The alarm rings at 6:00.  That’s no big deal.  I’m certain there are many writer’s whose alarms ring earlier.  They probably have children that need to be fed and readied for school.  I don’t.  They might have partners  searching for lost wallets and car keys.  I don’t.  I have me.  And my alarm rings at 6:00.

It rings at 6:00 and I hit the snooze button precisely 5 times.  During that half hour, I’m thinking about where I left off the night before and where I need to begin today.  Today, I need to begin with this blog.  This will get the creative brain cells firing.

I walk into the kitchen and put the kettle on and put two teabags (organic, green) into a medium-sized thermos.  I make my bed and then, just before the water boils, fill the thermos and pull my breakfast from the fridge.  It’s a mixture of whole grains that have soaked overnight in low-fat soy milk.  While they’re in the microwave I take the tea to my desk and open my laptop.

And that’s where I am now.  Taking spoonfuls of porridge in between sentences.  Wrapping my head around the day ahead, which will finish at 9:00 PM when I return home from my last yoga class and watch the latest episode of “House” freshly recorded on my DVR.

My writing life. As many words as I can each day.  Every day.  It isn’t such a bad one.

And now, with porridge eaten, I’ll pour my first cup of tea and find out where my protagonist Maggie is going to take me.

When last seen she and her friend Kit were about to move from their training center at Houston Municipal Airport to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.  They had just passed their second Army check in the AT-6.  The year was 1943….