This is a repost from Filles Vertes Publishing, posted with permission here. This post was originally written by me and posted on their platform.
Be the Boss of Your Morning
You wake up to the sound of your alarm blaring at 5 am. You manage to roll out of bed and stumble out of your room. The sun hasn’t made its appearance yet and you might be wondering why anyone, who isn’t an ER nurse or working nights at the local 7/11, is awake yet. Why? Because you’re a writer and you’ve got this.
Maybe you’ve always been a morning person and waking up is a breeze. But even if you wake up “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” are you ready to productive? Are you going to be efficient in your tasks? I’ve lost more than one morning to realizing I’ve sat on Twitter for the last hour and a half, without managing to do so much as finish my cup of coffee.
If you’re the boss of your morning, you are going to leap out of bed with a new and refreshing outlook on the day. You have a set series of tasks that you want to accomplish and a set time to do it in. Accomplishing these tasks won’t overwhelm you, it’s a welcome challenge. You can manage the menial hygiene tasks quickly, leaving the maximum amount of time for you to write. After you’ve completed your goals for the day, you can go about your day with a sense of accomplishment.
So, how do you do it?
Step One: Wake Up
Wait no.
Step One: Wake Up Go to Bed
This is the true first step to becoming the boss of your morning. You need to set yourself up for success.
Go to bed at a reasonable enough hour.
I don’t expect you to tuck in at 8 pm, but if you want to have the brain space to be creative, you need to be well rested.
It can also be helpful to write up your to-do list for the next day. However, if you’re the type of person that gets stressed out by lists, that might not work for you.
Step Two: Now You Can Wake Up
Waking up at a new time is less daunting once you find your own routine. You want to give yourself enough time to tackle the boring stuff (brushing teeth, getting dressed) as well as write. If you’re pushing to get everything done before you head out the door for a morning shift at your day job, you need to be very dedicated about having a routine.
Bonus tip: Make your coffee the night before and put it in the fridge. You can have iced coffee in the morning which takes less time to drink and has the bonus of waking you up.
Step Three: Start Writing
Keep your phone out of sight.
Turn on airplane mode or disconnect from Wi-Fi.
I find it easiest to sit down and write without taking breaks to do research or look at previous chapters. I frequently leave myself notes in my manuscripts to fact check or fill in later. You could use an easy to search code like *** or you can just highlight the section so it’s hard to miss.
Whether you have a detailed plan to follow for the scene or you’re making it up as you go, now is the time to tackle it.
Step Four: Move On
It’s important to mention that after you are done writing, you should move on with your day.
Don’t go back over what you wrote and criticize yourself for being less than perfect.
Don’t obsess over grammar or reconsider your main character’s name.
Once the words are on the page, they are there.
You can and probably will delete some of them on another draft. But being overly critical of yourself in the first stage of writing can lead to discouraging you to keep up with the routine.
No one writes like J.K. Rowling on their first draft, not even J.K. Rowling. So be the boss of your morning; show up at your computer and do it.
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