I had heard of them. I’d even seen some of their pre-dawn tweets upon sitting down to write at 9 a.m. like a normal human. These folks would claim such absurd things as having just added 2,000 words to their novel-in-progress—with an hour to spare before even grabbing breakfast.
I used to just scoff at these“#5amwritersclub”participants. I’d dismiss them as maniacs. Freaks. Members of a dangerous cult.
And now, suddenly, I’m one of them.
No, nobody tricked or manipulated or deceived me into becoming a member. I wasn’t strong-armed or blackmailed or drugged. I simply woke up one morning at 4:30 and started writing ... and knew I’d never be the same. (Including never being able to stay up past 9 again.)
Anyway, here we are, five paragraphs into this post, which is probably a good time to get to the main point of it. And the main point is there are many benefits of waking up to write before even God gets out of bed. Following are seven reasons why I’ll never stop setting my alarm for 4:30 a.m. to write (at least until Daylight Saving Time starts again in March).
The silence.I’ve been wearing noise-canceling headphones to write for years and thus am used to relative quiet while screaming at my characters. But nothing quite compares to the blissful silence I experience now that I wear my noise-canceling headphones even when there’s no noise to cancel. The only sounds I hear these days while putting my protagonist through hell is the dull, harmonic tapping of the keyboard keys and the occasional muted crunch of my fist going through drywall whenever my protagonist refuses to cooperate. Such overall quietude has been wonderful for my creativity and fosters a true sense of calmness in the middle of murder scenes.
The stillness. No, stillness is not the same as silence. It could be perfectly quiet inside a writing office while squirrels have a death-match in a tree right outside your window. But at 4:30 a.m., there aren’t any squirrels—squirrels aren’t stupid enough to get up in the middle of the night to work on their novel. Thus, in addition to the glorious lack of sound while I’m writing, there’s no movement to wreak havoc on my ADHD. In fact, I’ve never been more—
SQUIRREL!
Sorry about that—I’m writing this blog post in the middle of the day.
The darkness. There being so little light outside when I sit down at my writing desk each morning not only inspires me and informs the dark themes I write about but also makes it hard to see and get distracted by any homicidal squirrels. I keep the lights off in my office to further feed off the ethereal and haunting predawn energy, as well as to keep any neighbors who may be awake from catching me act out any fights or stabbings or sex scenes I’m working on. (I once forgot to keep the lights off, and the next day the house next door had a “For Sale” sign up.)
The propulsion. When you catch a creative wave and ride it for hours into breakfast, it propels you through the rest of the day like nothing I can think of other than amphetamines. I emerge from my writing office at 7 a.m. with the energy and force of a tsunami, gleefully knocking over anything in my path. My puppy loves it; my wife dives for cover and threatens divorce.
The “hustle factor.” There’s a lot to be said about hustling and grinding and showing grit and moxy as a writer. Most of it is said by the writers themselves. Still, it does feel damn good to soldier up and overcome the challenge of not having time to write by waking up every morning hours before any sane person would just so you can work on a book nobody’s ever going to read.
The excuses.When you wake up at 4:30 a.m. and make sure everyone you know knows it, it gives you a lot of leverage for getting out of doings things you don’t want to do and seeing people you don’t want to see. For example:
“Darn it, buddy—I’d really love to come over for a dinner party with proper social distancing that we both know won’t actually be adhered to after all the guests finish their second drink, but I’ve got my pesky manuscript to work on right around the time you’ll be getting out of bed to throw up.”
Or:
“Shoot, honey—streaming Sex and the City reruns with you does sound like fun, but whoa, look at the time. I need to be awake, like, an hour ago. That next novel of mine isn’t going to write itself.”
Or:
"So sorry, neighbor, a puppy play-date this afternoon at 5:00 would be great—if only it didn’t encroach on my bedtime."
The hashtag. There’s an indescribably powerful sense of pride and honor that comes with being able to legitimately add “#5amwritersclub” to a tweet—knowing that all the other authors who are awake and tweeting on Twitter instead of actually working on their book will see it.
How about YOU? How badly do you want to punch me in the face for even THINKING of encouraging you to wake up at such a ridiculously early hour to do ANYTHING, let alone WRITE? Share in the comments section below.
Perhaps the biggest challenge of being a writer—apart from the laughably low pay and the staggering loneliness and the pressure to choose all the right words to fill all the blank pages—is dealing with rejection.
Every writer, whether it’s a hugely popular author or an author more like me, has to cope with some form of rejection in their career. It may be a literary agent rejecting their query, a publisher rejecting their manuscript, or a pawnbroker rejecting their typewriter. Point is, rejection in the writing and publishing world is universal. I have a couple of fully stuffed filing cabinets to prove it, though I can’t open either of them due to all the damage they’ve sustained from being punched and kicked.
That all said, rejection needn’t be so painful. While I acknowledge it’s hard not letting a “NO” stop your flow, I assure you there are ways to lessen the sting of literary rejection—some that don’t even require prescription pharmaceuticals or more illicit drugs or voluntary euthanasia.
Below are just a few.
(Note: While this piece is intended for writers, nearly all of the tactics can be applied to non-writers and OTHERtypes of sane people looking to cope with rejection.)
5) Befriend only bad writers. Whoever wrote “misery loves company” was a genius and thus not the kind of writer you should be friends with. No, you want to surround yourself with hacks—writers who are kind and generous but who lack any real talent. That way you’ll be too busy hearing about all their rejections to have time to dwell on and mope too much about your own. And isn’t feeling slightly superior to others really what friendship’s all about?
4) Marry an optimist. If you’re a writer who’s been at it a while but has yet to make a living from writing (in other words, 99.974% of all writers), chances are high you’re not an optimist. Years of rejection have a way of breeding new strains of pessimism. Therefore it’s wise to choose as your life partner someone who’ll drown you in smiles and encouragement and cheerleading chants so you don’t drown yourself in a lake after receiving your next “NO” from an agent or publisher or pawnbroker.
3) Develop and cultivate delusions of grandeur.Just because you aren’t an optimist doesn’t mean you can’t be delusional. Where optimism is a positive state of mind that requires a lot of effort, delusions of grandeur are positive signs of mental illness and thus very achievable for most writers. If you’re lucky, your delusions will enable you to convince yourself that you’ve been getting rejected because you’re actually too talented. I have a friend who’s fortunate enough to be crazy enough to believe agents and publishers reject him out of their fear he’s going to be too huge an author for them to handle. He’s certain they’d rather pass on his books than go through the inevitable grief and heartbreak of losing him to a more prestigious entity. You’ve never seen such a confident unpublished author! It’s beautiful.
2) Be placed into a medically induced coma.Admittedly this is sort of an outlandish approach, but then so is writing novels for money or enjoyment. The good news is being placed into a medically induced coma is a surefire way to not only lessen the sting of rejection but also lose weight while getting time off from your loathsome day job. Think of it as going on a peaceful yoga retreat without the worst part—the yoga.
1) Reject rejection. This is perhaps the most powerful way to deal with rejection, and thus the most dangerous, and thus the most fun. It’s like delusions of grandeur’s much tougher cousin, as it’s a lot more active and daring than merely losing your mind. Rejecting rejection requires a writer to stare straight into the eye of each “Thank you but no” email they receive and, without flinching or punching a filing cabinet, say, “Uh uh—thank YOU but no” or “Sorry but I cannot accept your lack of acceptance.” Or something even more badass, if that’s even possible.
What are some of YOUR tips for lessening the sting of rejection? (Don’t feel bad if I don’t accept them.)
If I had a dime for every time my wife, Miranda, asked me to be more present or to pay closer attention or to get out of my own head, I’d be able to afford the divorce attorney I’m going to need if I don’t start heeding her requests.
In Miranda’s defense, she’s right.
In my defense, she married a novelist.
Now, before you decide to join Team Miranda and start yelling at me for not being present in my marriage, or you decide to join Team Greg and start insisting Miranda be less bossy and demanding, I need to clarify something: Miranda is bossy and demanding.
But with good reason.
You’d be bossy and demanding too if your spouse/significant other often didn’t respond to your questions or actively listen to your opinions/ideas/concerns or stepped in deer shit every single time you took a hike together.
It’s not that I don’t want to respond or to listen or to avoid animal excrement; it’s that I’m usually very busy discussing plot points with invisible people whenever my wife and I are alone. And these invisible people are even bossier and more demanding than she is. Fictional characters and muses always are.
Folks often joke about how novelists are “not all there”—implying we’re crazy, wacko, have a few screws loose. But the whole “insane author” thing is a just stereotype, one propagated by fictional writers like the one played by Jack Nicholson in The Shining, or by real writers like the one played by Virginia Woolf in, well, her tragically shortened life.
That said, it is true that most novelists are “not all there.” But I’m not talking about the chase-your-son-through-a hedge-maze-with-an-ax kind of “not all there”; I’m talking about the have-important-conversations-with-imaginary-people-in-the-presence- of-real-people kind of “not all there.” Big difference.
If I’ve just completed a three-hour writing session and I come out to the kitchen to make Miranda and I some lunch and she starts telling me about her morning or asking me about our upcoming weekend plans or why there’s a half-empty vodka bottle in my underwear drawer, it’s not likely I’ll catch everything she says or everything she picks up and throws at my head. My physical body may be standing right in front of her—nowhere near the manuscript on my laptop in my writing office—but most of my brain is still pondering the murder I just committed in Chapter 9. Miranda can’t expect my full attention in that moment or even hours or days after. Same way I can’t expect to have her full attention right after she finishes a nature hike or a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle or something else she loves more than me. (I’m not saying I love writing more than I love my wife. Why would I admit that? She occasionally reads this blog.)
Many people may read this and think I’m suggesting writers should get special treatment, be given a pass on active listening and politeness and common decency, be allowed to be distracted all the time. Well, if that’s what you’re thinking after having read this, well, then I’ve succeeded in getting my message across.
Listen, I adore my wife, couldn't live without her. And I care about all of you. But c’mon—you can’t expect me to openly demonstrate it while I’m working on a novel or during the hours or days or months in between. That’s asking too much. That’s not respecting my condition, my affliction, my plight. That’s not taking into a count that, no matter how hard I try to take in everything you’re saying and doing and asking, I’m simply not all there.
Thanks for putting up with my (mostly) satirical rant. If anyone needs me, I’ll either be writing or half-listening to my wife while getting yelled at while thinking about writing.
Creative writing has given me more joy than I could have ever imagined and it is torture. No other activity fills me with such a strong sense of flow and purpose and pain and hopelessness. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from writing except when it feels like I’ve been tied to several of them and they’re each galloping off in opposite directions.
Point is, aside from my family and my pets and my readers, there’s nothing I love more than writing novels and I hate it.
In keeping with such dichotomy, below are the five best and the five worst things about writing a novel:
5th best:The quiet. Sitting in complete silence while putting characters through total hell is incredibly peaceful and satisfying. For me—a crime fiction and thriller writer—it’s like a deep form of meditation … only with a bit more murder.
5th worst:The noise.Sometimes it’s almost as if the neighbor remodeling their house doesn’t understand how much more important the imaginary crime you’re working on is. Or like the kids outside laughing and playing don’t care that you’re this close to finishing Chapter 8. Or your spouse in the other room doesn’t realize how much her breathing is keeping you from pulling off a shocking twist.
4th best:The power and control. You needn’t be a megalomaniac to enjoy having the power to control every action your characters does, every word they say, every thought and emotion they think and feel. But it helps. Regardless, it’s hard not to wish you had the same power and control in the real world—especially with relatives during Thanksgiving.
4thworst:The lack of power and control.Fictional characters—not unlike real people—often develop a mind of their own and start taking you and your novel in directions you never imagined heading in and would be wise to avoid. Some days, a character—usually an important one, like the protagonist—won’t listen to a single word you say. Or worse, they won’t even show up, leaving you sitting there staring at a blank page or an unfinished scene like some idiot who should have listened to their mother when she advised they go to medical or law school instead of becoming a novelist.
3rd best:The “high.” They say the only thing that compares to a “writer’s high” is a heroin high. And writing is less damaging to the liver, heart and brain. Unless you’re doing it correctly.
3rdworst:The lows.They say the only thing that compares to the overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread one experiences upon losing their writer’s high is the overflowing sense of anxiety and dread one experiences during heroin withdrawal. And at least extended heroin withdrawal usually causes death and thus an end to the suffering.
2nd best:The incredible sense of accomplishment.Fact: The odds of being born are 400 trillion to 1. Fact: Only 0.3% of people born go on to write a book. Thus, if you’ve written a book, it’s a freaking MIRACLE. And if you’ve actually SOLD a few copies, well, now you’re just showing off.
2nd worst:The soul-crushing sense of failure.Fact: The odds of landing a literary agent after finishing your novel are 1 in 1000. Fact: Even if you land an agent and the agent lands you a book deal, the average traditionally published book sells only 250-300 copies in its first year. And if you go the indie-route, keep in mind the average self-published book sells only 250-300 copies over the course of its entire lifetime. Thus, if you’re a writer getting pummeled with rejection notifications or putting up dismal numbers in the sales column, well … nobody cares—such failure is the norm! The natural thing is to quit … but writers don’t know how.
The absolute best:The immortality.There’s nothing as fulfilling or as empowering as knowing this thing you’ve created using nothing but your drunken mind and fingertips is going to be around and tied directly to you forever, or at least until Amazon crashes beneath its own weight.
The absolute worst: The immortality.There’s nothing as debilitating or as humiliating as knowing the two major plot holes and five flagrant typos inside this thing you’ve created are going to be around and tied directly to you forever —even after Amazon crashes, as people LOVE to talk about the egregious mistakes of others for all eternity.
Speaking of egregious mistakes, surely I’ve missed some really great and some really horrible things about writing a novel. For those of you who’ve written one, feel free to share some of your worst and best things about it. For those of you who haven’t written one, just make some sh*t up—that’s all writers ever do.
I have restless leg syndrome, ADHD, zero patience and thin skin, so of course I chose to be a novelist—something that requires being seated for long periods, focusing intently, and waiting months or years for rejection.
I know, it makes no sense. Fortunately, not making sense is trending these days, so my love of long fiction fits right in.
What makes even less sense is the fact that, up until very recently, I rarely even thought about writing short stories. Even the most avid novelists typically tinker around with "quick fiction" during breaks from whatever book they’re working on or whenever between novels. Me? Until a few months ago, I hadn’t written a short story since I’d been required to for a creative writing class back in college. That was nearly thirty years ago. (I attended college when I was six.)
It’s certainly not that I dislike short stories. The fact is, I read them all the time. (I like how they finish quickly and enable me to get back to working on my novels.) But yeah, I don’t know—I just never fell in love with writing them.
That’s all changed.
Long story short(ish), back in March the pandemic forced my agent to pause on sending my latest manuscript out to publishers in hopes of landing me a book deal. I realized it wasn’t going to be until after next fall (2021) before I could hope to see my next novel introduced to the world.
So I had a choice: I could just be patient and get started on my NEXT next novel while waiting for good news from my agent and then count down the many, many months until my book launch, OR I could start writing a series of short stories that would enable me to not only keep my writing muscles from atrophying but also keep my name fresh in readers' minds—before I get too old to remember what my name even is. And since I had already written my NEXT next novel (due out anytime between 2024 and the return of the dinosaurs), my decision was an easy one:
Go short.
And I’ve gotta say, I’m LOVING it. I’m also kicking myself for not having realized this sooner, for not having made short stories a regular part of my writing regimen all these years.
The list of reasons why I’m now enamored with short stories is long. I’ll keep it brief:
Short stories are a great way to revisit old fictional friends.It's a lot of fun hanging out with my previous protagonists and going on quick, new adventures with them. The difference between hanging out with them in a novel and hanging out with them in a short story is sort of like the difference between living with a friend for a year and going to Vegas with a friend for a wild weekend. You still get into a bunch of trouble and cause a lot of damage, but it's over with in a hurry—and frees you up to hang out with another crazy old friend the next weekend. (Or to make a new crazy friend and do fun, dangerous stuff with them.)
Short stories are perfect for giving new novel ideas a test run. Used to be whenever trying to decide whether or not a particular idea was novel-worthy, I’d desperately shake a Magic 8-Ball and see what answer would appear in the window of the wise plastic sphere: “It is decidedly so” or “Don’t count on it” or “Ask again later” or “Enough with the writing—get a REAL job, Greg” (Turns out my father had secretly tinkered with my Magic 8-Ball). As you probably already know, reading the words on a tiny polyhedron floating in a mysterious liquid isn’t the best way to make important decisions.
I’ve since discovered I can test out any potential book idea by writing a short story about it and seeing if it grabs me—and readers—enough to invest three hundred pages towards it. And while writing a short story takes longer than shaking a novelty gift, it’s a much more accurate predictor. Plus it doesn’t make a mess when I throw it against a wall in frustration.
Short stories can go big—FAST. Where in a novel you need to take time to establish the setting and explore the entire three-act structure and fully develop the protagonist along with several other key characters, such is not the case in a short story. The latter allows—and practically begs—you to not only start off in media res (in the middle of the action) but stay there right in the thick of the fun for most of the story—then ramp up from there with a shocking twist or two. When well executed, a short story takes a reader from totally captivated to completely riveted to “Whoa, she saved the entire world from Dr. Evil Genius’ tornado machine AND it turns out she was dead the whole time!” in less than half an hour.
Short stories are ripe for experimentation. While it may be risky to invest years of your life to writing an epic existentialist sci-fi-cri saga about a man from the future who travels back to the present and finds out he’s his own son, but writing such an absurdist tale as a short story could be a lot of fun—and probably won’t destroy your writing career. This is not to suggest you shouldn’t flex your creative muscles and play around with high concepts in your long fiction, too; I’m merely saying don’t write an epic existentialist sci-fi saga about a man from the future who travels back to the present and finds out he’s his own son.
I love drinking bourbon with my muse and brainstorming truly wild, inventive story ideas that will take me only a few days to write before I realize how insane they are and how much of a drinking problem my muse has.
Short stories provide quick gratification. Who has time to always write/read thirty chapters before revealing/discovering who the killer is? Sure, a great thriller or mystery novel is a wonderful accomplishment for an author and a rewarding read for a reader, but sometimes we all just need a good “quickie” to satisfy our literary yearnings. As much as I adore digging my way out from under a giant narrative arc and getting tossed about by a herd of wild, untamed twists for weeks or months on end, there’s something extremely gratifying about hopping into the writing/reading raft then shooting the rapids and finishing in time for lunch.
Short stories offer swift revenge.You know how you can’t help but fantasize about murder after your mechanic totally screws you on your car repair or your neighbor continuously disrupts your life with their power-tool obsession or a mask-less stranger coughs on you in the produce section of the supermarket? No? Well then you haven’t lived! Fiction is a wonderful way to kill people who piss you off, but very few writers besides Stephen King have the speed and skill to write an entire murderous novel every time somebody ruins their day. Short stories provide an immediate and healthy outlet for all our natural homicidal urges.
Got a neighbor who won’t lay off his circular saw while you’re trying to think? Simply write an eight-page tale about the mysterious murder and dismemberment of a tool junkie. Can’t get over how much your contractor charged you for the bathroom remodel he never finished? Write a short story about a serial killing tool junkie who dismembers contractors with his circular saw.
This way, the horrible people you encounter die only on paper and you get to feel better while avoiding prison. Everybody wins!
As infatuated as I’ve become with short stories, I’ll never abandon long fiction. Novels will always be my first love—at least until my mind goes and I can't remember what happened in a previous sentence let alone a previous chapter.
So ... what was I saying?
For some truly stellar short crime fiction/noir, be sure to check out the sites/zines listed below. (Many thanks to Chris Rhatigan—editor of the crime fiction journal All Due Respect and the co-publisher of All Due Respect Books—for his help in compiling this killer list.)