Having recently completed Nanowrimo, I decided to do this blog post on how to wake up early in the morning. For those of you who don’t know, Nanowrimo is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It’s a feat I don’t think I would have accomplished had I not learned how to become an early riser.
Here are five tips:
1. Decide to wake up earlier – This is the decision that drives you out of your comfortable bed and into the cold morning air. You’ve got to decide to do it and stick to that decision. I like to do meditations on decisions like this, it can sometimes help me stay serious about it.
2. Have a goal that you’re working on – When you have a goal or a purpose, you have something to do. It helps to have something to look forward to when you’re making yourself leave your cozy bed. In my case I used writing a Novel as my goal. I broke it down further by trying to get 2000 words every day.
*3. Get up when you wake up – This is the big trick for me because I like to make things as easy as possible. Most people have natural times when they wake up in the morning. They wake up and usually go to the bathroom and then go back to sleep. If you are like this, use it to your advantage.
Pick a time, say after 3:00 in the morning. If you wake up naturally at this time, stay up. Don’t go back to bed. Do this for several nights in a row. If you feel tired the next day, it’s usually psychological and you can push through it. Eventually you’ll stop feeling tired and waking up early will come naturally.
4. Put out your clothes for the next day – This is a good idea because it’s usually dark in the morning and turning on the light will wake a significant other. Not having to dig around in your closet and drawers for clothes, allows you to put more mental focus on getting going in the morning.
5. Set your alarm clock – This one sounds obvious right? Well, if you do all of the above things then the alarm clock is just a backup. Ideally you will wake up before the alarm clock and turn it off before it starts to blare at you.
So that’s how I woke up early for the month of November, which allowed me to get my project done. I highly recommend these five tips, with a special emphasis on number three. If you follow them one by one, you’ll have a pretty strong handle on how to wake up early in the morning.
I made the Nanowrimo finish line with about 54,000 words. I’m about 3/4 of the way done with my story so I’ll keep writing into December. I plan to finish up around 70,000 words but we’ll see. Then it’s time to read what I’ve got and start editing.
This was my first experience with Nanowrimo and I must say it was great. I had no idea what it would take to write a novel and now I know. Having a word count that I had to stick to, helped me overcome perfectionism and procrastination. These two P’s are things that can really flatten your tires on the writing road.
Honestly, at the beginning of the month I didn’t think I would make it. I had several 0 word days and they were offset by several 5000 word days. Mostly I stuck to a 2000 word a day schedule and it worked for me.
I’d like to get a marketable book at the end of all this. It’s going to take a lot of editing and revising. If I don’t have a salable novel, at least the experience was fun and educational. Hats off to Nanowrimo!
We’ve reached the midpoint on Nanowrimo and at 18,755 words, things are coming along nicely. At this point I’m going to go for the full 50,000 words at the end of the month. However I’ll be happy to reach 30,000 words. We’ll see how it goes.
I’ve got to keep writing over 2000 words a day if I’m going to reach the Nanowrimo contest goal. Some day’s that’s not a problem and other days are grueling.
I’ve tried writing on my laptop in public bookstores, restaurants and in different areas of the house. Sometimes the change of scenery is all I need to get the words flowing again. One thing’s for sure, I’ll be pulling every trick I can think of in order to keep the word count high.
By the way, there’s over a hundred and forty words in this post. (Sorry doesn’t count) Got to get back to writing now, bye!
This month is Nanowrimo which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I’ve committed to writing a 50,000 word novel. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now.
As of today I need to write 2000 words a day to reach my goal. It’s proving to be a bit more difficult than expected but so far I’m managing to pull it off.
I don’t think I’ll have a very exciting book at the end of the month, but I’ll certainly have a solid start. Something for me to edit and rework into a good story, then submit to an editor.
It’s good to have a program like Nanowrimo that forces you to write. Practice is the only way you get better. The program’s providing me with the motivation I need and that’s a damn good thing!
I’ll post more on this blog when interesting events develop!
“Wild Pasture” is an eight minute documentary film on a species that is commonly overlooked in our society. These animals are generally peaceful creatures, but the males have been known to be dangerous on occasion. They can stampede and crush you, so that makes them excellent subjects for a documentary film… sort of.
The film’s inspiration took place as I was gathering some b-roll footage of a barn and silo for a separate project I was working on. I set up my camera in the field and looked through the lens to frame the shot. When I looked up, 25 of the animals were surrounding me.
It was a shock, I was terrified. I picked up my tripod and camera and waved it over my head in an attempt to look more threatening. Luckily, it worked and I escaped what I thought could be a very dangerous situation. I made a short film from the experience and it was a success!
This short premiered in the Sundance film festival in 2002 and for a while it was receiving a lot of attention. I have revived it for viewing on the Internet, so please help spread the word by sending it to all your friends!
