After completing my degree at the end of May, I’ve had more time on my hands than someone wearing 15 watches at once. Instead of being the supposedly stereotypical Millennial who doesn’t lift a finger for three whole months, I’ve put a lot of my time into watching movies, which requires lifting a finger to press buttons on the remote. I’ve also been doing some writing on the side.

Contrary to popular opinion, writers are not always lazy slobs. To prove this I decided to write about what writing for a blog, an international magazine, and also working on other (top secret) projects is actually like on a day-to-day basis.

Given that I have no set time when I am required to start work it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I choose to wake up naturally, which usually occurs between 9 and 10 am depending on my alcohol consumption the evening before. Jarred usually wakes up far earlier than this and by the time I wander sleepily through from the bedroom to the lounge, he’s often been playing either Skyrim or Fallout 4 for over an hour. The kettle goes on, and while I wait for it to boil I’ll take my medicine and grab some cereal. I’m nice, so I make Jarred a coffee as well as myself.

While I eat breakfast, we’ll switch to my profile on the games console, and Jarred will control my character while I boss him around. Once we’ve completed whatever mission we were doing, I get washed and changed into something comfy, and then drift back through to the lounge and allow Facebook to bombard me with notifications. At this point, I also like to browse through the latest articles on my favourite magazines, which I prefer to call “research” rather than “procrastination”.

Lunch is usually a sandwich and some fruit, along with sparkling water and some unladylike belching. Immediately after lunch I’ll pack my laptop bag, hop into my wheelchair, and take the 5 minute journey to my favourite coffee shop that I can actually get my wheelchair into. I roll up to the counter where they see the top of my head only, and the barista greets me by name.  They then ask if I want a regular Americano with milk bringing to my table. Perhaps I ought to take this as a hint that I spend too much time in this particular café, but I’m a creature of habit.

Fuelled by the sudden caffeine rush I begin to type. Half the time I don’t think I’m even aware of the words appearing on the screen in front of me; they just materialise. An hour or so later I’ll come out of my trance, and return to the counter for re-caffeinating purposes. Then it’s back to work.

As 5 o’clock approaches I bring my writing to a close, bring my laptop to a close, and head home. I start to prepare dinner, which is usually something simple like a stir fry. Then I leave the dish washer (a.k.a. Jarred) to do my literal dirty work while I browse YouTube.

Once all the pots are clean and away, the evening relaxation after a hard afternoons’ work begins. This might entail a hot bath including bath salts and a rubber duck, watching films, or playing board games. While I nearly always lose chess and Risk, being a writer gives me a distinct advantage at Scrabble. By 10 o’clock I’m usually capable of 4-letter words only and my Scrabble prowess begins to decline. Then it’s a case of taking medicines, scrubbing my teeth, and crawling back into bed for another 11 hours. Repeat.