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Sarah Skilton's debut YA novel BRUISED arrives Spring 2013 from Abrams/Amulet Books. She also has 12 years of experience as a Hollywood script analyst.
5:30am - WHAT IS HAPPENING?? An alley cat has broken into my house and is making weird noises! Oh wait that's my baby. I have a baby. He's hungry and bored. Time to get up.
Elliot drinks his first bottle of the day, then accompanies me downstairs and sits in his highchair so I can have breakfast, too.
If we want to go on a stroll, and we do, we best do it now before it gets too hot. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles, sort of like the Valley's Valley, which means we're trapped by mountains in a desert climate. It's 10 degrees hotter in the summer and 10 degrees colder in the "winter" than, say, downtown.
Elliot and I have the park to ourselves and I'm feeling ambitious so we try to make it around the lake, or at least to the bridge where the turtles congregate. Each day we count them. Our personal record is 21.
I'm hoping we'll see The Beagle or The Corgi on our trek, but no such luck. Even dogs don't get up this early.
7:00am - On the walk back, Elliot murmurs for a bit and falls asleep. We arrive home and I put him down for his first nap of the day. Time to check email and see if my copy edits for my novel have arrived.
8am - Elliot wakes up and wants a bottle.
9am - My husband Joe, who works as a magician, is now awake (if by "awake" I mean lurching around the kitchen looking for cereal), propelled much like his son by the need to feed. Because Joe works nights and weekends, he's on baby duty for most of Monday-Thursday.
10am - I kiss my fellas goodbye and hit the road for my job.
Let me guess: you think your commute sucks. And I'm sure it's, you know, *cough* formidable and all, but mine has been declared the worst in the country. (Why don't I feel like a winner?) Say hello to the 405/101 interchange, aka Carmageddon. Some days it takes me 2 hours to drive 30 miles.
10:45 Text from hubby - "I'm going back to sleep. Nyah Nyah" (direct quote). Don't worry, our baby's not in danger; Joe's parents are visiting and helping out this week, so Elliot has extra cuddles and fun on his schedule with Grandma and Grandpa.
11am - It's bagel day at the office, yay. For my job, I and four other writers read TV and film scripts and create character descriptions for the roles being cast, to be used by casting directors, actors, agents, and managers.
Today I'm finishing a project I started yesterday. It's a feature film with 80-plus roles, which is a bit unusual but certainly not unheard of (most feature-length scripts have around 30). Also, the two leads are already cast. I wish I could tell you who's in it because it's kind of awesome, but I gotta keep mum. Every day at work is different; sometimes I read student thesis short films, and other days I read things like The Hangover.
1pm-1:30 - Lunch. I miss Elliot and watch videos of him on my phone. I finish my first project and pick up another script. Summer-only TV shows are filming now (shows that have 12-episode seasons), though we'll probably start seeing fall premieres in another month or two.
7pm - Work day's done. Elliot's asleep and my in-laws are happy to babysit while they're in town, so Joe and I meet up with friends for a rare double-date. We're dining with another magician and his lovely wife. I throw caution to the wind and order a margarita -- first one in two years -- which (spoiler alert) I will regret the next day.
11:45 pm - Elliot wakes and wants a snack. I fly into his room -- quick and quiet like a ninja, of course -- so I can snuggle with my bundle while he feeds. Then it's time for a lullaby, a page or two of THE GREAT GATSBY to lull him, and off to bed again for my little guy.Goodnight!
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