Typical Day
I have decided to run down a typical day for me as a high school librarian and an author. My goal is to piggyback on the last post which was about finding the time to write. I have been very lucky and have met many authors in the past twelve years and I would say 90% of them have day jobs. Making realy money as an author is tough and that is not something I’m going to write about now as I don’t feel confident enough to do it. I’m not trying to say my job is tougher than anyone else’s, I’m trying to outline how hard it can be to carve out that time to write. I’ll also point out that I love my job!
So here’s a typical day for me:
5:15 am: Wake up and drag my sorry self out of bed and get other less willing members of the family out of bed and ready for school.
6:30 - 6:40 am: Leave for the school.
7:15 - 7:25 am: Arrive at the school and open the library, there will be at least three children waiting for me to open the library.
7:45: the library is very busy and by 8:00 it will have around 100 students in it.
8:00 - 8:30: Check in / check out books, monitor behaviour in the library and get students out of the library at 8:30 to get to their registration time. I answer a lot of questions, check out a lot of books and do a ton of IT help with the computers.
8:30 - 8:55: Speak in an assembly, usually a Year 7, 8 or 9 one where I’ll speak to 250+ students, or, if I don’t speak at an assembly, I’ll help students in the library as there is usually a constant stream of them coming in. Sometimes I use this time to visit smaller classes to promote a book or an event.
8:55 - 10:55: Most days I will run 2 library lessons in this time period for Year 7 or 8 or help with a Year 9 one which is run like a book club.
10:55 - 11:15: Break time (the students’, not mine): We will have 100-120 students in the library using computers, reading, borrowing books, sitting and chatting. This is full-on and extremely busy, I can sometimes answer 10-15 questions in this time easily.
11:15 - 13:15 Another 2 library lessons, somedays we don’t have library lessons but others we do, it varies, but there’s usually at least one. If I do have a “free” hour it’s to shove food in my face, use the toilet (gross, but this is something non-school people might take for granted, how you can sometimes go 4 or 5 or more hours without eating or using the toilet while working in a school) or try to get ready for a lunch club or do admin on an upcoming event, trip or competition.
13:15: 14:05: Lunch (the students’, not mine): We run clubs everyday at lunch, so it will either be D&D, Manga Club, Book Club, Board Games Club, or it might be Film Club, Open Mic or a special event like a spelling bee or a themed quiz.
14:05 - 15:05: Period 5, usually we have a library lesson, and if not, I will be meeting with the mock trial team to rehearse. If this period is free, I will try to answer emails or use the coveted toilet if I did not during the first part of the day.
15:05 - 17:30: After school clubs, we run D&D and have many students in. Some of these are run by older students which gives us a break. I don’t have to stay until 17:30 most days as I’m very lucky to have a colleague and we switch hours.
17:00 to 20:00 Will be making supper, walking the dog, helping with homework, playing board games, cleaning up and checking work emails to ensure I haven’t missed something important.
20:00 - 21:00: Is when I write, and I try to keep this time sacred. As I said in the previous post, if I don’t get much done, it doesn’t matter, it will slowly build up. I’m usually asleep by 9:30 pm. That’s it, that’s my day!
