I have never been good friends with 6AM. But as fate would have it, we’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately.

I work 10 hours a day at a fierce, fast-paced start-up company. By the time I get home my brain’s bandwidth is pretty much exhausted. Ads, development, testing, meetings, battles — It really takes a lot out of me. Still having scripts at home waiting for me to write when I’m done with work, a full day for me is no walk in the park. That said, more often than not I’ll find myself crashing into bed before even opening Final Draft to type a single slugline. I’ve got a deadline now, so something had to give. (ie; my sleep between 6AM-8AM Mon-Fri)

In theory, it’s perfect. I wake up early with a fresh brain, undisturbed and just out of my dreamscape. In practice, I have sensitive eyes that hurt when I turn on my laptop, a cat that whines the moment I wake up and an undiagnosed allergy to 6AM and the sound of my alarm. But I suppose this is discipline and I have to do it.

Still, two hours isn’t a lot of time. But it’s more than zero and I can at least feel assured that I’m getting two hours in as a daily minimum. I still try to write more if I have the capacity to do so when I return home, hence the lack of my social life in 2010. Pages are getting written, so I’m doing something right — I suppose.

Even so, 6AM is only a temporary ally. I’m much more fond of its counterpart, 9:30. AM? PM? I’ll take what I can get.

-Lex