March 10, 2014
14 Things Writers Do Before 8am
This is inspired by Jennifer Cohen over at Forbes who wrote a wonderful article on “5 Things Super Successful People Do Before 8am” (few of which I did, though I can claim #5). She includes chores like exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, map out the day–all great ideas, but not pithy enough for the average writer I know.
Here’s my list, gathered from chatting with friends (and a few efriends) about their daily ToDo list:
- solve the problems of the world
- wash Superman (or woman) cape
- figure out the equivalent of sticking twenty people in a phone booth–i.e., get kids ready and off to school with packed lunches and completed homework, arrange household repairs, get the dog sorted, talk significant other down from an emotional cliff, figure out how to make coffee by pouring hot water through yesterday’s grounds (forgot to buy coffee), and find your child’s lost iPad which must be brought to school every day now that class has a 1:1 initiative
- consult with muse on the next Great American Novel
- invent clever phrases like “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” (though Winston Churchill has already come up with that one. Bollocks)
- invent clever humor like,”If b******* were oil, you’d be OPEC”.
- invent clever similes, like “Like a violin in a marching band”.
- move everything that wasn’t accomplished yesterday to today’s To Do list, which is most everything because there were a few emergencies that blew up what should have been a highly-productive yesterday
- reread the books about how anyone can write a best-seller.
- find the overlap between ‘common’ and ‘sense’
- figure out how many writers it takes to screw in a lightbulb
- find life’s undo key
- answer all Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus queries with friendly, pithy responses
- take a nap
What do you do before 8am?
More writerly humor:
Do You Really Want to Try to Earn a Living as a Writer?
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
