But First, Writing
Short Story: Clarity is out in Catapult! Our narrator leaves a low-grade cult to confront a manipulative ex-lover at her wedding.
Flash Fiction: Bad to the Bone is in Rejection Letters! A woman’s body and house blend together as her boyfriend starts home renovations.
Humor: Ever wondered how Prince Harry’s agent felt after Meghan-gate?
Podcast: I had my podcast debut on Books Are Pop Culture. Episode 73 - “Crying Circle” We talked about the art of rejection, the practice of daydreaming, lit mags, publishing, and shadow work.
My Creative Brain is A Nightcrawler
Three newsletters ago, I said I would talk about the mechanics of a productive morning for me “next week” and here we finally are!
I am not a morning person at all. I love the vastness of the night, the way that staying up late removes the bookends on the day. My creative brain is a nightcrawler. I find it most comfortable to ease into my subconscious undercurrent when it is dark. Distractions are gone. Work is done. It’s time to play. I thought I didn’t need mornings if I had the night - a holy liminal space where time ceased to exist and I could dip into my best creative work.
I only embraced the possibility of the morning out of necessity. Nowadays, my body is under pressure. I travel often for work, and my body no longer knows where to turn for night. I am running more miles per week, and my body asks for rest. My parents are in town, and I have less hours available to me. The night wanted me to rest. Against my will, it kept taking me into the chambers of sleep, so I needed to find a way into my creative subconscious during the daytime too.
The foremost challenge of the morning to me was finding a way to wrangle the time against all the “have-to’s” of waking up. Time has to be split with tooth-brushing, bowel-emptying, breakfast-cooking, smoothie-churning, cat-tending, and more. However, I decided to take advantage of the very thing that made mornings previously untenable to me. The definite time constraint before work starts.
I decided the unit of a morning is 15 minutes. To be productive in the morning, I decided to only do tasks I could complete in increments of 15 minutes. If reading a full novel chapter was too long, I skipped it. However, I could revise a scene in a story. I could do one quick workout video. I could make one cup of coffee and meditate while it brewed. If I found myself with two morning units, I told myself I would not use it to do two things, but instead go deeper into the one thing. In that way, I stepped into constraints with a tool belt and a plan.
The other thing most useful in structuring my mornings has been to select my activity the night before. Like everyone, there are too many things demanding my attention, because we live in an attention economy. Your attention is officially a monetizable resource, thanks social media!
Anyways, between writing, and projects, and due dates, and exercise, and work, I find that if I don’t set a specific attention, my attention becomes partitioned unnaturally. I do very little of a few things which somehow amounts to nothing. So, I make my mornings productive by using a part of the night to prep. I find the night intrinsically meditative, and I like to imagine who I will be tomorrow. What thing will I have done that will make me closer to the version of the person I am aiming to be. It makes it easier for me to dedicate my morning to long term goals rather than an acute to-do list, knowing I am working towards a version of me I want to be, rather than a person fending off chores and disaster.
It turns out that I need the night to make the morning a version of the night, and you know what? I find myself newly enjoying the drumbeat of the constraint as a motivator to do better, faster.
Start Your Day With a Short Story
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender - This story collection is full of short, surreal stories by a master of her craft. Read if you like to start your morning on a slightly elevated dimension.
Cat Person and Other Stories by Kristen Roupenian - Cat Person was the first viral short story. All of Kristen’s stories are easy to fall into, fast-paced and uncomplicated in their prose. I think this is a perfect morning collection.
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw - Full of stories both long and short, this is one of my favorite collections ever. Every story is perfection.
What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah - I haven’t finished this collection yet but the short story “The Future Looks Good” was a guide for one of my own that is coming out later this year. The genius of this author!!!
Productive Things to Read This Morning
Collab of the year: Short stories X morning coffee
Morning are perfect for an 8 minute phone call. Make sure to plan according to time zones for your LDR friends.
Make your reading list for the month:
Start your morning with literary nostalgia - the legacy of Choose Your Own Adventure
Got 15 minutes? Learn a life hack: