7 p.m. Boyfriend calls. Turn cell phone off, roll over and go back to sleep.
7.30 p.m. Grumble grumble. Force self out of bed. It’s time to start the day.
7.40 p.m. Make tea. Eyes remain half-closed.
8 p.m. Call boyfriend in India, wish him a good day, tell him I’m currently working on his time zone and hence available to talk throughout the night.
8.10 p.m. Cook, feed self. Shower, make self presentable for no apparent reason. Wonder if putting on lipstick to work through the night is a nonsensical idea. Decide it is. Make more tea.
9 p.m. What’s going on in the world today? Read news. Read blogs. Get depressed after hearing that 2008 was the worst year for layoffs since World War II. Email client-gone-missing: “Did you get my invoice?” Leave out the part where I call her a cheating lying scumbag who is trying to run away with my hard-earned money. Think that might be a tad too strong, seeing as I was the one who forgot to invoice. Am a journalist. Can keep emotion out of it. Also know that friend works in senior management in that company. Am sure to get paid.
10.42 p.m. Log on to writer’s forum. Make a few notes about new writing markets, magazines that are folding, and editors who are hiring. Go into further depression. Why did I choose this career again?
11.49 p.m. Decide writing “A Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer” might be a fun idea. Retrace steps. Consider making more tea. Decide to wait half an hour.
11.53 p.m. Make a list of the things that need doing today. Tweet it.
11.59 p.m. Make tough decision about responding to a certain new-to-me editor. The work is good, the money bad. Want to do it. But don’t want to continue writing for low pay. Reject her offer and ask her to reconsider.
12.01 a.m. Look at the spring calendar for Berkeley in order to plan the next move. Email friends around the country for their plans in May, which is when I’m supposed to leave The Bay Area. J offers to show me around NYC.
12.14 a.m. Log on to Facebook. See photos of journalist friends from Berkeley who’re currently visiting Delhi and Bombay. Feel jealous and a little bit homesick. Call Mom. She says she’s busy and to call Dad instead. He tells me to hang in there; the economy has no place to go but up. Don’t really believe him, but play along.
12.21 a.m. Make tea. Drink tea while listening to music. Sing loudly along to “Our Time Now” by Plain White T’s. Hear roommate’s door opening. Shut up quickly.
12.59 a.m. Spend time researching new markets. Send out three Letters of Introduction and get back one email verification note. Go through due process to make sure email is received. Find this highly annoying.
1.27 a.m. Spend way too much time trying to locate contact information for an editor who works at an online publication, has LinkedIn and Facebook pages, and even writes a blog. But does he put his email address on any of them? Nope.
1.34 a.m. Success. Send off another LOI. Have no idea what they pay, so can’t be fussed to write a query.
1.36 a.m. Get bounce message from editor’s mailbox. They really make it fucking difficult, don’t they? Give up. Need a break. Watch Meet the Press on iTunes.
2.34 a.m. Respond to publicist who’s sent me an idea about a client that (surprise) I can actually use. Email and ask for a copy of the client’s book.
2.38 a.m. Friend emails to say she’s back in Berkeley and do I want to have dinner? I do. I’m going to have to change my schedule again if I want to see her, but she’s one of the most adorable people on the planet, so I’ll make the sacrifice. She better be buying. Strike that. Tell her I’m broke, and she suggests she come over to my place instead. Agree happily.
2.47 a.m. Have a dozen emails to respond to. Challenge self to finish those before starting edits on a piece due tomorrow.
2.53 a.m. Boy, there sure is a lot of email. One informs me that Slumdog Millionaire won several awards at the Golden Globes! Woo! Get all giddy and try not to start congratulating people in Hindi, but am thoroughly pleased that good Indian movies are being made and receiving international recognition. Even if they needed that little support from the Brits.
3.05 a.m. Should stop responding to emails. No sooner have I hit “send” that a new response arrives. Don’t people ever sleep?
3.22 a.m. God, how I miss spicy Indian food. Don’t know where that thought came from. Feel hungry. Time for uh… lunch.
3.28 a.m. Eating old (and possibly bad) ham and pretzels (yeah together), and watching a PBS special on Afghanistan on iTunes. Call boyfriend to tell him about it, and he tells me he’s going to Pakistan.
“Bastard,” I say.
“Thanks, darling. I thought you’d be happy for me instead of calling me a bastard.”
“It’s only because I’m jealous.”
Have wanted to report from Pakistan since the day I became a journalist. Father was born in Pakistan, back when it was still a part of India. His family escaped to India after the partition. Indian journalists aren’t always welcome. Wonder if the same is true for Pakistani journalists in India. Make a mental note to ask Pakistani journalist friend when I see her next.
3.53 a.m. Reply to more emails. Will they never end?
4.03 a.m. Video chat with boyfriend. Make fun of American teenagers. Say “Technology is, like, you know, awesome,” in best American teenager voice. Make plans for spring break and end of semester.
5.15 a.m. Tibetan friend, who is a monk, writes to give an update on his life. He says, “We Tibetans say if you don’t make yourself happy, other people make you unhappy.” Tweet it.
5.27 a.m. Make tea. Hear from client-gone-missing who informs me that she was on vacation and just got back. She’ll be sending out my payment as soon as she can. Feel good that I didn’t call her a scumbag. Especially since I forgot to send her the invoice in the first place.
6.03 a.m. Have four edits due to a publication, so think I’ll finish those off today. The publication is a low payer, but I’ve needed the work, so I’ve kept going. They’ve just slashed their ridiculously low rates by half, so these edits is the last of what I’m doing for them. After that, sayonara suckers. Am not really motivated, but decide to finish these so I can move on with my life.
6.31 a.m. Editor emails. We’ve been negotiating. She asked for all rights. Said no can do. She’s just doubled the pay. Realize, as I make a note in my income goals list, that it’s almost the middle of the month and I have met half my monthly goal. Had set a target of three times my average income. Am pleased no end. Realize it’s the second time in a year an editor has doubled payment just because I asked. Must do more often.
7.15 a.m. One edit down. Three more to go. Need to go to the grocery store to buy food. Check the grocery store timings online. It opens at 9 a.m. Good.
7.20 a.m. Just saw a call for submissions to an anthology for women. Totally up my alley. Deadline’s in two days though (why did I not see this before?), and already have three deadlines in the next four days. We’ll see.
7.26 a.m. Books. The heart wants to write books. They’re closing magazines right and left, but they’re still publishing books, right?
7.37 a.m. These are not edits. These are bloody rewrites. Hate, hate, hate this publication. So happy I never have to write for them again. (Write under a pseudonym anyway, that’s how much I detest this work.)
8.05 a.m. Editor of Big Newspaper has asked me to do some research for an article she’s assigned. She wants to know what’s new about the topic I’m writing about. I start with Google.
8.31 a.m. Aha! Have found the perfect hook. Email my editor a revised story plan.
8.41 a.m. Am hungry. Time to go to the grocery store. Get dressed.
9.55 a.m. Am standing at the cash counter at the grocery store, waiting for my turn when I spot the magazine in front of me– Spirituality & Health. Something clicks. Oh! Have an article in this issue! Flip through– sure enough, my words and photography are in there. Am thrilled. Try not to point at photo in front and tell people around me, “That’s me!”
10.01 a.m. Buy all kinds of easy-to-cook food– ham, corn, pasta, potatoes. Get carried away and spend way more than I should. Then come home and have a big bowl of cereal.
10.08 a.m. To and fro with editor on the story I’m fleshing out. She keeps sending me questions. Research continuously and send back answers. Would be fun if I didn’t know that at the end of it, am going to have a fact-checker on my case demanding proof for every word I’ve uttered.
11.12 a.m. Off to read for an hour or two and then call it a night. G’nite, world.