In my house finding a place to write is like trying to find privacy in a public dressing room. It's a nice thought, but it's not going to happen.

Case in point, I have a new short story in the works that I hope to get published. It has a lot of emotion in it, and a gripping plot but it doesn't have much else. It's quite possibly the worst piece I have ever written style wise, but all it needs is a half hour or so of absolute silence to get it fixed enough for a critique circle. Half an hour. Did I get that on the day I set aside for writing? Of course not.

The one day I set my alarm clock so I could be fresh and alert when everyone else was still sleeping or in a pre-coffee fog, the rest of the family decides to make an early day of it too. Before I could get an ounce of caffeine flowing through my veins they had my entire day planned. Starting with mowing the lawn.

Doing the chores set out for you early just encourages people to pick a few more off their list and stick it onto yours. Every time I finished a task I would settle down at my computer, only to be interrupted by someone barging into my room with another project not related to the one I was working on. No one understood the fact that I didn't want to see them either. It's not that their day is less important, it's just that I only have one important task on my list, and that one task does not involve non-fictional people.

By the time the sun was tipped towards the west and people were still invading my inner sanctum with more annoying requests, I had just about lost my mind. I stopped acting like a relatively normal human being, and started looking for makeup I could dust on that would help camoflauge me with my surroundings. When my last possible chance for a straight half-hour of work came around I plotted with all the zeal of a war leader.

I left the comfort of my room and tip-toed on bare feet into the living room, so quietly that my mother who was in the ajoining room did not hear me. I settled onto the couch so that I could keep a weary eye on her as she worked, back turned to me, at her desk, and started to scribble in my notebook.

Things were going good too until I shifted positions and the couch creaked. My mothers head flew up, and I swear if she had rotatable ears they would have swiveled backwards. Instantly she turned, a request on her lips, and almost got knocked out of her chair as I pelted past, trailing papers, and yelling, "No one is here! No one heard nothing! No one can do anything because no one is here!"

I didn't stop until I got all the way back to my room, and if she asked me to do something, she asked it of the wind.