Just a Perfect Day

After my usual half-hour of morning scripture study I gently awaken my sleeping children. Full of energy they bound down the stairs for a healthy breakfast, then scamper back up again to brush their teeth and dress themselves in their freshly-ironed uniforms as the eldest leaves, with a cheery wave, to walk to her senior school. We cycle to the primary school and arrive in plenty of time, and once they are both at their desks I set off home. An hour of housework, then I settle down to read a chapter of a book as I drink my morning hot chocolate and chat to my husband. Then it's time to write. I write 2,000 words before lunch, then hang the washing out to dry and settle down again to revise a couple of chapters of another work in progress. My husband elects to collect the children from school so that I can carry on with my writing. At 5 p.m. I close the laptop, having written 3,000 words and revised 5,000 more, and start cooking tea. We eat together, chatting about our day, and then the children head up the stairs for bed at 8 p.m. and Hubby Dearest and I settle down to watch a good film together.

That's my ideal day. What actually happens is this:

I keep hitting snooze, so don't get up in time to do more than ten minutes' scripture study before it's time to yell at the children, who all refuse to get up. I can't find any clean uniform, and they all insist on ice-cream and noodles for breakfast. We are so late leaving for school that we have to go in the car and then we can't find anywhere to park. I arrive back home eventually and stumble past the dirty breakfast bowls, filthy floor and mounds of laundry to go to my cold, damp office (at the back of the garage) and do five hours' paid work for a legal charity. As soon as I finish it's time to drive back to school in order to secure a space in the tiny car park. I sit in the cold car for half an hour, reading a book, and then walk into the playground to collect the children. It's raining, and they're late coming out, so I'm soaked by the time we get home. They all demand snacks and drinks at once, and they all have homework they need help with, so I throw a pizza in the oven for tea (for the second time this week) since I don't have time to make anything else. After the usual tears-at-bedtime routine, I stumble down the stairs to start work on the scene of devastation, and spend the next hour doing housework and laundry before Hubby Dearest arrives home from his meeting, and we collapse, exhausted, into bed.

Did you notice the crucial thing missing from my day? I didn't do any writing. And that's the problem. I like my job, and I like that it pays me money, but I would love not to have to work. I just want to write. It is a wrench to have to go to that office every morning when my house needs to be cleaned, and my laptop is calling out to me, reminding me that I have left characters languising lost in a strange jungle. Any writing I manage to do is a snatched five minutes here and there, which doesn't help with continuity.

But one day I hope that perfect day will be mine. I will make enough money from a book to be able to give up my job and write for a living. So I suppose I had better work harder at finding time to write that pot of gold...

OK, moan over, I feel better now.