K. Marvin Bruce

Writers are creatures of habit.  My own writing routine is to get up crazy early before I have to be at work and write the day awake.  I've been doing it that way for years.  Decades, even.  Then the time change comes. When you're young it's not such a big deal.  A few extra yawns at school on Monday and by Friday you're acclimated.  But time holds still for no one.  As an adult, it takes more time to adjust to changes in your schedule.  Suddenly what used to be 4 a.m. is now 5 a.m.  You have to get out of bed at what feels like 3:00.  The writer's schedule suffers. Daylight Saving Time was a contingency invented by the Germans during the world wars.  In order to maximize the usable light, they changed their clocks from standard time so that early morning light (my favorite) wouldn't be wasted.  Better to have later at night light.  Obviously, they weren't writers. So I get up in the morning, ready to write, but *yaw...

I do most of my writing early in the day.  Generally between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m.  This isn’t really a matter of choice; I commute, therefore I am.  I take what little time I have to write. Not that I’m complaining.  My advice to my writing friends is always the same: find a time and try to stick with it.  It takes the brain a while to settle into writing mode, of course, and an hour is never long enough.  There’s a hidden danger here, too. Since I spend my waking hours wishing I was asleep, I tend to allow myself a little latitude on weekends.  Maybe I’ll sleep until 4:00 or 5:00.  But that extra hour’s snooze has its cost.  I wake up and my usual writing time’s gone. Sure, I can still write.  I don’t have to be to work, but like most commuters I find weekends incredibly busy.  It’s the only time I have to get things done.  In other words, waking up later means there’s less time to write before everyday concerns sta...