I wish with all my heart that I had a writing schedule, but whenever I manage to have such a schedule, I get a bout of insomnia that throws it completely off.

My macropattern as a writer is that when I launch a novel, I get about five chapters or fifty pages into it, then take a break to let all the new stuff that came up gel as I discover how my plans and outlines need to be altered. After a week or so, I return to the novel and finish it in one intense rush that lasts between three and five weeks, depending on the length of the novel.

My micropattern is that early on, I can only do one writing session a day - three or four hours, however long it takes to write an entire chapter (or a part of a chapter, ending at a climactic moment). Later on, I will break into a new pattern of two sessions a day, one right after I get up in the morning, and then - after exercise or errands, something to take my mind off writing and get me away from the computer, I come back for a second session. Usually these "two-a-days" take longer than 24 hours, so that my "morning" session moves into the afternoon, my "evening" session into the small hours of the morning. Very strange and disruptive. Fortunately, my family lets me haunt the house like a ghost during those writing periods, knowing that Dad comes back to the real world between novels ...