Early Morning, Focused, Flowing Writing.

When I listed my goals for the year, one was to write more often and maybe even start a writing group. I am a part of a couple, in-person writing groups, and I now lead an early morning writing club. Members include my binder, notebook, iPad, keyboard, and Rio.

This is Rio sitting on the blanket and jacket on my couch during my writing time.

This is one of the small binders I like to use for outlining and drafting ideas.

I try to show up every day soon after I wake up and focus on writing projects, typically books that I am drafting. After many switches between running at dawn or writing at dawn, I’ve chosen writing, because the early morning is when I feel most centered.

These days, the standard steps of my morning ritual look like this:

• feed Rio
• journal: morning pages
• write: push my writing forward somehow; this doesn’t have to be drafting
• run outside or strength train; or both

Some days are better than others, but most days, my morning writing flows. It feels like leisure. My writing sessions are playful. I outline in notebooks, type on scissor-switch keys, and edit text. Some weekdays, I write for fifteen minutes. On Sundays, I can sit and write (and read) for five hours at a time. And, at this stage of my leisurely, low-pressure writing life, it is bliss.

To accommodate this schedule, I choose to wind down my day in the early evening. That means, I avoid going for evening runs. My social time should end before 8:00 PM, and I prioritize calming myself down before I go to bed (because even good stress is bad for getting to sleep). Most of my adult life, I’ve preferred waking in the early mornings, so this works for me.

I recently learned that novelist, Haruki Murakami, holds a similar schedule. Based on his memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Murakami normally runs for an hour each morning, typically six days each week, and avoids taking two days off at a time. For me, to both write and run in the mornings, I have to be careful about how much time I spend doing either. Any time I spend writing, I can’t spend running or sleeping, and vice versa. That’s just how opportunity costs work.

Langston Hughes reminded me of the difficulty of this with his character, Simple. In the story “Seeing Double,” Simple thinks about how his life could be if he had two brains. He tells us why:

“So I could think with one, and let the other rest, man, that’s why. I am tired of trying to figure out how to get ahead in this world. If I had two brains, I could think with one brain while the other brain was asleep…As it is now, there is too much in this world for one brain to take care of alone. I have thought so much with my one brain that is about wore out. In fact, I need a rest right now.”

We all need rest. Most of us should aim to sleep for around seven to nine hours each night. Fortunately, when we sleep well, we think better than if we had not slept. Our brains work through the noise of our days while we sleep, helping us make connections between information and preparing us to feel alert during the day ahead of us. Our sleep is well worth the time cost, as it improves our lives, along with our ability for focused writing. This, I need to remind myself of, too.

…

It is important to consider what we are giving up by using our time on other activities. I encourage us all to think about this more. What activities might you shift or spend less time on to prioritize your sleep health? Is there something you’re spending time on that doesn’t fit your values, like scrolling social media, consuming endless news streams, or reading product reviews? But also consider this: what are you giving up for the time you spend writing?

Notes

• This month, I wrote two other blogs, one about noting joy in my analog notebook (on Substack this Sunday) and the other about digital note-taking in Obsidian MD (on Medium this Sunday).
• If you found value in this writing and want to say thanks, here are a few ways to support the blog:
• Chat with me directly and send feedback, questions, or article requests to my new email: thoughts at emilyhokett dot blog.
• Find more of my writing onSubstack, Medium, and here at emilyhokett.blog.
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Take care. Talk soon.