how do you divide time

do you read every day? a beginning writer asks by way of conversation.

i try, i say.  not telling him of the three books on the bedside table, the five on the next tabletop, the new one in my bag i am just beginning to read the introduction.

*

how do you write? i once asked a friend, who was a mother, a wife, a lawyer, a writer, a graduate student.
i've forgotten her reply.