How To Write Early In The Morning While Drinking Coffee

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The alarm went off like a thundering smack to my pleasant dream.

I turned my smartphone over to hit the snooze button on the glowing screen.

In my weariness, I was unsure which animated button to press to snooze my alarm. One button would stop the alarm altogether. The other button would give me about eight minutes or more to reconsider if I wanted to be entirely awake. The buttons displayed in full glimmering color on the OLED’s display. I looked for a second longer to be sure. I opened my eyes a little wider to be positive.

I hit the snooze button and returned to bed. Just a few more minutes, I whispered to myself.

I had turned the phone over on purpose to make it more difficult for me to turn my alarm off. Thinking it might encourage me to be awake right away. But that did not happen. Instead, I repeated the same ritual for at least an hour until I finally gave in and emerged from my warm comfy bed. Leaving the cradle of my pillow.

It’s not easy getting up at four in the morning. But also not as easy waking up at 5:30 in the morning. And yet I do it five days a week. I do not have to be at work until 8:30 in the morning. My commute can sometimes take forty minutes to sometimes only thirty minutes. So why do I do this to myself when I don’t need? No one is making me get up this early. But I do it anyway.

I do it so I can write. I am a writer. And so can you.

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

I have experimented having breakfast and then taking a shower. To having breakfast, writing and then showering. The pattern which works best for me is to take a shower first, make my meal second, and then relax and write what I can.

There is never enough time to write. Sometimes I wish I could call in sick when I’m on a roll. When the energy is high, the words seem to spill out of my fingers like tiny rubies. I get into a rhythm. The letters my fingers type escape faster than they appear on the computer screen.

I love the sound of the keyboard tap. I love the feel of the keyboard buttons. Typing away what I want to say and how I want to say it without any restrictions. Writing is my meditation. It’s a fever where I don’t want any prescription. Cue the cowbells.

I sip my coffee throughout my writing venture. I relax in my Ikea POÄNG chair in my living room with the TV turned on.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

The pictures animate from the Youtube video while the sound is mute. Sometimes I do this to have some kind of light and something to look at while I am writing. I keep the other lights in my living room off in the morning. I like it this why. Sometimes I’ll only have music playing in the background. No setting is perfect. I adjust to each one accordingly.

I check my watch. There is never enough time to write. There is never enough time to write.

I check how much I’ve written. It looks good but never good enough. I wrap up my thoughts and then take a brief moment to decide to re-write and edit or to leave what I’ve written as is for now. Whether to let it go and come back to it later.

I wrestle with this every day I write. All while the broken record plays the following words in my head: “There is never enough time to write.”