A Day in the Life
of a Writer

I wake up about five-thirty a.m. or more precisely get out of bed because I probably never slept through the night. I force myself to make coffee, so I have something to wash down the litany of pills before breakfast. That is one ritual that is famous with me. Breakfast is kind of a misnomer though; I don't usually eat anything until about noon. By then I have smoked a dozen or more cigarettes, a practice that continues throughout the day. Shortly after rising, I check my website statistics, often before dawn, marveling over the number of hits my website is receiving of late, and I write for an hour or two and maybe edit what I've written for another hour or so. I next see about going out and getting coffee as long as the prime morning traffic time has passed. Getting coffee is another ritual for which I am well known. I do this primarily to see if anyone is left out there and in hopes of a little conversation if, hopefully, I discover the final undoing of our planet has not come and there are congenial individuals still inhabiting earth.

I return to my cubicle in my home. I keep something much akin to a corporate cubicle as my office in my house, to remind me that if I don't produce something that someone finds valuable or at least worthy of purchase, I will eventually run out of money and have to go back most likely to a customer service job. The job market here is rather sad. I do teach English composition; I am an adjunct professor at a college, and on the off chance I receive a paycheck that month, then I don't have to worry as much about making the mortgage. I am not destitute, however, as so many writers and artists are. I am lucky.

I then do a varying list of chores around my sixty-five-year-old home. I have almost fully renovated it, but it seems there will never be an ending point. But that is one of the things that attracted me to this place. Ceaseless labor has become a way of life with me. It is probably by then about noon or shortly after, so I eat a sandwich and watch CNBC, looking again for a little conversation or wit from the digital characters in the box. I speculate whether I am going to make a couple of thousand dollars that day or be forced to sell my home and buy something smaller. Neither seems terribly likely or an extremely pressing matter, but real estate and the stock market are quite soft at this time, so I don't feel particularly optimistic of late when it comes to earning money. I teach so as to give something back to my community, not for the lavish salary but then I do enjoy it usually. It gets harder each year, however. Couple a dwindling economy with faltering equities, and put that with exorbitant food and energy prices and a budget crunch at my college, and I wonder how long I can afford to continue teaching and writing. I am a novelist and progress is slow. One literary agent told me that the publishing industry is the slowest industry in the world. I believed her.

I go back to writing for my afternoon session. It's usually a less productive period, my mind is significantly more muddled by the day's affairs, and so I spin my wheels a lot and stare out the window for what seems hours. Then around four p.m. I work out on the rowing machine or the treadmill most days, if I am not in too much pain from my creeping, insidious arthritis. If it is unduly hot outside, as it is this time of season, I might take a siesta or go out for coffee again. I make it to the grocery store a few times a week, sometimes after a workout and a cold shower or perhaps neither, frequently become irritated over all the traffic and the lack of coolant in my car, and come home and fix supper. I fix supper because it's too early to fix dinner. I might check my stocks around this time but do so less frequently now.

The phone never rings anymore, and no one other than Jehovah's witnesses or water softener salesmen ever come to the door. I'm tempted to invite them in, but I figure what's the use. They are hard to get rid of and really don't have anything new to say. I think sometimes it would be nice to have company, but then I do get a lot of work done, and I am too self-absorbed to entertain much anymore. I eat dinner in front of the television and take another handful of pills. If I have taught a class that evening, I have actually had the privilege of discourse with students, who are sometimes very interesting people. I come home exhausted from a three hour class and just sit in the air conditioning for a longish while. If I have worked in the yard, I sit for a much longer period.

After dinner and an infinite number of trips to my computer to add in this detail or that, or take out something from my latest novel that no longer fits, I might watch a program on television with a beer or two and perhaps fall asleep in a chair while reading. Then around eleven or so, it's time for more pills (these are the fun ones) and if I can manage to get up and into a bed, and not just lie there on the floor in a narcotic stupor, I then have a chance to sleep. The night has fallen and I have forgotten to turn down the shades as usual, but I've remembered to feed the fish, and if I am very tired and don't have nightmares or tremors, I wake up slightly refreshed and start all over the next day. I don't exactly know what became of me, but it is a life and it is my life, so I see no other point except keeping it. I am neither happy nor sad. I am not depressed often. I am simply alone most of the time. There are moments of joy and triumph, but they are fleeting, and a reminder that I have work to do. Always.

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