Posted on by kamryn.heidi

The 4 a.m. Alarm: Waking Up Early to Write

What happens when you wake up at 4 a.m. and write the first thing that comes to mind?

I am not a morning person. I haven’t been since I reached the age of “too old for Saturday morning cartoons.” (Which, are we ever, really?)

But a lot of writers say that morning is when they are most productive. Early, early, early morning. We’re talking 3 or 4 a.m. here.

WAKING-UP-EARLY-TO-WRITE RULE #1: SET AN ALARM

A while back, I asked my Instagram followers which writing rules they wanted to see me try. Can you see where this is going?

In theory, it sounds like a great idea. But I’ve never been able to bring myself to try it. Until now, for the sole purpose of the Writing Rules Project. I have to try everything, right?

So, one night recently, I finally decided to get down to business. I set my cruel alarm for 4 a.m., prepped my notebook and pen next to my bed, and settled down to get some sleep.

WAKING-UP-EARLY-TO-WRITE RULE #2: CHOOSE A GOAL

Pro tip: if you’re not used to waking up early, your body is going to hate you and your mind likely won’t cooperate when that alarm finally goes off. I figured this would be the case for me, so I decided to just write a stream of consciousness, hoping it would give me a glimpse into my most primal writing instincts.

And, oh, did it ever.

Page 1, written immediately upon waking up at 4 a.m., reads: “I’m so tired so let’s make this fast…I was just dreaming about something I think I wrote on the same line up there which is easy to do when my eyes are closed. stream of conscience. Did I spell that right? Probably not, I hate that word I wanted this to be so poetic, I can’t even read what I’m writing on the page Poetic is rhyiming words, right? Fright, don’t want to turn on a light….maybe another night A dash of Genius at the end? No, honey, not ’til the cows come home. I should use more farming allusions. I have a word stuck in my head with a p-h cryha”

I assume writers who wake up this early to actually work on their novels carve out an hour or more to crank out some chapters, so they’re in their right mind. But I wanted to wake up, word vomit, and go right back to sleep. That’s also why I didn’t turn on a light. I swear, my handwriting isn’t usually that awful.

You can see in the pages I wrote that I was really hoping for something beautiful, something profound, something poetic. None of those things happened. And I promise I was not under the influence of anything but sleep deprivation.

WAKING-UP-EARLY-TO-WRITE RULE #3: LAUGH AT YOURSELF IF NECESSARY

The next morning, I was eager to read what I had written. I didn’t remember much about it until I started trying to decipher my scribbles.

Page 2, written after I got out of bed for a drink of water, reads: “I just got some night water and here’s what I have to say: It gloogles down your throat like the cool trickle of a waterfall over a parched ravine – that doesn’t even make sense – maybe stick to rhye rhyming words and save the metaphors for morning. Cool, pool after school as a rule I’m a fool – cryptic cynic make it quick come on just one good thing Kamryn – and in that moment I’m not even sure if I spelled my own name right I’m losing sleep – what was my dream about?”

I think this exercise really stripped me down to my intellectual essence. The malapropisms, the misspellings, the utter lack of punctuation, the crude lists of rhymes, the made-up words—this is comedy gold for me.

I was trying my hardest to write something of substance, as fast as I could, but my sleepy mind had other ideas. And I don’t know about you, but I think the results are hysterical.

I highly recommend trying this at least once—and let me know if you get any interesting results, whether poetically profound or hilariously horrible. You can tag me on Instagram –@kamryn.heidi – and use #WritingRulesProject and #4amWritingChallenge.

What other fun writing challenges would you like me to try, or what are some you have done? Leave a comment below, and don’t forget to share this post if you liked it!