Why I'm a Morning Writer

The Writing Life (when there isn't much time)

Last Time: Glimmers: February 2024

Street art in Primrose Hill, where I visited the home of Sylvia Plath

“It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.” —Tove Jansson

Hello friends! This month has turned out to be exceptionally busy with my first round of edits to Doll Parts (!!!), some big, exciting meetings, and a Spring Break holiday. I’ll write more later about my recent trip to London, but spoiler alert: it’s mostly food pics.

Before I share a piece from my personal archives, I have a bit of writing news and updates. For the last item on this short list, I will need your help!

1. As I am deep in editing, a process that I am loving, I may post a bit less on social media and Substack. But I’m still here! Here are a few Mourning Pages to read (or reread), especially if you are new here:

Mourning Pages: A Reintroduction

Compiling a Grief Syllabus

All My Pretty Obsessions

2. Doll Parts is now on Goodreads. You can add it to your own “to-read” shelf or just click “want to read.” We don’t have a book cover or publication date yet, but that’s coming soon. (And because you’re a subscriber here, you’ll see the cover reveal first!)

   In the meantime, please add Doll Parts on Goodreads if you have an account there. Early interest on a site on Goodreads helps add to the hype and indicate to the publisher that there is excitement building. Thank you in advance.

And now for a piece about my favorite “club” on the internet, the 5 A.M. Writer’s Club, previously published in South 85 in 2018.

If you struggle to find time for writing, if you have children, if you want to know how so many writers get it done with busy jobs and schedules, here’s my not-so-well-kept secret: I wake up early. This is what works for me and countless others. It’s about time, but it’s also about building community. The 5 A.M writers are my people.

The opposite can also work for night owls, though, or anyone with a different kind of schedule. It’s all about intentional pockets of time that you give yourself. Enjoy!

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The 5 A.M. Writer’s Club

5 a.m. Morning shocks itself into focus, the sky coffee-dark and thick with silence. The hopeful kind. 

I am a 5 a.m. writer. Judging from others’ faces when I tell them how early I wake up each morning, on purpose, I must be a masochist. The question of “why” floats over their head like a cartoon dialogue bubble. Why sacrifice sleep? But also, perhaps: why bother writing at all? 

My reasons are easy to explain. To write, I need the luxuries of both time and quiet, spread out before me, clean and unbroken. With a full-time job outside the home and a family, stretches of uninterrupted quiet time only exist in my house before sunrise. The other answer to “why” is one I rarely say out loud, but one I am always thinking. For me, writing is worth the sleep deprivation, worth the early bedtime on a Friday night. I’ve written whole novels (at least the messy first drafts of novels) in that sliver of morning before anyone else on my block is awake. I brew the coffee, feed the cats, and get to work. 

I started waking early to write when my son was a baby. For the first year of his life, D woke every two hours (and didn’t sleep through the night until he was four years old). I would cradle him back to sleep and then lie awake, lamenting my sleep deprivation and my inability to write.  During these bleary-eyed mornings I started to revise old work, piecing sentences together and deleting scenes without mercy.  Since I was already awake, why not use the quiet time for something besides laundry and Facebook scrolling? Many of my memories of my son’s first year are blurry, but I do remember returning to writing after a long hiatus, and how miraculous it felt. 

On Twitter, the 5amwritersclub hashtag brims with donut and dance party gifs, unbridled encouragement, and sometimes more enthusiasm than even I can handle so early in the morning. I check in and cheer on the other writers, motivated by all of the early morning writers who are also sacrificing sleep in pursuit of getting a few words on the page. 5 a.m. is our time. We work past the exhaustion. We drink all the coffee.

Here’s the thing: 5 a.m. writing isn’t for everyone just like daily writing isn’t always necessary (or feasible), no matter how many craft books tell you otherwise.

As a creative writing teacher, I am the first to tell my students that they need to find their own process. Some writers prefer silence and some need a carefully curated playlist. I know many writers who work through the night. Good for them. Not so much for me. What is most important has been developing healthy writing habits, creating a realistic type of discipline in the midst of work and family and the thousands of ways a day can fold in on itself without warning. On the hardest days, the days filled with self-doubt and rejection, I remind my students there isn’t one path to being a writer. Give yourself time to figure it out. For the most part, I think they believe me.

I have woken up at 5 a.m. to write through illness, family deaths, holidays, vacations, and weekend mornings when all I want to do is sleep in. There have also been plenty of days (and years) when I have not written at all. The difference is that now I no longer feel guilt over non-writing days because I know I will make up the time. If it isn’t my body’s internal clock waking me up the next morning, it will surely be my son, his eyes wide and eager to start the day. He’s been an early riser since he was born. What can I say? I’m pretty sure he gets it from me.  

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Thank you for being here, as always! I look forward to more book updates soon.

—Penny