A Day in the Life of Gloria Clover!

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Happy Wednesday friends! Welcome to this week’s edition of A Day in the Life! I’m pleased to welcome back Gloria Clover to the blog today, sharing her world with us. Last week we talked about her book Washed Under the Waves! You can see that post here. But let’s get to today’s post, shall we?

 

A Day in the Life of Gloria

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wrote stories and complained that she didn’t have enough time to do everything she wanted to do. Then, in her mid-life (if she makes it to 95), she had a baby. Hello? Dear Lord God, what are You thinking….

I haven’t set the alarm clock in three years. I took the advice of the older mothers in my church (not necessarily older than me, just mothers longer than I have been.) “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” They didn’t tell me when I should stop that maxim, so … I’m joking. Mostly.

A Day in the Life of this writer falls into one of three categories: Writing Day, Alex Day, or errands. They all start roughly the same with my nose in the Bible, a time of prayer, which still, after all these years, has to be written for me to keep my focus and not wander into some fantastical land in my mind. Alex and I get dressed, have some breakfast, and I check my email to make sure nothing has happened during the night to change my game plan.

 Then, if I’m having a writing day, Alex goes to stay with his grandma or his daddy. If I’m having an Alex day, we do a craft, a puzzle, read a book, or make a car parade. Maybe Thomas the Train and his new track comes out to cover the floor. Maybe we play Hide and Seek. Then we have some lunch and do it all again. Sometimes there is a nap and sometimes there is a quiet time (we’re working on this since the naps get less and less), and sometimes we read a lot of books and then just keep on doing. Eventually there is supper, dishes, some clothes to fold, a floor to be swept or play dough dug out of the carpet. Perhaps a bath, more books, and, quite frankly, sleep when the baby sleeps.

On nap days, knowing I have about two hours, I run to the computer and madly rush through the next writing item on my list.

On writing days, I do the same, knowing I have about seven hours to accomplish my writing tasks for the week. For the past year, I have edited. With a new publisher putting out a five book release in five months, it has taken us a year to get everything in order. I helped with cover design and worked with a map maker for illustrations. I put together discussion questions for book clubs. I made glossaries and character lists since each book has a different culture. So what the day held was the next task in the process. Writing a short story to entice people to sign up for my newsletter. Preparing a novel for the professional editor or making corrections from the professional editor. Proofing again. Reading ARCs. Finding “Advanced Readers” who could spot typos and generally realizing that as unique as I’d like to believe my novels are, I have used the same seventeen words to write them all. (Hyperbole, I hope.)

I live in western PA where it is snowy for five months, rainy for three, and overcast for the rest of the year, save a two-week swelter period, usually in August where the temperature reaches 90+ degrees, so the weather doesn’t much affect my day, inside, doing the next item on my list.

I live in a little white box, that once upon a time had a home office, but now has a baby’s bedroom with filing cabinets and a computer by the window in the main room. The garage has long been converted into a living space, but now teems with toy shelves rather than book shelves. But none of that really impacts doing the next thing on my list.

Eventually there has to be an afternoon where I pay bills, taxes, post receipts, and do various other paperwork activities to keep my husband’s business up to speed. As troop shepherd and assistant unit leader to our American Heritage Girls troop, I’ve dedicated Monday evenings and some extra days for activities to build up and encourage girls to seek God and become women of integrity. (That’s sounds way more lofty than the actual fun madness that ensues in scouting.) Sunday evenings I meet with a small group of women for fellowship, accountability, and encouragement.

But, back to the writing day, and that’s really how all my days go, a plan that slips by as I deal with the tyranny of the urgent while fighting to make room for the important. Is Alex important? Definitely. Are my books important? I know for a fact that the writing of stories is important to my relationship with God. I won’t know if the stories are important to you until I hear from you. So feel free to write. If enough people do, I’ll have to add an item to my to-do list: “Respond to fan mail.” How fun would that be?

 

About the Author

Gloria Clover, Christ-follower and Truth-seek er, writes romantic fiction with the hope of showing God’s love and our need in both humorous and haunting ways. The Children of the King series is her first endeavor into speculative fiction, a series set in the future when the King sends out his children to reclaim his lost lands.

Gloria’s contemporary romances, published by Barbour Books and Son-Rise Publications, include: The Remaking of Moe McKenna in the Race to the Altar anthology, Brianna’s Pardon, and Tangled Truths. She compiled ten volumes of Penned From the Heart and wrote a short devotional, Who We Are in Christ, A to Z.

She is a member of Emmanuel Christian Church, active in prayer ministry, women’s ministries, American Heritage Girls, and various other projects. She participates in writing/book days at local schools and enjoys giving and receiving from her various writing critique groups. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, participating in the ACFW book club and prayer loops.

Married with child, she writes from her little white box in western PA.

Book 1 of Children of the King Series, Washed Under the Waves, released March 6, 2018 (the rest of the series release April 10, 2018, May 8, 2018, June 12, 2018, and July 10, 2018).

A hidden island. A prince in disguise…and a lady torn between love and duty.