How I Became a Morning Writer
I swear I'm not a morning person. Here's how I write in spite of that.
Most mornings, I write. But that doesn’t make me a morning person.
When I wake up early, I’m not happy. Not at all. I need some time to actually feel like a living human being before I can crack my knuckles and hit the keyboard.
Here’s what helps me feel more prepared to start the day off writing. 🌞
I set up my desk the night before.
I make sure my laptop is charged. I lay out my notebooks (one for ideas, one for writing gratitude) as well as my AirPods and a pen.
I make my desk look inviting. When I approach my desk the next morning, I want to feel invited in.
I got a new alarm clock.
My new alarm clock might be the best invention of all time. It’s the only one that has ever actually helped me wake up feeling awake.
The clock I got is one of the “sunrise simulator” clocks, which gradually lights up 30 minutes before my alarm goes off. It has a few sound options. I chose chirping birds. They’re nice!
Most days, I wake up on my own to the first bit of light from the clock. It’s a nice visual signal to my sleepy brain—okay, gotta get up soon, but I still have a few minutes to snooze.
Today, this clock seems like the obvious best choice for waking up. Why would I want to wake up in a dark room with an annoying loud noise blaring when I could wake up in a bright room with a soft noise? (I promise this isn’t an ad—I’m just really into this alarm clock.)
I don’t immediately start writing.
Many morning writers will tell you that the secret is to becoming a morning writer is to start writing right when you wake up. Fuck that!
Like I said, I’m not a morning person. And even though my fancy alarm clock helps me feel less like a mummy in the mornings, I still need some help actually feeling awake.
I pour a cup of coffee (which I try to remember to set on autodrip the night before, but let’s be real, that doesn’t always happen). I reply to texts and emails. I look at Twitter! I do allllll of the digital no-no’s within the first few minutes of the morning! Waking up is hard enough, so I at least want to be a little naughty about it. (I used to try to squeeze some reading time into the first moments of the day, but it would just make me sleepier.)
After burning my eyeballs with social media, I move onto something I never expected to do. Not first thing in the morning, and maybe not ever.
I get on Duolingo.
I’ve never been eager to learn a foreign language. I took French in high school and sucked at it. Non, je ne parle pas français. (Did I even say that right? No clue!)
Alex and I went to Miami earlier this year, and before our trip, I resolved to learn a few Spanish phrases. And duh, I know you don’t have to speak Spanish to go to Miami, but I was on a mission to eat amazing Cuban food and wasn’t going to risk a language barrier getting in my way.
So I downloaded Duolingo and fully expected to delete it the minute my cheeks were stuffed with ropa vieja. But then I noticed something happening.
In the weeks leading up to our Miami trip, I resolved to complete a few Duolingo lessons before bed every night. But whenever I’d finish up and tuck myself in, I’d be wired. My mind would race, head practically buzzing against my pillow.
It was then that I realized that Duolingo was much better suited for the morning. And boy, does it wake me up. Now, I know all the characters’ names. (Zari is my fave.) I have a 185-day streak, for crying out loud! I’ve learned so much more Spanish than I will probably ever use ever at any point in my entire life. All because it gets my brain working in the morning.
Eventually, I go to my desk.
I fill my coffee cup and water bottle. I put a snack in the pocket of my sweatpants. Anything to keep me at the desk as long as I can stay there. And just as I open my work-in-progress Google doc, I get on Zoom. It’s time for the Morning Writing Club.
I joined Chelsea Hodson’s writing club last month, right when she first announced it. I was having trouble motivating myself to get to my desk on time so I could squeeze in as much writing time as I wanted to before carrying on with the rest of my day. I knew I needed extra accountability in order to avoid dilly-dallying.
I’ve written before about Chelsea’s amazing Finish What You Start program, which helped me finish writing my first book. Chelsea has a way of making writing feel nonnegotiable without making it feel like a chore. The accountability opportunities she extends to writers is a superpower.
The main feature of Chelsea’s club is simple in practice: it’s a Zoom call that meets at the same time every weekday for two hours. Chelsea begins each Morning Writing Club meeting by pulling an Oblique Strategies card, which serves as an optional prompt. I love finding out what the card of the day will be—it’s a little reward for getting to my desk on time.
And that’s the thing about accountability. Sometimes, we need something small to hold us accountable to write. Could I carry on with the rest of my day without finding out what the Oblique Strategies card of the day is? Of course. But does looking forward to the Oblique Strategies card help me get to my desk right when the Morning Writing Club starts? Absolutely.
Most people in the writing club turn their cameras off while they write. I tried keeping my camera on for a few days, thinking it would provide even more accountability, but it just made me feel like I was performing writing. I’ve found that all the accountability I need is Chelsea’s name hovering in the corner of my screen after I minimize Zoom. I see her name there and remember that she’s writing, too. And if one of my writer heroes is writing, well, heck, I want to be writing!
The Morning Writing Club meets every weekday at 8AM EST, which is currently feasible for me. My writing time has begun at various times through the years, sometimes as early as 5AM depending on my work schedule. At the moment, though, I’m lucky that I’ve been able to design my fall schedule around writing in the morning but not before dawn. I have two day jobs—teaching writing at a college and copywriting on a freelance basis. My classes this semester are all in the afternoon, and my freelance work is flexible outside of the occasional Zoom meeting, which I only ever schedule on afternoons when I don’t have class. But it’s taken me a while—years—to wrangle my schedule this way! And I don’t know if it’s going to last forever, so for now, I’m embracing it and giving it my all and remaining grateful for it.
After I write, I jot down a few things that went well.
Writing can be discouraging, which is why it’s important to end a writing session on a positive note. That’s why I keep a notebook where I write down three things that went well during my writing time. I call this my writing gratitude practice.
Sometimes, I’ll jot down a killer sentence I wrote that morning.
Sometimes, I’ll note a major breakthrough I made in my current writing project.
But other times, I feel so hopeless about my own writing that I end up jotting down something along the lines of, “Whelp, I came to the desk and gave it my best for today, and tomorrow, my best might be better.”
But I’ve noticed that the more often I show up to my desk to write in the morning, the more meaningful my writing feels to me. And that, my friends, is why I get out of bed.
Tell me about your writing routine (or lack thereof).
Are you able to write at a certain time every day?
If you write in the morning, what helps you feel awake and ready?
What’s held you back from establishing a writing routine?
Leave a comment and tell me about it. (I promise I’ll reply.)
I’ll be back later this month with reading recs and more! 🤸♀️ To all my fellow Floridians: here’s hoping that this hurricane season will be light for us.
💛 Hurley
My son started at an art high school this month and his days are long. While he's adjusting, I decided I would pick him up every day downtown and save him the long commute home on a city bus, which adds an extra hour to his long day. I've started to bring my laptop and I go early to get a good parking space on the street right in front of his school. I have no internet access and I just write for 45 minutes. I've discovered that I get so much work done. There's a painting class conducted outside right now and I park right next to the teens working at their easels and the school is in an old church- plus it's my alma mater- and there is something about being near those earnest teenagers in front of this school I loved that just works for me. It taps into some part of my brain that is 17 again and so excited to make stuff. Maybe I should go park there in the morning and just write all day in my car.
This was EXTREMELY helpful to read. I've been Duolingo-ing at night for the past, oh, hundred days, and am now realizing how awake it makes me feel (plus the buzz of ticking something off the mental to-do list) and how it encourages me to spend more time on my phone at night (a habit I'm trying to break). Thank you for this advice!