A Day in the Life of Cassandra Moore

A Day in the Life of Cassandra Moore

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Hello, true believers. Cassandra Moore here. I'd like to tell you a little bit about how I run my life.

On the surface, my life seems to run like a chicken with its head cut off. If you delve deeper, however, you'll find something completely different.

About ten thousand chickens with their heads cut off.

There are patterns to all that fowl play. They tend to depend on what time of year it is, meaning whether or not my kids are in school, but even then there are things that don't change.

I wake up. It's seldom before 9 AM, and is more often about 9:30. Sometimes, I go as late as 10, and on the weekends, it might be closer to 11 or 11:30, but most weekdays it's around 9:30. I'm a late sleeper, mostly because my sleep's very fragile, so I spend some time in there awake, too.

Most mornings, it's a shower next. I plot best in the shower, so this isn't only about washing my hair. It's about kick starting my brain, getting the plot in order, and thinking about what I'm writing that day. Strange, isn't it? But it works.

Once I either have all the plotting done or I've run out of hot water, I throw on my clothes, open the bedroom door, and trip over the cats that are waiting for me. I stagger out and turn the AC to a less arctic temperature (I prefer to sleep in a blizzard), then check my e-mail.

The music goes on at this point. Generally, it's my big, random playlist. 193 songs, 14.3 hours of music.

Breakfast time. Bowl of cereal (usually Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds) with soy milk, glass of water, and my usual round of websites. I keep a tab on my Google homepage with all the writing oriented sites I look at, then I make the rounds of my friends' blogs, my favored news sites, the couple of forums I read, just the usual stuff. One of the cats begs for my cereal bowl, then realizes I have soy milk and gets disgusted with me.

If the kids aren't home for the summer, I feed the guinea pigs here, too. If the kids are home, they've already done it.

For the most part, I open up the document for the story I'm working on (if I even bothered to close it up the night before...most of the time, I don't reboot my computer, just turn off the monitor) and read over what I did the day before. I make a couple word adjustments, and get back into the feel of the story. I also look over the outline, and whatever wiki information I have on it (I have my own wiki to work with), and then I write.

There's a break for lunch in the afternoon. If the kids are in school, I go get them, and I grab food. I read a few websites, or do critique work if someone's sent me something. If it's the summer, I take the kids swimming and the break's a little longer. I read while they swim, and listen to my iPod.

Usually, it's back to the grindstone after that. If the kids are playing the XBox (and until I get my office set up in my bedroom), sometimes I'll get some chores done here, like picking up, laundry, phone calls, whatever. When I can, it's right back to writing until suppertime.

Kids usually eat first. My husband gets home later than they like to eat, so I get them fed. Sometimes, we go get Mr. Moore, sometimes he makes his way home on his own. Then I get the two of us fed.

Evenings are almost always the same, just variants on a theme. Occasionally, I'll keep writing, but it's often not very good for my carpal tunnel. A break at night is important for my health, and sometimes my sanity. You have to let the words come back. If I haven't hit my two thousand words that day, though, I do "overtime".

Other nights, if there's something on the television, we'll watch it. Sometimes we put on a movie, and I knit while we watch it. Some nights, we play video games together, either on the XBox 360 or on our computers. Feed the guinea pigs again, clean out their cage, make their food for the next day.

Then it's bedtime. We try to hit bed around 10:00 PM, but it never works that way. It's generally closer to 11:00, and on weekends, midnight or even later. We're usually up chatting til at least midnight either way, sometimes longer. (It tends to depend on how hard and fast the meds hit. No really, I'm an insomniac.)

And then...we do it all over again.

Isn't my life exciting?
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Cassandra Moore

Vampire Oracle: New Life - Coming in October from Cobblestone Press!
Taint of Shadow - Coming soon from Cobblestone Press!
http://www.cassandra-moore.com