The man stood by the side of the road. Kirsten had first seen him there a week ago, when she'd been watching for the delivery van bringing her new computer. She had been struck by the carnation in his buttonhole, its shocking bloodstain such a contrast with the drab surroundings.

She took a sip of coffee and watched him look up and down the street as though waiting for someone. He looked kind, she thought, like a favourite uncle. A fantasy began playing in her mind. She goes down to the street "Uncle Matthew! How good to see you!" Uncle Matthew smiling, embracing her "Kirsten, how well you look! I'm in town to solo with the Royal Phil. Thought I'd look you up!" They return to the flat, magically made-over into a tidy, minimalist loft conversion where they drink Espresso from tiny stainless steel cups. Kirsten describes how exciting her life has become since her novel hit the bestseller list.

A car stopped briefly and pulled smoothly away with the man inside. Kirsten turned and looked at the new PC silently waiting for her words to fill the empty screen. Kirsten's insistence on giving up her job to write had caused friction - fiction friction? - between her and Martin. 10:15, time to start work .

She made another coffee and returned to the window. A light rain left droplets on the lintel. They formed, hung gravid for moments before dropping to the windowsill, instantly replaced by embryonic progeny. Kirsten imagined they were some alien life form growing unnoticed, until at maturity they torpedoed down in a kamikaze mission to obliterate the unsuspecting civilisation that lived on the sill below. A police-car siren broke her reverie and she realised that her coffee had gone cold.

She poured the untouched drink down the drain. She was shocked to see the time was 11:00. Where on earth was the morning going? Now it really is time to start work she lectured herself as she loaded the washing machine. No more excuses.

The telephone rang. The local bookshop. Her copy of How to Write a Bestselling Novel was ready for collection. While she had the phone in her hand she called her mother. They chatted for a while about nothing at all. It was a daily ritual that made Kirsten feel better about living so far from her home town.

The cup of coffee Kirsten had drunk had taken its natural course and after using the lavatory she gave it a quick clean. As she did so she made up a poem in her head that she was quite pleased with, about a walk through a pine-scented glade. However, by the time she'd cleaned the bath and the shower she'd begun thinking about an episode of Eastenders and the poem got forgotten.

She realised she was hungry and fixed herself a healthy tuna salad. She ate it balanced on her knees in front of the TV with a packet of crisps, a kitkat, a cigarette and the remains of a Terrys chocolate orange she found in the fridge. She watched a programme about exercise and diet though she felt it was all common sense really.

Having washed up and written a note to ask the milkman to bring skimmed milk from now on, Kirsten sat down at the PC. The cursor flashed in the top left corner of the screen. Right, to work. Better just check my e-mail, though . There were eleven messages. Four were just junk mail, although she read them anyway. Four were digests of writers' discussion boards she was a member of. She replied to one or two of the more lively threads. Two messages were jokes forwarded from friends and one was from her sister asking how the bestseller was coming along. Kirsten sighed as she typed her reply "There just aren't enough hours in the day, and its so hard to find ideas to write about…"