April 15th, 2025 – New York City
5:30 AM: Rise and Shine!
My alarm went off at 5:30 AM and it was awful. In the Winter, when it’s still dark at that time, leaving my bed is a herculean effort. Thank goodness that Spring is finally here—the sky is getting brighter and brighter, earlier and earlier. I quickly got up and started getting ready for work. The light of dawn definitely made leaving bed easier! I live outside of NYC in the suburbs, so it takes me almost 2 hours to get into the office. I drive to the train station, take a train into Grand Central, and then the 4-5-6 subway downtown.
I’ve (almost) always done what I can to prepare the night before. I’ve set out my clothes and got snacks and lunch ready for the day (unless I’m planning to get something in the city—Just Salad is my obsession right now!). That way I can take my time making my tea and enjoying some peace and quiet before leaving the house in the morning.
I also have two dogs—a black lab named Stella and a rescue named Harvey—and waking up at 5:30 ensures I can spend some time with them before I leave for the day. But don’t worry—other family members are home with them while I’m out.
With all that done, it’s time to leave!
8 AM – 8:15 AM: Arrive at the Office & Set Up
I usually arrive at the office between 8 AM and 8:15 AM. Today I made it in at precisely 8:07 AM. I quickly washed my hands (commuting is germ-central!) before starting to set up my desk for the day… plugging in my laptop, setting out my many beverages (I’ve always got water, a protein shake, and sometimes coffee) and putting my lunch in fridge.
When I was a kid, I was so enthralled by my parents’ offices, which were basically shrines to me and my siblings. They had their office coffee mugs and hand lotion and those not so functional desk organizers I had built them in woodshop. Calculators, rulers, post its… I found all of this endlessly exciting. Nowadays, I have to reserve a desk for the day.
After getting my computer set up, I went downstairs to the café to grab some ice for the protein shake I brought from home. I also made myself another cup of tea. The office is usually pretty quiet until about 9:30, so now it’s time to get started on work!
8:15 AM to 11 AM: Answer Emails, Update To-Do List, and Handle Smaller Tasks
The morning is often peaceful. This morning was no different. It’s quiet as people trickle in for the day. This is always a great time for me to answer any emails I couldn’t get to the day before, or any that came in overnight. I usually have a bunch of questions from authors. They’ll ask about due dates, if I’ve had a chance to read their latest proposal, if I agree with their proposed change to a storyline, if I can help brainstorm… the list goes on and on. I love questions from authors. It’s a lot of fun to weigh in on story ideas and also just to chat with them! I manage authors who write for Love Inspired, Love Inspired Suspense, and Romantic Suspense, so the variety or questions I get is enormous.
After my inbox was cleared (for the moment), I went to check on my To-Do list. I love the Notes application on my laptop. And I am such a fan of lists. It helps me feel, and stay, organized and definitely makes me feel accomplished when I check something off the list.
I also used this time to initiate some payments to authors, help an author with a writing contest entry, check on some of my deadlines, send two files to initial styling, and work on this blog post!
11AM – 12 PM: One on One with my Manager
Things start getting louder around 11 AM as people get up from their desks after the initial morning crunch. This is usually when I have my one on one with my manager, though, so we’re able to escape the noise. We headed into one of the private conference rooms and chatted about our schedules and workloads, upcoming out of office time, publishing conferences, new authors, ongoing projects, and more.
12 PM – 1 PM: Lunch!
Lunch is, of course, one of my favorite parts of the day because I usually spend it with some colleagues who have become very good friends. And I did today! We all brought our lunch today, so we got to use the entire hour to chat about work, life, family, other friends, movies, tv, books… It was relaxing and rejuvenating before heading back to my desk to work for the rest of the afternoon.
1 PM – 2:30 PM: Proposals, Memos, Line Edits, Acceptance Reads
After lunch, I dove into a few larger projects. I started with a book that we haven’t contracted yet for Romantic Suspense, but has been through a few rounds of revisions with me. Right now, I’m doing a heavier edit so that the author will hopefully have less to do under a deadline if we end up contracting them. After tackling some of that, I started reviewing a proposal I had been sent for Love Inspired Suspense. I read through and noted the sample chapters and synopsis and then drafted a proposal acquisition memo to be sent to the LIS executive editor. Then, I set that aside for a few minutes. I find it’s best to leave anything I write for a few minutes at least and then to come back and edit it. I always catch my mistakes that way… well, almost always!
So, while I left my memo on the backburner, I dove into an acceptance read. I do this for contracted manuscripts. Once the complete manuscript is delivered to me, I read it over to make sure there are no major issues that need to be addressed before we start editing (and before the author’s payment can be sent out). I read about 7 chapters of a Romantic Suspense manuscript before returning to my memo.
After I sent my finalized memo out, I decided to return to a line edit for Romantic Suspense I had started yesterday. I had made it through about 60 pages so far and wanted to get another chunk done before the end of the day. However, I quickly realized it was 2:30 PM and I was in desperate need of a coffee or treat of some kind. I messaged my colleague and friend on Teams to ask if she’d join me for a quick walk to our favorite coffee shop, Birch. We hustled over there and I grabbed their version of a peppermint mocha, which I love. Then, we quickly made our way back to the office.
2:45 PM – 4:15 PM: End of the Day
For the rest of the afternoon, I sipped my coffee (and heated it up thirty times—I am so slow, and coffee seem to cool so quickly!) and continued work on my line edit. I did get up a time or two, once to visit our free book closet and once to chat with some colleagues in the kitchen, but otherwise didn’t look up much from my edit. At 4:15 I started packing up for the day. I usually end up lugging home a varied collection of new books, a lot of them for my family, and today was no different. I had some history for my dad, some thrillers for my mom, and some short stories for my brother.
I left the building with my friend, we walked to the 4-5-6 together, and rode it up to Grand Central where she continues on the 7 to Queens and I ran to catch my express train home.
6 PM – 7 PM: Arrive Home, Feed Doggos, Make Dinner
I got home at around 6 today and immediately greeted my pups (before any humans, of course). I went out into my backyard with them and ran around for a few minutes before bringing them in for their dinner. After that, I headed upstairs to clean up and get into pjs. I made a favorite dinner of mine tonight—The Pioneer Woman’s Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce. My advice? Use more pasta than the recipe calls for. The sauce is a lot and having extra pasta means you’ll have plenty of leftovers.
Once dinner was ready, I plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. My current obsession is Reacher—the version with Alan Ritchson on Amazon Prime. It’s surprisingly funny, has a good plot, and great side characters.
8 PM – 10 PM: Reading
At the end of the day, I spent about an hour searching through Kindle Unlimited for something to read and settled on a small-town motorcycle romance. I enjoyed that until my eyes started drooping and then went to bed, ready to do it all again tomorrow.
