My Writing Epiphany

So simple, yet it hit me like the proverbial brick

Photo by Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash

This morning I jumped out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:30 am. I drank a cup of cold brew then meditated for 20 minutes. Refreshed, I wrote my morning pages, worked out for an hour, then got to work on my book, clocking a solid 3000 words before noon.

I mean, isn’t that how you start your day as a writer?

What actually happened is I stayed up far too late texting with my girlfriends and obsessing about the guy I’m dating. My alarm went off after about 4 hours of sleep; I turned it off and turned over. I actually got up an hour after that, and after coffee and Twitter, I dragged myself to a coffee shop for more coffee, more Twitter, and a little writing.

I think my routine needs some tweaking.

When I look at most authors, their writing seems so effortless and they seem so talented. I imagine they joyfully skip to their computers every day and lovingly scatter the tiles of a scrabble game onto the page. The author magically arranges the tiles into beautiful words and sentences that convey emotions and meaning so breathtaking that Time itself will stop to take a look. Editors, agents, and publishers clamor for these authors’ words, and the author is contentedly spinning fiction and nonfiction…