I’m trying to switch to an earlier schedule, so I have time to write in the morning before the day gets hectic. I have SO MANY books I want to write, and this past semester, I’ve written almost nothing somehow. It’s making me a little crazed.
I used to get up early — when I was in grad school, I regularly got up at 5. It was easier, somehow, to write in the dark and quiet, when the rest of the neighborhood was asleep. I think differently then; it’s easier to go deeper.
Next semester, I’m teaching in the afternoons, so if I can get up at 5, in theory, I should be able to write from 5:30 – 8:30 every weekday morning, and still have time to deal with e-mail and course prep and such before I have to actually go in and teach.
I need my 8 hours of sleep, or I start falling apart, which means going to bed at 9, and of course, switching over is tricky, because you’re not tired enough to go to bed early.
Hence, this is where I am — went to bed around 11-ish, woke up at 5, and I’m groggy and tired. I got up, though. Had a little breakfast, tea, meds; read for a little while. Was still too sleepy to work, so put on School of Chocolate and watched half an episode — and then fell back asleep on the couch for 45 minutes. Oops. But I’m awake again now, and maybe it’s okay, maybe it’ll just help with the switching earlier process? I can hope.
I’m not going to try to write fiction today — my head is pretty fuzzy. I feel like I’ve given myself jet lag. Tomorrow, though — writing tomorrow would be good. We’ll see.
This doesn’t seem like a completely unreasonable schedule, right? Shifted earlier than most folks would choose, but I’m a lark — I do like being awake in the early morning. Although I do have to figure out what to do about the house being cold in the mornings…that was another disincentive to working this morning. Need to mess with thermostat settings, I think.
9 – go to sleep
Picture: Thanksgiving cactus, still happily in bloom, with a cheerful spider plant (I think?) behind.
