How to leap-frog over your nagging critical parent by writing at 5 A.M.

Oh, come on. Give it a shot.

I learned something a couple of years ago that I wish I’d learned much sooner: I learned how not to hate writing. It started during the many times when I found myself wide-awake at 5 a.m. with no scheduled distractions.

So there I’d be, so filled with self-loathing for having looked at way too many horrible internet slide shows with titles like “Eight Diet Foods That Pack on the Pounds” or “Celebrity Fashion Fails,” that I’d convinced myself that apparently I’d do anything in my power to avoid writing. By the way, I say this as someone who’d been earning a living as a writer for over mmphlbrlq years by then.

For decades I would to struggle so hard trying to get myself to sit down and start writing that I would literally imagine standing next to myself, punching myself in the face, and then wrestling myself into a chair in order to start.

I didn’t question these reactions to my chosen field because I was thrilled to be able to join the rich literary tradition of legendary literary figures who hated to write. One of my heroes, Dorothy Parker, proudly said: “I hate writing. I love having written.” So, as I understood it, this smartest and most properly jaded assessment of the whole thing, carefully phrased by a woman who was at the top of every list of witty literary veterans from her era, was perfectly summing up the perennial problems that simply come along with being a writer. Dorothy knew whereof she spoke. I needed to look no further for an attitude to link to my own.

But if I did want to look, there was also plenty of biological information about the two hemispheres of the brain to pretty much prove that writing was a thing that was naturally linked to feelings of struggle. If you are not familiar with this right and left brain stuff, it is thought that the whole brain participates in most brain function, but art and music and all of the FUN creative arts are anchored mostly in the right brain. Here they are permitted to happily party with “euphoria” and “intuitive flow.” When I used to paint, I was always impressed by how I would be transported to some floaty, nirvana-like state, only to wonder six hours later where all the time had gone.

HOWEVER, this did not appear to be the case with writing, which takes place in the LEFT brain. Not offered even a temporary membership into the happy club with drawing, painting, acting,dancing, playing an instrument and the other fun creative processes, writing got pushed into an airless waiting room full of the seemingly lifeless, and much more difficult tasks that make up what feel like life’s homework: organizing, structuring, analysis and comprehension, logic, language, arithmetic and computation. Once I found that out, it seemed to me that if you wanted to write, there was no escaping the deadening tedium that writing brought with it. And when I say you, I mean me.

And then I had my revelation.

What revelation, Merrill? This one: When I tried writing at 5:30 a.m., to my complete surprise, it was relatively effortless. The first day I tried it, I wrote 15 pages And the same thing happened when I did it the next day. Ditto the day after that.

Here’s what else I learned: First thing in the morning, while I (or you) still have that sleepy brain I used to believe was a thing to be overcome and pushed past — THAT is the best brain for creative writing. Words come pouring out more easily even as your head (or mine) still feels as if it is full of ground fog, wrapped in flannel and gauze, and surrounded by a hive of humming, velvety sleep bees. I never expected this to be the case until I started doing it. Now I count on it.

And of course, (because I am me and I have a theory about everything) I have a theory about this.

Although I am not really known for my scrupulous neurological research and have only personal experience to back me up, what I believe may be happening is that the boring old task master left brain wakes up more slowly than the fun filled more joyous right brain. So before you are fully awake, your right brain is just going about its business and dominating. At this point, before you are fully awake, writing is allowed to hang out with the other creative activities.

I also read that during the phase of sleep known as REM, as the muscles of the body become more relaxed, the brain becomes more active. Apparently tests have shown that REM periods become more prolonged as we progress toward waking up. So maybe a bit of the old “active mind/relaxed body” afterglow lingers on in a helpful way? (Note to Nobel Committee: I can be contacted through my website. I’m also on all of those useless apps that have sadly not yet succeeded in really replacing twitter. I am always listed under the nom de plume Merrill Markoe because I filled them out later in the day, using my left brain.)

Before I shut up about all this, here’s another thing I noticed: the relentlessly negative voice that harangues you and comes from your ‘critical parent’ seems to be renting an ADU in the left brain, but not the right. And, not unlike your parents, or other random authority figures who haunt your consciousness without your express permission, this voice does not like to be woken up too early. So when you start to write before it has woken up, the burden of hearing a list of all your possible shortcomings seems to be at least temporarily lifted!

This is also why it is a good idea to do your writing before you get lost scrolling on the internet. Because in my experience there is no faster way to bring the afore mentioned demonic harpy spokes-person who is filled with self recriminations to consciousness. In other words, it’s good policy to stay off-line until you have done your writing. Otherwise there you will be, with no one but yourself to blame for the large amount of time you just wasted contemplating 15 new ways to refresh your fall wardrobe so it looks more like the one that Taylor Swift used to wear.

I’m happy to report that having learned this lesson, I now love getting up when it is still dark out and starting to write. I am still shocked that I am now able to say that I enjoy writing. As always, your mileage may vary, because I can’t guarantee your ideas will be good. I also can’t reduce the need for endless rewrites because they are something I never stop doing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 9:15 A.M.and I’m going back to sleep.

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