How To Stay Awake

Today I wrote for thirty minutes and it went well.

I made a schedule, which always makes me feel as though I will actually accomplish all I set out to do in life. Alas, it is infinitely easier to make a schedule than to follow one. On this schedule, I will write for thirty minutes four days a week, and four hours one day a week, with the weekend off.

This weekend went well. I tried to write on Saturday, just because I was on a roll and had an unexpected free hour at work. I ended up fast asleep, sprawled across several pillows, drooling onto my notebook. Yesterday I didn't write at all, though I'd agreed to for thirty minutes in the evening. Instead I went shopping with my boyfriend and made the mistake of having a beer with dinner. Beer often puts me right to sleep. So I ended up asleep in the middle of reading a New Yorker article, not having written for the day.

Today I wrote earlier, which I think is a better plan for me. I often fall asleep if I try to read or write in the late afternoon or evening. So I'll do my writing before I go to work, before I do other things, and see how that goes.

Another note, I read once that Ernest Hemingway advised to never stop writing at a point where you feel stuck. He said to stop in the middle of a really great stretch, when you want to keep going and you know what happens next. I think this is great advice and try to follow it. I can say that it definitely makes a difference for me!