Why 4:30?

Back by popular demand, everyone’s favourite character in MY memoir, the guy my mominator would keep if we divorced, the cats’ only cuddle-buddy, and the author of a book of poetry, a book of short stories, and several novels, including the forthcoming Lowfield and the most recent All the Animals on Earth. About that novel, the Globe and Mail spring books preview of that year wrote, “Struggling with the new social norms in the real world? Get lost in a different kind of social confusion instead.” Which is absolutely perfect. Absolutely the weirdest best book, from the weirdest best guy. Read in for more of both…my husband, Mark Sampson.

Every autumn since 2008, I have made a curious pilgrimage down to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. There, I deliver a guest lecture to a unique group of learners: they are third- and fourth-year Health Sciences students—all of whom want to get into medical school—who are taking an evening creative writing class to help with their communication skills and their empathy. I met the instructor for this course, Bob, after he attended a reading I gave shortly after my first novel came out, back in 2007. Liking my vibe and how I present myself, Bob has invited me back every year to talk to his class about the craft of writing and my own journey as an author.

I cover a lot of subjects during my lecture: beginnings and endings; how important I find characters sketches to be before starting a first draft; my thoughts on when I think a piece is finished, or at least finished enough to share with someone else. I also briefly discuss the books I’ve published, totalling seven now, with an eighth forthcoming next year. Invariably, someone will ask if I write full time, and I give my standard, half-jokey answer: yes, I do write full time, and I also have a 9-to-5 day job, one in the very sector they themselves are aiming to work in, health care. 

Inevitably, someone will then ask: So when do you write?

And that’s when I drop the biggest surprise of the evening. I tell them that, five mornings a week, my alarm goes off at 4:30, and, after brewing a pot of coffee and checking email, I settle in to write for two and half to three hours before breakfast.

Their gasps are brief but audible.

This is a standard response. I have friends and acquaintances—some writers, some not—who have known me for years and still gasp, or at least marvel outwardly, whenever the topic of my writing regimen comes up. Often, they bring it up, apropos of nothing, just so they can marvel at it. I once had a female friend tell me she was so glad we weren’t married, since having an alarm go off at that hour would drive her nuts. I’ve had fellow authors, unhappy with their own productivity, tell me they’ve attempted my routine to help get them back in the groove. They do it for a few weeks, or, more likely, a few days, but then poop out and just go back to their regular practice. The consensus seems to be: Sampson, you’re INSANE to get up at that hour.

But the truth is, this has been my routine from the start. I began writing fiction seriously in January of 1991, when I was 15, and knew, even at that early stage, that life wasn’t going to just back off and let me be an author; I would have to build my writing habits around school and homework, chores and family obligations, and all the rest. I knew, even then, that I would need to find a chunk of the day when the world would just leave me alone long enough so I could do my work. Back then, I didn’t drink coffee and there was no email, but there was one chore that paired nicely with this new habit: every morning I was responsible for lighting the wood stove in the basement of our house in rural Prince Edward Island (which was also where my bedroom was) so that there would be heat and hot water when the rest of the family woke up. In the time it took me to get a good fire going, I could shake off the sleep-fog and get down to being creative.

But why 4:30? Why not, say, 11 o’clock at night?

The truth is, I come from a long line of early risers. Before he retired, my father worked as a dairy specialist on PEI, helping farmers improve their milk quality and the overall health of their cows. This often required him to be on a farm and ready to work by first milking (so think 5:30 at the absolute latest), even if that farm was on the opposite end of PEI from our house. My maternal grandfather was a farmer until age 47 when he switched careers and became a door-to-door vacuum salesman, and likely never slept past 5 am. My paternal grandfather did shift work in a Cape Breton steel plant and was notorious for ribbing other people in his house about “getting bed sores” if they slept in later than he felt appropriate. Even my late father-in-law, a sociology professor, spent his retirement getting up at 5 am to read the New York Times cover to cover, a compulsion I could deeply relate to.

In other words, getting up early comes very naturally to me.

I’ve heard at least one author (either an early bird or night owl) say that writing when everyone else around you is asleep is the perfect time to be creative. It’s not just that those people are quiet and leave you alone; it’s as if their creative energy floats in the atmosphere while they’re unconscious and you’re free to tap into it as you work. I don’t know if I believe that. What I do know is that I get up at 4:30 because that’s what works for me. I’m a firm believer in developing, maintaining, and, most importantly, protecting good writing habits. Habits become routines, and routines become rituals, and rituals, of course, are where the magic happens. Writing at 4:30 allows me the chunk of time I need to fully immerse myself in the imaginative world I’m forging on the page, to get into that creative zone where all other aspects of my life—my stress and worries, my insecurities and fear— just slip gloriously, deliciously away. In another context, author Stephen King calls this “going todash”—that is, passing through a portal or doorway into a whole other universe. Many artists know that there are few pleasures in life more sublime than “going todash” during a session of intense creativity.

Still, I don’t recommend my routine to other writers. In fact, I’m trying to get out of the habit of endorsing any particular regimen to anyone. Talking to creative writing students over many years, I’ve tried to be less prescriptive when it comes to giving advice and sharing my experiences. I force myself to use the pronoun “I” rather than “you” when it comes to discussing what I think works. (e.g. “I need to write every day to feel successful” instead of “You need to write every day to be successful.) Every writer is different and every writer needs to find what works for them. Maybe you’re a night owl and can’t even start writing until 11 pm. Maybe you’re a new parent and can only squeeze in writing during nap times. Maybe you’re a school teacher and need to do all of your year’s writing during your summer break. (Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson calls this “binge writing.”) Or maybe your routine is no routine at all; maybe you can work only when the spirit moves you; maybe you need tons of unstructured time to write only when you feel like it.

To this I say: If it works, it works.

And if it doesn’t work, well, try something else. I recently stumbled upon a young Australian writer named Christy Anne Jones, who runs this delightful YouTube channel where she, among other things, attempts to replicate the documented writing routines of famous authors—everyone from Haruki Murakami and Virginia Woolf to Neil Gaiman and Sylvia Plath—for a few days, or however long she can stand to do them. (If you think my writing process is nuts, check out her video on science fiction author Octavia Butler. Now THAT is an insane work schedule!) These videos are so charming, and not just because Jones tries out other writers’ crazy-ass routines so you don’t have to. There is always this lovely moment when she wraps up her experiment and returns to what works for her, for her process. Her YouTube channel is also deeply candid: you can bear witness to Jones’ ups and many downs as she tries to both get her work published and to keep faith with herself in the face of rejection, a nice reminder that it’s the work and the process that count.

As for me, 4:30 remains the buttress. I admit, it’s gotten harder to get up at that hour day after day, month after month, decade after decade. I’ll be 50 next year, and I know that my routine is taking its toll on my body, my mind, my relationships. I no longer daydream about achieving bestsellerdom and truly getting to write “full time.” My paracosm now is a hypothetical retirement where I no longer need a day job and can write on a more ideal schedule. (Which, if you’re curious, would be 9 am until noon, seven days a week.) I daydream about a time when I’ll average more than about five and half hours of sleep a night.

I’ve also dabbled, from time to time, with the thought of one day “retiring” from writing, but I find these thoughts fleeting to the extreme. There are just too many stories I want to tell, too many characters in my head, too much pressure on the cortex of my brain. Plus, I love the process itself too much to ever stop by choice. To paraphrase a recent line from musician Bruce Springsteen, I’ll probably write until the wheels come completely off.

We’ll see how that goes.

But what about YOU? I know that Rebecca has lots of subscribers to this newsletter who are themselves writers at various points in their own journey. Are you a day writer or a night writer? Do you cram all of your creativity into prescribed chunks of the year? Or are you a firm believer in routinelessness and think I’m completely off my rocker? You know the drill—leave a comment or share your story below!