Ah, the glamorous life of an author.

Here is my diary of the most glitzy and rewarding day in an author’s year – publication day, which was yesterday.

7.00 am. My alarm goes off. I award myself a 30 minute lie in as a reward for publishing my book.

7.30 am. I get up. Look at my ‘to-do’ list and immediately regret the lie in.

7.30-9.00 am. Laundry. Dishwasher. Breakfast (a celebratory bowl of granola with cranberries. Very festive). Put away yesterday’s laundry. Sort more laundry. Realise that I can’t possibly get all the remaining 3 loads of washing done today. Sigh.

9.00 am. Open Canva. Lots of posts to create for today (even though I did some of them yesterday, I reckon I’ll be needing about 12 different graphics for today). Then try and take photos of my competition prize. Even the best one looks a bit wonky. Never mind!

9.30 am. Off to the post office with some very special parcels to post! Then another load of laundry for the washing line.

10.00 am. Scheduling the posts for the rest of the day (with a break for Popmaster at 10.30 obvs.)

11.50 am. All the posts are scheduled. Make sure my daughter is awake for her job interview.

12.00 noon. Look at my ‘to do’ list. Realise that I’m not even half way through and it’s nearly lunchtime. Check my position on Amazon. Find that I am a resounding number 229 in the ‘Parenting and Family Humour’ category, which wasn’t quite where I was expecting to find my romantic womens’ fiction novel …

1.00 pm. Nudge daughter to leave the house. Lunch. Reply to comments on all the posts which I posted this morning. Check Amazon again. Realise I am at number 8 in the ‘Parenting and Family Humour’ hot new releases chart and therefore have AN ORANGE FLAG. Squeak with excitement. I’ve never had an orange flag before – but then I’ve usually been in much more competitive categories.

2.00 pm. Tea with next door neighbour who doesn’t know that I write books. It’s quite refreshing after a morning of thinking of nothing but writing books. Daughter appears and her job interview went well. We won’t know if she’s got the job for a while, but she’s more positive than after the last one. Some things are more important than books.

3.30 pm. Check ‘to do’ list. Cross off a couple of items. As we’re off to Watford tomorrow for an away match, I put my other hat on (the ‘Up the Boro’ one) and sort out food, clothes, charge headphones and make sure I’ve got some change for the golden goal draw on the coach. Lose ‘to do’ list. Spend at least ten minutes hunting for it.

4.00 pm. Check ‘to do’ list again. Panic. I haven’t done ANY of the housework – no dusting, no cleaning out the fire, no washing the windows. Sigh and decide to leave all that for another day. Fetch the washing in. It’s dry!

4.30 pm. Put the oven on so that we can have an early tea and get ready to go out – we’re off to the theatre tonight. It wasn’t originally planned for a publication day celebration, but why not? Check Amazon again. I’m now number 2 (number TWO!) in hot new releases – Parenting and family humour and number 55 in parenting and family history bestsellers – I’m on the same page as Milly Johnson! (Okay, her book has been out for months, if not years, but even so …) Those of you who share my obsession with Come From Away have to imagine I’ve said that like Janice says ‘Oprah Winfrey!’. Those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a good thing. I’m no longer worried about being in the wrong category.

5.30 pm: At least being all dressed up for the theatre means that I can pose with my book in my best clothes and some make up!

6.00 pm: Remember to post competition before heading off to the theatre. Have a final look at my housework ‘to-do’ list. Move most of it to Monday!