Skulking in the shadows

Lately I've been waking at sunrise or 5 am, when only the birds and sun have any business being up. As some of you know, while we wait for our house sale in England to "complete"—we "exchanged" yesterday finally—we are living on the third floor of my inlaws' home. While my characters exchange witty repartee in my head, and dance around each other playing the mating game, I must lie still lest I wake the sleeping household. My fingers itch to write, tap or even scrawl by morning light but it is not to be.

Two computers sit idly by while my husband sleeps beside me. I imagine fumbling around in semi-darkness, strapping my laptop to my hip, and skulking downstairs. I described my dilemma to a writing buddy and she immediately emailed me back to portray me as a spy dressed in a white terry cloth bathrobe, carefully avoiding the loose floorboards of the two staircases, leaping nimbly from shadow to shadow, freezing in doorways lest I happen upon a fellow resident in search of a glass of water, my eyes wide and brow furrowed—all in an attempt to find a quiet surface on which to perch my Toshiba.

I suppose you've done it, Imogen and Annie: finally convinced me that rising early is the only remedy for a writer beseiged on all sides by life's myriad demands. I can't wait to have my office back. Virginia Woolf wasn't kidding!