I get up at 4:30 a.m. You already hate me,
I know. It's just that I discovered while in college that I am terrible at
pulling an all-nighter and cramming for exams, whereas I am very good at
falling asleep at a strangely early hour, getting up alert and cheery at 4:30
a.m., and cramming then.
A lot of authors seem to need that unbroken
quiet time when their families are asleep and leave them alone. They
romantically stay up late with their candles and their wine, burning the
midnight oil to unlock their most creative selves. I am like that too, except
with coffee instead of wine, and at 4:30 a.m. This is when the magic happens,
people.
The creative process comes to a screeching
halt when my son wakes up at 6:30. For about an hour we cook and eat breakfast,
make fun of the cat, and write rap songs about bacon and butter.
After I drop off the kid at school, I go
for a run. If I am training for a marathon, like last year, this may take a few
hours and it's very intense. If I am slacking off, like now, I intend to run
six miles but convince myself once I get to the track that four is plenty. But
no matter how far I go, I'm listening to something related to writing on my
iPod: lots of BAFTA speeches, writers' podcasts, or the soundtrack I've made
for my work in progress.
I go home and take a shower. In an ideal
world I also get fully dressed and put on makeup. If I'm on deadline, I might
change back into sweats and skip the makeup, reasoning that nobody cares what I
look like, probably. I went through a period of about a week finishing my last
novel when I'm pretty sure I didn't dry my hair.
And then I'm back to writing. Sometimes I'm
sitting at the kitchen table. If I actually make it into clothes that day, I'll
likely go to a coffee shop. I have four or five coffee shops I frequent so that
I don't become a regular at one. I have a fear of becoming a recognizable
regular because there is always something strange about regulars, isn't there?
They smell strange, or they go barefoot in winter to show off their toe rings? And
I'm really not picky where I spend my time writing, as long as I have coffee
and something to write on.
At 3 I pick up my son from school. There is
often some strange request associated with this, such as, "I need a
costume immediately because tomorrow for English class I have to dress up as
Tom Clancy. Also, we need to bake cupcakes." Until I go to bed at 9:30,
the end of my day will be a mix of putting out fires like this, taking him to
after-school activities, phoning my critique partner and whining to her,
magically producing supper somehow, reading, sneaking in a little more writing
(I'm currently composing this blog while sitting in the car at soccer
practice), and watching TV. No, I don't keep up with Downton Abbey. I watch shows my mechanically inclined son likes to
watch, including the British productions Top
Gear and Wheeler Dealers. I know
way more than I ever really wanted to know about how to change out the
automatic window mechanism in a car.
None of this sounds very interesting, does
it? The only person who would covet this lifestyle is another writer. If you
love to write, all you really want is more time to do it. I loved the freelance
copyediting job I held until 2011 while composing novels on the side, but I
love writing more, and I'm grateful every day for this career. Even at 4:30
a.m.
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