I try to keep a civil tongue about most writing advice I disagree with. That is, I try not to say anything about it at all. There's one piece of advice I've decided to speak up about, though, and that's because it is possibly hazardous to your health.
That's the one about getting up one or two hours earlier than you usually do to write.
Now, if you usually clock eight or nine hours of sleep a day, enjoy regular relaxing evenings filled with family time and light chores (do the dishes, take out the garbage), then getting up an hour, or even a couple of hours early on weekdays is probably fine. I say "probably" because I'm only speaking from experience, not as a medical expert.
However, if you are not someone who usually gets that much sleep and/or has low-stress evenings, you might want to do a web search on the effects of chronic sleep deprivation first.
Sleep deprivation became a special interest of mine after I spent most of my twenties living on between three and five hours of sleep a night. Maybe I'd get six or seven on a random weekend night, but usually not. If you want to compare symptoms with that list of articles I linked to, I got to the point where:
And writing? It didn't happen. I still got ideas in my head, still imagined scenes, but they very rarely made it to paper. When they did, they never made any sense, and unfortunately not in the "oooh, that's so imagistic and surreal" way. Truth be told, I couldn't read very well at the time either — I had to read an entire chapter of a book at once, or else I couldn't remember where I was in the story at all.
I finally got control over my sleeping and living habits when I was a few months shy of turning thirty. That was twelve years ago, and there is still long-term health damage. I joke that my circadian rhythm runs like an experimental jazz piece. Mostly I put myself to bed and wake myself up by the clock. Mostly it works.
It doesn't take eight years for things to get bad. After just a few weeks of too little sleep (days if no sleep at all), you won't be able to write, because you won't be able to think.
Getting up early is one way to find some writing time, but there are other ways. If getting up early works for you, great, but please think twice before trumpeting to the world how wonderful it is. I've read precisely one article that admitted the "get up early" advice assumed you were already getting enough sleep.
The point is to write more and live better, not write less and live worse.
Take care of yourselves.
That's the one about getting up one or two hours earlier than you usually do to write.
Now, if you usually clock eight or nine hours of sleep a day, enjoy regular relaxing evenings filled with family time and light chores (do the dishes, take out the garbage), then getting up an hour, or even a couple of hours early on weekdays is probably fine. I say "probably" because I'm only speaking from experience, not as a medical expert.
However, if you are not someone who usually gets that much sleep and/or has low-stress evenings, you might want to do a web search on the effects of chronic sleep deprivation first.
Sleep deprivation became a special interest of mine after I spent most of my twenties living on between three and five hours of sleep a night. Maybe I'd get six or seven on a random weekend night, but usually not. If you want to compare symptoms with that list of articles I linked to, I got to the point where:
- My craving for carbohydrates was insatiable — I'd eat a (large) lunch and if someone else was having a sandwich or a cake or something, I'd sit there and stare at them eating it, even if I was so full my stomach hurt.
- I had to write down everything, because my memory was completely shot. Not only could I not remember what I needed to get at the grocery store, I'd get halfway down the street and not be able to remember which shop I was supposed to be going to. I had a calendar-style pocket diary in which I wrote down everything. Otherwise, I simply couldn't cope.
- I was cold all the time.
- My immune system worked at a sort of "bare minimum" level — I always had minor infections that would get better or worse, but never go away entirely.
- I had a tendency to repeat myself a lot, mostly because I couldn't keep good track of what I was saying.
- Towards the end of the eight-year period I was going through this, I had a lot of visual and auditory hallucinations. At one point I was afraid to vacuum the lower-level stairwell in my apartment because of the "ghosts".
And writing? It didn't happen. I still got ideas in my head, still imagined scenes, but they very rarely made it to paper. When they did, they never made any sense, and unfortunately not in the "oooh, that's so imagistic and surreal" way. Truth be told, I couldn't read very well at the time either — I had to read an entire chapter of a book at once, or else I couldn't remember where I was in the story at all.
I finally got control over my sleeping and living habits when I was a few months shy of turning thirty. That was twelve years ago, and there is still long-term health damage. I joke that my circadian rhythm runs like an experimental jazz piece. Mostly I put myself to bed and wake myself up by the clock. Mostly it works.
It doesn't take eight years for things to get bad. After just a few weeks of too little sleep (days if no sleep at all), you won't be able to write, because you won't be able to think.
Getting up early is one way to find some writing time, but there are other ways. If getting up early works for you, great, but please think twice before trumpeting to the world how wonderful it is. I've read precisely one article that admitted the "get up early" advice assumed you were already getting enough sleep.
The point is to write more and live better, not write less and live worse.
Take care of yourselves.