Not About Writing

Sorry for the disappointment if you were looking for something about the industry or about my writing career. This one is personal. Way back in the caveman days, when my grandfather was still alive, my dad and I were doing some work in his house. I noticed Grandpa had a blanket tacked up over his bedroom window. I asked Dad why. “It’s because he goes to bed so early the sun is usually up.” “Why doesn’t he just go to bed later?” “He farmed for more than fifty years. When you get up at ‘Oh-Dark-Thirty’ for that long, it can’t just be shut off.” And here I am, after nearly thirty years of working really early in the morning, getting up on weekends and vacations at 2:30 or 3:00. I can’t just shut it off for a weekend, and that’s what I tell people who are aghast at how early I get up. “You’re on vacation! Sleep in!” I hope to one day write full-time, and start skewing my sleep patterns to what would be considered more “normal.” But in the meantime, even after a really late night (stayed up until midnight for a step-son’s wedding last year), I’m up way earlier than anyone could call “normal.” Whenever people bring it up, I think of Grandpa Meier and his blacked-out window. “It can’t just be shut off.” Perhaps someday, but I doubt it’ll be in the near future.