Firstly, this is a tri-post, which means it will be posted at all three of my blogs. If you follow all three (I LOVE YOU), I'm sorry for slapping this post all over your face. (I just thought my LJ looked really neglected, and so did everything else and... I'm a bad person.)

I fail at schedules. I should make blogging schedules (three of them for my lj, blogger, and wordpress–kill. me. now.), but I’d just do maybe two of the three scheduled posts for each and then feel all guilty and upset. Schedules are not my thing.

Especially with writing.

This is a sample weekday of mine:

6:10 AM: Alarm goes off and for some reason, I can’t fall back asleep. Think about what my main character’s do when they wake up. Are they morning people? (I’m not.)

7:15 AM: Think about writing. Pat trusty new iPod Nano in my pocket. Unless forgotten. In that case, panic and tell mom that “I forgot my flash drive.” Go home. Retrieve Nano.

7:20 AM – 7:55 AM (Depending): Meet with my muse/critique partner/unromantic soulmate/best friend, Alexe. Tell her about new idea. Listen to her talk. Get another idea from string of thought slightly-connected to a thought about what she was talk about. Smile. Hug. Remember why she’s awesome.

Health Class: Watch video. Zone out. Realize the tobacco industry is evil. Jot it down in pocket notebook.

Biology: Project on epidemics. I really like this. Lots of death = fun. Jot this down in the pocket notebook. Look at the pocket notebook. Reread what I just wrote in the pocket notebook. Worry about my sanity.

Journalism: Chapter Notes. Amanda and I talk about The Hunger Games. She’s all for Gale. I like both boys, but I don’t know much about Gale. We talk about my birthday party–also book themed.

Lunch: Refer back to Alexe. Talk about various projects. Names. She likes the name October for a girl and it fits perfectly for my new epidemic novel.

AP English: Get absurdly giddy from the fact that we’re reading Julius Caesar and there’s a character named Cinna. I really love that name.

AP World History: Draw inspiration from history. No time for any other notes. This class is dreadful.

Geometry: Repeat for the thousandth time that I will NEVER write a book about mathematicians and therefore I do not need this level of math.

2:05 PM: Leave Geometry, walk home with someone and bum a Popsicle off my mother’s ice cream truck. Put in headphones and decide which play-list I want to listen to. The songs I listen to on the way home will choose for me which project I’m working on tonight.

2:30 PM: Log on to computer, twitter things, check blogs and email, the usual. If inspired… write.

This is very routine for me. I’m inspired by everything, so I always have a notebook around with me (I nicknamed it Pocket Notebook here but it really isn’t so tiny. I can’t afford a cute little pocket notebook). Something pops into my head? NOTEBOOK. Whether it’s just a word or a phrase or I see a sign while we're driving down the street that I want to remember, I jot it down.

If I don’t have the book with me, don’t talk to me, because I’m trying desperately to memorize things that will just disappear if I can’t put them down somewhere. I’m usually looking up at the ceiling when this happens.

My two best tips have to be:

• Have Music – You don’t have to listen to it while you write, but it’s really helpful to have a soundtrack. Especially if you can piece each song to a chapter or certain character in your novel. I’ll sit in the car and just listen to a song on repeat, plotting for hours.

• HAVE A POCKET NOTEBOOK – I already explained this. Find one. Have it with you at all possible times.

Notebooks and Music are all that keep me sane. (And I’m not sane… really. I got tricked into therapy last week.)