At seven am every morning, I pop out of bed and drink a freshly squeezed orange juice and eat a zucchini frittata. Before I do any errands or school work, I spend three hours working on the latest chapter of my book. I eat lunch outside while reading volume two of Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.” In the afternoons, I revise what I wrote the week prior. I have a light dinner and then get back to reading Solzhenitsyn. Before bed, I write in my journal for an hour and keep the pen and notebook on my bedside table in case I have interesting dreams or book ideas in the middle of the night.

Or not.

I’m a graduate student. I have two jobs. I have a forty-five minute commute through New York City almost every morning. I’m usually rushing. I’m not really a morning person. Sometimes I get headaches from staring at my computer all day and I would rather cook a fun dinner when I get home than write anything. I do a lot of writing for school and for my jobs, but I’m not always good at prioritizing my own writing projects.

Scottish comedian and writer Al Kennedy had a piece up at The Guardian earlier this month about a day in the life of a writer:

…I usually compare my life to those of so many other novelists who are (perhaps inaccurately) quoted as saying they “always complete the final draft in my suite at the Carlyle” or “my writing room faces the smaller of our lakes and has a delightfully inspiring view across the Chilterns/Dartmoor/the Swiss Alps/Dollis Hill” or “I always get up at 4am, sip my organic mint tea – dew-kissed leaves fresh from the sunken garden – and then five or six thousand words tumble forth before Freddie and Timmy and the dogs wake up and I have to oversee Marta while she makes them breakfast – she’s from the Philippines and simply doesn’t understand toast” and so forth.

It’s mostly a spoof piece but she manages to be refreshingly realistic. We’re not all going to be able to wake up to the sunrise at our lakeside writers retreat.  We’re going to have gigs and side jobs. We’re going to be grumpy in the mornings.  We’re going to not want to write all the time, but we’ll force ourselves to because that’s our calling.

What would my own ideal daily schedule look like? Here’s a non-ironic fantasy:

8:45 am: Wake up to NPR (slowly, snooze a few times). Have some ice cold water. Go for a twenty minute jog/run. Come home and make breakfast (fruit smoothie and a toasted bagel with peanut butter). Take a shower and stretch.  Get dressed and commute to the school where I teach (hopefully within biking distance from my home).

10:15 am: Teach a creative writing class to high school or college students. (Daily dose of revitalizing inspiration.)

11:30 am: Go back to my office (will I have an office on a campus somewhere?!) and meet with students, grade papers, check my email, run errands, etc. Hopefully this will be the first time in the day that I check email. (Still haven’t done any writing!)

12:30 pm: Eat lunch of some homemade leftovers. Something yummy. Eat out in the sun, somewhere warm and surrounded by greenery, trees, people (I suppose this all-season fantasy requires me to be in Southern California). Read a book if I’m alone.

1:00 pm: Write for a while while still sitting somewhere pretty and outdoors. Not for my paid gigs but just for me, like my nonfiction book (mentioned in a different LitDrift post here), journaling, off-the-cuff writing.

2:30 pm:  Back to the computer (inevitably) to check email and do paid work.  This means blogging, freelance journalism, essays for anthologies, teaching responsibilities, my part-time web editor job, etc.  Snack on something.

6:00 pm: Commute back home on bike.  Make dinner with or for people I like. Veg out.  Hang out. Be around good people.

10:00 pm: Finish up any remaining work-work (emailing, blogging, grading, etc).

11:00 pm: Do more reading or writing for my personal projects.  Send a revised chapter to some friends who are good readers of my work.  Write in my journal.

Midnight: Go to sleep.

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For some people, this day wouldn’t have nearly enough writing in there.  This can be explained by another earlier post (I could never be satisfied by an incredibly productive writing day if it meant being anti-social and not outdoors).

How about you?