I wake up in the early morning and go to a writer's group with a group of people who have the writing tools in hand and their notebooks and we all know each other and what we have in mind that day and we come listening and share our laughter over each other's pieces but for some of us, this is very serious warm-up to something bigger, something that we practice three or four times a week.
For instance for me I go to writer's group on Wednesday nights, this group involves me to critique and comment on other writers work, it requires me to to take at least four hours to read each of their 10-18 page stories that are part of a larger book that their working on. Then every morning I spend 1-2 hours writing my own stories.
Every second and third Saturday I participate in book club which allows me to read at least two novels a month and do commentary on a the book with other writers. I read daily so that I can write better but for writers we are not put in this program like the NY ballet students where we are skilled and drilled at a very young age to dance to our fullest degree every day from the beginning of our adolescence. A lot of being a writer has to do with writing on our own time in the wee hours that we in between activities that sustain the other part of our lives that does not contain writing.
