Alarm goes off at 5:50am. Get out of bed - QUIETLY! Waking a sleeping Love of my Life (tm) at this hour is never a good idea, and if either of the children has even the inkling of an idea Daddy is awake and I kiss my morning writing window goodbye to cuddling up on the sofa and watching Scooby-Doo.... actually that doesn't sound s-no! There is work to be done.
Sneak to the kitchen, avoiding all the floorboards I know through trial and error creak. Put on water to boil (no kettle for me (too loud), so I need to go old skool and get a pan on the gas). Get laptop out. Realise I forgot to turn the volume down last night, so the gentle Windows log on chime sounds like a fire engine wired into a fog horn.
Freeze, listen for the sound of scampering feet. Nothing. Breath a sigh of relief, rub the sleep from my eyes and get typing.
Struggle with the suffocating feeling that all art is masturbation and who the hell am I to think I could force my writing on other people, and didn't I know there're Scooby-Doo episodes to watch? Realise I just wasted five minutes, and pull myself together, ignore that inner voice and get writing.
6:30, and time to get ready for work. There follows a whirlwind of making sandwiches, heating porridge, finding school uniforms and cleaning teeth (along with the usual "Look, the Batman and shark toothbrushes are equally good, there's no need to argue over them" debate).
7:30 and time to go. Get to the train station, pray that should there be limited seating you don't get on with any elderly ladies or pregnant women (writing is important, but not that important). Train arrives; cue Hunger Games style contest with high schoolers to get a seat - Ha! In your face, hopeful youth! Get laptop out (again), revel for once in the lack of Australian wifi connectivity, and get in an uninterrupted 40 minutes.
8:30, and the day job..... you really don't need to know about this bit.
12:00 Lunch time, woohoo! Get out the laptop (again x2) Gobble down a sandwich and get writing. Realise you forgot to put on your out of office alert and accidentally answer your phone. Automatically say "Uh-huh.... yeah...totally... yeah I have capacity" while I'm not listening as my mind wonders if Character A would really say that to Character B.
1:00 Back to work, but first to check the word count - score! Then I see my work in-box and wonder where all this extra work came from. Vaguely remember something about a phone call and curse self.
5:00, off we go, walk to the furthest train station from office to try and get a seat, work out elbows with people who just want to sit and listen to music (don't they realise what character A is about to say?).
6:00 Home, happiness, family and Lego. Mainly Lego. And convincing two young boys they really want to eat their meals and not play with Lego. Did I mention Lego?
7:30 Kids in bed (minus Lego... hopefully), tidy up with Love of My Life (tm). She tells me about her day. I wonder if that's how Character B would have put it. Accidentally call her Character B's name. Now Love of my life (tm) thinks I'm either an idiot or having an affair.
9:00 Grab an extra hour before bed. Thinks about how Love of my Life (tm) said Character B's words (OK, she didn't, but things often happen in my head which don't in reality). Compare them to what I wrote. Delete everything from that day and start again.