Something Had to Go if I was Going to Write

I realized early on that if I was going to keep my writing up with any regularity, something else in my
life had to go. I need to pay the bills with the day job, and after twenty-five years of marriage, the alternative to that is unacceptable. Family needs time, and so does my golf game. There was only one alternative.

Give up sleep.

I do sleep, but I reduce the time spent doing it. Fortunate for me, I’ve got genetics and a lifetime of habit on my side. I get by on less than the recommended eight hours. I always have. As a kid I would huddle under the blankets with my Cub Scout flashlight and whatever book I was reading, keeping my eyes open as long as possible, and I was still up for the morning farm report.

When I do sleep, it is never more than five or six hours of shuteye. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times each year I sleep a continuous eight hours.

I started getting up at 5:00 each morning to get in an hour of writing. That wasn’t enough. Soon I was setting the alarm for 4:00, like someone who goes from snorting heroin to mainlining it. Most mornings I awake without the benefit of the clock-radio.

As a counter-balance to not sleeping much, I am an efficient napper. I lay down late in the afternoon, usually about four or four-thirty, for a quick thirty-minute nap. Sometimes all I can squeeze in is twenty-minutes. I make do. If I am on the road, between appointments and meetings, I’ll seek out a park, or the deserted corner of a parking lot, set the alarm on my cell phone, and doze off.  It gets me by until bedtime, which most often is between 10:00 and 11:00 each evening.  On the weekends I increase my nap to an hour.

My wife can’t take a nap. If she does, she is in a stupor the rest of the day.

There are drawbacks. Long periods of driving are tough. If we are together, my wife drives and I nap. I am involved in some church and community groups. Some of those evening meetings are real yawners. I volunteer to take minutes so I can stay active and awake.

This schedule does give me time to write, though. The first hour of each morning goes to reading. By 5:00 or 5:30 I am writing. I write through breakfast, and then spend another thirty minutes updating this blog or looking through other blogs. Then it’s on to the rest of the day.

Exercising helps, too. If you are more physically fit, you sleep more efficiently.

So there you have it. How I make the time to write. How about you?

See ya’ later. 

Comments

[Alissadharris]

Love this post. It made me feel less alone in the vast world of writers! I have spent the last year and half writing a first draft of my first book. Like many new writers, I joined a writing group. My third week, I find out that the five or six hours a week I put into my own work are paltry compared to the solid six to seven hours A DAY, everyone else writes. I have a long way to go and I think sleep is the only area I can scale back on.

[Tim Sunderland]

Glad I could help someone. I have to go take a nap now.

[McDroll]

This brought back memories. I know it can be done because that's what I used to do when I was studying for my Masters and working full-time. I love the stillness of the early morning and would get lots done. I'm also one of those strange people who always loved to get up through the night to feed my babies and was always disappointed when they eventually slept right through! Good luck with the writing ...and the napping!

[Dan Bodine]

I'm a plunker (plunk at this; plunk at that--little at a time; always thinking about it though) and this site makes me feel right at home. Thank you. My sites are http://www.socialminimalism.com/category/blog/ and http://desertmountaintimes.com/category/blog/. An old newspaper man who got 'chased out of town' once and had to settle on a judge's job to keep beans on the table. Life is interesting.