Waking Early and Writing More?

 I am normally not a fan of summer mornings. They come too soon and they are too bright. For years, I have been closing the blinds and the curtains and trying to sleep in. But this year, I have been sleeping in a bedroom that receives early morning light because that is the larger of the two bedrooms in my house and that was where I set up his portable enclosure with his bed inside when my new puppy, then not yet three months old, arrived from Maryland. He is now seven months old and a good sleeper. But he likes to know where I am before he goes to bed. So does Penelope, the cat from "down South," who joined us a couple of months ago.

Penelope now strolls in and claims the foot of my bed as soon as she sees where Fergus and I are headed. 

Fergus is an early riser. He wakes up at around 6:30 am most mornings. This means I wake up, too. Having a puppy has forced me to change my sleep patterns. I believe I am still a "night owl" but now I am up and outside when the air is still so fresh that Fergus sits there sniffing. We hear the doves cooing. And despite myself I have found myself enjoying being awake -- even feeling smug and virtuous because I have started the day when some people are hitting their snooze button. Last night, I even anticipated being up early by heading to bed at a little after eleven. 

Being up early has also changed my writing habits. Instead of staggering to my desk to write, I am sitting down wide-awake after rising early and taking Fergus to doggie daycare. Since I need to pick him up by 6 pm, I am much more focused. I know that I need to get as much done as possible because when he gets home, he may still be full of energy and zooming through the house. I am falling into the habit of taking him for a walk after daycare. This makes for a calmer evening.  

Having no children, I am experiencing that discipline that writers with children talk about needing if they are to get anything done. This is a new experience for me because I have always been haphazard. I don't set word quotas. I have never written every day. I have thought through my plots and set down to write in long chunks of time. With Harry, my lovely Maine Coon, no animal-related adjustments were necessary. Harry was my night-owl pal, who enjoyed sleeping in as much as I did. 

But dear Harry is gone, and I am now in another animal universe. Not to say that I don't love Fergus and Penelope, but I didn't anticipate how much their sleeping habits would affect mine. Nor did I give a lot of thought to how much my writing habits would change of necessity. 

It is possible that having to structure my summer days in this new way will make me more productive. I'll let you know this September. 

This and That

I'm later than my usual late this morning because I wasn't sure I could get to the blog. I changed my gmail password, then tried to log in yesterday and got locked out. Then I had to wait for my verification. Of course, my memory lapse has a lot to do with the reason I woke up early and then -- to my cat Harry's dismay -- gave him a snack and went back to bed for another nap. It's summer, my writing plate is running over and before I can settle in, I need to catch up on my sleep.

But I didn't mind the early mornings I had from last Friday to this Tuesday. I got a chance to spend five days in New Haven, Connecticut taking part in the Yale Summer Writers Workshop. Session II is devoted to genre writing, and I was invited to be this year's faculty instructor for Mystery and Crime Fiction. Eleven students were enrolled, several had been in Session I with more general instruction on the craft of writing, one was international. Some were writing psychological suspense or genre-blending. All were talented writers. I was only hoping I would have something useful to bring to each of them. But the best part of the experience was watching how they bonded as a group and provided each other with constructive, supportive feedback.

I'm now back in place, and having read Donis's post about what she has seen writers doing wrong in about-to-be published books, I'm thinking about what I said to the student writers in the workshop and what I'm doing in my 1939 manuscript in process. I think by now I have gotten beyond rookie mistakes. But that means I'm more prone to make the mistakes that come with being too comfortable. Or, I would if I were ever comfortable.

Right now, I'm working on a reference book for my academic publisher about gangsters in film. I need to get the first half of that done and signed off on. Then I need to return to the first draft of my dress and appearance to tinker some more while waiting for my agent to shop the proposal. And after that get back to my 1939 historical. Of course, there is also the research project that a couple of colleague and I are trying to launch this summer with a community organization.

So I'm catching up on my sleep. When its's my day to blog again, I'll have something more interesting to write about. Meanwhile, I hope everyone is having a great summer -- although I guess it is still spring on the calendar. That means I may still have time to get started on my container garden. Bought all the seeds. Haven't done anything at all with them.