I was talking with some friends at the gym the other day about reality TV. (Yes, I’m a gym rat, mostly due to a common aliment I’m sure many of you also suffer from—I like to eat.) I’m normally a big fan of programming where there’s actually a writer (The West Wing being my favorite classic), but I do watch the Bravo reality shows—Real Housewives of… (insert your favorite city here), Top Chef, etc. So these gals at the gym thought it would be awesome to have The Secret Lives of Romance Writers.
Ha! As my fellow Blaze writers will attest, that is not Must-See TV. My day involves typing. Sometimes I pause on the keyboard to think, look up a word in my thesaurus, Google something. If I’m really stumped with writing a scene, I might throw in a load of laundry or go to the fridge for a Diet Coke. Compare that to overturning a table at a dinner party, drinking tequila until you throw up or skinning an eel, and you can certainly see why any show about writers is not forthcoming to a channel near you.
I tell this to the gym folks, and they laugh and wink, like I’m downplaying my glamorous life. The guys think my husband is a serious stud, since he’s obviously the test subject for all my love scenes. (I must admit I don’t disabuse them of this idea, since my poor husband needs to get some benefit from the moodiness that generally comes with having a writer for a wife.) The women think I spend my days interviewing potential cover models and flying on book tours all over the country.
Not to say that my publishing career hasn’t offered me many wonderful opportunities. The top of the list is hanging out with fun, interesting, creative people. Plus, I’ve traveled to a lot of great cities—NYC, Chicago, DC, San Francisco. I’ve gone to some cool parties—the Harlequin party at the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC comes particularly to mind.
Mostly, though, I create stories that you’ll hopefully want to read to escape from whatever craziness your life involves. And that simple agenda is fine with me. Sometimes it’s a struggle, sometimes it’s a rush, but it’s what I do.
No tequila or TV cameras required.
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A day in the life . . . not so much.
However, what about a conference reality show? Hee! We could work with that. 
I am not published as of yet but I have to say my like is not glamorous either.
I get up do some minor chores and sit and write at my laptop. I fend off phone calls and interruptions from family and friends while I try and put two sentences together. It isn’t easy when your 83 year old grandmother wants to run to Wal Marts (& yea that is Wal Mart with an S) every day and spend an hour there. How can I tell her no, when she was there for me at times when I was so sick I could not drive(like before and after my transplant)? Dialysis was a tough one.
So No, there isn’t anything in my writing/private life that would hold an audiences attention! LOL
Am chuckling here because I have a blog posted today over at http://toberead.wordpress.com/ with pics from my office. My slippers, a couple of signs and other breathtakingly glamorous things that help with the muse.
My day sounds much like yours, Wendy, especially the laundry parts. I don’t even leave the house to go to the gym. My best effort these days is a yoga dvd when I remember.
Bonnie
After reading some of my books, my husband’s friends at work think he’s the luckiest guy in the world to get to practice some of those scenes. LOL. He just shrugs and smiles, and never tells them about the nights I’m so exhausted I just fall into bed. Or the 15 loads of laundry that need to be done, that I’m ignoring until I turn the book in.
My life IS NOT glamours by any stretch of the imagination! It wouldn’t make for must see TV either! LOL
While I am not yet published and believe me I am working on that one, my life is pretty boring. I get up do my thing on the Internet then it’s on to the little housework I may have. When I am done I sit and work on writing, with many interruptions from the phone and anyone who thinks they need my immediate attention. No glamour there! LOL
Personally I like you authors aren’t crazy like reality tv and are basically normal women who have talent in writing romances. When I’m reading the books it’s nice to know the writers have everyday lives as the readers do.