Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Putting the Pillow Back in the Caffeine

So for the past few days I've had no ability to focus on anything whatsoever. In my writing, or at my job, and even though I was putting the hours in at my keyboard, my word count was in the toilet. Then it dawned on me that I probably haven't been sleeping enough. Duh!
See, for the past few months I've been getting up at 5:30 am to go and write at a coffee shop that's near where I work. (That would be the "caffeine" part of this whole thing.) I've been very disciplined about doing this, and get in 2 to 2 1/2 hours of writing in every single weekday. What I'm not so good at doing is getting to sleep at a reasonable time.
So last night I made a point of being in bed--with the lights off, not reading, jotting in my notebook, or whatever--at 10pm. And guess what? I had a great writing day this morning! My word count is back up to where I'd like it to be, and I was able to get into the "zone" rather than forcing myself to put words on the page.
So the moral of the story is... taking care of yourself physically is part of being a writer. Ya gotta eat properly, exercise once and a while (hey, I'm a work in progress) and--get enough sleep, dammit!

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