Waking Up at 6.. For Fiction

For the past sometime now, I have been trying to turn myself into an early riser. Needless to say, I have been failing terribly. The idea was to wake up and get some studying done before I head to office.

I have a lovely 11-6 workshift, and my office is at comfortable distance, so I tend to sleep in even on weekdays. But I wish to get so much else done, and waking up at 6 am seems such a romantic idea. 
Till the alarm bell starts to ring, of course. And at that moment I would trade the whole world to get an extra hour of sleep. My sleepy self is an expert at one thing: Figuring out how to switch off the alarm, no matter how complicated the alarm is.
I even got one of those apps where you have to type in a long sentence to stop the alarm. But in my sleep, I figured out how to switch that off and go right back to sleep. (Hit snooze, go to the app, turn the damned thing off)
Some days I did wake up. I would start scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, till my eyes rolled back into the lids, and started dreaming about all the wonderful (and useless, and depressing) things I had just seen.
Today was another such day. I woke up, but for the life of me could not motivate myself to get up and pick my textbook. For a long time I just lay there, scrolling through Instagram. I almost went right back to sleep. 
And then I told myself, “Hey, how about you just wake up, make some coffee and read?”
Hmm. 
So, yup. I made some coffee and for the past two blissful hours gave myself up to A.S Byatt’s Possession.
The first thing I realised is that even though I am just having instant coffee, somehow making it yourself makes a whole lot of difference. Everyday I wake up to a coffee my dad makes for me (bless his soul). But usually it sits by my bed for half an hour before I finally wake up, and it’s cold and feels stale by then. Also, I guess the sound of boiling water and the first whiff of coffee while you are making it, is what really enhances the experience.
Second, I guess the best way to wake up early is to really start by doing what you love. I suppose I should probably make this statement only if I am able to sustain this habit, but it does feel like something I can do. Two hours of uninterrupted reading, then some blogging, and coffee.
If nothing else, at least I ll end up finishing novels faster. And I guess once I built the habit, I will at some point be able to wake up to study in the morning.
Third, I love this early morning ‘me time’. Fresh mind, a lot of introspection. Getting a sense of what awaits you for the day.

And some time to read the newspaper because I really should and I really don’t.
Anyway my parents are up now. Dad came to ask what is the matter, why (the eff) are you reading a novel right now? Just shook my head and said nothing. I guess he took a little offence and went of for his walk. 
Ma just woke up and tried to peek into my laptop. Oops, dad is back from his walk so I am gonna go now 😀

Why I am probably going to fail at blogging..

1. My graphic skills are rock bottom. I am not good at taking pictures, or even selecting ‘good’ pictures. So the idea of having visually appealing graphics does not work at me. Maybe sometimes I ll throw in a shaky, blurry, under/overexposed image into my posts. People will look, cringe and never return.
2. I am still more comfortable with pen and paper. When I write online, I lose my train of thought, and pretty soon, my interest.
3. I am the Queen of Procrasti-Nation. Why do something now if it can be done sometime later? Or never. Everything else is always more important than the current task at hand. Even staring at the wall.
4. I am easily discouraged. Getting no validation? You are probably not good enough, you should go kill yourself. Okay, at least you should stop trying so hard.
5. I have got my feet in too many boats. I am a full time journalist,  a  part time theatre artist, a part time pursuer of a Master’s degree, a newbie blogger. Needless to say, I fail trying to keep up with most.
6. I am shy. That means I can’t market myself. Or I have to run away and hide if too many people start reading my stuff.
7. I am ruled by hormones. I have these mid month spurts of hormones that make me hyper motivated to go get everything out there. I make business models, I email people for interviews, I sign up for kickboxing classes. And a week later BAM! Bitch Aunt Flo hits, and I am down in the dumps telling myself that I cannot possibly spend my entire office shift sitting on the toilet seat.
8. Why write about books when you can read them instead? Obviously right? I mean in the time I spent here, I could have read at least five more pages of my current read, which I have been struggling to finish for almost a month now.
9. Social Media. Yes it sucks. I say that even as I write here. Because as soon as I am done publishing this I am going to be looking at other’s posts and sooner or later I am going to end up on Facebook or YouTube, looking at Dhinchak Pooja’s ‘music’ videos.
10. It is always easier to not do something, than to fail. Trolling is so easy, facing it is not. Social media easily means being sitting ducks to a thousand trolls. And who is not afraid of failure?