My cat runs my life.

Scribe’s Average Work Day

7:30 - Wake up to cat massaging face to life with claws.

8:00 – Zombie-crawl out of bed. Trip over cat on way to dresser.

8:03 - Convince self pajama pants are not, in fact, business-casual.

8:10 – Say prayer of thanks for grandmothers who give coffee-pots with timers. Get: coffee, food, leg shredded by cat.

7:12 – Feed cat.

8:30 – Leave house (attempt #1). Inevitably forget something. Usually coffee. Or shoes. Surprising fact: slippers are ALSO not business-casual).

8:35 - Leave house (attempt #2). Usually go anyway.

8:40 – Drive to work. Have iPhone clipped to sun visor, set on voice-memo. If inspiration strikes, RECORD AWKWARD MEMO.

9:30 – Arrive at work. Inevitably leave something in the car (usually coffee or phone…or shoes…)

Now, it would be terrible of me to say that I sometimes glance down at my phone to check twitter or facebook, but I think that’s just something that most social-media savvy workplaces come to accept. Rather than taking a smoke-break or filing my nails, I stop by the “Internet Water-Cooler” and take a few swallows. The important point is this: I try never to let it interfere with my productivity.Try.

1:00 – Lunch.

Lunch is a key time. I pack my lunch so that I can surreptitiously eat it before my lunch hour, and then I whiz off to Starbucks from noon to 1:00 and write, outline, read, or catch up on blogs. Sometimes I’ve had a thought brewing since the car-ride that morning that I can’t wait to get down on paper. I have to brainstorm in a visual/tangible format, because I don’t do well just brainstorming in my ...brain. #inkstorm #ADD

5:30 - FREEDOM.

6:35 - Arrive home.

6:36 - Feed cat.

Once I get off work, time flows in a weird way. My first priority is usually food for myself and my cat. After that, it depends on the day. If I'm going to the gym, I don't start writing until I get home, because I'm one of those people who doesn't like interruptions. In any given workweek, there are about thirteen possible hours (more if I sacrifice sleep) when I could be writing or revising. Of course, a lot of these are used up in bathing, decompressing, blog-writing, or things that don't actually require much brain-power, like watching vlogs on youtube (I recommend vlogbrothers, charlieissocoollike, mikakitty, wheezywaiter, and rhettandlink (NC represent!).

The manuscript - I haz stolen it.

On a slow week, I might spend five of those actually writing or revising. On a good week, I'll spend five hours in one NIGHT revising or writing. It all comes down to stress-level, energy level, and amount of sleep. Also, my cat has a large amount of control over my writing. He decides when it's no longer time to write, or when I need to take a break.

Honestly, if I'm on a roll, my cat is the one who reminds me it's time to get up and take care of that nagging call of nature. I like to imagine him in a coal gray suit, and reminding me in true Kazuo Ishiguro fashion, "Miss Harris, I believe you might be more comfortable with an empty bladder." More likely, he's wearing sparkly black skinny jeans and too much hair-gel, snapping his fingers and saying: "Bitch, drag that string across the ground before I cut you."

Scribe's Subconscious

Either way. I don't mean to be masochistic when I write, but sometimes I feel like a SIM, and my story turns off the "free will" controls. I imagine there's a subconscious SIMS2 version of me doing the pee-pee dance in the back of my brain. You KNOW you know what I'm talking about.

Do you have a writing schedule? Do you get carried away when you write and revise? Is writing a priority for you, or do you let other distractions get in the way? Free will on or off?