My logic goes something along these lines:

- I’m happier when I’m creating something — specifically, writing every day

- Because of kids and work obligations, I don’t really have time until after the kids are in bed

- at which point, I’m tired enough that I feel like consuming media, not creating it.

So the logical time to do this — when I have no other concurrent obligations — is early in the morning before anyone is awake.

For the last ten days I’ve started my writing schedule at 5:30am, and I’ve been faithfully churning out a thousand words a day. It feels fucking great — partially because I’ve really begun to like the project, but also because no matter what happens for the rest of the day, there’s this pillar of accomplishment there, first thing.

I’ve tried several times to become a morning person and failed — but now I believe I may have found a secret, back-door entrance to being a morning person. I’ll come right out with it, with no extra cost to you. It’s called: SIX HOURS OF JET LAG. Pretty awesome secret, no? All you have to do is have a nice long stay in Brazil (UTC/GMT -3 hours), and then try like hell to preserve that jet lag when you get back.

No, it’s not the cheapest way to becoming a morning person, but it works great and the weather is nice. I find I can barely keep my eyes open by about 9:30pm (3:30am in Rio de Janeiro), and that I’m awake somewhere between 4 and 5am, ready to go. And for whatever reason, months of non-productivity have suddenly given way to a wonderfully vigorous writing routine. Sweet.

I miss Salvador, though.

Together, we can

Cure Confusion

wtf? I think you mean ‘spread’, not ‘cure’. This seems more like an ad that the Black Magic Insurance Agency would run rather than a health insurance provider.

Nice try.

Sincerely,

Ben

I dreamt that I was reading at Powell’s Books – but there was a bar there – to my left from the podium – and a band too, apparently in case I wasn’t quite entertaining enough. I stood at the center of all of that, with about a hundred people in front of me (go brain!). All of them were talking, and seemingly my book had been printed in messy, overly-corrected ballpoint pen on wet toilet paper. I held a mush of it there in my hand and tried to separate out a few consecutive sheets in order to try to piece together a story-line, any story at all. I tried a few times, starting off with gusto on some sentence that ended in a messy blurred blotch. Then I would start all over again.

This was a real enough dream that at some point my dream brain had obviously had enough and to said to hell with it, bailing me out into wakefulness, and I sat there in that departing dream state, heart palpitating, trying to figure out if maybe I could try to just improvise a little of the book? Did I know any songs I could sing? Would someone bring me a beer at least?

I was incredibly relieved to remember that I will be reading from a real book, with a binding! not printed on toilet paper!

I did a quick search on reading nightmares to see if this was, you know, some sort of common pre-book-release epidemic that all first-time authors experienced and came up with the poet Matthew Guenette’s reading nightmare. My favorite part: Instead of his book being switched out for a mush of toilet paper, he held in his hand ‘a set of visual “instructions” for how to change a muffler’.

Brains. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.