Hello and welcome to the first Wednesday of the month, otherwise known as the official meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG). The IWSG is a super secret, crazy exclusive group of writers who band together to support each other. If you’d like to get to know the other members, read about their writing adventures, and perhaps sign up yourself, click here to discover everything you need to make that happen.

The optional theme for this month’s IWSG post is If you could use a wish to help you write just one scene/chapter of your book, which one would it be? When I first read the question, I shook my head. I wouldn’t wish for anything. It’s hard work and dedication that puts the words down. But then I thought of it. My wish.

I would wish for… a babysitter. First thing in the morning is my best time to write, but then I had kids and sabotaged myself. If I get up an hour earlier, so do they. There is no sneaking away to a quiet darkness to spin stories. There is breakfasts, fighting, and where-are-my-socks.

In my wish, this babysitter will arrive five seconds before my alarm goes off. They will look the other way at my messy hair and crumpled night clothes. They will not speak to me (this is paramount). I shall fill my french press with darkest coffee and steal away to a magical, locking room that I don’t actually have in my house with my pen and my wirebound notebook. This room I don’t have is soundproof, and it quickly fills with the scent of my brewing coffee and the ink spilling onto the page as I write without interruption or worries of school buses and misplaced backpacks and the baby who only had yogurt for breakfast. No. There’s just me and the notes I scribbled the night before to get my chapter going.

I will be agog at my own concentration in the absence of the usual distractions. It’s quite possible I will also become addicted to this sense of mental independence, this ability to focus. I’ll want it more and more. I’ll need it. Better send a book deal my way, quick, I don’t think 6 AM ‘sitters come cheap.