Trade Secret: Getting Up Early

Early risers rejoice! (Night owls welcome too)

Howdy writers!

When I speak with fellow creatives, there is a single grouping of complaints I've heard time and time again:

"I want to finish my book, but I just don't have the time."

"I just get stuck and I can't write anything."

"I would, but I'm too busy with work and my kids."

Sound like you? Yeah, it was me too. But let's talk about how to change that. I fully believe (and know firsthand) if you care about something, you will make time for it. That's the nature of the game, baby.

So before we even start talking about making time for writing, I need to ask you--do you love writing (painting, web designing, model building, running marathons, {enter eccentric passion here}, etc.)? Sure you do, but this is a better question: are you willing to sacrifice your comfort for the sake of doing what you love, without compromising on other important aspects of your life?

Stephen King wrote about working with the writing door closed, but this is just not how I function. My family is the most important thing in my life and if my people need me, they come get me, in the throes of editing or not! I welcome it, and invite it.

The problem that naturally comes with refusing to shut out loved ones for the sake of ART is time can get hard to manage.

You can sit down after work and say, "Okay, I have exactly one hour to iron out this chapter before taking Jimmy to baseball practice, let's do this." While you specifically blocked out this one special hour, you start only to hear your dog whining because it needs to run out to the yard seven times in between each paragraph. Instead of getting an entire chapter edited, you've gotten half a page. Now, instead of throwing slow pitches to the little league batters, you're off in la-la land thinking about your protag's response to their ex's email. Dammit Greg, now you've gone and hit Martha in the eye with a hardball. Way to go, champ.

This is where a simple trade secret comes into play: get up early. Or, if your prefer, stay up late. Whatever works for you. Linkedin bros claim billionaires get up at 3am and that's how Mark Zuckerbezos was able to run Twitter into the ground. I'm here to tell you there's actually some wisdom to this practice.

When I was a teenager, I did my best formative thinking at night, after my folks went to bed. Mostly, I played video games until I couldn't keep my eyes open, but I also sat in my room riffing on my guitar until my fingers bled. I didn't have a lot of time during the day to do things I cared about, so I did them then.

Now, I'm not telling you to sacrifice sleep. Getting rest is just as important as making the time to work. What I am saying is: if you are a creative who works to keep the lights on (or goes to school, takes care of children, or all the above) the only way to stay in touch with the craft is to MAKE THE TIME. Time cannot be fabricated, it has to be scheduled, adjusted, and accounted for. Sacrifices have to be made.

These days, staying up late isn't my jam. I like to go to sleep with my partner and when I'm up past midnight I feel awful. Since leaving my second job at night and regaining a regular sleep schedule, I now go to bed around 8pm and wake up around 4:30am. This is a solid 8 hours of sleep and I feel great on days I can do this.

I'd wager a guess that exhaustion is one of the key contributors to your writer's block. I can't do anything useful when I'm tried, which is why doing my most cognitively challenging work in the morning works so well for me. If you sleep well, and wake up feeling energetic, you'll find those ideas a lot easier to access.

When I wake up, I let the dogs out, use the restroom, do the dishes, make coffee, and sit down to work around 5:30. Sometimes my partner wakes up soon after, coming in the office to work on her own stuff while we intermittently chat. I will work on one or two projects until 8am, when I get up to stretch and run with the dogs down the trail. I leave for work at 8:45 and get there at 9am. When I'm home that evening, I shut down the work brain spend time with the family.

Of course I don't always succeed. Just this morning, I woke up at 7:30 after a small bout with insomnia last night, which kept me awake until 1am (despite being very ready to go to sleep at 8pm!) Even still, I took 20 minutes this morning to edit a few paragraphs of my manuscript. Something is always better than nothing (unless you're exhausted, in which case: go to bed).

Why all this hassle? Because it makes me feel good and accomplished, and gives me permission to actually relax when I get home at night. Can you say that about binging the latest Netflix slurry? Unless you're a critic with a successful blog, probably not. Life is hard enough without your shame complex dogging on you for still being stuck on that difficult chapter.

"Really, you've sat down with this one FIVE times! What's so hard about editing, James? You have a SCHEDULE to keep!" -My brain, the last time I worked out a difficult chapter.

Your timeshift might not look the same as mine. You might really only have that hour after work before Jimmy's baseball practice. And sometimes things happen and you have to put down the pen for a while to deal with it. "Sorry buddy. I understand your arm is broken, and I hear your pain. But Daddy's gotta finish this chapter or he's gonna M-Fing explode." That's not gonna fly long, daddio.

The key is to maintain a regular schedule with consistent habits, so when those things do come up, you can return to the status quo without pain. For me, it takes about three weeks of consistency to form a habit, at that point it develops into a need. If you make a genuine habit of your craft, you will make progress and eventually achieve your goals.

Don't do it every single day, give yourself scheduled days where you sleep in a little and rest. Also give yourself a day you can move things over to, in case you need to catch up on something.

"Don't write every day!" -James D. Mills

This isn't about efficiency or speed or output, its about simply doing what makes you feel creatively sated so you can sleep at night and do it again. Before I had a healthy relationship with my creativity, I was never satisfied with how much work I'd get done in a sitting. Now that I have enough trust in myself to know I will sit down and do it again, the individual sprints don't seem to matter as much.

"Sure, I screwed up today--but there's always tomorrow!" -People with good habits, but also serial procrastinators <- Careful with those folks, we're prone to joining them!

You might have to make sacrifices. Maybe you need to start going out for ladies night at the Spunky Gorilla every other week. Maybe you should be a player in one table top game instead of GMing three every week. Try calling grandma to take Jimmy to practice every now and then.

I usually need to forgo my personal reading-for-pleasure (to make time for school reading) and I only play video games every couple of weeks when I have spare free time. The only times I watch TV is with my partner at night, as part of our quality time together. I often take showers at night, despite far preferring morning showers. These things get easier as you see the results of your positive habits.

I have a lot to say about taking your time with projects, and allowing yourself to rest, but ultimately this article has gone on long enough. In the meantime, just try it! Move some things around, figure out what you can cut from your own comforts so you don't take away time from your loved ones, and finish that book (whenever you can)!