9:00 am: Wake up, make coffee for breakfast
9:05 am-10:00 am: Pet Skye, put Skye down, try to get words done, rinse repeat
10:01-10:20: write
10:21-11: pet and wrangle Beerus (much like Skye)
11:00 am-1:00 pm: words
Lunch
Afternoon reading or school stuff or time for other projects
Dinner
Television (currently Star Trek Deep Space 9)
School maybe, other projects maybe
More words
This is, of course, a sample day. My schedule fluctuates a lot, and so the actual times and activities are fluid. I don’t often leave the house, but I still do need to shop for groceries, or go to the doctor, or a million little other things I can’t so easily do from home, or even to enjoy a meal out. I’m not joking about the slots for the cats, either. I started writing first thing in the morning partially to have time to myself while the house was still asleep, but, well, they learned. With four cats in the house, it’s hard for them to get what we call “only kitty time.” We’ve worked out a sort of impromptu system where we’ll sit in the bedroom with one of them and the door shut so they can experience not having to share attention, but then Skye figured out that I started writing in the morning. Noir knew first, but she’s pretty happy collecting about five minutes’ worth of pets before sleeping somewhere in the same vicinity as I am. Beerus, once he figured out what Skye was doing, followed suit. When Albedo gets up for the day, he’ll come get me so I can feed them, but mostly he only hangs out with me during television time in the evenings. Also, the cats don’t limit desk time to their requisite hours. it’s just when they’re the most insistent on it. Usually, a few minutes’ worth of pets and a gentle nudge is all they need to keep them happy once their batteries are full.
The reason I have two blocks set aside for words is that, if I get nothing done in the morning, I have a chance to make up for it later. Or sometimes (oftentimes) after dinner and watching something it renews the creative juices and to not write it out would be a shame.
Of course, insomnia is really the number one thing that throws my schedule off. If I stay up to late, I’ll get up later the next morning because if I don’t get enough sleep, I’m more likely to get migraines. It also skips over a lot of my hobbies, which I can fit in in a lot of places really (sometimes in places I shouldn’t too.)
Of course, things constantly change. Appointments for various chronic illnesses I have will change my schedule, or if I’m low on spoons I’ll sideline the heavy lifting and just sort of putter about until I’m in a place I can write again. I try to do at least a paragraph, or work out story problems, but my overall productivity does go down when I’m feeling awful. But I at least try to be productive.