Meet Lois McMaster Bujold
Science Fiction Writer
My Day on the Job

Karen: What's a typical day at work like for you?

Lois: I don't write every day. I wish I could. My baseline is if I produce two chapters a month I'm doing enough. But, a "sort of" writing week, I think would be easy to talk about.

I will spend four or five days when I'm closing in on a chapter, mentally working out the sequencing of scenes, the plot, characters and dialogue. I script dialogue often before I write it and come up with the ideas the night before and then put it together on the computer the next day.

And then I'll have three or four days, which is quite sufficient, to sit down with the computer and do significant chapter work. Usually it takes about four sessions on the computer to get a chapter. I'll get four or five pages each time I sit down. And then put it all together, print it out and run it through the review process. So, it's a two week cycle for a chapter.

You know, the rest of my day is an ordinary woman's day. I get up and my kids pretty much get themselves off to school now because they're older. In fact, my daughter left for college this past Fall. It gives me a block of working time if I don't fiddle it away. And after the kids come home from school, I do the groceries, I do the laundry, I do all the usual life-support running around that women do.

Sometimes I go out to lunch with friends. It's very nice, this life as a writer, because it's so unscheduled. But that's also dangerous because there's nobody to make you work. You have to have discipline or passion... getting the thing written has to be more important than any other thing in your life. And, I think the people who become writers are the ones who have that kind of drive. It's like it has to be finished. This is more important than the laundry or the dishes or many, many other things.

	Angela & Gina's Room |  Brigid & Kayla's Room | Christine & Erika's Room |  Lauren & Sarada's Room | Circle of Friends PenPal Club  | Site Map
	Since 1996, your space on the web : written and edited by girls and teens from all over the world. Media Kit   Feedback   Newsletter   Write FOR us   Contact Us