Ok, so you really want to know the humdrum typical day of a new father/ engineer/husband/writer with two dogs? If so, read on…but consider yourself warned.

You may become exhausted just reading it.

4:45am: Alarm goes off. Depending on how well (or not) the baby slept determines my general grogginess as I hit the shower.

5:00am: Bundle up and take the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. I use this time to think about what I’m going to write that day…my WIP or a blog post or an email.

5:25am: I make a big press pot of coffee. I attempt to fit in feeding the dogs, eating my breakfast, and making my lunch in the time it takes to boil the water and seep the coffee. Rarely do I make it, but it’s fun to see how close I can get.

5:45am: Writing time. With the kiddo, I’m never sure when he’s going to wake for the day, so this could be 45 minutes or 2 hours. How ever long it ends up, it’s sacred.

7:00am: I’ll play with the baby while my wife gets herself and him ready for the day.

7:30am: My wife leaves with the kid. I jump back on the computer for another 30 minutes of writing time.

8:00am: I leave for work. Most days I have my Kindle read me a book through the car’s auxiliary jack.

8:15 or 8:30am: Start the workday. Engineering medical devices has a ton of protocol/report writing, so most days I do that between the spattering of meetings. On good days, I get into the lab for testing.

11:30am: If there’s not a lunch meeting, I sneak off to the gym or the San Francisco Bay trails for a run.

12:15pm: Shovel food into my mouth at my desk. Sometimes I have time to chew. Then it’s back to meetings/reports/etc.

5 or 5:30pm: Battle traffic to pick up the kiddo. Take him home and play with him until my wife arrives. That’s when the real work begins: Dinner (again, sometimes I chew). Dog’s dinner. Dishes. Trash. Bath time. Story time.

8:00pm: As my wife tucks the boy in, I head out for another walk with the dogs. Often I talk with my parents on the phone…if there’s not some pressing manuscript issue I need to be thinking about.

8:30pm: Spend another hour or so writing/blogging/emailing…as long as there’s not some other chore to be done or errand to be run.

9:30pm: Watch a little TV and have a bite (or several) of any dessert I’m able to scrounge up.

10 or 10:30pm: Get into bed. My wife and I chat about our days…and what our predictions are for how the baby will sleep. Finally, plummet into sleepy-time (hopefully) for a restful six hours until it all starts over!

Weekends, on the other hand, are really busy!

Though, in all seriousness, I love my life. 

A typical day for me goes like this:

8:30 to 10:30 am – Business and Social Media (Which are sort of the same?)

I spend this stretch checking email. This is when travel is booked, interview requests are addressed, fan mail answered. I also check social media outlets, which for me are blogs, twitter, tumblr and facebook. If I have something to share via my website, I’ll take care of that too.

10:30 am – Office Talk

Here, I will send Lia Keyes and/or Katy Longshore an email to gripe and moan a little bit about the work ahead of me for the day. Invariably, I get a quick response in which there is much commiseration, and even more encouragement. I consider Lia and Katy my “office friends.” We all work from home, and so our emails are sort of like water cooler talk.

11:00 -- Goals and Go

I always have goals in my writing, but at this point in the day, I’ll get really specific about what I want to accomplish. 5 pages revised? One chapter? Three?

I get my desk cleared off, my playlist going, and then get started.

Midday – Muddle

I usually approach my work my backtracking to review yesterday’s progress. That can suck me in for a few hours, so by around…

1:30 – Freakout

… by around this time, I realize more than half the day is gone, and I haven’t even begun what I’d set out to actually do. I’ll grab a quick bite, and really get started.

1:30 to 3:30 – Work

This seems to be my most productive time, unless my kids are covered for the afternoon, and I can keep working.

In which case…

3:00 to 6:00 – Work even more productively

…. this is when I gain real traction.

6:00 to 9:00 – Family Time

Dinner, homework, sports, walks, reading, etc. You know. The usual family chaos.

9:00 to Midnight – Reading and/or Editing

I’m often too tired to revise at this time, but when I’m on deadline, that doesn't matter. I’m better cleaning up prose this late at night, or taking one page at random, for example, and really thinking through every. single. sentence. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but considering that needs to happen over and over and over, every little bit of progress helps.

I should add that I do a modified version of this on weekends, with more family time, of course. But I do work seven days a week. My poor agent usually has a few emails waiting for him on Monday mornings. 

I should also add that this schedule is imperfect, but it's perfect for me. I love what I do. Yes, it's agony much of the time, but I love being a writer. I feel privileged to do it full time. Today, I'm heading out for an appointment, and I'm in a funk because I won't be able to write for a few hours. I do wish everyone could feel as fulfilled as I do by their job.

What about you guys? When do you squeeze your writing time in?

The thing I've learned in the last few years is that there is no typical writing day.  The best intentions don't always translate to the best work.  But, I do find that having a routine really helps me to focus.  I always look forward to the days set aside for working on my latest manuscript.

I spend my commute to and from work during the week listening to music and thinking about my characters.  This is my composting time, and it's every bit as important as the time I spend in front of a computer.  Threads of stories, bits of character background, and, if I'm lucky, entire plots can unfold in my head while I drive.   

Not surprisingly, my actual writing day, Saturday, starts with a drive.  Well, technically it starts with a Saint Bernard jumping on the bed and drooling in my face, but that's probably too much information.

The first stop in my writing day is non-negotiable:

And I usually have company:

Once I've been suitably caffeinated, then it's home to the comfort of a perfectly-worn leather couch with my laptop.  I plug in a pair of headphones and pop in the playlist for whatever project I'm working on, and open the manuscript.  Once again, I usually have company:

Then I hang out on Twitter for a while.  I might even start writing.  If I do, I'll keep writing until it's time to take my son to his guitar lesson, but I don't sweat it if my morning session is spent online reading craft blogs or catching up with friends.  I bring my ipad to my son's lesson and use the time  to catch up on whatever book I'm reading.

The afternoon is when the real work happens.  I don't know why, but my prime writing time seems to be between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.  It's not unusual for me to sit down at one and not get up again for six hours, when I realize I'm sitting in the dark or my husband comes home from work.

The non-typical part of my day comes from the writing itself.  I've had days where I've gotten as few as 200 words in that six hour stretch and one magical day where I hit 7000.  If it's a "typical" day, I'll get between 2000 and 3500 words.  

If I'm lucky, I get to do it all over again on Sunday.  

I think Donna's photo essay yesterday pretty much sums up the life of any writer.  Some days, you're dancing, and some days you feel like the kid under the bicycle.  It's one of the reasons we love what we do, isn't it?  Because it's never the same.  Every single day is different.  Some days, the muse is with us.  Some days, we stare at a blank screen.  Some days, we go to Costco.  On really bad days, I clean the bathroom.

But even on those days, I count myself lucky.

I also count myself lucky to be able to write full time.  I know many people who write only at night or wake up at 4 a.m. or grab time at the carpool line waiting for their kids, writing paragraph by paragraph in five minutes on a smart phone.  Because I am so lucky,  my typical writing day is spent like this:

6 a.m.  Alarm.  Turn on computer.  Stumble for coffee.  Check and answer e-mails.  Social media.

7 a.m.  Kids.  Breakfasts.  Pack lunches.  Make sure they brush their teeth.  Get. Them. Out. The. Door.

9 a.m.  Turn everything off.  Write.

9:05 a.m.  Turn Internet back on because I need to check the color of the Duke of Suffolk's livery.

9:10 a.m.  Check social media again.

9:11 a.m.  Post photograph of Daniel Day Lewis to the Muses (actually, this was Donna, but it could easily have been me.)

9:15 a.m.  Turn everything off.  Write.

9:20  Check e-mail.  Maybe my editor is updating me about the manuscript she's reading!

9:21  Refresh.

9:22 Refresh.

9:23  Refresh.

9:25  Turn everything off.  Write.

At this point, I can usually really buckle down and get something done.  Lately, I've been working on a revision, and I have a deadline, so it's really important for me to reach my goal every single day.  The days that I don't?  Feel like failure.

12:30  Get hungry.

1:00  Hungrier.

1:30  Getting cramps.

1:45  Reach a point where I can leave the computer and get something to eat.

1:50  Have a brainstorm and write it down on a sticky note.

1:52  Decide I have to go write.

2:20  Still hungry.  Wonder why.

2:30  Someone calls.  I make intelligent noises into the phone.  They say something innocuous like, "See you tomorrow." And I say, "Great.  Have fun."  When I get off the phone, I realize I don't know what day it is, what I'm supposed to be doing the next day and only have a vague idea of who I was talking to.  I barely know what century it is.  It's a wonderful thing to get so immersed in a WIP that you forget what day is the 4th of July, but it does make you look a little eccentric to the general population.

2:50  Notice the time.  Have to get kid from school in 10 minutes.

2:55  Great.  Still have five minutes.

3:15  Damn.  Late to pick up kid.

3:16  Check e-mail.  Just in case editor sent an update on latest WIP.

3:17  Phone rings.  It's the kid.

I try to come back to real life when my children get home.  I do the grocery shopping, go to the park, get prepped for the school open house, check homework, drive the carpool, make dinner, etc. etc. etc.  Lately, I haven't been making my goals during the day, so I let my children run wild.  I'm proud of my little scavengers.

This is typical, but like I said, every day is different.  Yesterday, I spent five hours at a junior high school, talking to seventh graders about historical fiction.  Last Friday, I drove two hours to attend a bookstore event.  Next week is crunch time--deadline.

I wouldn't have it any other way, really.  I love what I do, even when it forces me to clean the bathroom.