Natasha Burton is a 25-year-old writing lecturer at the University of  Southern California and is currently finishing her first manuscript, a memoir juxtaposing her romantic relationships with her parents' divorce.

A Writerly Morning

7:00 a.m.: Alarm goes off. I grunt, listen to see if my roommate is
up, then re-set my alarm for 15 minutes later.

7:15 a.m.: Alarm goes off again. I grunt, reason I should wake the
roommate up, like I promised last night, so we can actually get some
work done. My apartment is freezing. Roommate and I trade gravelly
"Morning"'s. I make a pot of coffee.

7:30 a.m.: Morning walk to the beach with roommate. We are trying to
be economical, so she drinks her coffee from one of our plastic cups
and I sip from a tall ceramic mug with a daisy on it. We discuss the
following: 1) What we will write today, 2) Our respective love lives,
or lack thereof, 3) How much we love Janet Fitch, our former writing
instructor from USC, 4) How funny we think we are.

8:35 a.m.: I pull the covers over my bed and plop on top with my
laptop. I should start writing but my students have been emailing me
about their next paper, so I better answer their questions. Also, I
need to write a colleague a recommendation for a job. And I have to
schedule traffic school for that speeding ticket I got in November. I
should also check Craigslist for writing jobs, Facebook to see what I
missed in the past 12 hours, and my horoscope (as well as those of my
close friends--just in case).

8:50 a.m.: My room is freezing. I set up my space heater and switch it
on before crawling back onto my bed.

9:00 a.m.: Ooh email. Better answer it. And empty the spam folder.

9:10 a.m.: Roommate leaves to teach yoga. I'm exhausted. I should
probably shower. I also need to exfoliate, shave my legs, and apply
lavish amounts of body lotion, as well as brush and floss my teeth.

10:00 a.m.: I pull on sweats and I'm about to get back in bed to write
but I can't concentrate with wet hair. Better blow-dry.

10:15 a.m.: Officially sitting in bed, I'm propped up on three
pillows, laptop in lap, Gmail window closed, Blackberry on silent. I'm
kind of hungry but it's too early for lunch. Check email one more
time. And Facebook, because, my email inbox tells me, I got a wall
post. (Sweet.) I debate writing something on roommate's wall but can't
think of anything super funny so I decide it's not worth it. (After
all, I have an image to uphold.)

10:20 a.m.: I stare at my closet doors.

10:25 a.m.: And...I'm writing.

10:40 a.m.: I get an email. My Blackberry is still on silent, but I
keep it next to me, so when it blinks to signal I have a message, I
can see it out of the corner of my eye.

10:45 a.m.: I'm writing. And answering email.

11:15 a.m.: Ok, now I am really hungry. I make a
peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and bring it back to my bed on a
green plate.

11:20 a.m.: I'm writing. Kind of.

11:45 a.m.: I get an email.

11:50 a.m.: Noticing how little work I have gotten done since waking
up nearly five hours ago, I decide to write a blog post about what
writers actually do with their time.