Waking up

Each morning this week, except for Monday because it was a Bank Holiday, I have been setting my alarm clock for 5:15. The reason for trying to wake up at this ungodly hour in the morning is to write. For about 4 solid months last year I woke up at 5 or 5:30 each weekday morning and wrote for 45 minutes to an hour. Sure, I was a little bit more tired in the mornings, but I was productive and felt like I wasn't a fraud when I told people I was writer.

Obviously, I fell out of the habit and now I am fighting my way back to it. I need to do this again. I need to finish my first draft by the end of October (my original first draft deadline was 19th April but I gave myself an extension since I changed direction after the original first 50 pages) I need to be able to say that I have completed a first draft, finally, after all these years of pissing around with writer's block and lack of inspiration and fear. Sometimes I think of my current job as penance for all the writing I haven't been doing. For all the days I have allowed myself to waste on crappy television, poorly knitted items, and Myspace. But if I squander the hours I have then my penance is useless and my time in purgatory will be stretched out even longer.

So tomorrow, and I'm saying this publicly in order to be held accountable, tomorrow I will wake up early and I will write. If I can just get past 60 pages total (not 60 pages in an hour, that would be awesome but unlikely) I will be really really pleased. Maybe I can even make Theresa a little more real and Charlie a little less whiny, and maybe I will finally figure out who is going to narrate the birth. I'm going to do this. I'm not going to give up on it. This is worth waking up at 5 in the morning. it's worth a lot more.