It’s Wednesday and as we live in France, that means no school. (Yes, the whole of France has NO SCHOOL on Wednesdays.) While the boys eat breakfast I sit in the kitchen swigging back coffee and checking over the hundred words I took about three hours to write yesterday – Yesterday I received the editorial letter and marked up manuscript for my second book, THE FALL. Yesterday, after reading over the manuscript’s first page, I decided to rewrite the opening scene – hence agonising over every word.

8:30 a.m. As there’s no school today I let the kids watch telly for an hour while I take another coffee up to the office, check emails, twitter, fb and continue brainstorming the opening scene of book 2 in The Glimpse Duet. I want something controlled, something that reveals my main character’s circumstance, background and the nutshell of the central story conflict all without appearing to do so. I sweat a bit. Write a few more words. Gah! It’s quarter to ten! Better jump into the shower.

10:25 a.m. I bundle the kids into the car and take my oldest son to his Wednesday English class. It starts at 10:30. We’ll be five minutes late. We’re always five minutes late. My yonger son and I return home and he plays while I answer more emails.

11:30 a.m. I pick up my oldest son and by the time we get home it’s time to start thinking about lunch. It’s a beautiful day, so we eat out in the garden. My husband, who is working nights, wakes up and joins us. Lovely.

2 p.m. I take the boys to the park, my laptop stretching the seams of my large handbag. Yes,  it’s optimistic to think I might get a few more precious words written while my boys are playing football, but I do! (With half an eye on them at all times.)

5 p.m. We pass by the shops to pick up milk and a few basics on the way home. We arrive to find my husband in the garden, sorting out materials and packing up the van he needs for work that night. The boys stay and ‘help’ him while I sneak back to my office and write a bit more.

6 p.m. Feeding time – again. I go down to the freezer, see all the washing hanging up, waiting for me to do something with it and pretend not to. Once I’ve got supper underway, I pop quickly upstairs to post something on facebook. I end up checking twitter and my emails and as I prefer to answer an email as soon as I’ve read it, (and this one’s semi-important) I start typing a response. Does that smell like burning? I run down stairs. Oops. I’m just in time to save supper from getting incinerated.

8 p.m. I put my youngest son in the shower and sit in my office next door quickly jotting down a couple of ideas I’ve had relating to the ‘big picture’ editorial suggestions on THE FALL. Now I’ve started thinking about it again, new ideas keep popping into my head. I hear my oldest son join my youngest in the bathroom. Ooh, another idea for the first scene. I’m pretty lost in the story when I hear my oldest son crashing down the stairs. I pull myself away from my computer and go to get the little one out of the shower too. I find the bathroom flooded. The boys have blocked the plug and the little one is splashing around in a homemade swimming pool.

9.05 p.m. Phew! The boys are in bed. I write for an hour and a half. Undisturbed. Bliss. Then I watch the beginning of an American TV series (no idea which one) dubbed in French. I’m tired and not really up to following, so I drag myself upstairs and read until my eyes start closing and I can’t resist the call of sleep.

Thanks for having me on your blog, Bella! And thanks for reading A Day in the Life…

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Thanks Claire, that was awesome! :D Also, below is the teaser trailer for The Tamsin Diaries - can you help find Ana's missing best friend? More details here!

For the other dates on the tour, click the image to embiggen: 

Thanks for reading! Have you read this/would you like to read it? Leave me a comment! 

Thanks to Faber & Faber for hosting the blog tour and Claire Merle for writing this post for me! Sorry it's late! :)