What my schedule should be:

• Wake up at 5:30
• Workout for an hour
• Shower
• Write for an hour while eating breakfast and having some coffee
• Look out the window and remind myself how lucky I am to have this day full of possibilities
• Go to work slap-happy and ready to face the day as one of those shiny happy people that everyone else hates

What my schedule really is:

• Wake up at 7. Okay, 7ish. 7:30. Ish.
• Whack the snooze button six or eight times (hey, it goes off every 7 minutes. WTF kind of alarm clock is that? Snooze should be 10 minutes minimum. It deserves to be slapped.)
• Get out of bed near 8, shocked that I slept so late (“Why didn’t the alarm go off?!”)
• Military shower, sometimes even with soap(!)
• Iron clothes by splashing water on them and hanging them in the shower, then leaning up against the wall once I have them on
• moisturizer, mascara, hair in about 10 minutes
• Run in to work, later than everyone else, no good music on the radio, no breakfast, no coffee, ready to slap the next person that makes a comment about how crowded the elevator is
• Writing? What’s that?

And so it was today. But Everything Will Be Okay, I told myself. I will work on it at lunch. Noooo problem.

So right before noon, to beat the microwave rush, I warmed up my leftovers from Sunday’s splurgerific dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, sat at my desk ready to work on my novel, fingers perched diligently and expectantly over the keys, and thought about my “girls” (Anna and Frankie, the main characters), wondering what they might tell me today. I typed one word. Then the next. Then – Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! 20 new work emails in a minute flat. I felt compelled to address them (note to self: must turn off annoying outlook email notifyer. It’s worse than aforementioned 7-minute snooze button.). In the time that took, My phone started ringing. “Hello can you tell me the… I need to get the…” Argh… can’t you people see I’m tryin’ to work over here?!

Despite the universe’s conspiracy against me, email and phone disasters averted, I managed to bang out 500 new words in the next 15 minutes – the beginnings of the chapter in which my girls first arrive on the beach where the majority of the story takes place. It’s the first new writing I’ve done in months – everything else has been editing the old stuff. 500 words! What a feat! Giiiirl, you’re on fire today, on fire!

Despite the fire, tragically, I couldn’t break the 500 word count. I just wasn’t up for the challenge of visualizing teenage girls eating cherry ice cream on the pier over the vast Pacific Ocean while the guy in the office next to me tried to moderate a fight between his Blackberry and his laptop (“Why can’t you just synch up? Why in the name of God can’t you synch up?”).

But Everything Will Be Okay, I said. I will work on it at home tonight. It’s now almost 9PM mountain time and I haven’t looked at those 500 words again yet. The good news is that I have a nice slab of leftover chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake waiting for me in the fridge. If I can’t find inspiration there, I’m doomed!