An Evening in the Life of an Amateur Blogger

5:30pm

Collect child from childcare. Reply to incessant babble whilst trying to retain that evening's blog idea in your head and planning out post structure. Bribe with jaffa cakes Organix gingerbread men for some peace and quiet.

6pm

Shovel dinner into child. Whilst yoghurt is being lavishly spread across your kitchen floor, tidy and prepare dinner to enable you to eke out an hour of gossiping on social media blogging.

7pm

Read 675,984 bedtime stories, including The Cat in the fucking Hat, 6 times - end up feeling slightly stoned. Sing lullabies in a rapid whisper whilst checking Twitter to see which linkys you should be doing today. Try to remember which old posts you can rehash for these and also blogpost planned on the way home. 

7:30pm

Realise child is asleep and you're sitting in the dark whispering to yourself - use ninja moves to sneak out. Bung dinner in the microwave and grab wine and laptop, only to discover darling child has switched on airplane mode and hidden all your icons. Fuckitty fuck. Also, low battery, where is the cocking charger?

8pm

OH home, dish up dinner, offer perfunctory chat and affection whilst also figuring out how to fix laptop, remember linkys *and* blog post idea. Find charger behind nappy bin/in change bag/under buggy (delete as applicable).

8:30pm

Finally sit down with laptop and wine - thank christ. Open twitter, facebook, and blog. Immediately get sucked into black hole of chatting. Try to remind self of blog homework but instead continue discussion about latest TV hunk on twitter, cc'ing in said TV hunk via his twitter handle.

8:45pm

Remember what you're supposed to be doing and begin writing! Tweet loudly and gleefully about this. Get side tracked by linky admin. Feel irrationally annoyed when you're the 167th post on a linky which is the linky equivalent of being sent to Coventry. Vow to be organised. Google "blog organisation" and "social media strategy" and "pro-blogging". 

9:30pm

Blog post complete, yay! Fortify self for tedious task of link insertion/link checking, uploading images, appropriate tags and other thankless editing tasks with chocolate and more wine. Consider gin but think best not to mix on a school night after brief discussion on - where else - Twitter.  

10pm

Pimp post across social medias. Wonder if Mumsnet/Netmums/Tots100/ ParentDish feel very unspecial when you copy them all into the same tweet. Fill up entire timeline on Facebook and Twitter with links to new post. Fail to remember Hootsuite password. Feel annoyed you cannot schedule link to new post at 3am for people up nightfeeding. Because it's just what they need.....

10:10pm

Your mother tweets you "WHY TWEETING LINK LOTS ALL OVER PLACE". Feel ashamed of shameless self-promotion. Drink more wine and wonder if tonight's post is the one that will have The Huff Post, The Guardian *and* Red magazine emailing to commission you.  Distract self with blog stats instead.

10:12pm 

Refresh blog stats

10:22pm

Refresh blog stats again

10:35pm

Refresh again. Small increase. Wonder if it's all worth it. Distract self by replying to backlog of comments. Wonder why some posts get more comments than others. Tell posts they are just as good as others. Consider perhaps lowering wine consumption as you are actually talking *to* your blog posts.

10:45pm

Yes - RTs/comments/likes! Even Mumsnet RT'd you, you feel like you've won the bastarding Pulitzer. Gabble away to all responses then retire to bed vowing to be more organised tomorrow, to plan blog posts, to schedule things and to dig out your Hootsuite password to enable this. You will be a pro-blogger, you will! 

11:15pm

In bed. Husband attempts conversation  You bat him away, there's still time to check twitter on your phone *and* get a couple of hours sleep before the baby wakes. And also, what was that other blog post idea you much write it down......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Unspecified middle of the night baby crying time am

Feed screaming baby. Check twitter. Realise you've put a massive typo in all your pimping out tweets. Wonder if you're really cut out for this. Resolve to drink less wine and worry about it all again tomorrow.....

Thank you and good night,

Stupidgirl has left the building