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Why So Many Writers Are Morning People

by: Jennifer Carsen

You've pulled all-nighters. You've burned the midnight oil. You've worked through the wee hours. It's what lawyers do (as well as law students, though generally more pizza is involved).

But what I'm suggesting is a radical departure from this. I'm suggesting that you carve out time to write in the morning - when the sun is on its way up rather than down, when you're daisy-fresh rather than dog-tired.

You may be wondering how you can do this, especially considering that you're bleary-eyed after all those late nights. Daisy-fresh may be the furthest thing from your mind at five a.m., when the only thing you can ponder is whether or not to roll over before you hit the snooze button.

But here's the thing: Early morning is the only time that's truly yours. Nothing has blown up in spectacular fashion yet. Nobody's looking for you, eager for a chat or a favor or help with a particularly loathsome task. It's just you and your time, before the day gets away from you.

Because the day will get away from you - that much is certain. We've all had days that started with the best of intentions and ended in recriminations or even tears. Even good days become a kind of triage in which only the most important, urgent tasks get done. Your writing is important, but it's not urgent because nobody but you will care if you skip it. The only way to be certain you get it done is to sneak it in early, before you quite know what's hit you. Then the rest of the day is gravy.

Here are some tips for changing your night-owl ways:

1. Do it gradually. Every morning for one week, set your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier than you normally would. The next week, bump it up by an additional 15 minutes. That may not seem like a lot, but you'll gain an hour over the course of a month in a way that won't shock your system.

2. Make friends with your TiVo. Do you really need to stay up late to watch Cake Boss, or Top Gun for the zillionth time? Plan your TV watching in advance so you don't get sucked into something vapid.

3. Don't rile yourself up before bed. Oftentimes it's hard to get up in the morning because it's hard to get to sleep the night before. Avoid too much caffeine late in the day, and also too much booze. (You may think that third glass of wine is your express ticket to Slumbertown, but alcohol actually disrupts your sleep patterns in a big way--you may crash hard initially, but you won't sleep well.) Also, if you read before bed, stick to fiction; non-fiction tends to stir up your mind rather than winding you down for the day.

4. Just do it. You will not want to get up when the alarm rings 15 minutes early. Do it anyway, without thinking too much about it. Get up. Write. Repeat. After a while, you'll wonder how you ever got along without that extra time in the a.m.

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